Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 20, 2022 | Leviticus - The Grain Offering

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February 20, 2022 | Leviticus - The Grain Offering · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you all.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't know it, we're going through the book of Leviticus.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We've been going through the book of Leviticus because it is a part of God's word.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh and we know that all of God's word is good for us to learn about, and it's good for instructing us and helping us to become uh closer to Him.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the book of Leviticus served a purpose to the Israelites as well, the ones who first received this book, and it's that it helped them to understand an aspect of God's holy character.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that quite a bit, that God is holy, he is set apart, he's different than everything else.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the book of Leviticus, though it's often shied away from because of its repetition and its content, is actually a really important book in the Bible.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when we study it as we are now, it will help us draw closer to God, as I said before, and understand the New Testament even better.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, today we're talking about the grain offering.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you are like, Yes, the grain offering! I have been waiting for that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 2, the anticipation was killing me.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: The grain offering is really a wonderful thing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It comes following the burnt offering.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: The burnt offering was something we talked about last week.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the burnt offering and the grain offering were given in the Israelite community as a daily sacrifice to the Lord.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: On top of that, the uh burnt and grain offerings could be given as a voluntary sacrifice to the Lord.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's these implications behind these rituals.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what we're endeavoring to figure out is what are these eternal truths that God is teaching us through these rituals that we no longer abide by?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is he trying to teach us?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we saw last week that the burnt offering was talking about or showing us atonement, that God forgives those who come to him and ask for his help.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where we say, we know we can't do it on our own, we need a sacrifice.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was the purpose of the burnt offering.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then the grain offering comes along, and the grain offering was given immediately afterwards.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: The grain offering, the purpose was that a faithful Israelite could say thanks to God for all of the amazing things that he had done.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was a sacrifice of gratitude.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we get to it in Leviticus 2, 1, we see that anyone, any uh when anyone presents a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, the offering is to consist of fine flour.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your translations might say it was a meal offering or a cereal offering.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is not, we're not burning a box of Cheerios.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is um talking about flour, as it says down here.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so what would happen is uh an Israelite would come to the alt to the tabernacle, right, to the outer court, and would meet the priests there, and there were a couple different methods that we'll get to here in a second for how they could present the grain offering.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, it was not an animal, it was something that came from the field that they had, you know, harvested, and then they would present that to the priests.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was still a burnt offering, because remember, all of these offerings involve fire.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the ways that God shows his satisfaction with what they had done.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, they're bringing flour.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you might be reading this passage here, and you would say, Man, God really wanted us to understand that it was an offering.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's mentioned three times in one verse.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a couple different words here, though, that are sort of playing off of each other.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first two, this, rather, I should say, the second and the third instance, are the same word in the Hebrew.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Same word, it's sort of an umbrella term to describe all kinds of offerings, right?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The burnt offering fits under this, and the grain offering fits under this umbrella as well.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's an offering to the Lord, it is a gift to him, it's a sacrifice.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But when we see anyone presents a grain offering, that's a different word.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's minha.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you have to attack the H.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: You got minha.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, gotta really get behind it.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it means tribute or gift.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same word that's used if you know your Old Testament, where Jacob uh sends a gift to his brother Esau because he's terrified about meeting him and wants to appease him beforehand.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same word that's used once again with Jacob when he is about to go to Egypt and see his son Joseph that he hadn't seen in a long time, but he didn't know that it was Joseph.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: He thought it was uh a high-ranking official within the Egyptian government, and so he sends a gift, a minha, a tribute to this official.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that is given to a king, except in this instance, it's given to our heavenly king.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so this word exists outside of Israelite culture.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that they would give, like I said, as tribute.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but here, as with so many situations in these ritual offerings, it's not that what the Israelites were doing was unique in the sense of, you know, they were the only ones who were sacrificing, but rather it's that God was sort of co-opting all of these pagan practices and bringing them under his control so that they could be sort of redeemed in a way that was honoring to him.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so this offering, though, is nevertheless given, this tribute to our heavenly king.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when you give a gift to a king, especially God himself, it should be of a very high quality.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what uh this chapter, which is sort of broken up into three separate parts, goes on to explain.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is talking about if you're giving an uncooked grain offering, and it's to consist of fine flour.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the second part is if you are going to give a cooked grain offering, and same thing, it is to be made of fine flour, and the third one, which is sort of different than the first two, and we'll get to uh focus on later, but it's talking about bringing first fruits, or in the springtime, that which comes out of the ground first is an offering to the Lord.