Acknowledging God's Grace and Provision

The book of Deuteronomy, it has a big change right here at the end of chapter 25 and beginning with 26. It has a series of instructions about daily life and how to live and now there is kind of a transition. It moves away from that but still there are instructions about what they are to do when they get in the land of promise. And this whole chapter has to do with their response to God from allowing them to be in the land of promise. Verse 1 of chapter 26, when you entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the first fruits of all that you have produced from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for His name and say to the priest in the office at the time, I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us. The priest shall take the basket from your hands and sit it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. That I want to break there verse 4 because it kind of takes a change after that. This first section is a powerful affirmation of grace. The idea that God has given them something. If you look at these verses in verse 1, he says the Lord your God is giving you. If you look in verse 2, he said the Lord your God is giving you again a second time. And then in verse 3, he said you come to the land the Lord your God swore to your forefathers to give to us. That's a third one. And then if you look on down in verse 9, he says he brought us to the place and gave us this land. That's fourth time. And then in the next verse, he says, O Lord, that you, O Lord, have given me. And that's the fifth time he uses that word give. And then when he comes to verse 11, he says rejoice in all the good things your God has given you. Six times in these 11 verses, he repeats the idea that the land was given to them as a gift of grace. Grace simply means that somebody does something for you that you haven't earned. They give you something more than what you have actually earned. That becomes a gift. And this gift is a gift of grace instead of payment. If you work for something and you get paid, it's your payment. If something is given to you that you haven't earned or didn't deserve, it is an act of grace. So the very first thing he starts with is when you get into the land of promise, I want you to come to God and acknowledge the fact that the land that you have was given to you as an act of God's grace. Now when they entered the land, they hadn't yet entered it, but when they enter the land, they have to fight all the people who live there and drive them out and risk their own lives and some of them will die. But they still recognize that it is a gift of grace. Grace does not mean that God gives you things without your effort. It just means that he gives you something above and beyond what you've actually earned. And if it wasn't for him, no matter how much you fought or did, you would never have it. That God has acted in some way to give this to you. What he's beginning with is to say when you get into the land of promise and you plant your seed and you harvest your crop, now you realize when he's talking about these first fruits, it's not when you get into the land and right there on the very first day when you've settled in the land, you say, okay, we're going to make this celebration. But when you planted your crops and when you harvest your crops and when you take it, the produce from this land that I promised to you, you take a basket of it to God and you say to him, we thank you for what you've given to us. You acknowledge that God has been gracious to you. Now, again, the crops that they brought in the basket and set before the Lord didn't grow without them planting the seed, cultivating the plants, picking the fruit. All of it had work involved in it. But there was a recognition that this was something God gave to them. Now what's important about this is it's a reflection of our relationship with God. It's a key ingredient to it. Now the second thing he's talking about here is that there are two ways by which the pronouns are used in this paragraph. First of all, he starts off by saying from himself, I declare to the Lord that I have come to the land the Lord has swore to our forefathers to give to us. There is a switch back and forth between the singular pronouns and the plural pronouns. There's an awareness that this is something that he is recognizing as a gift to him and also an awareness that he's part of a larger group and there's a gift being given to all of them. That the work of God and the gift of God is not only an individual gift, but it's also a gift to the whole community of faith. He's identifying that the fact that God has acted in his life, but not apart from the community of believers. All the way through the Bible, the Bible emphasizes the reality that his people live in community. We call this community the church. There we didn't have the church, but we had the community of faith that would have been the same thing as we talk about the church. They call it the nation of Israel, but it's really the church. God's work is not individual for us. He always does this in connection with the community so that God's blessings to each one of us are an impact on the community and the blessings that he gives to other people have an impact on us. When God blesses us by giving us spiritual gifts, for example, those gifts are a benefit to all the church, not just to the individual who has it. So a person is