Purpose to be a Good Steward Part Two

This article is from a message to Victory Outreach La Puente by Pastor Sonny Arguinzoni

So, we must understand the principle that what we give whether our time, our talent, our money in the service of the Lord, we are giving to God. We are not giving to the church and we are not giving to man. I will tell you what happens when you have this together in your mind, and you understand this fully the principle, you become consistent. See, if you do not understand this, then your giving is to the church. “I’m giving it to Victory Outreach Church.” Or, “I’m giving …” And when you are giving, you say, “Well, I’m giving to the church.” And also somehow you look at the leaders of the church and once anybody offends you, if you get offended by anybody in the church, or if you get disillusioned with the ministry, or somehow something happened, or you’re in a valley experience, then you hold back on your giving, because your relationship is only with the church and it’s not with God. That is why some people give, and they do not give. They give them they feel good.

And then when they do not feel good … When they are happy with the church, they give. When they are not happy with the church, they hold back. This is a fact. This is a fact that many people actually do that. And the people that do that are the people that have not learned the principle that their giving is not to the church primarily. Their giving is not to man, but their giving this to God. Giving of our gifts, gifts that we have, our talents. Even if you get offended, you say, “Nevertheless, I will stay in this ministry. I will stay at my post because my commitment is not to man, but my commitment is to God.” I have been here so long in this church. Now, I enjoy it. It is not that I do not enjoy it, but there have been some horrible times. There has been times you people have made it rough for me. Probably times I have made it rough for you. Made it rough for each other. But a person that does not have any commitment just wakes up and splits. “I quit.” Just like that. I cannot say that.

I cannot say I quit and walk out, no matter what anybody says to me. They can call me a dog; they can call me whatever they want to call me. They could do whatever they want to do, I cannot walk out. And the reason why I cannot walk out, and I can’t just quit is because my commitment is not only to the people, but primarily my commitment first of all is to God and then to the people. And in the area of our gifts and time and finances, we must come to that understanding. And then we come to that understanding that He is the source of our giving. When you make out your check and you make it out to Victory Outreach, you are not primarily giving it to man or to ministry, but you are giving it to God. This is a biblical principle that we have to understand. So, it takes away the emotional factor when we recognize God is the source. I give to God. Not only do I give to God, but I receive from God.

You notice what it says over here in the Scripture that we read, what does it say? It talks about the purpose. It talks about give and it shall be given unto you. So, it is talking about you give to God. And then in turn, God is going to give it to you. That takes us to our second point this morning. So not only do we have to determine that He’s the source of our giving and receiving, but also secondly, we only receive as much in return as we give and sacrifice. That is a principle that happens with everything. This is where it says you sow sparingly; you shall reap what? Sow bountifully, you shall get what? For as much as the measure that you give, it shall … what? Be given to you in return. So, it is us, stepping out by faith and trusting God. And when we begin to step up by faith and trust God, and we begin to put our faith in motion, then it moves the hand of God to be able to supply all of our needs, because you are putting Him first.

But the problem that we have is that we turn everything around. We do not operate it. Phrases that we find in God’s Word concerning faith. There are areas where it says, “Oh men of little faith.” And then it says, “Great faith among Israel.”, “Little faith.”, “Seeing their faith.”, “According to your faith.” “You have little faith.”, “Your faith is great.”, “If you have faith, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Be thou removed.’ And it shall be removed.”, Then it says, “I have found great faith.” Over and over in the Bible, you find phrases after phrases that it speaks about faith, little faith, much faith, no faith, great faith, a lack of faith. You find throughout the Word of God. Why is it? Because it is always faith that moves the hand of God. Without faith, you cannot please God. I am saved through what? Through faith. It is the grace of God, but it took faith even for our salvation. So, it also takes faith in all our dealings with God. And faith is not feelings. Faith has nothing to do with our emotions. We must resolve within our mind.

There are times you do not feel saved, do you? Aren’t there times you do not feel like you are saved? There are many times I feel like I’m not saved, but I know I’m saved because I know in whom I believe and I’m persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him. A relationship with Jesus is not a relationship of just emotions. But my relationship with Him is of belief, believing His Word. And also, not only believing, but also trusting His Word. And laying my life on the altar knowing that God is faithful to His promises, and God is true. This is what I want to see happen here in our church. I want to get you out of that emotions, get you out of being in the dumps, get you out of that one time up and the next day down. One week you give, the next week you do not give. One week you can afford it, the next week you cannot afford it. Listen, let us put God first within our lives. Forget the emotions. Let us put our trust and confidence in God. God is always faithful.

