Understanding God's Covenant and Provision

I begin this evening by reading a passage from Genesis chapter 12, if you'd find that in your Bibles. I have to go over a bit, speak at the Vacation Bible School ending tonight, so when I get wrapped up, I'll be leaving as somebody would lock up the building, turn the lights off, that would be helpful to me. The reason I want to read this passage in Genesis chapter 12, I want to read verses 1 through 3, is this covenant that God made with Abraham is a fundamental issue in all the scriptures. When God called Abraham, he made a promise to him, and this promise that he made to Abraham is a guiding contract or covenant that God had with all the people of Israel. And when you look at the passage in Deuteronomy, in Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy, all of these things are explanations as to how the contract or covenant that God has with the people of Israel is supposed to work. This is what I expect of you, God is saying, and here's what you can expect of me. Now, the covenant that's made with Abraham was renewed with Isaac and Jacob, and it's the fundamental basis of the Sermon on the Mount, so that the continuous idea of what God is doing is spread throughout the scriptures. And it's helpful for us to keep in mind what God is doing, and when you read these instructions or laws that God gives, they're really to put into practice this very beginning promise or covenant that God made. The Lord said to Abraham, leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the people on the earth will be blessed through you. And when I talk about this covenant, I talk about four things it contains. One is God guided Abraham from where he is to where he wanted him to go, and it was an evidence in this that God's guidance was a primary beginning of the covenant promise. Leave your country, your people, your father's household, and go to the land I'll show you. The second thing that happens is he leads him to a land where he's able to be able to live and make a living. So that's the provision that he promised Abraham. He promised him he would make him a great nation, which means that his life would be useful and productive and fulfilling. He promises him he will protect him. I'll bless those that bless you. I'll curse those that curse you. So the four elements of this contract or covenant that God makes is he guides us, tells us what to do. He provides for us. He gives us a land where Abraham could make a living, and for us a different kind of provision. He protects us from those people that would hurt us. He stands between us and them, and he makes our lives meaningful and valuable so that our lives have a purpose or a goal or something to accomplish. Now, the covenant is fulfilled as God brings his people into the land of promise. He brings them here and he says, now, here is how you're going to live this covenant out. And all the promises that are found in that covenant are reflected in the laws that God gives them, because the laws are to be the guidelines by which the covenant is actually carried out. The fundamental one about guidance is given here in the law. This is God's guidance. I will tell you how to be able to live. This is the way you can live individually and in community. If you do this, then you'll be able to have a good life and the community you live in will have a good life. So that's the fundamental beginning. And all the covenant is the fulfillment of that promise. I will guide you. I'll not only tell you where to go. I'll tell you how to be able to live and you can trust the guidance that I give you. In this section, in chapter 24, he's now talking about the provision side of this, the land that I'm going to give you and how you're to use this land in a way to be able to live and the people around you live. And it's in Deuteronomy chapter 24. I'm going to begin with verse 19. When you get to this land and where you're going to live, this is how my provision will be made, both for you and for others. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back and get it. Leave it for the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from the tree, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and that's why I command you to do this. Now, in this passage, God teaches us things. In all the scriptures, what we're learning from all the scriptures is something about God and something about ourselves. Something about how we live and how we deal with people that are around us. I want you to look at this passage in your Bible and see what you see in this nature about God. What does the Bible teach us about the nature and character of God in this passage? For here, we're getting a picture of the person we're to serve, what his character is like, and what his nature is like. And here, we're getting a picture of how he wants to shape us. If you know what God is like, then you know when the Holy Spirit takes over your life, the kind of person he's trying to make you into or the person he wants you to become. Do you see anything in here that strikes you about the nature of God? What do you see? Okay. You're pointing out the nature of God's promise that I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to provide for you. And the test of faith is not to go back and pick up the sheath that you've left behind and not to glean carefully from everything that you have in the tree or on the ground. Now, how does that fit us? What does it mean if we talk about... I mean, none of us have... We're going to go out and cut sheaths of grain and stock them, make shocks out of them. And I don't think anybody has olive trees. How does this principle