Introduction:

Pastor A.W. Tozer said, “The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend on that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out when the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely as they know they must at the last day.”

Is your faith real or would Tozer’s comments about pseudo faith be a more accurate description? Today we are going to conclude this series of messages on trust, continuing the acrostic from Dr. John Maxwell that we began last Sunday.

T   ake Personal Inventory
R   ecognize God as your Source
U   nderstand God's Principles
S   urrender Everything to God
T   est God's Promises

U nderstand God's Principles

These are keys to Trusting God. Last week focused on five and will look at five more today.

1. The Who's In Charge Principle
2. The Give and Grow Principle
3. The Do It Now Principle
4. The I'm In Debt Principle
5. The Fountain Of Youth Principle
6. The “Who is number one” Principle? God deserves the first of everything. HE deserves our best This is in sharp contrast to the human tendency to give God our leftovers.
   Jesus was asked, “Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?”
   Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment.” Matthew 22:36-38
   Read: Proverbs 3:9, 10 “Honor the Lord with your possessions and the first fruit of all your increase.”
   I Corinthians 16:2 “On the first day of the week Let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he or she may prosper.”
   Clearly God instructs us to give Him the first, not the last of everything, but that is not the human tendency.
   A Christian teenager was happy as he brought home his first paycheck from his part time job and told his mom, “I am not sure I can afford to tithe.” He had more money of his own in his hands than he ever had before and greed set in. How typical of people of all ages.
   Where is God in your life right now? Remember, our Lord said, “Where your treasure is, that is where your heart is.” Those are not my words, but our Lord’s words. In other words, I believe Jesus was saying that he could tell what we love by how we spend our money and by how we spend our time. What does your checkbook and calendar say about who and what you love?
   
7. The “Cheerful Attitude“ Principle
   In essence, stewardship begins with loving, not giving. God loves a cheerful giver. We can give without loving, but we cannot love without giving. Love asks, “How much can I give?” Legalism asks, “How little can I give?”
   Dr..Carl Meninger, a great psychiatrist said that Generous people are seldom mentally ill. When we live beyond the world of self it changes how we think. Generous givers are often people who are healthy people mentally, psychologically, and spiritually.
   
8. The “Big Shovel“ Principle
   You cannot out give God. God has a bigger shovel than I do or than you do. Listen to what Jesus said, Give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” Luke 6:38
   By how we give, God will give back. If we do our part, God will do more. What is the measure with which you give? A generous giver was asked about his giving and how God had blessed him. His response was, “I shovel in, and God shovels back, and God has a bigger shovel than me.”
   
9. The “River“ Principle
   Our life is to be like a river, not a reservoir. I am to pass on to others what God gives to me. We are to be a conduit, a channel for God to use.
   In his book, Quiet Thoughts On Prayer, S. C. Gordon says, “There is one inlet in the Christians life, the Holy Spirit. There are five outlets of Power.”
   1. Through our life – what we are
   2. Through our lips – what we say
   3. Through our ministry – what we do
   4. Through our money – what we give
   5. Through our prayer – what we claim in Jesus’ name
   We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
   
10. The “Who has who“ Principle
    Until God is in control of my life, I am out of control. “Stewardship is more than the management of things – it is the refusal to let things manage us.” James A. Lollis. When I came across those words I thought of what I recall from Dr. James Dobson saying on a film series that some of you may have seen several years ago. He was talking humorously about putting up a swing set for our children and then having to be enslaved to keeping the nuts and bolts tight on it for the protection of our kids. Certainly there is nothing wrong with having a swing set, a nice home, etc. The question is do we have those things or do the things we have control us? Have we placed God in control? This principle really leads into the “S” in our trust acrostic.

How often have you thought or said, “If I only had more, I would give more.”? Compare this to the teaching we find in Luke 16:10 “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” What do you think Luke meant, “If you are not giving sacrificially with what you have now, you won’t give sacrificially when you have more?” The spiritual principle work here is that it’s not how much we have of the world that dictates our generosity toward God, but how much God has of us.

Question for us as Christians is, “Am I going to live like the world and trust in myself and become independent and do my own thing, or am I going to depend on God? Am I really going to live as a Christian, trusting God as my source or am I going to do things my way? The issue before us is not your talent, your abilities, your money, your time. The issue is simply, “In whom or in what do you trust?”

Jeremiah describes both the independent person and the dependent person. Jeremiah 17:5-6 and 17:7-8:

Listen to what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for His strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.”

Picture a bush or cut corn stalks blowing in the strong winds we have had recently. They no longer have roots or fruit. That is God’s description of the person who trusts in himself or herself rather than God.

“But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water, that send out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.
Notice that the circumstances are the same, but the results are the opposite. When the heat and drought come the one who trusts in himself or herself has not fruit, dries up and blows like a bramble bush in the wind. In contrast the person who trust God continues to bear fruit.

T est God's Promises

Mother Teresa said, “I know that God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” My friends, there is no doubt in my mind that she passed the trust test many times throughout her life before she went to her eternal home. What an example of a woman who really trusted God.

Let’s quickly look at a few Bible characters that passed the trust test. Great Bible characters proved that they were trustworthy.