I may let you down, but God will never let you down. I say this with all the conviction that I feel inside, I am here to proclaim to you this morning without a shadow of a doubt that God is faithful. God is faithful. And you know what God wants to do? God wants to bless us. But it all determines how much you sacrifice. How much of a sacrifice do you want to make? See, according to the measure … Listen, according to the measure that you give, it shall be given to you. That happens in everything. If you give love, you receive love. Some people say, “I can’t make friends.” The reason why you cannot make friends is because you are not friendly. “It’s hard for me to make friends in the church. It is not a loving church. People are not friendly.” The reason why they are not friendly is because you are not friendly.

But if you sow friendship, you will what? Reap friendship. You sow love, you will reap love. That is a divine principle of God. You sow money, you reap what? You reap money.

You begin to give of your gifts and your talents, and you reap all this. You know something? That my wife and I have reaped a lot of honor. We have reaped that. I even get embarrassed. I better move quickly, that time is moving. I was in a Spanish speaking banquet, and they go, everybody is saying, “Oh, we’re so happy to have pastor Sonny here.” And they bring flowers, and this and I get so embarrassed. They say, “Oh, the pastor. My pastor. My pastor. My pastor.” And you know what God is doing? And then a little voice inside told me, “Those are your blessings. Those are your blessings for willing to pay a price. And because you are willing to pray a price and you give of yourself, and there is always a return. There’s always a return.” God is not a debtor to no man. So, you sow, you reap. You sow sparingly, you also reap sparingly It determines, your sacrifice determines the size of your return. We are going to conclude with this, I want you to open to Malachi. Malachi.

Malachi. Now, I am not going to labor this because you should know this by now. We preach this to you so many times, you know it. But over here I want you to see the three in action. These three points are in action. As far as the source, you are able to see the sacrifice, and also the size of the return. Now, read in verse 8. Let us begin in verse 8. If you have it, say,” It is in the Old Testament, come on.  Chapter three and verse 8. You have it?

Follow with me, look what it says. “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me.” Now, here we see the first point, the source. Because He’s saying that when you do not give of your tithes, the very minimum which is your tithes, which belongs to God in the first place. He says, “You’re not robbing the church, you’re not robbing man.” He says, “But you are robbing God.” So here you see, “Will a man rob God?” He is the source. “Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, ‘Wherein have we robbed thee?'” He says, “In tithes and in offering.” So, it brings out the source is God. Then He says, “You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed Me in this whole nation.” So, there’s consequences, you reap what you sow. If you steal from God, if you rob God, you will reap that. It will return to you. And then it says over here, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse …” Now, here he is talking about sacrifice, “… that there may be meat in My house.” So, He says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse.”

Do you notice what it says? Not some of the tithes, but all the tithes. That deals with sacrifice. Now, I am sure that to bring all your tithes, and to be faithful in giving all of your tithes, the 10th of everything you earn to God, it takes sacrifice. The devil will do everything he can to prevent you from being faithful to God. He will do everything he can to do that. So, it takes sacrifice to bring in all your tithes. So, He says, “Bring ye all the tithes.” But then He does not stop there. And then He says also, “Into My house.” And then He says, “Prove Me.” In other words, what is He saying? “Check Me out. Try Me. Prove Me now. Hear what saith the Lord of hosts.” And what is the return? What is the return? “If I will …” What? “If I will not open up to you the windows of heaven and pour you out blessings that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” And he says … Here is the return again.

If you’re faithful in that particular area, He promises, “And I will rebuke the devour-er for your sake, and he shall not destroy the fruit of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.” And listen in verse 12, “And all nation shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delight in the land, saith the Lord of hosts.” So here we see the three, the source, then there is the sacrifice of us giving, sacrificially giving unto Him, and then what is the return? The return is the blessings of God. Now, when I am talking about it is not only dealing with finances, it is dealing with time. We need to sacrifice our time, our gifts, our talents, and then our finances.