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things are representative of a high-quality sacrifice.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: When it was the burnt offering, it was an animal without blemish.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the same idea applies, it's just given to an agricultural product.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, this word for fine flour, there's there's two different words for flour in Hebrew.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: One is for this like really fine flour, which we're talking about here, that was made from the interior of the kernel of the grain.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot more effort and time to produce it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was a pure product.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's being offered here.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: The other kind of flour was one that is sort of like whole wheat flour.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was made from the uh the outside of the kernel, and it was made from the bran as well, and it was just sort of ground roughly.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But here it's there's an aspect of royalty, like this was a fine uh commodity.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel talks about it in chapter 16.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's discussing how God has blessed Israel.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You, talking to Israel, were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth, you ate fine flour, same word we're using, honey and oil, you became extremely beautiful and attained royalty.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: The passage goes on to say that even though God did all these things, you rejected him, but nevertheless, it sort of reinforces our point, which is the best of the best was reserved for God, and he deserved it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is a thanksgiving offering.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is them reflecting on all that God has done and saying, Thank you.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: You deserve some of the best.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to um explain for just a moment the way that this offering was given, and then also highlight if you by the way, how many of you are reading Leviticus with us?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: More hands raised next week.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're only two chapters deep.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's catch up.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're talking about this, uh, when you go through these rituals, sometimes the language that is used or the the processes involved with them can be kind of confusing, or we don't understand where it's coming from.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I want to kind of do my best to help you understand that as I needed to understand it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the first way is that the grain offering can be presented uncooked, like raw flour, and you then add oil to it, and then you would also add incense, and then a portion of that would be burned on the altar, and another portion would be given to the priests.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because the priests, the the Levites, they didn't have land of their own, and so the way that they were fed is through the offerings of the people.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so this fine flour and oil, we've already talked about fine flour, but why oil?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why was that important?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, when we look at these kinds of things, you say, I'm gonna endeavor to provide my best guess.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't explain always why, for instance, oil was added.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: We know that oil was um even used as currency back then.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was once more valuable.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's used to anoint kings, like when Saul and David and the others are God says that they are going to be the king, they get a horn of oil poured on top of their head, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sure they love that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this kind of connotation of royalty.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's used in celebrations and it can mean joy, but regardless, it was something that added to the sacrifice.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we see that the uncooked offering also had incense brought to it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps frankincense, which is sort of native to this region.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Frankincense is a hardened sap from a tree.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: They sort of cut the bark off, they allow the sap to come out, it dries for a couple weeks, and then they take off these little nuggets that they'll then burn.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you remember your Christmas nativity story, right, this is a gift fit for a king.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these things that we are adding into this sacrifice to the Lord, it was valuable, and it took a sacrifice on behalf of the Israelites to present it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's important to remember.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But then we go to the second method.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have an uncooked offering or you can have a cooked one.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Both of them are sort of equal in value.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if it was cooked, you could bake it, you could fry it, you could griddle it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there were two important distinctions here that it was that there was no yeast added, and that there was salt added.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to the yeast, once again, we're sort of left doing our best to guess why that is the case.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: There are a couple different reasons.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was not good to add the yeast, it means it must have had a negative connotation to the sacrifice.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It could be, kind of like in Matthew 16, 6, how Jesus loves to use the idea of yeast or leaven to describe the impurity that is sort of tarnishing the purity of the gospel, right, when he's talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it could be that uh the leaven and the yeast were supposed to remind them, or rather, excluding it, was reminding them of the Passover in a time when they needed to hurry out of the land of Egypt and they weren't able to let the bread rise.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: A third uh commentator suggests that maybe it is that the pro the chemical process of yeast was breaking down and causing fermentation, which is actually decay, and that God did not want anything that represented the fall on his altar.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Did the Israelites understand the chemical process of yeast?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe that's what God was doing.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, as we're looking at all of these things, and I'm trying, I'm sort of doing my level best to tell you what is going on.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we can always take away.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's that to the Israelites, this reminded them of God's character.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: When God was giving them these instructions, um, even though we are not able to firmly land on the reason why yeast was not able to be added, we can confidently say that when they were going through this process, it reminded them of God's character and his eternal nature.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: The second component of cooked offerings, though, is something we can clearly deduce because God talks about it.