1. Noah Remember that God commanded Noah to build an ark. Do you realize that it had never, ever, rained before, and did not until the ark was completed? Would you like to explain that to your neighbors? No wonder they ridiculed him. Have you faced ridicule like that for your obedience to God? Wouldn’t you say that was major trust? Look what the Scripture says: “And Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him.” Genesis 7:6
2. Abraham Abraham and Sarah had waited until they were elderly before they were finally able to have a son. Then, after raising him to be a young man, Abraham is given an ultimate trust test. He is told to sacrifice his son. After his son is on the altar God said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Genesis 22:12 (Sacrifice of Isaac)
   
3. Joshua Joshua was leading the Israelites and they were approaching the Jordan River. I suppose many of them remember how Moses used a rod as God opened up the Red Sea for God’s people as they fled Egypt. Perhaps some of the people were telling Joshua to go get a rod. If Joshua had a rod he could wave it over the river and maybe it would part like the Red Sea. But God did not want Joshua to use a rod this time. God wanted Joshua to trust Him enough to put his feet in the water and then the waters parted. Joshua was not to trust in a method, but to trust in God. Notice what happened as a result.
   “Now if came about when all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the sons of Israel until they had crossed, that their hearts melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer, because of the sons of Israel. Joshua 5:1
   
4. David Remember the delightful story of David and Goliath? .And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” When Saul found out that David was going to fight Goliath, he said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you” Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. [Think about this for a moment. Saul was a good sized man, perhaps about the size of David Diercks or Don Bishop and David was probably smaller than me. The armor would not have fit well.] And David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” And David took them off. David passed the trust test and defeated the enemy with God’s help.

Observations:
Noah trusted in God, not the familiar.
Abraham trusted in God, not personal feelings.
Joshua trusted in God, not methods.
David trusted in God, not man’s armor.
Promises God gives His children when we tithe: Malachi 3

1. He will provide for us. V. 10
   In the area that I obey, God blesses. In the area that I disobey, God disciplines.
   
2. He will protect us. V. 11
   
3. Our lives will be attractive to others. V.12

“It has been two years since I came to see you at your office to discuss one of the most difficult subjects my wife and I have ever struggled with, the subject of tithing. During the past two years, and especially during the last few weeks the Lord has been telling us to step out on faith and tithe. We had so many questions such as, “How can we afford to give ten percent when our finances are in such a mess and we don’t have the money to give? Well, we recently realized that our finances are in such a state that they are in because we haven’t give that area over to the Lord. It has been difficult giving up that control.

(Then they mentioned the date they gave their first check that was a tithe and while their pastor was speaking on stewardship) It spoke directly to our hearts about the very issue that God had been dealing with us. God also spoke to us that day and through one of our “Daily Word” readings, “Trust involves letting go and knowing that God will catch you.”

Well pastor, one the following Wednesday the Lord showed us that by obeying Him and trusting Him, He will be faithful to us. My wife received a surprise pay raise at work, which became retroactive … Therefore she not only received a larger paycheck that day, she received an additional check which included the retroactive pay raise. Praise the Lord. This definitely is God’s message that He is pleased with our obedience and now has control of our finances.

Thank you Pastor for your message on this often difficult and sensitive subject.

This letter was shared with permission of the couple who wrote it to their pastor.

I would like you to look at the Trust Test you have been given and prayerfully fill it out and bring it forward along with your time and talents survey that a few of you turned in last week.

To help us put this tithing in perspective let me share some facts and figures. According to our research, we found the Median household income in Dallas County in 2003 was $55,948. Median is not exactly the same as average. Median means half the households receive more and half receive less. Also notice that this is household income so it might be more than one income.

For the purpose of illustration let us suppose that the median household income of the people of our congregation is half that of the rest of the folks of Dallas County. Also, suppose that half of the households of our congregation do not give our church a penny. Then suppose that the remaining half of the households of our church give God a minimum of the tithe (10%) to their local church. According my calculations we would receipts at the Adel UMC of $380,446 for a year. This is far more than our current budget. Now the good news that I share with you continues. Our financial secretary has reported to the Finance Committee that we currently have more than half of our households recorded as giving in 2006. That number, tithing half of the median income in Dallas County would bring in $433,597. Think about the great ministry we could accomplish in our area and beyond assisting various missions with that income.

However, if our congregation’s household income actually was the median income of 2003 and all of our households tithed to their local church we would have over $1.5 million dollars to share Christ’s love here and around the world. Please make your stewardship and the stewardship of our church a matter of prayer.

The Trust Test

Tithing is not an issue of money, but an issue of trust. I believe God knows that one of the most difficult areas for many of us to turn over to Him is our finances. For that reason, He says to us …

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” Malachi 3:10

God said this. Can you trust God to fulfill His promise?
Can God trust you to obey and trust Him?
My Response

Realizing that trust is one of the most single important factors in a relationship and that God says, “test Me now in this,” I am now taking this step of trust by committing the first 10% of my income to the Lord through the Adel United Methodist Church (the storehouse).

__ I will begin to tithe now __ I will continue to tithe
Name ___________________________________________
Address _________________________________________
Address _________________________________________
Phone __________________________________________
Date: October 15, 2006

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