The Principle of the First

Hello Church! I hope you are all having an exciting Sunday. Today, we’re continuing our conversation in the series called Living With Favor. If you are taking notes- you can write at the top of your notes: “The Principle of the First”. And we will be in Exodus 13 today.

Several years ago, when Rachel was much younger her friend had a birthday. And it happened, like it does to nearly every parent, that Rachel came home all excited and announced that, this afternoon Emily has a birthday and I have to go, and I have to get her a present. Well this was the first time Stella and I had even heard of this and we had already planned out most of our weekend. This kinda upset the apple cart. So Stella and tried to explain to Rachel that she was allowed to go, Emily lived just down the road, but we probably couldn’t bring her a gift because we just don’t have time to go shopping today. Well needless to say, Rachel was a bit upset. We didn’t see Rachel for a while, but then eventually she reappeared to the world with this, kinda awkwardly shaped blob wrapped in a white piece of printer paper and a load of scotch tape. We looked at it for a second and asked this rhetorical question. You’re not planning to give that to Emily are you? Inside this blob of printer paper and scotch tape was Rachel's’ old purse, the one that we had given her a few years prior and had been through everything including the miniature world version of armageddon. We tried our best to explain to Rachel that you don’t bring gifts you plan on taking to the goodwill to a birthday party. When at a birthday party you want to bring gifts to your friends that they can open and use for the first time. Gifts that aren’t second best, gifts that have not been previously used. You don’t give your friends your second hand, second best. Needless to say, we found ourselves running through Walmart on the way to this little last minute birthday party.

Look at the command from God to the nation of Israel found in Exodus 13.

Exodus 13:2 NASB95

2 “Sanctify to Me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast; it belongs to Me.”

When He says, it belongs to me, He is very emphatic about this. We could expand it and say, the whole of it, it is always, perpetually, for the lifetime of it, … every piece of this is mine! Now lets move down to verse 12:

Exodus 13:12–13 NASB95

12 you shall devote to the Lord the first offspring of every womb, and the first offspring of every beast that you own; the males belong to the Lord. 13 “But every first offspring of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck; and every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.

In this passage God is talking to Israel about the firstborn of their livestock, and He says, I want you to set apart, or consecrate the very first that is born from that animal.

…if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck.

In other words, you are going to loose this animal one way or another, you can redeem it, or break its neck.

1. The Firstborn Must Be Sacrificed or Redeemed

Clean and Unclean

I want us today as we are talking about our finances and generosity to keep this simple principle in mind. The principal of the first simply states that the first-born, the first fruits, the first of our increase belongs to God.

But here in Exodus 13:13 we are told that if the first born is a lamb, it gets sacrificed, if it's a donkey it gets redeemed. How do you know what to do? In this illustration God uses two iconic animals. Throughout Scripture we see that a donkey continually refers to an unclean animal, while a lamb refers to a clean animal. So how do you know what to sacrifice and what to redeem? Well, if it is clean it must be sacrificed, if it’s unclean it must be redeemed with the sacrifice of a clean. Let me explain this again. If it’s clean, firstborn, it must be sacrificed, if it is unclean it must be redeemed with he sacrifice of the clean firstborn. How does this refer to us today? When we were born, into this world, was the spiritual state of our existence clean or unclean? In other words, were you born sinful or perfect?

Wait for reply

We were born sinful, unclean. We could prove this by asking the professionals in the room, Mom, did you have to teach your kid to be selfish, to steal the cookie from he cookie jar? NO; OK! Next question; was Jesus clean or unclean? Do you get it? Listen up carefully, the clean, Jesus, had to be sacrificed so that the unclean, you and me, could be redeemed. Jesus was the tithe of God. That’s how important this principal is! And look again at verse 12:

Exodus 13:12 NASB95

12 you shall devote to the Lord the first offspring of every womb, and the first offspring of every beast that you own; the males belong to the Lord.

Another translation says it this way:

Exodus 13:12 NIV

12 you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord.

He didn’t say lay out all the lambs that are born and then decide which one you want to give to me. He said give the first. It takes faith to tithe. See many people don’t understand this.

It’s not the 10% that unlocks the blessing, it’s the faith.

Faith that living on 90% with God is better than living on 100% without God

2. Bring Back Your First

Now, I want to point out an important principle. Look at Exodus 23 with me.

Exodus 23:19 NASB95

19 “You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God. “You are not to boil a young goat in the milk of its mother.

Do you notice here it says BRING? Remember last week we read in Malachi 3

Malachi 3:10 NASB95

10 “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.

I want you to think, why does it say bring and not give? Its simple, you cant give what doesn’t belong to you. There are only two ways to handle the Lords money in Scripture. You can bring it, or you can steal it. I’m not trying to be rude, please hear me. I wan’t you to Walk in Favor- and this is vital to your life of favor.

Psalm 24:1 NASB95

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.

3. God Wont Be Second

In Genesis chapter 4 we read the first ever account of a first-fruit being given to God. We have the two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and both gave an offering to God, but only one was accepted by God. As a result, Cain became angry and killed Abel. I wondered for a long time about why God only accepted Abel’s offering. But let’s read this together, because the reason, once we know the principle, is clear in Scripture.

