Be Specefic

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Pastor Josh Monda

FBC Washington

Nehemiah • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago • Presented 4 years ago • 54:29

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So last week, we spent some time looking at what it means to be committed to a covenant this week I want us to see the specifics of this covenant and what that should mean for us as well. I believe there are five specific issues in their daily life that are being addressed, and it implies that their promise to the Lord was costly, and to be honest, our relationship with the Lord should indeed cost us something.

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Intro:

In just a few minutes, we will be reading Nehemiah 10 verses 30-39 if you would like to go ahead and find your way there.

Has this ever happened to you? You buy something that needs assembly, but when you look at the instructions, they are not specific enough to help you assemble the product, and perhaps when you get done, you have pieces leftover, or perhaps you run out of certain pieces.

Or maybe you have asked for directions or had someone give you direction, and they are very vague and hard to understand. I once had a friend that worked as a prison guard, and one of the inmates was given him directions to somewhere, and I kid you not; this is what he said: "What you do is you go into Kansas, and when you come to the McDonalds you turn right." Listen, there are certain things that you need to be specific about and that you really should read over to make sure you are communicating clearly. For example, let me give you my some of my favorite bulletin bloopers.

1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

2. The Rev. Merriwether spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.

3. Applications are now being accepted for 2-year-old nursery workers.

4. Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Nelson's sermons.

5. During the absence of our pastor, we enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing a good sermon when J.F. Stubbs supplied our pulpit.

6. The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Reverend and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

7. Don't let worry kill you off – let the church help.

8. The outreach committee has enlisted 25 visitors to make calls on people who are not afflicted with any church.

9. Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 to 8:30p.m. Please use the back door.

10. The choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.

11. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?". Come early and listen to our choir practice.

12. Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

13. Ushers will eat latecomers.

14. Tuesday at 4PM, there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.

15. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. Please use the large double door at the side entrance.

16. For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

17. The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind, and they may be seen in the church basement Friday.

18. A new loudspeaker system has been installed in the church. It was given by one of our members in honor of his wife.

19. Jean will be leading a weight-management series Wednesday nights. She's used the program herself and has been growing like crazy!

20. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.

21Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.

All I want us to realize is that sometimes we need to be specific about what we are communicating to ensure we are communicating the right thing. It is my belief that the Israelites here in Nehemiah 10:30-39 are very specific about what they are communicating, so if you are willing and able, I would ask that you please stand out of respect for God's word as we read Nehemiah 10:30-39.

I. Pursue God's will

God's will for God's people was that they would maintain an uncompromised testimony across the centuries and share his unique message with other nations. What is vital for us to understand in our culture and generation is that for that to happen, they must avoid taking other religions and adding what they do to their worship and pretending like its the same. That is called syncretism. Now, where is that most likely to happen? Well, to be honest in marriage, in fact, we see it happen today. Now those who agreed to this covenant, according to verse 28, "separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God." So when they began to reveal the covenant's practical implications, they started out by making this vow in verse 30 30 We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. Ne 10:30. Now when we read this, we might be tempted to regard this as a distasteful ethnic superiority, but that is not the case and let me give some reason why that is no the case.

First, Israel's problem dealt with the fact that by wrong relationships, their witness was nullified. God's destiny for them was that they might be a missionary, people, and for this to happen, then their message could not be corrupted. They lived in a culture where there was a continuous onslaught of neighboring religions, and other god's came to have a fascinating attraction for them. If you remember, they had the golden calf incident where Aaron collected all of their jewelry and fashioned the calf, and that would not be the first, nor the last time they would bow to idols. So it is against that backdrop that we must understand the prohibition about mixed marriages. At this point in the history of God's people, it was critical that their witness to God's truth remain pure and unadulterated. There were many reasons why marriages with pagan people were disastrous; they include scriptural, historical, moral, and contemporary reasons.

`First, they were given strong Biblical warnings about the danger of corrupting their faith with an unsuitable marriage. Israel had entered into a covenant with God, and this covenant began by affirming the uniqueness of God. They had vowed not to even recognize other god's let alone worship them. Joshua warned the people of his day that if they intermarried with people from idolatrous nations, their partners would become snares and traps to them, whips on their backs and thorns in their eyes. Yeah, that is just what you want to think of your partner right that they are like a thorn in your eye or a whip on your back.

Secondly, there was an abundance of historical evidence that these forbidden marriage alliances had proven disastrous in Israel's spiritual and moral life. Surely Israel could look at the past and learn from it. In chapter 13 verse 26, Nehemiah makes a reference to a notorious incident of Solomons apostacy, his marriage to women from other nations who then set up shrines to their gods in Jerusalem had a disastrous effect on the spiritual and political life of God's people. The people's idolatry through Solomon's wives led directly to a division of the kingdom into the northern and the southern kingdom known as Israel and Judah. Later on in Israel's history, Ahab has a marriage to a Sidonian queen Jezebel which led to the widespread promotion of Baal worship in the northern kingdom, with disastrous moral consequences as well as the Lord's servants the prophets.

