First & Best
Generous God, Generous People • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We have little pockets of our lives that we don’t allow God into, kind of like the closets that are stuffed full of things and no guests are allowed to open.
And for some of you…those areas are revealed by your openness to generosity which comes from those areas. Generosity regarding everything that God has given you.
Generosity can be a touchy subject. After all, we’re talking about your stuff. And you like your stuff. But ignoring the topic of generosity only leads to confusion and ignorance, and perhaps even allows false teaching to sneak in.
So, we have to answer the question:
What does God want from us, and why does he want it?
“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of me? says the Lord of Armies to you priests, who despise my name.”
Yet you ask, “How have we despised your name?”
“By presenting defiled food on my altar.”
“How have we defiled you?” you ask.
When you say, “The Lord’s table is contemptible.”
“When you present a blind animal for sacrifice, is it not wrong? And when you present a lame or sick animal, is it not wrong? Bring it to your governor! Would he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord of Armies. “And now plead for God’s favor. Will he be gracious to us? Since this has come from your hands, will he show any of you favor?” asks the Lord of Armies. “I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle a useless fire on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Armies, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.
“My name will be great among the nations, from the rising of the sun to its setting. Incense and pure offerings will be presented in my name in every place because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of Armies.
“But you are profaning it when you say, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled, and its product, its food, is contemptible.’ You also say, ‘Look, what a nuisance!’ And you scorn it,” says the Lord of Armies. “You bring stolen, lame, or sick animals. You bring this as an offering! Am I to accept that from your hands?” asks the Lord.
“The deceiver is cursed who has an acceptable male in his flock and makes a vow but sacrifices a defective animal to the Lord. For I am a great King,” says the Lord of Armies, “and my name will be feared among the nations.
God wants your first and best.
God wants your first and best.
Exegesis
Exegesis
Background on book of Malachi
About 100 years after return from Babylonian exile
Temple is rebuilt but things are not going well - the people were hopeful but had turned corrupt, resulting in poverty and injustice.
The exile had not taught them anything - their hearts are still just as far from God. And we see that…
I. 6 - 7: Israel’s Hypocrisy
The Israelites were honoring God, calling him father, master, king, but they were not treating God as if he was their father, master, king.
Isaiah 29:13 “The Lord said: These people approach me with their speeches to honor me with lip-service, yet their hearts are far from me, and human rules direct their worship of me.”
God says - you’ve despised my name, and the people respond “How?” He says, “you’ve defiled my name,” and the people respond “How?”
But here is a really important principle that will keep coming up in our discussion of generosity:
What we do is more important than what we say.
What we do is more important than what we say.
The Israelites would probably have not come right out and said “we despise God’s name.” But, God says that the way they have approached giving shows that they do despise his name. God cares little about what they say, and more about what they do.
And what they are doing is rejecting God by not giving him their first and best. By not giving him their first and best, they are revealing that in their hearts they are not honoring God.
II. 8 - 10: Israel’s Disobedience
God is asking rhetorical questions - the Israelites were disobeying the commandments that God had given their ancestors:
You are not to present anything that has a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf.
But if there is a defect in the animal, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you may not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.
Bringing the same kind of sacrifice to a Persian governor would not be accepted!
God says “why are you even doing this, if you’re not doing it right?”
III. 11 - 14: Israel’s Heart
It isn’t that the Israelites don’t have ability to give acceptable offerings - they are just refusing to give them because it’s a “nuisance.”
God declares his own glory and majesty - and declares that this disobedience isn’t just an oversight, but is actually an indicator that the Israelites are not honoring and serving him
God directly connects the “tithe” to honoring and serving him as God (3:10)
Malachi 3:8–9 ““Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me!” “How do we rob you?” you ask. “By not making the payments of the tenth and the contributions. You are suffering under a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing me.”
“The tenth”
You may be familiar with the concept of a “tithe” which just means “tenth.” Historically, many followers of God have held to the belief that a tenth of one’s income is appropriate as a guideline of what they give back to God as a tithe. This is not without precedent in the Bible.