a good teacher in Sunday school. It's not simply that person's gift, but it's a gift to the whole community of faith. Now in reading this story, I want you to think about what this passage says about the nature and character of God. I want to read this, and I want you to think about what it says to us about God. When you've entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the first fruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling place for his name and say to the priest in the office at the time, I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our forefathers to give to us. The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. What struck you about that passage? About God? The Lord your God? Recognition and credit for this. And the Lord our God or your God, does he say ours or yours both in these? Did you notice that? The Lord your God? The Lord always the Lord your God? Yeah, I didn't notice that. And all of this is to be is to be done at a specific time after the harvest when it's finished and then that reflection is given. So there's a specific context for the action. Yeah, obedience. God is the Lord, it's a word for king or ruler, an acknowledgement over and over again, the Lord your God, the Lord who rules you over and over again is an acknowledgement of the supreme authority of God. There is an acknowledgement of God as the ruler. Acknowledgement of God as the provider of the crop. Acknowledgement of God as the one who chooses the place where you're to make the sacrifice. An acknowledgement of God as the one that you depend on. So here is a here's a repeated almost over and over and over again, that phrase, Carol, that you pointed out about the Lord your God. The ruler who is your God. And when you say the Lord and God, sometimes we think of those as equals. But the Lord focuses on the dominion. The nature of the rule, the one in charge, God simply focuses on the character of this person in dominion, he is the God, the one overall who's in charge. So when they come to recognize this time, what are they recognizing about the Lord God? What is the Lord asking them to recognize? The provision. Does that sound familiar to you in terms of the of the covenant? It was one of those four things that God promised he would do for his people. I will provide for you. When he gave this covenant with Abraham, he's talking about Sunday, he said, now I'm going to guide you to a land that I'm going to give you. The covenant was that old. And it was from Abraham's time to this time before the covenant was really realized. The promise was made to Abraham a long time ago, but it's only now that it's being fulfilled. This was an important ingredient. Because the promise that was made to Abraham never really was completely fulfilled. Now it is these people are residents in the land. Now, Abraham traveled across the country with his sheep, but these people now become residents there. The covenant is finally coming to pass in fulfillment and completion. That was the promise made to Abraham. Now, we don't live in the land of promise. What does this tell us about our relationship with God? What do you see in here that would be a requirement of God for us in our modern time? In our modern time. Giving, tithing. This is a little bit different than tithing. He's going to he's going to talk about that in a few moments. What is the significance of the first fruit? Excuse me, all his. I don't think we have a farmer in here, do we? The best. Now, which is first, the very best first cutting of your hay is usually the best one. The first tomato you get off of it is always the best one because you waited so long for it. So here's your here you're talking about God saying to his people, whenever I give you. The. Promises that I've made in terms of provision, I want you to acknowledge. That they come from me. You know, a lot of churches are going to credit cards for giving. And you can just get on your Internet and you can give your credit card number and they can switch money from your account to the church's account. And it's a simple transaction that you take like you'd pay any other bill. I think there is some value. In the church coming together and recognizing that all the assets and resources we have together are a gift of God. You know, one of the biggest objections people have to giving to the church. I just don't believe I should have to give my money. My money. To God. What is money to start with? That's exactly what this passage teaches. I've given you this, all those givings through here. I have given you this. Now, they had to fight for it and they had to work for it. But over and above all of this, it was the recognition that this would never have happened without God. He's sharing it with them. Now, he didn't he didn't take it all. It's a basket. Yeah. Which would probably be the. Well, they did. We don't know how much it would be, but it would be a recognition that this this this gift of the crop that you've given to me. I am recognizing that it's really yours and I give it to you as a sign that it is yours. I think what the Bible wants us to understand is the ownership of God, of the world and all that was in it. The recognition that we're dependent on God and his grace for what we have. This is a foundation stone of living in this world. If you don't have that concept, you see. Then facing the authority of God will be difficult for you. If somebody comes up to you after