work in the lives of believers today? When you take God's promises that you see in the scriptures and just believe them for what they are, and quit trying to think of them more than they are, and add to them, or in fact, add something deeper. The scriptures say Abraham believed God, and Kenneth learned his righteousness. It's a simple faith. Have you ever had in your own lifetimes in which God asked you financially to do something that seemed risky for you? Difficult? Can you give an example of how that might be? Something that would be risky financially that God asks of you? What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, it's not just financial, but the financial aspect of it is if you truly care about God's work getting done, then he's willing to provide that work for you to earn that money so you can give it back to him. And, you know, he's got three kids, and bills, and tea houses, and, you know, all kinds of things that go into that because he's got money for both of them. But yet, he has a greater calling, and he tells you, don't worry, you know, just be obedient to what I tell you to do, or you don't see the outcome, you see maybe red numbers. But you ask God whenever you are going to write your check for the church, or take the money you're going to give to God, of looking at it and saying, maybe not this paycheck, it looks like it's not going to work. You ever had that experience? What happens? Now, could God give us enough so that would never occur? So, what does it tell us about God? So, he's going to put us constantly in positions where our own reason and our own financial planning may not appear to work. So, the tithe will always be difficult. The offering will always be difficult. Because if God is working with his children, he wants them to believe that I will keep my word. And if I give you everything that you need and ask for, and there's never any question as to whether or not it's going to come, then the very object of his dealing with us, teaching us to trust him in all kinds of circumstances, will disappear. Now, the opposite usually happens to people. You start talking about stewardship, and they start saying, you know, I don't think I could do that. And if God will give me enough so I can do that, then I will be willing to do this. But you see, that's not possible for God to do it and work with us the way he wants to. It's not a matter of a promise if the reality is there. In other words, if you have more than enough you need, and you have 10% left over every month, and then you come and say, okay, I'll write that because I always have 10% left over no matter what, then it's not really faith. You have it in your hand. So what God is trying to do with all this covenant promise, it's true of all of them, is he's trying to teach us to believe that his promise to us is real, so that we can trust that any promise he makes to us and anything he asks will really come to pass. And one of the ways he does it, that you pointed out, is he calls us to act in faith with regard to that. I think it would be hard, you know, when you're farming and you've finished your crop and you say, I left a bundle of wheat or barley in the field. I mean, you want to go back and get it because you've not only raised it, you've cut it, and you've bundled it, and you've done all the work, and now someone else is going to come along and get it. What is God telling us about this? I mean, let me look at this passage and point something out to you. When you're harvesting in your field and you overlook the sheaf, do not go back and get it. Leave it for the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow. Now, when you read that, leave it to the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow, it sounds like you have this grain and you're leaving it in the field, but it still belongs to you. Is that the way you get that kind of idea? The Hebrew phrases this a little differently. When it says this, it says, the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow, it belongs to them. It's theirs. In each of these instances, God is saying, the bundle you left behind actually belongs not to you, but to the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow. He's saying, the grapes on the vineyard that you don't pick, the extra ones that are there, don't belong to you, they belong to the Aeolian, the fatherless, and the widow. The olives belong to them too. Now, whenever God is saying this, he's telling us something important about himself. All that you have is mine. I've given you the harvest for your part of this. Now, since it's mine, I've given what's left over to these people. It's a powerful idea that grows out of the creation story. Everything in the world is God's. That's the fundamental basis of stewardship. Everything in the world belongs to God. So, he's saying to the man who's going to be apportioned a piece of land as they get into the promised land, this land is yours. I'm giving it to you to use, but it really belongs to me. Now, when you start farming this ground, here's the way I want you to do it. You're to farm it, feed your family, take care of them, but here's the way I want you to use my grain that I give to you. You can take all of it you can in the first harvest, but whatever's left over, I'm not giving it to you, I'm giving it to someone else. The people who don't have land, who cannot make a crop. So, God is letting us know by this story about his ownership. His efforts to promise to fulfill the promise he made is not direct to either party. The farmer who has the ground can't go sit in his house and say, well, I'm going to watch the fields out there and I'm