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: In Leviticus 2.13, he mentions three separate times that they're to add salt.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're to season each of your grain offerings with salt.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: You must not omit from your grain offering the salt of the new cov of the covenant with your God, and you are to present salt with each of your offerings, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be salty.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Israelites, non-Israelites.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout antiquity and ancient history, salt was recognized as it is today for its ability to preserve and provide for food, right?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: That it could keep things for a long time.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a uh in some cultures, there was a practice where you would put salt on the blade of a sword and you would pass that blade around and you would taste a bit of the salt as you were ratifying an agreement to represent the significance, the importance, but also the enduring nature of that agreement.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: God wanted salt here to be recognized for that same purpose, that his covenant was everlasting.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same kind of thing that we recognize today.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: That being people of the new covenant, right, we are no longer of the old.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: A new has come, Jesus has come, but even today God has made the promise to us that that relationship with Christ will endure into eternity.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Our covenant with God is seasoned with salt.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is never going to pass away.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: But third and finally, we come to probably the most interesting aspect of the grain offering, which is that it the sort of the third section here is about what to do during a particular feast during the year.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's called the Feast of First Fruits.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Feast of First Fruits, which I will stumble over at least one more time, is the fact that uh in the early spring, right after the beginning of the harvest, there was a feast that all the Israelites gathered together for, where they were celebrating the bounty that God had provided during this harvest.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the things, it was a significant time in the calendar because 50 days afterwards would be the feast of weeks, which we know as Pentecost.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was something that was used to time the other sacrifices throughout the year.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And at this feast of first fruits, God asked his people to present a grain offering.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: But this grain offering was to be special because not only was it the first sort of sheaf of wheat from their land, it was the first budding, um recognizable thing that showed that there was going to be a harvest.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: God got the first of it, but it was also, and this is so important, anticipating something that was coming in the future, which was to those who were hearing this for the first time, the fact that they had been promised a land of their ancestors that would be their own, that they were heading towards the promised land.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so until they get up to that point, it they're supposed to be celebrating this, this promise.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 23, 10.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you enter the land I am giving you and reap its harvest, its greater harvest, you know, flowing with milk and honey, you are to bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so while they're wandering through the desert and still an agricultural community, still, you know, um planting and harvesting grains, it wasn't the same as it was going to be in the future.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they were anticipating this greater thing that was coming, and that celebration happened during this feast.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine this attitude, this heart of thanksgiving that was coming out during this time.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Later on, we know once they did arrive in the promised land, this feast was maintained, but now it had sort of a reflective purpose.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy 26, 9 through 10, he led us to this place, God, and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have now brought the first of the land's produce that you, the Lord, have given me.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And here we see the main theme running through the reasoning behind the grain offering, which is that all of the Israelites were saying, God, this is yours.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is not mine.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, uh this is technically my land, it's my family's land, but actually, it's your land, this is your harvest, it was your rain and your seed that caused this to grow.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, I'm giving back to you my first fruits, my best, because that is what you deserve.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the feast.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I want I want you to think for a moment, to put yourself in the place of the Israelites.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the best tool we have of trying to understand what it must have felt like to offer this sacrifice.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Pretend that you are an Israelite farmer and you have thanked God for the rain that has come into this parched and dry land, and you are now seeing, like we will here in Kansas, just in a few short months, the first sort of stalks coming up out of the ground, representing new life and growth.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're seeing these things and you're reflecting on them, and you're thanking God because you understand that everything that you have has come because of him.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Every good gift is because of God.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're thanking him for that.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But then you also look around and you recognize that the ground you're standing on isn't really suited for this kind of crop.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's rocky and sandy, and you know that God has promised you a time in the future where things are gonna be a lot better than they are now.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're blessed, but the anticipation of the future is almost overwhelming.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: As not only is this gonna be great for your land and your crops, but you get to go to be with all your people where you're supposed to be.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as you're thinking about all of these things, you recognize that God deserves some of this.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's all of it is his.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are simply a steward.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have God has allowed you to work his land for as long as he sees fit.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in that time, you understand that part of your thankfulness, this gratitude that is welling up within you as you're reflecting on all of these things, that the least you could do is give him the first fruits of your harvest.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it's going to represent a sacrifice because, as it says in Leviticus, your family is not allowed to eat of the grain that is in your field until it has been dedicated to God.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Until you have sacrificed to God, your family's not supposed to eat.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one that receives the best.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's this amazing sort of recognition that the grain offering was supposed to keep in the minds and the hearts of the Israelites, as all of these sacrifices were doing.