The Cost of a Deeper Walk with God - Purity 1173

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of the silhouettes of trees on the horizon underneath a cotton candy sunrise sky comes to us from yours truly as I traversed over about 60 yards of damp grassy farmland to get just beyond the right-of-way power lines to capture this unobstructed view of the morning sky a week ago on October 9th. I liked the view of God's creation so much that morning that I wanted to capture it without the intrusion of man and was willing to go further than I intended and get my feet a little wet in the process. Okay, I have to admit I didn't quite understand just how soaked my feet would get in that morning dew when I set out, but once I had started on the mission to capture this view, I decided to just keep pressing forward rather than giving up and turning around, because I had set my course, and I thought that the extra yards and wet feet were worth the cost to capture this magnificent sight. Well, it's Monday, and as I, as we enter into October's third work week, my morning walk reminds me of the unexpected cost of pursuing the path of Christian discipleship. And how after I had set my course to follow the Lord as much as I could with the way I live my life, how I have repeatedly agreed that the journey and its destinations were worth the price of admission and its hidden fees. While the financial cost of seeking the Lord alone could be considered to be great if I just thought about the amount of money I had— I have spent and continue to spend on Christian books, education, mission trips, and charitable donations, The path of Christian discipleship will also cost you time and the incalculable value of the losses in your pre-Christ relationships. You wouldn't necessarily think that deciding to do the right thing and following the Lord would result in losing relationships, but it usually does. But considering the things lost versus the things I have gained in Christ Jesus, I can easily echo the sentiments of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:7-11 where he said, I once thought about— I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead. Knowing the love— and that was the NLT version, by the way— knowing the, uh, the, the love, peace, and joy of the Lord and experiencing the new and eternal life that God gives to us through Christ makes whatever personal cost we have to pay worth it. God's amazing grace is a priceless gift that keeps on giving. And even when my faith results in suffering or unexpected expenditures to my finances, time, or personal relationships, I can confidently and boldly say I wouldn't, I wouldn't have it any other way and would be willing to pay even more than I have had to, I've had to, to know this peace with God. Pretty faithful, huh? Well, yesterday my zeal was put to the test as I received a wake-up call on yet another aspect of what a deeper walk with Christ may actually entail and what it would mean biblically to make God first in my life. Yesterday, my pastor Roscoe Lilly laid out one of the most convicting messages on tithing I have ever had the displeasure to hear. Yup, I have a confession to make. While I have tithed in the past and mentally agree with the idea that we should put the Lord first with everything in our lives, including our money, my failure to budget properly resulted in compromising on tithing. The various seasons of turmoil in my walk and my failure to practice frugality and good financial stewardship resulted in my giving less than I should. Don't get me wrong, Pastor Lilly is as humble a servant, leader, and a seeker-friendly pastor as a skeptic or sinner could hope for. But as I often say to others, I love his preaching because it doesn't compromise one iota on telling the truth in love. And encouraging his listeners to be followers of Jesus with a capital F, or capital D for disciple. So when he made a straightforward call to be obedient to the biblical principle of tithing, the Holy Spirit used it to convict me and step my game up in terms of generosity immediately, in about less than 10 minutes into his message. I have sat under other messages on tithing in the past without complying with the call to obediently honor God with my first fruits because of my financial status and hardness of heart in the past. But yesterday, the Holy Spirit worked through Lily's message and caused me to immediately surrender and commit myself to doing what was right regardless of the costs. Uh, God has given me everything, and I was ashamed that I had, I had changed my course from faithfully tithing as I had, I had done in the past. So I did it Almost immediately, and I'm glad, I'm glad I did, because Roscoe's message was a full-court press on being a real Christian for real. Don't get me wrong, he did give grace to those who were in no position to make tithing, the tithing commitment, and even gave a money-back guarantee to the faint of heart.

Really, he did.

Starpoint Church invites people to tithe for 90 days, and if they don't feel the Lord has provided for them After 90 days, the church agrees to return the paid tithe back. I know, who's going to ask for their money back? But that's the contract you can sign to give tithing a try at my church.

Crazy.