Genesis 14 - Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, who was a priest of the Most High God
Genesis 28 - Jacob promises to give God a “full tenth” of all that God had given him
Leviticus 27 - the idea of a “tenth” is emphasized in relation to what is harvested from the land
Deuteronomy 14 - this passage takes the same idea but connects it with the idea that this tithe is to be used for the work of ministry
The New Testament picks up this idea of a tithe and applies it to the New Testament church, and rather than getting focused on specific amounts, focuses on the concern that tithing (or not tithing), and the amount we tithe displays what is going on in someone’s heart, and reveals something about their relationship with God.
For now, it’s important we focus in on the fact that God says that Israel’s failure to give is “robbing” him.
Robbing implies that it belongs to God in the first place. So, it is honestly more accurate for us to say that we give back to God - because all of it belongs to him anyway.
The bigger point is this: generosity is not an optional part of being a being a Christian.
Being generous is not something only for super-Christians, or those that want to get in good with God. Being generous is part of what it means to follow God. We’ve seen in the book of Malachi that God connects directly the way his people give to their relationship with him.
And it is not just any kind of generosity…
Application
Application
God wants your first and best.
God wants your first and best.
Scripture is consistent from the beginning to the end - God expects, demands the first and best from his people.
Cain and Abel from Genesis chapter 4:
In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
What is the issue with Cain’s offering? It isn’t his first and best. He gave…something…but not the first and best. So God did not accept his sacrifice. And although Cain and Abel gave different kinds of offerings, both of them were called to give the first and best from what they uniquely had.
Here is the question for you: what is your first and best?
Here is the question for you: what is your first and best?
When you look at how God has blessed you, all of the things in your life that are a gift from God that could be a blessing to others, or used to further the kingdom of God, what is the first and best of those things?
Money is of course an important aspect of this, but it is not the only resource that we have been blessed with. We are going to focus on money specifically, but there are other things in your life you have been blessed with
A common way to summarize all these resources God has given you is to categorize them by Time, Talent, Treasures
Time
Time
We have all been blessed with the same amount of time.
We all have demands on our time - some of us have a lot, some of us have a little. Depending on the season you are in, it can feel like you don’t have any time (have any of you ever said that? “I have no time!”)
The reality is, time is a gift from God. He created it! He ordered the universe in a way that gives us days, nights, seasons, etc. Time is a resource. And God cares about how we use that resource.
Ephesians 5:15–16 “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”
So, giving God the “first and best” of your time may look like this: when you schedule out your day, week, month, year, what does your allocation of time look like? What do you plan first? Is your first priority vacations, leisure time, work, activities for the kids, and then, with what is left over, you might think about spending time with God in his Word and in prayer, spending time serving people around you or the church. Now, it can vary dramatically based on the season we are in, but we all have the “first and best” of our time on some level, and we decide who or what gets it.
Talent
Talent
Each of us have been gifted with specific talents, gifts, positions, occupations, special kinds of influence, and we have a choice in how we are going to use those gifts from God. However we’ve been uniquely blessed, we can either creatively consider how we can use them for God, or instead primarily look to furthering our careers, self-improvement/promotion, impressing other people, etc., and then…maybe…think about how God could use us.
Treasures
Treasures
And…here’s the one we always think about when we talk about giving. Treasures of course do include money, but they also include all the material things you’ve been blessed with. Things like homes, vehicles, even down to tools and toys that we have. Your “first and best” of all those things, including your money, has to go somewhere. What do you do first? With money or your possessions, is your first thought how you can use it for what you want or need, or how it could be presented as a sacrifice to God, and even a blessing to others.
The point is this: some of you may have a lot of time, talents, and treasures, and some of you may not have much at all. But regardless of how we’ve been blessed by God, we all have a “first and best” that we can give back to God.
Notice I say, give back to God. It is a central belief for Christians that everything we have is a gift from God, he owns everything and thus when we call something “ours” we understand our “possession” as relative to the fact that God is the true owner of all things.
James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
If all this is true, then it must mean that while God does want our first and best…
If all this is true, then it must mean that while God does want our first and best…
God does not need your first and best.
God does not need your first and best.
Psalm 50:10 “for every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.”
God is not poor.
