2/21/21 Deut. 26:1-11 “Giving Is a Blessing!”

19 Feb 2/21/21 Deut. 26:1-11 “Giving Is a Blessing!”

2/21/21    Deut. 26:1-11    “Giving Is a Blessing!”

I think that this is the time of year when we all start to wear down a little.  Even though for the most part, we have had a very mild winter, this last cold spell has reinforced in my mind at least, who is in charge.  Anyway, we start to get into late February and we are all ready to have spring because we are tired of snow and cold, even at the end of a mild winter.  I remember once when I was a kid when the temperatures didn’t get above zero for 4 weeks.  That was a cold spell.   I’m sure that many of you can remember winter weather that was bad if not worse than what we have now.  I would also guess that you were looking to spring then just like you are today.  I think one of the greatest parts of spring is Easter.  I hope that everyone is looking forward to the celebration that Christ has risen from the dead.  I can’t wait for Easter morning when we can sing, “Up from the Grave.”  It’s a tradition I have where we start this song sitting down and we jump up when we get to the chorus.  It is a fun song.  Today’s Scripture lesson from the Old Testament is a good one to start out our season of Lent.  It tells of being thankful while giving and how we are to honor God with thanksgiving.  Let’s look at an area that we don’t associate with thanksgiving very often.

Today we are going to talk about something that we normally don’t like to talk about, giving.  I don’t normally have stewardship sermons at a certain time of the year.  When the subject comes up in Scripture, I talk about it.  We all have our own ideas about giving so I want to tell this little story from Jerry Falwell to make a point.  He tells the story called, “Who Owns Your French Fries?”  It is the story of a father buying his son some French fries.  They got the fries and sat down.  The father did what many fathers do; he reached over and took one fry to taste it.  The little boy slaps the father’s hand away and says, “Don’t touch my French fries.”  Now the father thinks that the boy is being selfish.  The father knows that he bought the fries so that they belong to him.  The father also knows that the son belongs to him.  Now the father could get angry and never buy his son another French fry again to teach him a lesson.  Or he could bury his son with loads of French fries.  But before he did anything, the father asks himself, “Why is my son selfish?  I have given him a whole package of French fries and I just want one.”  Using the same line of thinking, God has given us all the money and things that we have in the world.  All He asks for is a tithe or 10%.  We keep on slapping his hands away and saying, “Keep your hands off my money.”

As we begin today, Moses is reminding the people of what they are supposed to do when they enter the Promised Land.  They have been in the wilderness for 40 years.  They have seen how the Lord works.  They have received manna and quail every day for this time.  They have had water when there had been no water.  They have their freedom and they have stayed together as a people.  They have had many, many blessings from God.  They have come to enjoy and love having God with them.

So, it really comes as no surprise when God tells them to bring the first fruits of their crops.  They are all used to taking sacrifices to God.  They are in the habit of giving the best they have to God.  So, this is no surprise to them and it is not a big deal.

But just in case that some of the people might be thinking that this is too much, we have a little history of their journey so far.  They have been blessed and blessed.  They have seen many miracles along the way.  This is just a subtle reminder to them.  Now when they get to the Promised Land, they are to give their first fruit to God.  God doesn’t want junk.  He doesn’t want second best.  He wants the best from them.

This is something that God has always required of His people.  The most famous piece of history of this is seen when we look at Cain and Abel.  If you remember, Cain brought some of his crops as an offering to God.  But Abel brought the best fat portions from the firstborn of his flock.  Abel was giving the first fruits of his flock, but Cain was only giving.  God was well pleased with the offering from Abel but He was not pleased with the offering from Cain.  We can find many other places where God asks for our best as an offering.

God asks the same from us today.  It is a little different today because we are not a nation of farmers anymore.  We do many other things today and we have to tithe many other things.  So, let’s take a look at some of the first fruits that we may have.  The first one that comes to mind is that of time.

I can remember when I used to sit out there in the pews.  At first, I hardly had time to even come to church on Sunday.  After a bit, God helped me to figure out that I needed to be here every Sunday that I could.  After I came to have a personal relationship with Jesus, I realized I had to be here every Sunday because I wanted to be here and was thankful for wanting to be here.  I was trying not to hang onto any part of my old life.  I was thankful but I didn’t know what to do about it.  I also found that by coming weekly I was offering less than 1% of my waking time to God.  This was a pretty pathetic offering.  So, I started to do other things for the church.  I gave an hour a week to other things.  This was still only less than 2% of my time.  I was not giving the first fruits of my time.  I was giving leftover time.  I was giving time when I felt like it.  This is how we are not to do things.

We live in a world that is not controlled by God.  It is controlled by Satan.  He is everywhere we look.  He is telling us that we have to work harder to make more money.  He is telling us that we need to use our time wisely so that we can make more money.  He is telling us that the only way to happiness is with more money.  The common denominator here is more money.

Money means happiness.  Success means happiness.  By doing anything that we want is happiness.  We have so many measures of happiness that books are written about them.

But there is no happiness in this world.  If you think that you can find happiness in your worldly ways, I wish that you would show me and I will show you emptiness.  If you ever achieve any of these Satan driven goals, you will only get momentary satisfaction.  If you finally get more money by working hard, you will only want even more money by working even harder.  You and your family will lose and Satan will win.  No matter what you do, you can never achieve happiness without God.  So, I would say to you that you should give to God the first fruits of your time.

Another first fruit I want to bring up today is your talents.  You all have different things that you do well.  Some of you will say that you have no talents.  Remember that God has gifted every one of His followers and there are no exclusions.  God gives us these gifts in order that we may use them for the betterment of the Kingdom and also that we may feel good after we have used them.  So, if you don’t know where you are gifted, then just think for a minute as to what really gives you satisfaction when you do it.  Chances are you will find your gift somewhere in that satisfaction.  Remember, this isn’t rocket science!