While I basically made the change to tithing almost immediately, I was impressed with a part of Roscoe's message where he addressed the hypothetical scenario of someone coming to him asking about how they could be have a deeper walk with God. Roscoe said that if someone asks them, ask him that, the first thing he will recommend is tithing because it costs you something and it really puts your money where your mouth is. Put up or shut up. Don't get me wrong, tithing is perhaps one of the easiest ways to be obedient. Anybody can write a check. You don't become spiritually richer or more mature instantly by paying your tithes. Believe me, I've done it in the past, but it does show some basic obedience and could be a true sign of one's devotion to the things of God. So yesterday I made God first in my life in a basic way that I had in the past but had somewhere compromised along the way. The word of, the word of God indicates we should tithe, and while I agreed with the principle, I wasn't practicing it. But now I am, and I will make adjustments in other areas of my life so my choice to give God my first fruits won't be a means of suffering for my faith, and I can be a cheerful giver who gladly pays the cost to support God's work on earth. Today's Bible verse, uh, comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from The section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. And today's verse is Galatians 5:15 from the NIV, and it says, "If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." Today's verse falls under the second point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. That second point is Quit biting and devouring one another. Today's verse exhorts us to not bite and devour each other, showing that even the early church could be a place of contentions, bitterness, and hate. Not for nothing, but Pastor Lilly's message on tithing yesterday undoubtedly will cause some to be offended and angry and may even cause some to never return to our church. Critics who complain about churches being all about money have a large piece of evidence to present at the court of public opinion after yesterday's message. The enemy knows how to stoke the flames of discord among the brethren, and money is just one of a plethora of topics that the enemy can use to sow seeds of bitterness and resentment among the body of Christ. Pastor Roscoe's call to pay the cost of discipleship in terms of tithing could cause a great division among our congregation and result in people biting and devouring one another. Heck, it's the fourth quarter of 2023, the economy is rough, and Christmas is coming. Did the pastor really ask us to give more money to the church? Ding, ding, come out with your dukes up! But seriously, the Apostle Paul's words in today's verse admits to the reality of the dangers of infighting in the body of Christ and warns us against it. So as much as it depends on us, Let's agree with the Word of God, obey it, and be peacemakers as we seek to show and share the love of Jesus. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and today, um, I believe it's the last section of chapter 30 on the Spirit Fruktifying, uh, and that's a—

and today's topic is Fruit of the Spirit, and in parentheses, Graces of the Spirit.

So if you want to read about the Fruit of the Spirit and what A.W. Pink has to say about that, go to mt4christ.org and you'll find that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship, um, where we walk and talk with God and agree with his word and try to obey it. To the point where it'll even cause you to start tithing again.

Yikes.

But seriously, you know, if we consider it, God does provide us with everything. And it's, you know, everything he's given us comes from him. We might have worked for it, but he gave us the ability to work.

He might have given us smarts to know how to live, but, you know, we didn't receive it from ourselves. We received it from God. You know, as Creator. So it's a small thing to support the work of the Church on earth, and really it's something we should, you know, it should really be one of the first things we do as a Christian, is to make that tithing commitment, you know, that our faith does cost us something.

So that's all I'm going to say on tithing, because I give grace to the humble and, you know, and the weak, because they need it. I know I needed it.

And, you know, I'll pay the cost and figure it out later.

But hopefully we'll figure it out by properly managing my finances so it doesn't cause me pain to cheerfully give a regular tithe to my church. We'll see about that. And so anyway, we recommend a lifestyle of Christian discipleship. Where it's not all about the money, it's all about the love of God that he's given us and the abundant life that he gives us through his son when we put our faith in Jesus.

So, um, we, we, we encourage you to follow the Lord, uh, in spirit and in truth, and discover who you are in Christ, and to, um, you know, reap the blessings of a lifestyle of Christian discipleship. To experience your freedom in Christ.

And what we do on the podcast, basically, to encourage that is pointing to our discipleship messages that we've—

our teachings on, on discipleship that we did back in 2021.

The classes we offer, The Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, are all based on the Word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson.

Freedom in Christ Ministries, and they're transformative in life.

And I'm not setting forth any religious standard.

I would let you to, you know, I would encourage you to seek the Lord and let him convict your heart, because I don't necessarily— I won't benefit from you tithing anyone. So, so you should do it as an act of faith and not just some sort of spiritual form of materialism where you think if you tithe you'll get blessed. Although the words of God sort of indicates that, it's not a name-it-claim-it thing. It's just about a matter of doing what's right and supporting the work of the people who would, you know, put forth the teachings of Jesus Christ. So You know, be careful.

And if you don't like— if you're hesitant to tithe to the church you're in, if you don't trust your congregation, maybe you should, you know, reconsider where you walk.

I don't know, but it's a basic. If you're being blessed by the house of worship, it's a good idea to support them through a regular faithful tithe. That's it.

All right, I have to work and, you know, earn the money to pay that tithe, so let's go to work. But before we do that, we'll pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom.

Lord, we thank you so much for all you provided us with. Um, we're willing to pay the cost to follow you, whatever that is, because you've given us the abundance of your love and a life that's more abundant because of our faith in Jesus.

Lord, we just pray for anyone who's listening today to earnestly seek you and follow you, uh, with the way they live their lives.

And we just pray for you to bless them, uh, come alongside anyone who might be listening or reading today's message and bless their prayer request and bless their walk of faith and guide them in the way they should go.

While you're at it, Lord, we pray for you to go before us too.

We need you to open our eyes on things you what is to see, like you did yesterday during that message. And, um, we want you to show us which way to go as well, because we desperately need your help and guidance through this world. And you've given it to us so far, and we've just become, uh, expectant that you'll do so in the future. So, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today, uh, lead us, uh, in the way we should go. And Lord, uh, because all we want to do is represent you on the earth.

Or we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.