Through the book of Malachi in chapter 3, we have been doing a series of messages on the subject of worship. From the book of Malachi, this is our fourth and probably final message on this subject of worship from the book of Malachi. And so pray for me as I try to prayerfully seek the Lord's will about what to do next. Malachi 3. And our subject this morning will be worship, tithes, and offerings. Worship, tithes, and offerings. It's always a touchy subject when the preacher brings up money. We don't want to be like many evangelists today, that that's all they talk about, the prosperity gospel and all those things. But the subject of our pocketbook is a big subject in the Word of God, and we don't want to ignore it because of those who abuse the subject. So we want to scripturally take a look at the Word of God and what the Word of God has to say about our worship and how it really relates to our tithes and offerings. So Malachi chapter 3, and let's read verses 6 through 12. For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers you are gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But you said, wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me, but you say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. And prove me now therewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there should not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are thankful, Lord, that we are able to assemble this morning in your name. And Lord, as we come to this passage of scripture from the book of Malachi, I pray that it would be a blessing to us, instructive to us, if need be a rebuke to us, but also, Lord, a great source of encouragement. Lord, to make sure that we give you what is due, and even more so. Father, I pray that you would be with our church during this time of construction. Help us, Lord, today while we're a little bit out of our element and out of our routine, and sometimes it's hard to focus at the first. And so, Lord, I pray that our minds would be centered upon your Word, And Lord, that we would prayerfully look at the Scriptures that you teach us this morning from the Word of God, and that we would receive the seed of God's Word into our hearts, that it would bear much fruit unto you. And Lord, I pray for the loss that may be here this morning. Lord, this may not be a, if we would, a salvational type message, but at the very least, they would come to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of all of our hearts' affections. And He's the reason why we, as a people of God, give unto the Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, and Amen. Now we've dealt with several messages from the book of Malachi up to this point on the subject of worship. And we see from the very first chapter that the Lord was not pleased with the way that they were seeking to worship God. They were bringing him sick offerings. They were bringing him offerings that were blind, that were lame. And they wanted, if you would, to give God their leftovers. And we have mentioned that each week. They didn't even want it for themselves, but they thought that the Lord would want it. Now, the Lord tells them that He had no pleasure in that, even to accept such an offering in chapter 1. Now, we've also seen how our marriages are greatly affected by our worship. and how the marriages greatly affect our worship, and our worship will greatly affect our marriages. It works both ways. And we talked about worship and marriage, and how our marriages are important and a vital role, that our marriages are godly because it does help us in worshiping the Lord. And we've seen also how in our last message that their moral compass was off, because they had sought to determine what was right by looking at those who prospered. The Lord teaches them here that one of the reasons they were suffering, however, was because they were holding back in their tithes and offerings to the Lord. We might be surprised that different types or various troubles may bring upon ourselves by holding back our tithes and offerings to the Lord. They were under God's chastening hand because they were not giving what they were supposed to give. And He told them He would rebuke the devourer when they gave. Now we'll seek to take our main thoughts from this passage from Malachi and we'll also bring in some other passages as well. Now first of all, Our first main thought is tithing and walking with God. What does that have to do with one another? Tithing and walking with God. Well, surely these are two different subjects. We could talk about tithing, maybe one service, and then maybe the next service we should talk about walking with God because what does really one have to do with the other? Well, I believe our passage makes it clear that they are intricately connected. Look at the language of the Lord in our passage here. We cannot separate our tithe and our walk from God. Notice what the Lord says in Malachi chapter 3 there, and in verse 7, He tells him, return unto Me. So He's saying, come to Me. Come back to Me. And they said, well, where can we return to you? Where can we come to you? Where have we left you? And then the first thing he addresses, well, a man robbed God. Well, where have we robbed God? And he says, in tithes and offerings. So the Lord makes