So, the question becomes what do we do with our talents?  If you are gifted as a teacher, are you teaching?  If you are gifted as an administrator, are you doing this?  After you know your gift, it is not too hard to plug it in somewhere in the church.  It is not too hard to find a place where Jesus wants you to be working even outside the church.  And when you do start to work for Jesus first and everything else second, then you will find satisfaction in your life.  It will be the kind of satisfaction that lasts and not the kind that will be gone tomorrow.  This is why Jesus wants you to do these things.  Jesus doesn’t need your help. He doesn’t need anything from you because He is God and He can do it all.  But He loves you so much that He made you to help Him.  And along with this comes that wonderful feeling of being worthwhile.

Now talents are kind of a different category.  What I mean is that I don’t think that there are people talented or gifted in shoveling the sidewalks.  I don’t think that there are people gifted in cleaning the church.  There are certain things that just have to be done whether or not we are talented in that area.  I have heard many times in larger churches where people will not help out in the mundane tasks of running a church because their gifts lie elsewhere.  And this is not right at all.  Please remember, there are no gifts for some things but certain things just have to be done.

The last part of all of this is just tithing our money.  Tithing is the giving 10% of your money to the church.  If we look at the time of our reading and study it a bit, we will find that they didn’t use money for a lot of things.  Often times they ate what they grew.  They traded their goods for other things.  But what they didn’t have was a pocketbook full of ones, fives, tens or twenties.  When they are asked to give their first fruits or in other places 10% of their crops, this was the same as cash in our modern world.

So how do we do as far as the giving of our cash?   Are you giving the first fruits of your labor and that would be cash in our modern times?  If we take a look at the national statistics, I think that we find that we aren’t doing much better nationally than when I used to throw in a dollar or two every few weeks when I sporadically attended church.  Most people give far less than 1% let alone 10%.  I don’t know if you know this or not but if everyone who attended church tithed, we would soon get rid of the welfare system in this country.  If everyone in this country tithed to a church, our government would shrink up because there would be no use for many of the programs they run.  We would be able to get a handle on world hunger.  This is all because the power of God is awesome.  He can do anything!

God tells us that we are to be giving our first fruits.  He does this so that it will help us and not hurt us.  God never tells us to do things that are bad for us.  I don’t know how long He is going to put up with us telling Him to get His hands off our money.  Sadly, most people don’t realize that it was never their money in the first place.  Everything is God’s and all He wants in return is to taste a French fry.

One of the things that I hear a lot, and this is unfortunate, is that all the church talks about is money.  Well, we are like anyone else.  We need money to exist.  But I don’t think that we talk too much about money.  After all, money is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible.  I think that we talk about the love of Jesus Christ more than anything.  If you want to find someone who talks too much about money then why don’t you talk to the IRS.  They talk about money.  But seriously, I think that you probably do an ok job with your giving, but I don’t know.  So, you need to be reminded every once in a while, that you are to be tithing.  You are to be giving of your time more than what you do.  You are to be giving your talents to Jesus.  And you are to be tithing your income.  He gave us these things to use for the betterment of the world.  And you should also be doing these things for the betterment of yourselves.  Usually when someone comes to me and tells me that the church only talks of money and giving, I am talking with someone who is not holding up their end of the bargain with Jesus.

And that is exactly what you are getting for this deal.  You are getting a bargain.  This may not make any sense but then a lot of the things that God does for us that don’t make a lot of sense, but being able to give is a blessing from God.  It is a blessing to give.  This should blow away some of your minds a little bit, but it is true.  You are to be thankful that you can give.

I want you to know right now that there is nothing in this great Bible of ours where God tells us to do things that are bad for us.  If He tells us to do something, then it is good for us to do it.  I have never seen a faithful believer who is unhappy when giving.  If people seem unhappy when giving, then maybe they aren’t really giving.  They may feel obligated or pressured.  I’m talking about freely giving from the heart.  If you want to be happy then give.  I try to tell this to our young people.  I try to tell this to you.  I hope that you understand this.  When you are giving, then you are Jesus Christ in this world.  And when you are Jesus Christ in this world then there is nothing that can beat you.  You will be on top of the world when you give.  You will not be able to beat or count the blessings you will receive from this simple act.  This is one of the great blessings from our Lord so take advantage of it.

Here is a great little story from Joseph Rodgers that will help illustrate all of this.  It seems that there was once a missionary in Africa who had someone knock on his door one afternoon.  The missionary answered and there was a native boy holding a great big fish in his hands.  The boy said, “Reverend, you have been teaching us about giving and tithing so I have brought you this fish as my tithe.”  Well, the missionary was surprised and very grateful.  But he couldn’t let the boy go without asking him a question.  He asked, “If this is your tithe, then where are the other nine fish?”  At this the boy beamed proudly and said, “Oh, they are still back in the river.  I’m going back to catch them now.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, this is a giving heart.  I hope that you all know that I don’t know who gives to the church or who doesn’t or how much anyone gives.  I don’t know any details of anyone giving except my own.  That is the way it will always be with me.  What I do know about giving is that it is a blessing from Jesus and you are to be thankful for this.  So, think about these things as we begin the season of Lent.  If you want to be happy, if you want to feel good, if you want some real quality time with Jesus then give from your heart.  He will never lead you astray so don’t ever be afraid to do what the Bible tells you to do.  By doing this you will get the love that Jesus is so ready to pour out on you.  Don’t be left out left out because Jesus wants to give you even more love.  I thank the Lord for the day that I discovered the blessing of giving.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.