And according to our faithfulness with our sacrifice, according to our faithfulness in what we give and what we sow, it shall be returned, will determine the return that we receive. This is why it is more blessed to give than to receive. Even when you are hurting and you have got problems financially, it is time to give because you are sowing the seed. It says, “Cast thy bread upon the waters, and in many days in many days it shall return to you again.” These are principles within the Word of God. I conclude by just telling you this, let us get out of that emotionalism, let us get out of inconsistency. And I just hope, it just drives home to you.

And you say, “If I can only get it in you. I feel like just opening your mouth. Come on, you eat that food now and get it in you.” I am saying this because this will benefit you if you make it part of your lifestyle. If you make it part of your Christian experience, I will guarantee you that it is going to totally revolutionize your life. In conclusion, let me just mention this … And I want to bring up this little poem. Listen to me very carefully. Listen to this. There is a way to face the future and there a way to leave the past. Did you hear that? Some of you must face the future and leave the past, make some rearrangements within your life. There is a way to form a habit, and there is a way to make it last.

There is a million ways of starting, there are a million ways to stop. But the way to do your giving is to take it off the top. How many understand what I said? This morning what I am going to do, we save the offering for last. The tithes and offering for last. Here is what I am going to ask you to do … I want the usherettes to go ahead and take their place for a moment. Listen to me very carefully, listen to me this morning. I am going to have you act on the Word of God. Not only be listener to the Word of God, but act on the Word of God. Now, all we are going to is receiving the tithes and offerings like we do every Sunday morning. But I want you to look in your bulletin, and there is a card. I was saying, “Lord, how could I challenge our people? How can I challenge them? How could I just get them to get out of that emotionalism and begin to be consistent and step out in faith? I want you to take a look at that card that you have in your bulletins.

Take it out. It is called The God’s Guarantee Challenge. I want everybody still, I do not want no one else walking on and running out of here. Everybody still, okay. Take your card, raise it up real high. Do you have it? Raise it up real high everybody, okay? Okay. Now, here is this card. What we have been trying to do this month is to get you to act on the Word of God. The card says God’s Guarantee Challenge. Now, I want to read it to you, “Recognizing God’s the only ship in my stewardship and wanting the blessing promise. I hereby choose to accept God’s guarantee challenge.” Now, look at this and I want you to take this challenge. “For 90 days …” I am going to challenge you this morning. “For the next 90 days, I will give over 10% of my income to the Lord through the Victory Outreach Church.” And, you have got to give it to somebody. You just cannot say, “Lord, come to the clouds and get it.” So, you bring to the church, but the source again is God, right?

“For the next 90 days, I will give over 10% of my income to the Lord through the Victory Outreach Church.” And you are going to make a commitment. Then I am going to ask you if you already tithe, I want you to reaffirm your commitment and just mark it, “I already tithe.” If you do not tithe yet, you say, “I will start tithing.” And then put your name, your address, your zip code. This is something between you and God. Then I am going to ask you to sign it. Nothing to contract with me, or anything like that. This does not hold up anyway, it is just … Do not be afraid. If you do not want to sign it, do not sign it. Then put the day. But this is a commitment that you are making to God this morning. I am going to tell you this, listen to me. Listen to me very carefully … This is how much I believe God. Listen to me. Look at me. After those 90 days, I want to ask you and I challenge you to start paying your tithes and above your tithes for the next 90 days.

And if in 90 days God does bless you, if after 90 days you regret it, then you do not have to ever tithe again. And I will not ever bug you about tithing again. You will be exempt. If God is not true to His Word, if God is a liar, then you are exempt. You do not have to ever tithe again; you do not have to give a penny again to God because you cannot trust God. But I want to challenge you because I believe this is going to revolutionize and transform your life, and you are never again going to be the same. Do you know why I say this with so much conviction? Because I have experienced it. Oh, hallelujah. How many of you have experienced it that God is faithful? The devil wants you in poverty, but God is faithful to His promises. Now, we need to put God first. This morning, I am going to ask you … And it says over here, “Bring ye the tithes into the storehouse.”

And then it says, “Prove Me.” Hear what saith the Lord, “Try Me.” This is biblical, “Try Me. Test Me out. Check Me out.” Saith the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open up the windows of heaven and pour you blessings upon your life.” I am going to ask you to go ahead, I want you to fill out that card, also take your tithes and put them in the envelope this morning. Begin to fill out the envelope with your tithes and offerings. Praise the Lord!