the connection here between coming back to Him and giving the tithes and the offerings to Him. You may be like them as they were at this time. They were clueless that the two were even related. But the Lord says, here is where you have left Me. And so you may not see it that way at first this morning. They did not. But may the Lord show it to you today. So they said, wherein shall we return? And so we cannot disconnect our tithing from our relationship or our walking with God in closeness to Him. So we see the Lord sets them very quickly straight in that. Listen, we can give without loving, can we not? We can give without loving God, but we cannot love God without giving. We just cannot do that. Now, our practice here at this church is we don't pass the plate for people to give to. It's not part of our, quote, worship service. And so I think that if we're not careful, we may be more prone to disconnect that our tithes and offerings is connected to our worship. Just because it's not part of the actual service and the time we're sitting down, doesn't mean that our giving isn't part of our worshiping the Lord. And so we've got to be careful, I think, especially that we don't disconnect those two because of the manner in which we collect tithes and offerings. Giving your tithes and offerings is part of your worship, because it reflects your worship, what you think the worth of God is. It's praising Him for who He is, and all He's done, and all He's promised to do. Our giving declares our faith in Him, and our giving declares our love for Him. I said, though we pass not the plate, and we don't have as many churches as we maybe have at their choice an offertory prayer, there's a simple offertory prayer that I think reflects this thought very easily. The offertory prayer is this, Lord, no matter what we say or do, here is what we really think of You. Amen. That's some prayer, isn't it? Lord, no matter what we say or do, here's what we really think of You as an offertory prayer. Listen, because our tithes and offering is connected to our esteem of God, our faith in Him, and our love of Him, it stands to reason that when our esteem of Christ, our faith in Christ, our love of Christ begins to shrink, so will our giving. So in order to show them that they had walked away spiritually from God, He points them first to the fact that they no longer were giving their tithes and their offerings. Now if you would, turn your Bible to the book of Hebrews in chapter 7. I just want to show a place here where tithing and faith is connected. The exercise of our faith and tithing is connected. We'll read this passage in Hebrews 7, 1 through 8. It brings up the first time that tithing is mentioned in the Old Testament. And I like to read this because a lot of people would say, well, tithing was part of the law. Well, it was part of the law. But it was there before the law was ever established. And so that's important to note as well, and this passage teaches that. Hebrews 7, verse 1, for this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all." That's what tithe means. It just simply means a tenth. First being, by interpretation, king of righteousness, and after that the king of Salem, which is king of peace. Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually." Now we're not going to go back and look at Melchizedek and all of that. Not the purpose of this thought this morning. But he says, Now consider, then, how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And verily, they that are the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people. So he goes from tithing Abraham to Melchizedek to the priesthood according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham. But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction, the less is blessed the better. And here men that die receive tithes. but there he receiveth them, that he being God, he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth." I don't have time to do an exposition of all those thoughts. You read that, there's a lot of questions that may come to mind about what means what. But just very simply put, Abraham tithed before the Mosaic Law. It was a moral principle incorporated into the temple worship. And when you look at the Old Testament account of tithing that Abraham gave to Melchizedek, it's easily seen that it was an act of faith, an act of thanks, and an act of worship. He's been teaching in the book of Hebrews the superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ over Melchizedek and over the Levitical priesthood. So he's making the argument, if Abraham would give to Melchizedek, If tithe, if the Levitical priesthood taught the tithe, then he's making the argument Christ is superior and deserves it as well, and even more so, because Melchizedek's dead, the Levitical priesthood is dead, Christ lives. That's what he's saying in that verse and what he does there in Hebrews chapter 7. Notice what he says there. I turned back. I didn't mean to. But there in Hebrews 7 and verse 8 he says, And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. When we give our tithes and we're giving them to the Lord, We're saying He lives. You don't pay tithes to a dead man. And that's the point that he's making. The Lord, when we pay our tithes, we're saying, witness