Sunday I preached the first message in our series “Money and the Christian.” You can watch the message here. In the message I laid out some basic principles from Jesus’ teachings and Paul’s letters. I mentioned some practical tips briefly Sunday and I’ll dig deeper on those in the bottom half of this post. To start, here’s the vision Jesus has for money:

MONEY IS A USEFUL TOOL, BUT A TERRIBLE GOD. Jesus and Paul warn about the dangers inherent with money. The bible doesn’t condemn or condone welsh. In some passages the abundance and wealth are celebrated when God blesses His people. In other passages and parables the hazards of wealth are clearly laid out. Money isn’t the issue, what it can do t our heart is the issue.

GRACE IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND IN A TRANSACTIONAL CULTURE. One of the dangers of wealth is pride. Wealth convinces us we’ve earned everything and anything can be purchased. The gospel is specially hard for the rich because it isn’t a transaction. We can’t earn this love or forgiveness.

HOW WE STEWARD TREASURE HERE IS HOW WE LAY UP TREASURE THERE. Jesus lays out a vision for laying up treasure in heaven in Matthew 6 and Paul picks that theme up in I Timothy 6 . Paul instructs the wealthy to use their wealth to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share.

Practical tips when it comes to money

1 You Need a Budget

I know that inflation has made this harder, but the truth is: living below our means is never easy. It requires diligence and sacrifice. I once heard Tim Keller say in this powerful message that Xians are called to refuse the temptation to let their wealth determine their lifestyle. Instead they’re constantly living at the lower end of what their income could afford for the purpose of making generosity prominent in their lives. This is only possible with a realistic budget. Here’s a great resource on budgeting that gives an overview and has a budget you can input your numbers to get started.

2 Your Budget Needs Margins

Most people want to be generous, but feel strapped because lifestyle creep has robbed them of any margins.

Margins don’t just happen, they’re planned. What used to be a luxury, but now feels like a necessity? The moment we allow wants to become needs we kill margin.

Here are 3 margin killers

Meals: Remember when eating out was a luxury? Over time we get used to the convenience and speed of just ordering to go or driving thru to get our meals. Our family eats home cooked meals most evenings and mornings. If we eat out it’ll be Friday night or Sunday afternoon. We budget for this. There have been busy seasons where we’ve leaned on restaurants and fast food. Every time we end up spending 2-3x as much for lower quality food. I know there are seasons of life that are busy, but cooking and eating real whole foods at home is better for your budget and your health.
Vehicles: Our cars are one of our largest line item expenses in our budget. Often we just think about the car payment as the cost of owning a car. There’s insurance, gas, maintenance, etc. We’ve never had more than one car payment and that’s been on purpose. We always wait until one car is paid off to consider buying another. This forces us to be patient. We’ve also never spent what we were qualified for (goes back to lifestyle creep). Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you need it. Dealerships shouldn’t determine how much car you can afford, your budget and spending goals should. We also research how much any vehicle will cost to insure. My daily driver is a small Honda that gets 46mpg. The temptation is often to purchase the most car we can afford because a coworker or friend got one and now we need one too. I am often tempted to buy a new truck, but our 1998 s-10 just refuses to die. As a result of delayed gratification, we can be generous, save for the future and rest easy in the area of finances.
Random Purchases Retail therapy is real. We feel down or off and think, “I bet a new outfit, shoes or device would make me feel better!” And it does… for a while. When you’re living below your means you know you can do this occasionally, which makes it a constant temptation. I once heard it said that women splurge in several small shopping trips over time and men in one large purchase. Think the lady who constantly spends 100’s of dollars here or there but never in one huge shopping trip. Now picture the man who’s been pretty conservative fiscally, but comes home one day with a new truck, motorcycle, rv, or boat. There’s no remedy like the emptiness of dealing with the consequences of these spending episodes. It takes time and commitment.

3 You Need a Generosity Plan

Have you prayed about how much and where you’re going to be generous? Casie and I have always tithed and we automate that portion of our giving. Every week it comes out of our account via online giving. I’m for regular, disciplined giving, but we also want to be spontaneous in our giving. So when we give to missions, benevolence, or a major endeavor at church, we pray and consider how much to give and do it on a Sunday either by check or a one time gift online. We don’t want our giving to become mechanical or lazy. Our church operates the same way. Each month there are regular donations from our church to missionaries around the world, non-profits in our community and church planters around the nation. However, we also respond to needs as they arise. Our church gives to benevolence needs inside our church regularly. At the end of every year we’ve given single moms in our church a few hundred dollars to help with Christmas for their kids. Generosity has to be more than aspirational. It must be built into our budget and our lifestyle.

In my message “why does Jesus care about my money” Sunday I mentioned tithing, giving and generosity. You can watch the message here. I was raised in a culture of tithing. From the beginning my wife and I have been careful to tithe on our income. This was often difficult early on as we struggled to make a living, yet God was faithful. Over the course of my ministry I’ve had many conversations with believers about the tithe. Often, believers will say the tithe was an Old Testament requirement that doesn’t carry over to the New Testament. There are certainly portions of the Mosaic Law that don’t apply to New testament believers. Consider Paul reminding gentiles they didn’t need to be circumcised or Peter’s vision allowing the consumption of meats once deemed unclean. However, giving certainly carried over to the new covenant and if anything seemed to increase. Early church documents indicate tithing was the floor for believers not the ceiling. The debate rages on as to whether or not tithing is required.

Each believer needs to reconcile the evidence and come to terms with what generosity should look like. We shouldn’t just trust our heart to make the decision. typically our hearts are greedy and stingy when it comes to giving. I’ll link a few opposing articles, some in favor of the tithe, some against, then I’ll share my understanding in light of it. Each article makes clear that regardless of tithing or not generosity is explicitly called out of believers.

Here are 4 articles with differing views on the subject.

Here are a few reasons I practice tithing and encourage it in our church.

Tithing is a biblical principle.

I do believe the biblical principle carries over into the New Testament. The command not to murder is made stronger by Jesus condemning hatred in our heart. The command not to commit adultery is made stronger by Jesus equating lust with adultery. To read the new testament and conclude that our calling as believers is easier than the old testament isn’t a serious understanding. In every way we are challenged to go beyond what the law required. To move beyond surface level obedience into deep abiding faithfulness. A tithe should inform us about God’s view of sacrifice. Left to our own considerations we tend to give far less than a tithe.

Tithing is a practical solution.

I am better with my money because I learned to tithe. Tithing forced me to save money to give, which helped me learn to save money in general. I learned the power of saving, living below my means, and giving. When Jesus said it’s more blessed to give than to receive He didn’t just mean it felt better (though it does). People who only know how to receive are more vulnerable. Those who know how to save, give and leverage money as a resource benefit from that understanding of money. Teaching people to give systematically forces them to confront their budget, their spending and their values.

Tithing is sacrificial.

The average believers gives between 2-3% to charity each year. That’s far below a tithe. We’d rarely choose 10% at random without the Word guiding us higher in our generosity. Whether you believe tithing carried over to the new Testament church or not there’s no argument that Jesus, Paul and the entire New Testament clearly calls out a form of generosity that is sacrificial and systematic over and over. I’m afraid many believers simply take the easy path of “tithing isn’t required” in order to justify their refusal to be generous. No matter your take on tithing there’s no escaping the fact that Jesus taught on money more than anything else and He calls out and required a level of generosity from his followers that was counter cultural. May we be found just as generous.

The Christian and Money

Practical tips when it comes to money

Do Christians have to tithe?