you've earned your paycheck and says, I want to get half of your paycheck. Your first reaction is, I'm not going to do that. Why? It's not theirs. They didn't work for it. It doesn't belong to them. But when God talks about giving, he's not talking about needing the money or the assets. He's talking about needing the understanding that he is the ruler of all heaven and earth and that it belongs to him, that it's really his. That's what he wants us to recognize. And once you recognize that it is a gift, then your recognition that it's a gift allows God to work with you in a way that he couldn't otherwise. Have you ever given something to someone and you knew that they didn't really accept it as a gift, but they thought you owed them that? If you've had that experience of giving someone a gift and finding out that they thought, well, that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted something different than that. And they're mad because you didn't give them what they wanted. There's no gift in it. You understand that your gift of grace in their mind was that you owed them something. What God wants us to understand is all of this is his and our giving should come from that. I'm a little reluctant sometimes to to say to people, you know, you have to give a tithe or to give to the church. And if you don't, God's going to take it back from you anyway, like it's some kind of a deal, because it kind of works around the idea of accepting the concept of giving. Around the idea of accepting the concept that everything is God's. See, sometimes I see people who talk about the tithe as if, OK, I've paid God off. Now, the rest of this is mine. And that misses the whole concept of God's ownership of all, and I think this passage is trying to get us to come to grips with the reality that what God has given us all belongs to him and he's giving it to us for our use and for the and for the fulfillment of the promise that he's made to his people. So we're not in the business in the church of raising money. Because, you know, that's what the world does out there. What we're in the business of doing is helping people understand where they fit in this great world that God has made, he is in charge, all the world belongs to him, and he asks us to have some time in which we recognize his gift to us. Now, you could, if you sat down at your computer, entered your credit card number on there and transferred your assets from the bank to the church's bank, you could sit there and say, God, all of this money is yours and I'm giving you this part of it to fight to, you know, in obedience to you, because I think this is what you've asked me to do. But I think it is somewhat easier. To come to church and in the setting of a corporate group. Simply say to God is the offering plate is passed, Lord, everything I have is yours. I ask you what I should give. To the church, to the mission offering. And you clearly explained to me what I should give, and I give this to you as a recognition that you are the Lord and everything in the world belongs to you and my gift to you recognizes your greater gift to me. I don't like necessarily just putting my money in an envelope and passing it in the Sunday school class, even though you could say that same prayer there. But I've always found it most helpful whenever I had children, I'd sit beside me and when they pass the offering plate, I would take one of them and say, this is the money we're giving to God because he's given us so much and we want to remember that he owns everything and this is our gift back to him. And I would say, thank you, God, for this money that you've given us. And we return to you what you've told us to give. I wanted them to understand the whole picture of what God is trying to say. God is holding up before his people in this passage, the reality that he is in charge of everything and our giving to him should reflect that. It's supposed to teach us our total dependence on God. It's supposed to teach us our total, complete recognition of his ownership of all things so that the act of giving here has nothing to do with the money or the crops, but it has everything to do with the spiritual dimension of how we see the world and how God wants us to recognize his place. He is the owner who in grace gives us everything he promised to give us. Let's bow, please, for a moment of prayer. I'd like to start by just asking you to give thanks to God for what he's given you. We're going to have several opportunities this month as our state missions offering, and we don't set goals for the state mission offering. We just ask everyone to say to God, what do you want to give? You mean, what do you want me to give to the mission work in Kansas, Nebraska? And the 29th will pass an offering plate for that. In October, we're going to take an offering for the Bible sticks, those Bibles that they give to soldiers. I'd like you to say to God, if you will tell me what I should give to these, I will do it in recognition that you are my Lord. Now, let me say to you that if you ask that question of God and you feel that he doesn't want you to give anything, don't give it. The key ingredient is recognizing he is in charge. If he doesn't want any of your money for an offering, then honor him about it. If he's given you an amount, then honor him with it. What we're trying to do is to recognize he is our Lord. And as our Lord, Father, we trust you with everything. Amen. Thank you.