that He is alive. So every time we come into the house of God and we give the tithes to the church, And Christ, who is the head of the church, is a testament that we've gathered together in the name of Christ, giving our tithes, believing He is alive. So we see there are instances where our faith is connected to our giving. I'm certain that if you began to doubt the Gospel message, that Christ is real, that Christ has risen again, that Christ is coming back, then your tithe and your giving will reflect that, will it not? See, so if you begin to doubt who Christ is, what Christ has done, your esteem of Him, the reality of Him, then why would you give? Why would you give? There would be no reason or purpose in it whatsoever. Now turn to 2 Corinthians 8 also if you would. Now another way we can see our giving as a sign of our walk with God is how our giving is a reflection of the work of the grace of Christ within us. In other words, when God's grace is at work within His people, His people are a giving people. 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 1 says, Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. how that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded under the riches of their liberality. For to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves. See the grace of God was at work in the churches of Macedonia and because the grace of God was at work in the churches of Macedonia they were givers. You see, they reflected the grace of God at work in their hearts because they gave. So there's a definite connection between giving of the churches of Macedonia and the work of God's grace. So our esteem of Christ, love of Christ, faith in Christ, and the grace of Christ in us is greatly reflected by our giving to Christ. Now there are indeed other things that we give. to the Lord in addition to our tithes and our offerings. But those are not excuses to not give tithes and offerings. They are not in the place of tithes and offerings. Well, I don't give a tithe of my monetary, but I give a tithe of my time to the Lord. Well, I'm glad you give a tithe of your time to the Lord, but He should get all of our time in essence. But those aren't substitutes to take the place of. On a closing note, on this one thought, It's interesting, and we don't have time to delve into this this morning. I don't want to spend over one message on this. It's interesting, in times of revival, in times of revival, when you think of times of revival in the Old Testament, I think of two very specific times. One was a time of Hezekiah. in a time of Nehemiah. If you would go back and study those out, what you will see is that they had returned also during that time of revival under the principle of tithing. And so they're very connected. Our walk with God and our tithes and offerings. Now back to Malachi 3. We'll be mainly here until the end. Turn back to Malachi if you would for our next thought. I believe that, this may be sad, I probably should have done it more, but in all my ministry and preaching at 20 years, I think I've probably only preached on tithing just a handful of times. You know, I probably should preach on it more. I think I've been here seven years, I think I've probably preached a whole message on it, I think twice at the most. So, my bad. We need reminded of it, don't we? Yeah, money is a difficult subject for some people, isn't it? But it is all through the Word of God. And it is a part of who we are in a sense that our money tells a whole lot about who we are, what we do, our interests, where our desires are, where our affection is at. Malachi chapter 3 verse 8, our next thought, we have just a few more thoughts here and we'll make them brief and simple. First of all, tithing and stilling. Malachi chapter 3 and verse 8. He says, Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me, but you say wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings? God accuses them of stealing. Now why would it be considered stealing? What is stealing? Well stealing is when you take something that does not belong to you. So the Lord says, ìYou have robbed Me.î ìWell, how have we robbed you?î ìWell, in tithes and offerings.î So the Lord says, ìYou have taken that which does not belong to you.î Listen, I keep using the word ìtithingî and every now and then Iíll use the word ìgiveî, but those really donít go together in essence. ìTithingî is not some gift weíre giving to God. ìTithingî is what we, first of all, owe God. It's not ours that we're giving. It's his we're returning. And there's a big difference. If I was to borrow from you $10 and later come back and pay you back at $10, I wouldn't walk up to you and I wouldn't say, here, I'm giving you $10. You wouldn't say, well, thanks for the gift. Would you? No, you would say, ìWell, youíre not giving me ten dollars. You owed me ten dollars. Thanks for paying me back. I appreciate that.