Releasing Financial Blessings in Your Life

The Messenger, The Message, and The Mess

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Dec. 7, 2025

Releasing Financial Blessings in Your Life

Let’s turn together in our Bibles to Malachi 3. We’ll be looking at verses 6-12 and this will be our last message in Malachi for a little while as we turn our attention towards the Christmas season.

⁶ “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. ⁷ From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ Malachi 3:6-7

Let’s pray.

God opens by declaring I the Lord do not change. God is immutable. He never changes. We are constantly changing throughout our lives. Change for us is healthy – if we’re not changing something’s wrong. God’s word urges us to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Growing means change.

God never changes. He never improves, He never learns (cause He knows everything), He never grows in wisdom or power or love because He was and is and always will be perfect in all His attributes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Based on God’s immutable character and faithfulness, He says therefore Jacob you are not consumed. We want to grow in our Christian walk but our salvation isn’t based on our growth but on God’s unchanging character. He has promised to save all who believe in Jesus, therefore we are saved.

God rebukes Jacob (Israel) for their straying from Him and calls them to return. And true to form, they ask God, how do we return? God’s answer is unexpected:

⁸ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. ⁹ You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. ¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. ¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. ¹² Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts. 3:8-12

We might find it surprising that when they ask God how do we return to you, God talks about money. He accuses Israel of robbing Him by withholding their tithes and offerings. Why does God make money central to their return to Him? He certainly doesn’t need their money. Yet it’s obviously very important to God and the reason is that nothing reveals where our heart is quite like money. Jesus talked more about money than heaven and hell combined, not because money is more important than heaven or hell, but because money can become more important to us! Jesus said we can’t serve God and money. One will win our hearts over the other. When Capital One asks us what’s in your wallet? The truest answer is: my heart. My heart is in my wallet. Jesus knows that and counsels us to store up treasure in heaven – in other words, invest in heaven, not on earth because our heart will be where our treasure is.

God says, because you are robbing Me of what belongs to Me, I’ve cursed the land. They thought if I keep my tithe and offerings for myself, I’ll have more money for myself. But they’re looking around and they’re thinking “I’m worse off than ever. I work more hours than ever, I’m up early to work and go to bed late at night, and every dime I get I keep for myself so you’d think I’d be doing well but it’s like there are holes in my pockets! I don’t know where the money goes! When I get ahead, bam, my plow breaks or one of my oxen gets sick or it doesn’t rain or disease hits my crops! What is up with that?”

God says, what’s up is you don’t have My blessing on your life. Hosea says similar:

⁵ Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. ⁶ You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Hosea 1:5-6

This is about more than money. It describes a life that takes in and takes in but is never satisfied. Never has enough. The food doesn’t fill the hunger. The drink doesn’t quench the thirst. Everything leaves us empty. I work and work and save and save and never seem to get ahead. The irony here is this can become our excuse for not giving to the Lord – I’m barely getting by, how can I give a percentage of my income to the Lord?

The heart of the issue isn’t a financial issue, it’s a faith issue. Do we really believe that God is the One who blesses with abundance or curses with lack? Do you really believe that God is that intimately involved in your life? Do you really believe that God’s blessing makes all the difference? God invites them and us to believe! In fact, this is the only place I know of where God invites us to test Him. God says bring the full tithe into the storehouse so that My house has food and see if I don’t open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing until there is no more need. God doesn’t promise to make us rich, but He does promise to meet all our needs.

What does tithe and storehouse mean? Tithe literally means 10% and the storehouse referred to the temple – the house of God – to care for the work of God in the community. So the tithe would provide for the upkeep of the temple work, for the needs of the priests, and to enable the needs of the poor to be cared for.

The principle of bringing the tithe to the storehouse today would apply to the local church where believers are spiritually fed, the work of the ministry takes place, and the needs of the poor in the faith community can be looked after. Let me pause and say thank you for your faithful giving over the years. We’ve had lean years and years of abundance but through it all God has been good, the lights have stayed on, and you have been faithful so thank you! Many of you have, in addition to giving to the church, have also been very generous to give special offerings to our benevolence fund that helps people, especially those in our church family, when they are in a difficult financial situation. And it’s been a blessing to see special offerings go to missions work as well. Pierre took me to the roof of the building that they live in and the church meets in and pointed out the air conditioner unit we helped them purchase last year. These are investments in the kingdom that have eternal value!

1. Giving faithfully is an important way of honoring God

The money isn’t the issue – honoring God as the One who gives us everything is.

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; ¹⁰ then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. Prov. 3:9-10

Give God the firstfruits, not the leftover fruits as a way of honoring Him. It’s a way of saying everything I have belongs to God. We aren’t owners, we are stewards. Our children don’t belong to us, our spouses don’t belong to us, our homes or cars or bank accounts or 401’s don’t belong to us. Our life doesn’t belong to us. We belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. God owns it all, we are stewards and God calls us to be faithful stewards.