Not only does God not need anything, he is the creator and origin of everything.
Psalm 24:1–2 “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord; for he laid its foundation on the seas and established it on the rivers.”
Think about it - God “owns” things in a way that is foreign to us. We own things that have their origin in something else, at the very least the raw materials for that thing. God is the origin and the source for all things - he doesn’t own things that someone else has made. He has possession of things in a way that transcends our understanding of what it means to possess something.
So…if God is so all-powerful, the creator and sustainer of all things, if he really has no need for anything and can speak anything into existence, then…
Why does God want our first and best?
Why does God want our first and best?
The simple answer is this: because God wants your heart. It is best for you that God would have your heart - but there is stuff in the way. Sometimes, literal “stuff.”
And, you’ve heard that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? The quickest way to your heart might be through your wallet.
It is hard to know what is in your heart - but generosity or the lack thereof can give a window into your heart. Holding on tightly to our first and best is often an indicator that something is very wrong in our hearts.
We can see this clearly if we jump to the New Testament, to a very familiar passage from Mark 10:
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not defraud; honor your father and mother.”
He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these from my youth.”
Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, “You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But he was dismayed by this demand, and he went away grieving, because he had many possessions.
This passage has often been misinterpreted as Jesus giving a command to every Christian that they should sell all their belongings and give to the poor. Some critics of Christianity like to throw this in Christians’ faces saying, “if you’re really a Christian you should be doing this!”
But that is not what Jesus is saying. He is specifically telling this specific young man to do something specific, and why? Because Jesus can see into his heart.
I like that it says that Jesus looked at him, and loved him. Perhaps another way of saying this would be that Jesus looks at him, and because Jesus is God, loves him with a love that could only come from someone by whom the whole world and everything in it came into being. Jesus knows this young man inside and out, after all, he had a hand in knitting him together in his mother’s womb, and knowing him, loves him. And Jesus knows that this “one thing” is holding the young man back from abundant, eternal life: his riches.
Jesus doesn’t give this command as a prescriptive command for every person, everywhere. And he doesn’t give it because he wants to ruin this young man’s life and make him destitute. He loves him, and wants to invite him into the joy of a life totally surrendered to God.
But for you, it might not be your money. This isn’t a cop-out. God call all of us to be generous with our money, both in the local church and outside of it, but different people have different priorities. This young man’s priority was clearly his money, but if it had been something else, Jesus would have told him to give that away.
For this young man, his “first and best” was his money, but what is it for you?
What do you hold onto tightly, aggressively, possessively?
It might be easier to ask, what gets thrown out first when you start to feel pressure in your life? When time, money, resources are running low, what gets thrown out?
When your life gets stormy, what do you throw overboard? Giving financially? Giving of your time? Resources?
You might say, when life calms down a little I’ll get back on track…
“Adulthood is just saying, ‘but after this week things will slow down’ over and over until you die.”
I think if we are honest, sometimes what we call “spiritual disciplines” like Bible reading, prayer, giving, serving, these get thrown out as soon as we begin to feel pressure in our lives.
Why do you throw them out? Because you don’t think they are essential.
Think about it - when you get busy do you just stop drinking water? Eating? Sleeping? Some of you might try - but not for very long.
If you thought it was essential, you wouldn’t throw it out.
Simply because we perceive some need in our own lives is not an excuse to be disobedient to the clear call to give God our first and best. Think back to Malachi - the people were not doing well. It would have made the most sense for them to hang on to their first and best, because they needed it. God will understand, right?
But God explicitly says that even in that situation, by neglecting giving they are robbing God.
We will trying anything to wiggle our way out of this. Sometimes we even will use spiritual language to try to excuse ourselves, even if it sounds ironic to say out loud.
With money - “God wants me to be a good steward of my money, so right now I need to hold onto more of it.”
Here’s a radical thought - can you do both? Being a good steward of your time, talent and treasures doesn’t mean you back off of being generous - you reorient your life around generosity.
This is a whole other message, but your life is a series of cascading decisions built on other decisions. For instance - you decide how early you’re going to wake up in the morning the night before. You decide how healthy you’re going to eat for the week when you grocery shop. And you decide if you’re going to be generous if you have created space in your life to be generous.