î Well, thatís our tithe. Weíre not giving it to the Lord. We're not giving it as a gift to God. It's His. It belongs to Him. The tithe is the Lord's. The Scriptures teach this many times. Now, many in Christianity today say, well, tithing is an Old Testament principle, and we are not to do that today. But that simply isn't true. In all reality, I would say we should give more than our tithe. We have much more cause, as Hebrews mentions. Christ is superior. Hebrews 27.30 says, And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy unto the Lord. Ten percent of your finances belongs to God. It's His bottom line. It is the Lord's. It doesn't belong to you. So that's why we're saying what we are, and it's not a gift we give to God. We owe it to God. Now that's ten percent. That's what tithe means. Ten percent. is a tithe. Tithe is also called the first fruits. We don't have time to look up all of this this morning. Tithe is called, referred to as the first fruits, meaning that we pay our tithe first because God is first. You see, when you sit down and you get your money, your check, and you make that out, the first thing we should do is give our tithe to God. That's the first thing. It belongs to Him. He's our first love. He's our first obligation. And so we give to Him. And not giving our tithe, that which belongs to Him is stealing. If we pass the plate, and we don't do that, but if we pass the plate and you took money out of the plate as it passed by, everyone would know, hey, that's stealing, right? Well, that's in everyone else's eyes, but if you fail to give, no one else may see that, but that's stealing in God's eyes. Now, we should be more concerned about what God sees than what we care about what man sees. Listen, we will never draw nigh to Christ so long as we keep what belongs to Him. We must obey the principle of tithing if we are going to abide in Christ. And speaking on tithing, the Lord Jesus Christ told the Pharisees, He said, These ought you to have done. Now, they left off other things. They let off faith and mercy and judgment. He says, you've let these things off and you've paid tithe all the way down to your spices. I mean, they were very picky about their tithes. Well, we've got to give 10% of our spices we have. So they're very particular about their tithe. He says, you know what, you ought to have done that, but you shouldn't let the other undone. So it's not the most important thing, but the Lord Jesus Christ stresses that it is important. We ought to do it. Now, the next thought is the subject of chastisement of not tithing. Notice what he says in Malachi 3.9. He says, You are accursed with a curse. You robbed me, even this whole nation. And then he tells them that he, in verse 11, he'll rebuke the devourers, telling them, well, the devourer must be among them. Now, he tells him that they are now cursed with a curse. I wonder if you would go ahead and turn back to Haggai. I know I said I'd stay there, but I didn't mean to lie. Lying is bad too, but that's not what this is about. I didn't mean to tell a fib there. Turn to Haggai chapter 1, if you would, because this teaches us a great deal about this as far as our heart and our mind in regards to our giving and how the Lord sees it. Haggai chapter 1. Start with verse 6. He says, You have so much and bring in little. You eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it in the bag with hoes. Over in Malachi, he had told them, you know what? The devourer's got you. You're losing everything. That guy, he's telling them, I'm doing that. This is one of the reasons why you're suffering. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build a house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. You looked for much, and, lo, it came to little, and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why, saith the Lord of hosts, because of mine house that is waste, and you run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you has stayed from dew, and the earth has stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, And upon that which doth ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all labor of the hands." That's connected back to the time of Malachi. And the Lord tells him later, I'll rebuke the devourer if you return back to this principle of tithing. Now because They were not taking care of God's house. They were not supplying what was needed for the house of the Lord through their tithes and offerings. And they were tending to their personal lives first. They said, you have houses, you're all fine in your personal lives, but the house of God is a shambles. Because of such, they never seemed to be able to get to the place that they thought they could give to God's house. because God would not bless them in that mindset. In other words, they were taking care of their own personal stuff, but even in doing that, it seemed like everything was going out. They were losing everything. And the Lord says, if you do what's first, then it would be better. There are many Christians that are waiting to give their tithe when they are finally able to do so. After that, after they take care of all their stuff, after they get comfortable, after they pay this, after they get this, God will not bless you in that mindset. You are not giving Him what's first. And God can create more holes in your bags, more droughts in your funds, more emergency spending than you could ever imagine and devour And you will never, ever feel like you're getting anywhere when you're not putting God first. Some think they cannot afford to tithe. I believe you cannot afford not to. Tithing is taught in Scripture, so to not do so is disobedience. The Lord would chasten