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about bringing flour to an altar and burning it, it is about what it's doing within our hearts to the Israelites, but even to us today, because we have the ability to also give a component of the grain offering to God.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Though nobody's asking you to like go pick up a pound of flour and huck it into a bonfire, right?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: We have the ability to give God our first fruits as well.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Paul picks up this narrative, Paul, a master of the law, in the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 1.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true worship.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the same idea here.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, because you are reflecting on all he has done for you currently and also in anticipation of the future.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: In Romans chapter 10, Paul had said, Um, if you say that you trust in God and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved, the current blessing of the sacrifice of Christ is welling up within our hearts as we reflect on it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: But then also in Romans 11, he had just finished telling the Israelites, people who had walked away from God, that there was a time coming in the future when they would be restored and have true fellowship with him.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: That there was an anticipation of what was coming.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And though we are all, as the Bible would say, Gentiles, unless you're from Israel, we are all Gentiles, then we're recognizing that there's a future for us too.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: That we reflect on the mercies of Christ that can be experienced right now, that all of our sins can be washed away, but that there is a time coming, our own sort of promised land, that we get to go and be in where there is no more crying and there's no more tears, and all of the burdens of this life are washed away, and we get to be in complete fellowship, not only with God, but with everybody who has passed away who has trusted in Christ and His promises.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we are anticipating these things, and Paul says, When you have done that in view of the mercies of God, I urge you, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, no longer required to give bulls, but your bodies, your lives, everything you have, because this is holy and pleasing to God.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is true worship.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not per se coming here into this room.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And singing songs, though that is worship.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the true worship is how we respond to God.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere in the Bible, other writers have picked up on this narrative, and at the end of James chapter one, he talks about, you know, true worship is dedicating your lives to those who are vulnerable, to the widows and the orphans, to giving of yourself.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul here, he says, it is your bodies, and more than your bodies, it is your whole life.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul recognized that and knew that more than anyone.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: But are we immune to the fact that we love to not give God our best?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or is anybody truly immune to this idea that we fall short of giving God our first fruits?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I had my first job working in youth ministry at my old church, and um it was it was a pretty tiny church, and the way that we raised funds for the student ministry mission trip was we had a garage sale or a yard sale.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was told when I was hired, they were like, this is huge.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is how we do it, this is a big deal, everyone gets excited for it.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And in one fell swoop, we raise all the money that we need for the mission trip.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, okay, you know, I'll prepare that.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh that's what happened is the pastor there, he was telling the whole congregation, about a hundred people, you know, that, hey, consider what you can give, something of value to the youth group, so that they can sell it and then they can go on this mission trip.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we had a we had a sweet lady I remember who um called me and had me move her like 900-pound antique dresser because she wanted to dedicate something of significant value to the Lord.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably worth thousands of dollars when she bought it in the first place.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there were volunteers who came to process all these things.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But as we got to the week of the garage sale, garbage bags started being piled in front of the church.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Anonymous donations filled with um rusty for uh rusty silverware, shoes with holes in them, broken printers, um a tattered and stained clothing.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Legitimately, somebody gave us a box that was had been like shoved under their sink that was half-empty cleaning products and a half-used tube of toothpaste.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I it was my job to spend the night at the church to make sure that nobody stole any of this, these things.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I woke up the next morning, the day of the garage sale, and during the middle of the night, from between 9 and you know 6 a.m.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: or whatever, a heap of garbage bags had been placed in front of the church doors again.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: People who were just coming during the middle of the night because they didn't want people to see what they were giving.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these things, we had hundreds, thousands of items on these tables.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it was almost impossible to sell any of them for the student ministry because people had, many people had given something that made them feel good, like they had contributed, but was not giving their best.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was not giving something in any way that was sacrificial, it was not doing something that was honoring to the Lord.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: One of the great, I can tell you, the one who honored the Lord the most was I recruited a retired salesman named Charles, who's since gone to be with the Lord.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was a great guy, and I told him to just swing into action and start selling everything.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he went into full salesman mode, and it was like a car lot there, and half of the product was moved by the end of the day because he used, he gave the best of his best to God's kingdom.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what's my point here, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are not immune to this.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: We are not immune to the fact that there can be this turning in our heart that we know that we should be giving something back to God.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking much broader than finances, that we should be giving something back to God, but yet we fall prey to the comfort of giving God something that makes us feel good, that other people can see, but yet is not actually in any way a sacrifice.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is certainly not first fruits.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So here's our lesson for this morning is that reflecting on the love of God will motivate us to offer the best of our lives and what we have to Him.