Thirdly there were moral reasons that the Israelites were forbidden to marry people from other nations. God had made it clear that he regarded these other gods as detestable. To worship, these foreign god's it involved ritual and ceremony that God detested. This often included cult prostitution and other sexual obseneites, God's revelation to his people was that they were to be like Him. He is holy, so therefore they were to be holy. He is compassionate; therefore, they were to be compassionate. He is righteous; therefore, they were to live in a way that reflected His righteousness. A God of truth does not tolerate worshippers who tell lies. Those who honor a just and merciful God will not behave dishonestly and unkindly in the world. It was utterly unthinkable that people who had committed their entire life to God would be involved in immoral religious practices.

Fourthly, Nehemiah, and the people were well aware from the contemporary scene of their day that it was disastrous for an Israelite believer to marry someone committed to the worship of other gods. Through written works outside of the Old Testament, we have a clear understanding of Israel's continual corruption through the gradual infiltration of ideas and practices from other religions. The corruption of Israel's faith was not some antiquated danger, but it was a present reality If it continues in Judah, then the message that was entrusted to God's people would become corrupt and would fade into obscurity being indistinguishable from the wide variety of religions of that period.

Nehemiah did not have to go looking to Egypt to prove that Israel's distinctive message could be compromised. Nehemiah's older counterpart, Eza, shows that even priests in Judah had broken God's law by marrying other women with other religious alliances, which lead the way to be unfaithful to the covenant. In fact, again later in Nehemiah, there is a portrayal of many homes in Judah where married partners had introduced religious ideas and practices from other countries and had taught their own children the languages of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab rather than the Hebrew of their fathers. So what was happening is that their won children were growing up in an environment where they could not understand God's word, because the language that it was written in and spoken in was not known to them even though they lived in Judah. Do you see the problem church? The children had access to the word of God but no way to understand it.

So this whole prohibition was out of concern for both the purity of the Israelites faith and the holiness of their life. The issue was not ethnic differences but spiritual loyalty, it was ethical purity and doctrinal integrity. The law they had about mixed marriages was essential to Israel's missionary calling. It was not about a crude ethnic exclusivism, nor was it nationalism. We know this because other races were free to embrace Israel's ss faith if they abandoned their own and gave themselves wholly to the Lord. People of different religions were free to join the Israelites when they left Egypt as God's redeemed people, provided that they fully embraced Israel's faith. Ruth, who was a Moabite, is a perfect example of this; she was from another faith who turned to the Lord and was fully welcomed into the life of God's people. Once Ruth said, "Your God shall be my God," she no longer continued to worship 'Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab. The prophet Jeremiah had an Ethiopian friend Ebed-Melech obviously came from a pagan background. Molech was the detestable God of the Ammonites and to be named "servant of Molech indicated that he did not have and Israelite ancestry, but he had put his trust in the one true God.

Israel had been entrusted with the most wonderful message in all the world, and nothing was to be allowed to corrupt that message. The truth had to be faithfully preserved and not contaminated by contradictory religious ideas. It was to be handed on from generation to generation until a few hundred years after Nehemiah its great truths were passed to a devout Israelite couple who lived in a town called Nazareth, They would teach theses great truths to a unique child born, miraculously into their home, Jesus, the son of God He was to love, share, fulfill and expand that very message so that, without any adulteration, it would be taken to the ends of the earth ad to the end of time. That is exactly why these laws though they seem rigorous, did not allow committed members of the covenant to mar their message and invalidate their witness by marrying outside of their faith.

Now I want you to stop and think about this in our daily life we are influenced by others more than most of us care to admit, The early church leaders knew that The Corinthians lived in a grossly immoral environment, and Paul reminded them of an old saying from one of their own poets when he said "Bad company corrupts good character" what he is saying is that certain relationships, are known to damage their faith, and they should be abandoned as soon as possible, He recalls the words fro the prophet Isaiah, therefore come out fro them and be separate. John urged his Christian friends not to love the world or anything in it, which might destroy their witness. James was more stark when he insisted that friendship with the world was hatred towards God. Peter told his churches that believers need to live in this world as alines and strangers destined for eternity, being servants of God and not slaves of the world.

We are not go and live in a monastery somewhere cutting ourselves off from everyone i in the world to preserve our faith, We live among people because God has made us social beings, we need each other, If a person craves only total isolation they are psychologically not well. As followers of Christ, we are to be glad to be among people in everyday life because we want to know, love, serve and win them to the Lord., We must live in the world, but the world is not to live in us, It is a delicate balance. Martin Luther said, "Temptation, of course, cannot be avoided, but because we cannot prevent birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them nest in our hair."

Before moving on, I want to say something about religious pluralism. We live in a pluralistic culture, we have an obligation as Christians to understand the message of other religions and to not caricature what their adherent sare saying about their own faith. In a society that has a proper concern about human rights, we also value people's freedom to believe, and befriend them as people for whom Christ died. There may be helpful social and community projects that we can be involved in with people of other faiths or even no faith at all. Still, the Christian message is distinctive, and we must not compromise it by allegiance or events that are interfaith services, which give suggestions that all religions are equally valuable and basically heading i in the same direction.