us. And listen, let me tell you what, it may not even be directly related to our money or finances and how He may chasten us. when God chastens His children for disobedience. In other words, it may not look like, well, I didn't give God $10, so the Lord took $11 from me this week. Let me tell you what, when we obey the Lord, God blesses in so many ways in different areas and different avenues, does He not? When we obey God, it's hard telling where those blessings may come from, what they may look like as we faithfully obey. The same is true when we disobey. There are worse things that God may do to us than make our money go less further because we didn't tithe. Who knows what blessings are held back on our individual lives, upon our families, because we withhold that which is God's. We never truly know what God may be holding back when we fail to tithe. Now next, the place of tithing. The place of tithing. Malachi chapter 3 and verse 10. He says, bring you all the tithes into the storehouse. He says that there may be meat in mine house. So there may be provision in mine house. Now he says to bring the tithe into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. The storehouse is the house of God. For New Testament Christians, this is the church of the living God. The tithe is not something that we determine ourselves personally what to do with. In other words, you get your check or whatever, and you set 10% aside to, well, I'm going to give it away to this person and that person. Or do this good deed with it. The tithe belongs to the house of God. It seems like Paul in 1 Corinthians 16 borrows from this language in Malachi In 1 Corinthians 16 and verses 1 and 2, He says, Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there may be no gatherings when I come. That lay by him in store. So it seems to borrow from the language of Malachi. We know the Scriptures teach that the house of God is the church of the living God. Christ is the head of this church and gets glory in it. And so when we give to the church, we are giving to Christ who is the head of the church, and Christ is receiving the praise and the glory. I do not believe that we should give our tithe to television ministries, radio ministries. It should be given to the church in which God has placed you. And the church is to determine how to use that money for the glory of God. And so keep those things in mind. Now, we give offerings. We have other funds in the church. We have a deacon's fund. We have, in our ministries here, we have the coal ministry. We have a food pantry ministry. You know, your tie has to go to the church. That's how I personally believe. Your tie has to go to the church. If you want to give above that, then maybe you can give, you know, to the other funds, the deacon's funds, the coal ministry fund, or to the food pantry, or whatever the need may be. Now, lastly, the blessing of tithing and giving. The blessing of tithing and giving. Malachi 3 and verse 10. He says, "...bring you all the tithes in the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. And prove me now herewith, sayeth the Lord of hosts." He says, the Lord says test me. What's the Lord saying when He says prove me? It means to try me. The Lord is saying trust my word. Believe what I'm telling you. Put God to the test. Will He be faithful and true to what He has said? He says, test me and find out. If I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Now those of the prosperity gospel message, they love to bring that out, don't they? And say, man, if you just give to our ministry, you know, a hundred bucks this week, I know God will just bless you and you might even give a thousand dollars by the end of the week. That's not what the Lord is talking about. Listen, we don't give simply because we want to receive more from God. That's not the main purpose of giving whatsoever. However, there is a promise that when we give, God blesses. Let me tell you what, I want God to bless me in return through my tithes and offerings, not through monetary blessing. I really don't want it like that. Do you? When you tithe and give offerings to the Lord, do you really want God just to reward you back with more money than what you gave? Is that really what we want? I don't. I don't. I want Him to come through other spiritual blessings that I can't even imagine or think. This language of Malachi 3 reminds me of what Jesus said in Luke 6. Let's turn there and read that. Luke 6. Luke 6 and verse 38. Jesus says, Give, and it shall be given unto you good measure, pressed down and shaken together, and running over shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that you meet, withal it shall be measured to you again. The Lord says in Malachi 3, He says, Give that there may be meat in mine house. The tithing goes to provide for the necessity of the things of the house of God. It goes for my salary. It goes for the pay the bills, the electric, all of those things. It goes for maintenance of the building. It goes to the ministries. It goes to our missionaries. It goes to help the needy, to the poor. Listen, it isn't about trying to just see how much money we can gather. It's about for doing the work of God. Now, whenever we give, the Lord blesses. I've never been to a place where I felt like I had