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you the problem that we have, that I have.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're not listening to Paul's advice.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 12.1 that we're to reflect on the mercies of God.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens: we don't reflect on the mercies of God.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: We don't allow the knowledge of Christ and what he's done for us and our anticipation of a future filled with hope.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't allow those things to drive us forward.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, instead, we allow our selfish motivations to drive us forward.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: We allow the this idea that we have peer pressure and expectations and a sense of guilt to move us forward into this space.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what ends up happening when we are motivated by lesser means instead of the greater means is that we are driven by shame instead of driven by hope and joy, we are driven by shame into giving something to God's kingdom that sort of quiets the gnawing within our heart for a couple months until it comes back up again.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: We aren't giving God the best of the best because we are not reflecting on his love, and therefore we're not motivated.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if for any of you, let me tell you this, listen to me dearly, if there are any of you when you reflect on the love of God and Jesus Christ, and it does not motivate you into love and good deeds, into giving him the best of the best, we need to be back here.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be focusing on that.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that is your mission, because it is this amazing thing that God has created within us, as we recognize all of the glorious mercy that He has given, that as we just ponder it and consider it, it should make us want to do great things for Him.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if that chain of command is broken, then that means our heart is broken because we don't understand the sacrifice of Jesus.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know the gospel.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know what it means that God descended as man and lived a perfect life and died the punishment that we deserved so that we don't have to face that punishment.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: If that does not stir something within you, then I encourage you to consider that because that is the gospel, and the gospel is supposed to be driving us forward.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can we do?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that the lesson of the grain offering today still applies just as much to us as it did to the Israelites.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to go and give flour at the altar, but we are still called by God to give him our best.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I have is um a little statement.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: God deserves my best.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: My love for him means that my blank must change.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'd encourage you, I got a couple things that I'm gonna throw in here in the last few minutes that we have.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Some things that I think apply to a lot of us.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know that they apply to me.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this answer is gonna be different for everybody.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because as we reflect, right, which is what we're doing, we reflect on the mercies of Christ and recognize, as we should, that the sacrifice of Jesus is not requiring any gift from us, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is not some sort of Greek pantheon where we are trying to appease an angry God that can send thunder and lightning.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like the Canaanites, where they were giving sacrifices just so they could get something good from their God.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: We've already gotten all the good stuff, and the good stuff, even more, is coming and promised to us.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And through that, we should want to change a component of our life so that God gets our best.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Three things.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Things that I think apply to us, but many more will probably apply.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I need to be careful how I say that.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think all of these things apply to me, and there are also things that you can fill in here that probably apply to you individually.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: The first one, God deserves my best.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: My love for him means that my family must change.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you giving your best to your family?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: God has called you, every single one of you.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: The first place of your ministry is to your family.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you're married and have kids, it is uh a lot clearer in the Bible about how those relationships are to work out.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have children and you're married, or if you're not married and you have your extended family or your friends that are like family, this is where you have been called to ministry first.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when we fail to give our best to our family, when we fail to honor them, then we're not giving our best to God.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is your family getting all of your the best, the first fruits of your time and your energy and your attitudes, or are they getting what's left over at the end?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sort of giving the harvest and keeping it for yourself?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then the sort of grains that come out of the wagon at the end are what is given to the family, or do you set aside the part for them very first?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking about here.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So for each of these, I have a small thing that I would suggest.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: If it's your family and you recognize the need to be leading your family to the Lord and showing them that you're giving your best, if you're married or whomever you would like to talk to, sit down with them and say, Do you feel like our family is giving, is getting my best?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like I'm giving you my best?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And give your partner or whomever you're talking to, your best friend or whatever, your aunt and your uncle, give them the opportunity to be honest in that exchange.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because a healthy family that is giving its first fruits to God is a glorious thing that shares Christ with the world.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Second, God deserves my best.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: My love for him means that my finances must must change.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta get a lot more comfortable with this.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's just the fact that I put the word finances up there.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, oof, this is a little too much for me.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta get a lot more comfortable with this.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: God has given you everything that you own.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that you've ever bought, it's because God has given you the income and the ability to provide for yourself.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that you have is actually God's.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: You are a steward of it.