As a personal practice, when I do the bills every week, the first thing I record after writing in the deposit is our tithe withdrawal. It’s my way of saying this comes out first Lord. There have been lean times when I’ve had to rob Peter to pay Paul but I’d rather rob Peter than rob God!

2. Giving generously is the way to a bigger life

Some people believe the NT did away with the practice of tithing because while generous giving is talked about, tithing isn’t. Paul writes to the Corinthians:

⁷ Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Cor. 9:7

Now in context Paul isn’t talking about tithes, he’s taking up a special offering (often called alms) which always are voluntary and unspecified amount. But it does seem the NT emphasizes cheerful, Spirit-led, generosity more than a specific amount. For me 10% is a good starting point but as long as we’re growing in Spirit-led generosity, we’re doing well.

Generosity is cheerful giving – it’s giving more than what’s necessary. It’s giving not out of have to but out of want to. It’s giving with joy. Generosity is the joy of contributing to God’s work, whether it be the church, a family in need, or a church in Soledad that needs air-conditioning.

Generosity has nothing to do with how much or little we have. People who have a lot can be stingy and people who have very little can be generous. Paul writes about the Macedonian churches who out of

severe need gave generously with joy!

Giving generously enables us to live a bigger life. Paul tells the Corinthians that as they sow seed, God gives more seed, so they can sow more seed. Our lives become about sowing seed, not simply eating seed. We will eat some seed, we will enjoy the blessings God gives us, but we don’t want to just be consumers, we want to be sowers. And God says, as you sow seed, I will fill your bag with more seed, so you can sow even more seed. God has made it so that people who live to get everything for themselves, find their lives getting smaller and smaller and emptier and emptier and people who invest in others and in God’s work find their lives getting bigger and bigger.

You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.

3. God’s blessings are far more than just having money

Having money doesn’t mean God is blessing someone. There are plenty of people who have a lot of money but live empty, unblessed lives. And not having money doesn’t mean God isn’t blessing someone. There are many people who struggle financially but enjoy God’s blessings in their life in so many other ways. Peace of mind is a blessing from God. Family and friends are a blessing from God. To enjoy your life is a blessing from God. Memories and laughter are blessings worth more than a million dollars.

And the greatest blessing is that God opened the windows of heaven to send Jesus to be our Savior.Eph. 1 says we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We have received an inheritance in Christ that will never fade and can never be taken away.

Peggy Terry Dickson organized a pool of 42 friends and co-workers asking each to contribute $10 to play the Texas lottery. On the way home she bought 430 lottery tickets and that night, the day beforeThanksgiving, they found out they had won the 46.7 million pot instantly making 43 millionaires in this small town.

A year to the day after they won the lottery, Peggy Terry Dickson was diagnosed with two brain tumors and died a few days later. Life is more than money. Money can’t buy us life. Jesus warns that if we lay up our treasures here on earth, over time we will lose them to corruption or thieves. One day for all of us death will pry our hands away from all earthly treasures, not to take them away from us but to take us away from them. We are all Peggy Terry Dickson in a way.

But for those who believe in Christ, the same hands that death pried loose of earthly treasures will grip eternal treasures that nothing can ever take away. When we close our eyes for the last time here on earth, we open them in the presence of God and Jesus! and we will be with him forever. Nothing can ever take that hope away from us!

Jesus tells us to invest our treasure in heaven because if we do, that’s where our heart will be too. If you love Jesus but giving and tithing just hasn’t been a part of your life, I have no desire to guilt you this morning. Jesus loves you and will be with you to bless you. But I want to close with a real life story to maybe help encourage your faith in this area.

When I was pastoring on Long Island, a member of our church came to me one day to share something God was speaking to him. This guy was a great guy, a strong Christian, and a leader in our church. He had a beautiful family and a good job. So God was blessing him. But he said to me, that when he was a young Christian he tithed and his finances experienced God’s blessings. But somewhere along the way he felt he couldn’t afford to tithe so he stopped. On paper it looked like he’d have more money, but now years later he said he was in worse financial shape than ever. He was in debt and money was hemorraging in all kinds of direction.

He said to me, Allen, it’s not that I don’t love the Lord, I love Him with all my heart, but I feel like one artery to my heart is clogged and I’m not seeing health or blessing in that area. I’m stressed. I’m worried. We’re in debt. My wife and I have decided we need to get that artery unclogged and pumping correctly. We are going to give God our tithe again.

It’s not really about finances. It’s about faith. Money’s only important because it reveals our heart, is a practical way we honor God, and helps break our selfishness and invest in bigger things than ourselves. Maybe you’ve been slogging and working and never getting ahead and have been saying as soon as I get ahead, I’ll give. When I have something leftover, I’ll give. You might not mean to, but functionally you’re putting God last in your finances.

God promises, when you give, then you’ll get ahead. When you give, I’ll sow up the holes in your pockets and rebuke the devourer. When you honor Me with your firstfruits, then I will bless your crops and fill your barns and bless your life. Test Me in this!

Let’s pray!