ever outgiven the Lord. Have you? Have you ever gave to the Lord and later thought, you know what, I gave too much? Have you ever gave to the Lord and thought, you know what, I shouldn't have given that much money? I don't ever remember doing that. Why? Because we have an esteem of Christ. He's worthy much more than we could ever give. And rewards and manners to where we can't hold all the blessings in. He said, press down and shake them together. You know, when you want to put more into something, you know, you have a container and you put a little bit of flour in it, whatever it might be, and you want more in there, you just shake it a little bit. Well, now I've got more room. And that's the principle he's teaching. He says, shaking together, he says, I'll just fill you up all around in every empty spot. Now the Lord can do that in ways that we cannot even imagine. It is a blessing to give your tithe. It's a blessing to obey the Lord in that. It's a blessing to give. It's more blessed, the Lord says, to give than it is to receive. Look in Proverbs chapter 3. We're almost done here. Proverbs chapter 3. verse 9 and 10. He says, Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Look at one more with me in 2 Chronicles if you would. This will be our last one. 2 Chronicles chapter 31. This is during that time I mentioned of Hezekiah, the time of revival. Boy, you talk about giving. The people were really giving. 2 Chronicles 31 and verse 10. The word of God says, And Ahasuerus, the chief priest of the house of Zadok, answered him and said, Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat and have left plenty. For the Lord hath blessed his people and that which is left in this great store. They had enough to eat. They had plenty. The Lord blessed His people. And there were some even left over in store. The Lord blesses His people by giving to them. And then He blesses His people by them giving to Him. I mean, the Lord blesses us by giving to us, and then we just give right back what the Lord has given, and the Lord blesses us for giving. It's like me giving my child ten dollars, blessing him with ten dollars, and him giving me a dollar back, and then I bless him in return for giving me a dollar of the ten that he gave me. That's a pretty good deal. Right? Listen, the Lord is good to us. Who is it that has given thee power to make wealth? Who is it that gives you everything you have? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Everything ultimately belongs to God. Now the tithe belongs to the Lord, but in essence everything we have belongs to Him. And even that which we keep that we don't give to the house of God, we should seek to minister and to use that for the glory of Christ. C.H. Spurgeon said it simply and well, giving is true having. Giving is true having. There are indeed present rewards in tithing and giving more than we could ever see or realize. There are also eternal rewards to those who give. There are treasures in heaven for those who lay up and store there. Do we even really want the reward of tithing and giving offerings. Do we even want all that reward to be given here? I don't. Lay up treasures in heaven where moth or rust does not corrupt. Jim Elliott, who you may well know, gave his life for the gospel and was murdered by those he went to preach to, said this, ìHe is no fool. who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. We'll close with that quote. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, I pray that you would help us this morning. Lord, I pray that we would leave here with a greater sense of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and that we, Lord, would receive instruction from the Word of God. And Lord, maybe if there have been some that haven't been giving their tithes as they ought and their offerings. Lord, I pray that You would draw them to You and help them to see some things this morning from the Word of God that we have read, that You might draw them close to You and encourage them in this manner of giving. And Father, I pray that You would bless them, Lord. Maybe they're in a place to where they don't know how they can because they have made other bad decisions that have led to things being tighter than maybe they should. They don't know how that they can possibly give their tithes, but I pray that they'd receive the instruction this morning and test you and prove you to see, Lord, how you will bless when we put you first. Father, help us to put you first, not only in our finances, but help us to put you first in our time. Help us to put you first in our talents. Help us that Christ would have superiority over every fiber of our being, everything we put our hands to, every place we walk, everything we say. Jesus Christ, Lord, would truly reign in our hearts and our minds, that we would glorify Him, Lord, in everything we do and even in our giving. Father, we pray for your help. Receive our worship this morning, for you alone are worthy. Thank you for sending your Son to die on a cross for our sins. And through thankfulness and worship and admiration of Him, let us, Lord, give in return, because you have given greatly to us. In Jesus' name we pray, and Amen. All right, let's stand, if you would, as we sing as Chip comes and leads us in song. Thank you, Chip.