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is your checkbook advancing the kingdom of God?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Would God be honored with the way that you're spending your money?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are you giving him the first fruits?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are you giving him the best of the best?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you just giving him what's left over, or are you giving him nothing at all in return?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to our finances, Christians, we love to talk about the need to give, but we are the only ones who knows what our checkbook looks like, and the people who prepare our taxes.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to our finances, we've got to recognize that we should put ourselves in the shoes of that Israelite farmer who says, God, everything that I have is because of you.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that you have given me is because you are good to me.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: And out of the overflow of my heart and recognition for Christ, I want to make sure that the Great Commission, that the gospel, that Jesus Christ is being sent to the ends of the earth, and I know that one of the only ways that we can do that, especially here, if I am not sharing it in my community, is that I am giving to these missions so that they can be accomplished.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do here?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: This one's pretty simple.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not giving to the kingdom of God, specifically to the church, then that's got to change.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is God's method now.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am no uh like televangelist up here trying to buy a private jet, believe me.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you have is for God.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: So um consider and look at your budget and think about is God being honored by the way that I'm spending this money?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how much any single one of you gives to the church.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: That information is kept far from me, and I intend for it to stay that way.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea as I look out how many people are giving, but I do know that some of us are not giving our best, and that is not good.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: So consider ways in which you can honor God with your finances.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, God deserves my best.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: My love for him means that my schedule must change.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have time to read the Bible?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've got time to read the Bible.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: How is your time being given to God?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is he getting the first fruits of your time?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got children, what are they learning about your relationship with Christ by the way that you're spending time?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are they learning about their future relationship with Christ because of what you're communicating to them?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: How is your schedule, or rather the schedule of your children and sometimes their sports schedule, how is that communicating to them the need for Christ in church community?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can feel the discomfort.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be clear.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying this out of love.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And all of these things, every single one of these three things, applies to me.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I have been walking through it this whole week as I've been praying to God and saying, Lord, I know that I have not given you my best so often.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you have often received the leftovers from me.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as I reflect upon the mercies of Christ, I recognize that I need to do better.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not because God is going to honor me more, not because I'm going to get good things in this life for doing it, not because I am going to get some special, you know, mega deal or something like that.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is because I want to thank the Lord for everything He's done.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, the sorry, excuse me, the one last thing here.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I would encourage you, if you recognize that your time is not being given to the Lord, sit down tonight in your GCAL and your planner in your reminder notes.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as you look at the next week, set aside time for God first before you start populating that with every other meeting and every other thing that needs to get done.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure he's getting the first fruits.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So as we wrap up this section here on the grain offering, I just want to leave us with, I think, some encouragement, but also a mission.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it comes from the book of Hebrews 13, 15 through 16.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I want to leave you with.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, through Jesus, let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is the fruit of lips that confess his name.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters in Christ, I know that we all love Jesus, but often enough we do not thank God for what he has done.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And often enough, our lives, because we have this eternal sacrifice of Jesus that has forgiven us of everything, both in the past and the present and in the future, because we have that, we sometimes take it for granted.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I encourage you first to reflect, to think about those things, especially if you feel like that relationship is broken and you don't appreciate it enough.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: To reflect on that relationship and then see how the Holy Spirit is working within you and your heart and your family to be able to set forth these practices that continuously remind us of our stewardship of everything that God has given us and how we can, in just a small measure, give Him thanks with something that causes us to sacrifice.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are so good to us.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: You have brought us the blessing of the lives that we have now, and God, the hope and the anticipation of a future where there will be no more pain and no more suffering.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, where there will be no more death and disease, and we will be with you forever.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: With those who have fallen, Lord, those who have passed on and have trusted in you, we will see them again.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Father, in anticipation of that and all of the wondrous things that you'll do between now and then, God, we want to honor you.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we we know that you're not going to, this is no prosperity thing.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know that by giving you this, we are not anticipating anything in return because you've already given us everything that we could ask for.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, God, just because we say thank you, I ask that you would help the Holy Spirit to wrestle with us, to attack these parts of our lives that have sort of become calcified and hardened, and to open them up to you.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, open them up to you because you deserve our best.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we thank you.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.