sure there'll be a good crop of wheat or barley. He has to plow the field. He has to work at it. He has to make sure that everything's done as it ought to be done to make sure it grows. But when it comes, he wants the farmer to recognize this is my gift to you. It really is mine. Now, here's what I want you to do with the crop. Go out and harvest it, but don't be too careful to harvest all of it. For I have some people over here that I want also to feed from this ground that I've left you have to work. So, get the normal part of the harvest, but don't go back a second time and make sure you get every little bit because that belongs to these people who don't have any ground. This great picture of God's protection and care for people helps us to understand something about God and how he sees the world. Now, we don't have crops, but you think of it this way. I have a job, I have an income, and my tendency is to think all of this income is actually mine. And when you talk to people about stewardship, they often say, I don't know why God wants to get some of my money. And what they're missing is the reality that everything is God's. Stewardship is not an incidental part of the Christian life, it's the fundamental part. God owns everything. And everything I have is a gift from God. And everything I have, I am to use as God directs me. This is the nature of the Christian life. I give my life to God, and everything in my life is actually His. Now, directly, He blesses us with a job or a farm or whatever it is we have. And then He says, okay, you've been blessed, now I want to bless someone else through you. That's what He does with the farmer. I want to bless someone else through you. Both to the fatherless and the widows, He's keeping His covenant promise. But He's not keeping it by giving them land, He's keeping the promise by giving them the opportunity to be able to do what the farmer's doing, harvesting a crop that God has provided. So, what the Bible is teaching in this story is how God makes His provision in the world. He doesn't just automatically put it in your checking account, you have to get a job and work for it. He doesn't automatically give us more than we need so that we have enough left over to give for mission offerings or latimun offerings or tithe offerings. I had a friend one time whose church was in a building committee, a building project. And they brought the fundraiser in from the outside to help them give money to this project. And they wanted him to be the chairman of the building campaign fund. So, when the guy came and talked to him, what they say is, you're a businessman here, you have a great business, and so what we need you to do is to lead the church in giving the money. So, we want you to sit down and we want you to decide what you're going to give and we want you to announce to the church your gift. And so, he sat down and decided what he was going to give. And the guy said, now we want you to stand up for the church and say to the church, here is my sacrificial gift, we're going to say, not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice. He said, I'm not going to do that. The fundraiser said, why are you not going to do that? He said, well, it's not equal sacrifice. I'm going to give this money, and it's a pretty big chunk of money, but I can promise you that it's not going to change my lifestyle one bit. If I want a new car, I can go buy a new car. If I want to take a trip, I can take a trip. It's not going to change my lifestyle. This is not a sacrifice for me. My friend refused to participate in something he thought was not really true. God had blessed him enormously. He'd been generous. He tied on his business, 10% of his company's business. He also tied with his own personal income. But he was honest in saying, God's abundance with me, giving it is not really a sacrifice. Sometimes God gives us abundance of things, and sometimes he asks us to give sacrificially. All of these things belong to God. That's what he's trying to help us understand. Now, when we learn that God's ownership, this is one of the issues that are here, and God deals with us in terms of making sure that in our lifestyle, he never leads us to make sure that we have more than we need. My friend that I was telling you about didn't start out where he ended up. He started out in the beginning, living hand to mouth, just like all the rest of us do. And God's blessings were enormous. He called me one time and said, I'm having a hard time finding enough places to put the money God's asked me to give. He used to send us money, and we'd help churches around here who were building and building programs. Because he was aware that everything that God had given him, he had an obligation to find out why God had given it to him and where it was to go. This is the concept that's wrapped up in the covenant promise God makes to us. I will provide for you. Now, when you look at this story, what is the other side of this picture? What does God require of those who are to receive God's benefit? What does it tell us about what God asks of people? What is this requirement of us in this stewardship picture? Not just the giving. What do you see it teaches us about our role in God's world? Anything strike you? Well, first, remember that you were placed in need of this by a community of people. And basically, it's in your mouth, too, because we all have it in our mouth. And it's telling us to remember that, you know, I'm giving you this. Don't take it all, because I'm giving it to them, too. You know? As I have been generous to you when you didn't have it, I want you to be generous with other people. It's not really