Honoring God First

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Introduction:
When we started this journey of Brick x Brick it was not just a capital campaign; not just because we needed to buy this building, or even just to bless our community.
It has always been about a spiritual journey.
A journey in which we could grow with God join Him in the journey.
One of my biggest hopes and prayers has been to see you embrace the blessing of giving.
To watch the shift in your minds and hearts from being consumers to contributors.
To give more than you take.
To care more about the mission than personal gain.
To find the heart of God and let him replace our cold hard harts with his.
I am so proud of you. Many of you for the first times in your life have given sacrificially. You have found the joy in walking with God and watching him provide. You have become givers instead of just receivers.
When we give to the Lord it is always seed money. There is a principle taught all through the Bible, “If you sow sparingly you will reap sparingly.” When you drop a seed in the ground and it dies it brings fourth fruit. But, in that fruit from the one seed are many more seeds. You never reap seed for seed. You always reap more than you planted.
Today is our first fruits offering.
Today we are planting the seed that God will take and yield all the rest of the seed that we need. And just as a farmer who plants the seed and husbands the seed, we get to watch the miracle of God as the seed turns into to something beautiful and wonderful that we could never make. But something that is a creation directly from the hands of God.
This morning before we reveal the amount of the Firstfruits offering, I want to teach you about the pattern of firstfruits and how it can dramatically change the course of your life if we can learn to honor God first in all that we do.
Bible Lesson:
Giving your firstfruits is a sign of Trust that God will provide the rest.
Giving your firstfruits is a sign of Trust that God will provide the rest.

The FirstFruits offering is a pattern of blessing.

God established this pattern from the beginning.

God is not interested in our surplus but our faith.
Cain and Able.
Cain and Able ()
Genesis 4:1–2 ESV
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.
Gen
Genesis 4:3–4 ESV
In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering,
Gen
Cain brought of his surplus, but Able brought the firstborn.
Our sacrifice is a seed for God’s blessing.

God established the pattern in Israel.

Lev 23:4
Leviticus 23:4–5 ESV
“These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the Lord’s Passover.
The Passover
The passover was a memorial of God’s salvation from Egypt a picture of the world.
It was to be observed every year.
Leviticus 23:6 ESV
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
Lev 23:
The unleavened Bread
lasted for seven days
No leaven was allowed in the house.
:
Leviticus 23:10–11 ESV
“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.
The FirstFruits
Was observed on the Sunday after Passover.
Offered at the beginning of the crop season to show reliance that God would provide the rest of the harvest.
The beginning of the Harvest season.
A declaration of God’s dwelling place.
Deuteronomy 26:1–2 ESV
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there.
Deu 26:

God modeled the pattern by sacrificing his son.

God modeled the pattern by sacrificing his son.

Jesus is the Passover Lamb, God’s only son. Sacrificed for us.
John 1:29 ESV
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:
Jesus is the unleavened Bread (without sin) buried for 3 days.
Hebrews 4:15 ESV
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:
Jesus is the Firstfruits of the resurrection. The first to rise from the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:20 ESV
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
1 Cor 15:
God’s sacrifice was just the seed for more resurrection.
Through the death of Christ many have been resurrected from the dead.
The Firstfruits offering of God is still producing fruit.
When we give to God first we have to trust him for the rest. (1 Kings 17:8-16)

When we give to God first we have to trust him for the rest.

The Passover
1 Kings 17:8–12 ESV
Then the word of the Lord came to him, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
Elijah and the Widow
1 Kings 17:8–9 ESV
Then the word of the Lord came to him, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
1 Kings 178-9

Our trust is revealed through our obedience.

The Unleavened bread
The commands of the Lord don’t always seen possible.
God will ask us to do things that we don’t have the means to do.
1 Kings 17:10–11 ESV
So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”
1 Kings 17:
The Firstfruits
1 Kings 17:12
1 Kings 17:12 ESV
And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”

God turns your obedience into blessing.

1 Kings 17:13 ESV
And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.
I Kings 17:
Fear will rob you of the blessing God has prepared for you.
God gave us His firstfruits as a sign that He would provide more.
When you give to God first he always multiplies the return.

God’s supply is not determined by your inventory.

1 Kings 17:14 ESV
For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ ”
1 Kings 17:14
What you have is limited, But what God has in infinite.
1 Kings 17:15–16 ESV
And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
1 Kings 17:15-
Our offering is just an opportunity to see God power and provision for our lives.
The firstfruit offering is a declaration of God’s dwelling place. Deu 26:1-11
Conclusion:
Today we honor the Lord with our Firstfruits offering, knowing and believing that God has the power to provide all that we need. We trust in him, the giver of all things to make his name great in this place.
Our firstfruits offering is not just the funds we have collected for the Brick x Brick campaign, but our very lives. For we are the Firstfruits offering of this ministry and in this place.
May God take these firstfruits and multiply them continually in this place. Until Jesus returns to gather all the fruit into his basket.
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