So much blessing that you will not have room enough for it

Scripture: Malachi 3:8-11                                                                      Feb. 6th, 2011
Title: So much blessing that you will not have room enough for it                              Sunday Noon Service
 8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.
 9 You are under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me.
 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty.
 12 "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty
There lives a famous televangelist in the U.S. The pastor’s name is Benny Hinn. The character of the service at which he makes a sermon is that, especially, a strong healing gift takes place for tens of thousands attendants who gathered there. Patients who were waiting for their deaths after a severe car accident attended the pastor’s services and got healed and started to live a new life. But the beginning of his works was not so prosperous. When he founded the Benny Hinn Ministries, it was operated at a deficit. Pastor Roy, who was going to be his father-in-law, started to pray about his difficult situations. On a day, Pastor Roy asked him, “Do you give tithes?” And Pastor Roy added, “My future son-in-law! How are you going to receive God’s blessings without giving tithes? How can you undertake God’s mission without giving tithes?”
 
And Pastor Benny Hinn answered that he was suffering from his worst financial problems and being in huge debt. Pastor Roy encouraged him, “You are a decent person to have a lot of money in the bank account. How you are suffering from debt? Why don’t you pay off the debt you owe to God, first?” And he frowned, saying “Oh, Pastor, I am not even able to pay back the debt I owe to the banks. Pastor Roy said, “You should pay off the debt you owe to God first, and then God pays off the debt you owe to the banks. When you firmly believe in the blessings as written in the Scriptures and obey the words of God, you can have God’s blessings. Top priority is for you to pay off the debt you owe to God.” When he heard what Pastor Roy said, God touched him. And he realized that he owed God, and thought about paying off the debt he owes to God.
 
The amount of the tithes he had not given because he was in debt was counted to be quite big. He felt hopeless about the amount. He thought that the amount was too big to pay off. But he could come up with what Pastor Roy said to him. “Pay first the debt you owe to God and then God pays off your own debt.”  When he obeyed to give the tithes that he had not given from 1972 to 1978, he had used up all the money in his bank account except just ten cents. Out of the ten cents, he thought to tithe one cent but he was so touched as to tithe the ten cents.  When he made the offering of all the money he had, he was left with no money. Everyone! We don’t have any more. That is when God starts to work. You should believe this. When Pastor Benny Hinn had made the offering to God, he got registered mail.
 
Almost all letters he got in those days were demanding payment of his debt. As usual, he was opening the registered mail. He unexpectedly learned that one of them enveloped $1,000. And the next week, he got registered mail again that enveloped $8,000.
From that week on, he started to experience what he had never experienced before. It was also when his healing gift started to appear. It was a blessing to the person who obeyed the God’s words. When we believe in God’s words and obey them, He works for us and helps us. I pray that we may realize it in Jesus’ name. Everybody wants to be wealthy. And we want to live such a life. The Scriptures say that we will be given economic and material prosperity. I discovered that there was a common fact when I watched Actor Award or Music Award in MBC. That was the glorification of God. We heard many times that those who were awarded prizes in the entertainment or comedy section confessed, “First of all, God will be glorified by this prize.”
 
They say “I would not be awarded the first prize if God had not helped me and not been with me, and God will be glorified by the prize.” How grateful it is! Yes, it is! God blesses the people, who were created in His own image, and He wants us to prosper in wealth. The Scriptures are written about how we can get the God’s blessings.  The written Scriptures do not say about the ways through which we can get the blessings but about the entitlement to them as God’s children. In other words, we don’t use what the Scriptures say as a means to get the blessings, but through the Scriptures we become what we originally are as created by God. God wants us to prosper in wealth and serve for Him and live with Him. That is the original purpose of God’s creation. For the past month, we have been thinking about how to live for this year 2011. Under the mottos ‘Our beginnings seem humble but our future will be prosperous,’ and ‘Let’s entrust to God,’ and ‘Let’s live grateful and wise’ we planned this year.
 
Now we have to think about and meditate about how we can put those mottos in practice for this month. Today’s scriptures introduce giving tithes as a basic and fundamental Christian life. Most Christians here want to be blessed with wealth. God in the Scriptures also does not want us to live in poverty. He is a wealth God, and since we are His children we should live wealthy. I will suggest the ways through which we can live without the financial or material difficulties. I want to convey to you the God’s mind that wants to get rid of your economic or material difficulties. If you listen to what you are being told, your material difficulties will disappear. You will never worry about the money problems. I pray that you may realize that there is such hope and concern in God in Jesus’ name.
 
1. Give tithes
 Let’s read Malachi 3:10 together.
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
Amen. God is the one who wants to give us blessings. From a different angle, this means we also have to understand about God. What is understanding, everyone? To understand God is to be friendly with God. The point at which we are the most friendly with God depends on whether you love God or not.  When I ask you, “Do you love God?” And you answer, “Yes.” Where is the proof that you love God? Let’s read John 14:21 together.
 [NIV]Revelation 14:21
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
Amen. God wants to bless you. The channel of blessings can only be established when there is a relationship of love. What is the core of the relationship? That is “whoever has my commands and obeys them.” We keep the commands or God’s words because we love God. In order to receive God’s blessings you have to put those words in practice. When we talk about an ancestor of faith, we come up with Abraham. Abraham could not be the ancestor of faith without a lot of trials and errors. He could not be named as the ancestor of faith before he passed the last test of loving God.  The objective of the discipline that God had imposed on Abraham is focused on whether he loved God or not. Loving God was the final objective to be the ancestor of faith. Love is important like that. When we think of the words God or Jesus or church, the word love accompanies them always. But nobody can love alone. Love needs the opponent. Lover needs the loved.  It takes one another to love.
 [NIV]Genesis 22:12
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Everyone, ‘fear’ is the word at a highest point. The word is the superlative expression of love. Love at a highest degree comes from fear. Only fear at a highest point can make possible loving.  The middle part of Malachi 3:10 follows
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
 “Test me in this and see if I will not throw the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Hallelujah!  Deuteronomy 6:16 says “Do not test the Lord your God.”
[개역]Matthew 4:7
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Astonishingly, today’s scripture Mal 3:10 says that you test God. The reason you test God is to see if God will pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. God blesses those who give tithes. How desperate God was to say that you test Him?  You may hear that Koreans say ‘Burn my fingers if my words are wrong’ to obtain the credibility. They say ‘burn what?” Burn the fingers! The saying just emphasizes the credibility of his words.  By the same token, why did God say that we give tithes to Him? He is super and super wealthy. He is the wealthiest all over the universe. He is not in want. Why did He tell us to give tithes when he is so wealthy?  Everyone! Giving tithes is the same as confessing you love to God. And the love comes from the love of the death of Jesus who died for us sinners. The best confession of love is Jesus’ death on the cross. We have to know the love of Jesus’ cross. We have to know the love of Jesus who bled and died for us. I pray that we may know this love in Jesus’ name.