And we create space in our life to be generous because it is the natural reaction of a heart that is surrendered to God. We no longer build our lives around try to accumulate and protect our time, talents, and treasures, but instead around how we can be generous with them.
Maybe some of the things I’ve said so far have convicted you. I know they’ve convicted me. Maybe you feel a little like you’ve been punched in the gut, maybe even a little defensive. But guilt, or “trying to be better,” isn’t a good motivator. And it isn’t how God motivates us. God is not just sitting up in heaven, demanding this and that from us. God wants our first and best, but…
Maybe some of the things I’ve said so far have convicted you. I know they’ve convicted me. Maybe you feel a little like you’ve been punched in the gut, maybe even a little defensive. But guilt, or “trying to be better,” isn’t a good motivator. And it isn’t how God motivates us. God is not just sitting up in heaven, demanding this and that from us. God wants our first and best, but…
God gave us his first and best.
God gave us his first and best.
God gave us his first and best. I can prove it to you with one verse.
Listen to these familiar words:
John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
God created us. God didn’t have to create, he wanted to. He desired for us to exist and so he made us, and he made us in his image. What more can he do for us than put his very divine fingerprint on us as the crown jewel of his creation?
And not only that, he creates a world for us to live in, to steward and nurture, partnering with him in seeing everything flourish, enjoying endless fellowship with each other and him.
And then, even after we reject God’s good plan and in our sin cause humanity and everything else to spiral into brokenness, debauchery, decay and despair, God still does not give up on us. Even in the midst of our rebellion against him (he loved us first), God does not do what any of us in here would do. He does not turn his back on us. What does he do?
John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
Out of his great love, his great generosity, God sent the Son, Jesus, to die in our place for our sin. To pay the penalty and rescue us from sin and death, and welcome us into an eternal life in Christ. And this salvation is a free gift to anyone who would repent and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord.
So we can say with confidence that God…
Romans 8:32 “He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?”
Your salvation was not free. It came at a cost. God sent the Son, Jesus, who suffered in a way that you and I cannot begin to comprehend. He did this as fully God and fully man, condescending to become human that we might be saved in him.
2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”
We serve a generous God.
“The measure of all love is its giving. The measure of the love of God is the cross of Christ.”
J.I. Packer
And since we are created to bear God’s image, the Holy Spirit is continually working a generous heart into us, even if he has to pry our fingers off of some of our time, talent, and treasures until we begin respond with generosity to God and to others.
Since God has given us his first and best…
How do you need to respond to God?
How do you need to respond to God?
It’s possible that you might recognize the cosmic magnitude of what has been accomplished for you in Christ.
Somehow our salvation doesn’t feel “real,” at least not as real as all the other things around us that need our time, talent, and treasure.
God wants our first and best because he wants our hearts, but he also wants our first and best because it is his nature to be generous, and we follow him by being generous.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
So based on this, he has invited us into his work - we are the hands and feet of Christ. He isn’t printing off money in heaven - we are the ones who are tasked with showing God’s generosity here on the earth. So yes, he doesn’t “need” our generosity, but this is how he has chosen to do it!
When you become a Christian you don’t not just “get” salvation and move on with your life. You are invited into a mission - a mission of reconciliation.
God provides in miraculous ways - supernaturally, even. But most often, he acts through - you. Your time, talent, treasures, surrendered to him for his use. God uses them to bless others and grow his kingdom. You are here for a reason, and God has blessed you the way he has for a reason. So, give back to him your first and best from how he has blessed you.
Conclusion
Conclusion
A generous heart is a heart that has been captured, and continues to be captured, by the beauty, the grace, the majesty, and the generosity of the gospel.
A Christian responds to God’s generosity by reorienting their lives around generosity. We remove the idea of us “owning” things, and instead see ourselves as stewards of what God has given us, whether it be our time, our talents, or our treasures. And so we live in a way that is outward focused, focused on how we can bless others, how we can give. And the thing about being generous is, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Because giving changes you - not into something “different” but back into what you were created to be - an image-bearer of God. And God is generous.
Generous God, Generous People