Genesis 4:3–5 NKJV

3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

Look at what it says, “In the process of time… Cain brought an offering”. It is very specific to note that Cain did not bring a “First-Fruit” to God, he brought “an offering”. Yet Abel, it says, “brought of the firstborn”. Notice that not only was Abels’ offering accepted, but Abel himself was also accepted.

The Preeminence of God

Listen, God won’t accept being second. I’ll take it further- God can’t be second!  He can’t get better and He can’t get wiser. Theologically we say that God is preeminent. In other words God surpasses all, He is above and before all, He is first and foremost, He is always first. He cannot be second. Often we say we put God first in our lives, and that’s great, but let me remind you, even if you don’t put God first in your life, He is still first. We don’t have authority to mess up Gods order.

So the reason God couldn’t accept Cains offering is because God always is and always will be first and Cain din’t bring God a first. What you bring to God represents the position God has in your life. The tithe is a declaration of who’s on the throne of your heart.

You can tell me all day long that God is first in your life, but your bank account speaks louder than your words.

Leviticus 27:30 NASB95

30 ‘Thus all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord.

He says here all of it, all the tithe, and then He goes on to emphatically state “IS THE LORD’S”. And look, “It is holy to the Lord” that word holy means set apart. The tithe is the Lords and it is set apart for Him. That’s why when we don’t bring it to Him it’s stealing, because He has reserved it for Himself, for His bride, and It has to be first, because God is first, and so it must be returned first.

Ok, let me illustrate this principle this way. Let’s say Stella and I buy a home and we decide we want to remodel the home. We are going to put in new floors. So we hire someone for this work. The new kitchen is going to be $10,000. 8k for product, 1k for labor and 1k is the workers profit. So at the end of the job I pay this man his profit and I give him 10 $100 bills. Which one of those bills is the Lords tithe? Let me ask it this way. Is it the top bill or the bottom bill? The answer is this; the tithe is the first one you spend.

Tithe must be first because God is first. See too often we sit down with our pay check set aside, and say, ok, I got the electric bill paid, the VISA bill paid, the car loan, the rent paid, Ok were good so here’s the tithe. Or sometimes we do, here’s rent, phone bill and… oh, I don’t have enough for God. Can I say this to you nicely, but firmly. Even if you could have paid it, God would not have accepted it.  I know that might sound harsh and rude, but listen, I want you to live with favor, and here is the principle of favor; Our God is first, and He doesn’t accept our leftovers. As a matter of a fact, He says in Malachi 1:8 you bring me blind and lame and blemished animals as a sacrifice, and I will not accept them. If you want your money to be blessed by God, you must bring the first 10% into the store house of God, the church, His bride. That is the only way, the Scriptural principle. It cannot work any other way.

4. Pass It On To Future Generations

Now, let’s look at one more passage of Scripture before we close up in Exodus 13, look at verse 14.

Exodus 13:14–15 NASB95

14 “And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ then you shall say to him, ‘With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 ‘It came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem.’

What is God saying here? He’s saying, there is going to come a time when your kids are going to grow up, and they are going to ask you why you are doing what you are doing. Let’s bring it into modern vernacular here.

So your son goes off to college and gets his degree. One day he comes home to the family business and you have him take over the books for you. All is going well and then one day he says, dad I think we need to have a talk. See, I’ve been looking through the books and there is something I’ve noticed, it’s become sort of a trend with you. Now, I’m not accusing you, we all have our blind spots, and habits, you probably don’t even know that you do this, but um, every time one of our animals have a first born, you um… how shall I say this, you um… kill it. And I think it’s getting a bit out of hand, last year alone you killed 71 animals. Dad, we’re in the ranching business and this is starting to cut into our profits. So, why are you doing that?

He said, there is going to come a time when your sons are going to ask you about this. And he said, when this happens, you are to tell your sons,

“Son, we were not always in the ranching business. Before this, we were slaves, we were in bondage. But God! With a mighty hand redeemed us and gave us all we have now. That is why, we gladly give to God the first born of all our increase.”

This is a principal in all of Scripture. And I want to ask you. Is God really first in your life?

SALVATION CALL

Earlier in this message I called Jesus the tithe of God. Because Jesus was the first born of God the Father. He didn’t wait to see if we wold clean up before sending Jesus.

Romans 5:8 NASB95

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

See it’s the first that has the redemptive power and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross carries, still today the power to redeem your life from the death that sin demands.

Romans 6:23 NASB95

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We know that sin leads to death – you’ve felt the sting, and pain of sin. The good news is this, Paul calls God’s gift of life a “free gift”. I want to pray with you right now to receive this gift. If you would say, I want God’s forgiveness, I want to accept this gift of life, I want Jesus to live in my heart, raise your hand so I know who I am praying for.

“Heavenly Father, I trust You to save me through Your Son, Jesus. Forgive me for all of my sins. Make me brand new. Because You died for me, I want to live for You. Fill me with Your Spirit, so I could follow You. Jesus, You’re now my Lord and the Savior of my life. Take my life. It is Yours. In Jesus’ name, I pray.”