a law. He's teaching us principles. And generosity is one of those qualities God has. A lot of people think that God is really hard on us, but He's generous. Anything else you saw in this? How does God give us these blessings? Obedience in what way? Okay. What does He require of the farmer to get his crop? Plant it? Harvest it? If that doesn't happen, all of God's gift is lost. What does He plan for the poor, the widows, and the orphans? See, I think one of the things that's deceptive for us oftentimes is we think that being Christian and our charity means giving money to people. In God's picture of how He plans for it, the widow and the orphan and the alien had to do the same thing the farmer did. They've got to go into the field, harvest the grain. Theirs might have been a little harder. I mean, they had to pick it up off the ground one grain at a time. They had to go up on the trees and get the hard stuff. But it was available for them, but it was never given apart from their effort or their labor. This teaches us something important about God. What God gives us is never just handed over without some effort on our part. You have to work for it. And whenever you do the things that God tells you to do, He keeps His sight of it. You go out there in the field, He makes sure that there's some grain there for you to pick up. When you go to the olive tree, He makes sure there's some olives on that tree. When you go out to the grape vineyard, He makes sure there's some grapes on there. If you want to sit home and wait for somebody to bring it to you, good luck. That's not God's method of how He deals with us. What you were saying in the beginning, Tim, was it's by faith in the sense that you say, we're going to do the work by obedience. We're going to do what God's asked us to do. So when you sum to the New Testament, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians, he was talking to them about the relationship that he had with them when he was there. In chapter 3, verses 6 through 13, In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you receive from us. He means that idleness was not what he taught, the opposite of what he taught. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling, so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. Paul's hard work was an example as to what he thought God wanted of him. This was as much a witness or a training event as teaching them the Scriptures. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule, If a man will not work, he shall not eat. We hear that some of you are idle. They're not busy, but busy bodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus to settle down, earn the bread they eat, and as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right. Paul was pretty blunt and clear that his understanding of God's stewardship was, You work, you get paid, that's how you live. Now, we want to help our children as they grow up learn this. We also want to help each other learn this. And I think a part of the difficulty we have is the idea that love and compassion means that you give people anything they need, and then you love them. That's not the love of God. God's love says, I will teach you how to be able to find the fulfillment of the promise I made to you. I will provide for you if you work at it. My gift comes as a result of your work, what you called obedience. A part of the difficulty we have in our culture is that people have sort of brushed that aside. And we think love means giving people everything they need whether they've worked for it or not, or whether they're making an effort to do it or not. It is not the way God deals with people. So unless you're obedient to Him, the fulfillment of what He promises you will not come. It's true in the financial area, and it's true in all the others too. Spiritual growth will not come to you unless you work at spiritual growth. Prayer, Bible study, discipline of obedience in serving Him, it is only in these ways that God blesses us. God's promise for all these covenant promises comes true when we do what God tells us. Are we earning our salvation? No. Our salvation is at the beginning. What we're earning is the life that God wants us to have. That's what we're developing. We're becoming the person God wants us to be. And that's by faith. If I read the Bible, if I pray, if I witness my faith, if I do the things God asked me to do, I will become the person God wants me to be. So in these passages, you see, they're not simply laws or rules. They're fundamental things that allow us to know how God works in the world and how we are to work in this world. And when we follow these principles, you'll find them in the Old Testament and the New. In the New, Jesus said, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything will be added to you. Seek first the kingdom, then comes the benefits of the kingdom. It's a principle that's essential to the life of a believer and of a church. Let's pray. We're so thankful that you've alerted us as to who you are and what you're like. We're so thankful that you've given us the basic principles by which we can find life in its fullness. It requires trusting you when we don't even see how it can possibly happen. It requires believing that the promises you've made will always be kept. We ask, Lord, for this faith. And we ask for the spirit of perseverance that our obedience to you would show in our lives, our faith. And we ask, Lord, as these blessings come to us, that they might be witnesses to you of your promise. And we might never think that the result of our own ability or wisdom or skill. In the name of Jesus, we ask for this witness. Amen.