Yes, it is good to help the poor to feed the need, and it can even be fine to do so with people of other faiths or no faith, but if the uniques message of the gospel is not proclaimed, then it is not distinct Christian nor is it evangelistic. Jesus made the claim that no one comes to the Father but by him, and it is crucial that we make the same claim even in a culture that is offended by a distinctly Christian gospel. We must lovingly and unequivocally affirm the claims of Christ. So in all, you and I do we should pursue God's will, secondly.

II. Passionately Honor God's Day

The covenant is further renewed with another promise, and that promise is that God's day will be honored, look what they say And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day., Ne 10:31a.

The Sabbath law must be clearly understood; keeping the Sabbath holy was such an essential component in their personal and corporate life. The weekly Sabbath was given so that they would honor God, enjoy rest, help others, and declare the truth.

It was first instituted as a day to honor God. It was set apart from other day and given to God so that they might offer their worship to him, undisturbed by the distractions of everyday life. Secondly, it was a day to enjoy rest. Leisure and relaxation is a critical ingredient in effective living, and God had set a pattern for them by resting on the seventh day. The Lord knew that during their Egyptian slavery, they worked day after day without any break, and this cruel and prolonged experience should never be repeated in Israelite life. Third, this was a day to help others. It was not just the Israelite householder and his family that were to rest but also their servants, animals, neighbors, and visitors. So any servants were not to be degraded by ceaseless work, and the sabbath law ensured that Israelite employees had a compulsory rest day automatically written into their employment contracts.

God was also concerned about animal welfare as well as human rights as their donkeys, horses, and cattle also enjoyed the Sabbath rest. Even more, every stranger or refugee visiting their locality is also to be physically refreshed by the Sabbath rest. The detail of the Sabbath ensured that the Israelites did not enjoy the Sabbath at other people's expense. When the commandments were repeated by Moses before they entered the promised land, the Sabbath law was a reminder of Egypt's tyranny. This heartless cruelty was to remain a thing of the past these words preceded the sabbath rest proclamation "remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm."

Fourthly the Sabbath was a way to declare the truth. The Sabbath served as a silent witness to God's supremacy this was a great witnessing opportunity for them, once God's people found themselves in their own land they would have business contracts with people from other nations, cultures, customs, and religions. It mattered not how well an Israelite business was prospering; on one day a week, he was required to close his shop or cease work on his farm. The Lord gave them that one day when all their neighbors could know without any doubt that they had an allegiance to God, which transcended by far their business interests, domestic concerns, or social obligations. To unbelieving neighbors, it was a proclamation, in very practical terms, the truth that God comes before everything, He had told them to make that day special and what he said must be done.

The Sabbath law was to be publicly affirmed. When they kept this day special, it would mark them out as people different from others and, on occasion, even made them the butt of ridicule. Each succeeding generation had to be reminded of the purpose of the Sabbath, and Nehemiah's covenant renewal gave them a public opportunity to declare to others their obedience to God in this personal, practical, and public regulation.

Several centuries had passed since the Sabbath law was originally given at Sinai The wilderness pilgrims were nomadic people, and most of their transactions were conducted mainly in their own community. In those days, there would be no question of buying from a fellow Israelite on the Sabbath, most of them were eager to maintain the holiness of the day. But once they settled in Canaan, life was different, and throughout their history, it was necessary to apply the Sabbath law afresh to each generation, keeping in mind the new cultural situation they found themselves in. The prophets would often speak to the people about the Sabbath.

Now that they are back in Jerusalem and on the other side of exile, they have to be reminded anew of the importance of the Sabbath in their personal and community life.

Now there were obviously questions when it came to the Sabbath because we have those questions answered here so obviously they wanted to know whether selling was permissible on that day whether they could purchase goods on the Sabbath from Gentile merchants and whether it applied to just the Sabbath or holy days as well. Nehemiah made it clear the fourth commandment applied to life in Israel food could not be bought on the Sabbath nor any holy day of the year.

God's provision for this day in each week is an important paradigm for believers, from the days of the early church, Christian have made the Lord's Day, the celebration of Christ's resurrection on the first day of the week, their appointed day for worship, service and rest. It is important for Christian believers to heed the obvious warnings in the New Testament about legalism and to not fall into that subtle trap in their commendable desire to keep the Lord's day special. Like when the Pharisees complained that he Lord "worked" by performing miracles on the Sabbath. Jesus made it clear that restrictive legalism was not God's will for his people. Both Israel's Sabbath, as well as the Christian Lord's Day, were instituted for the believers spiritual and physical benefit, not as a cumbersome burden.

Sundays present Christians with an ideal opportunity to honor God in public worship and witness. Furthermore, it should provide an opportunity for rest, relaxation, reading, and prayer, as well as service to Christ. That could include doing things together as a family, helping a broken family have some experience of family love, calling on a lonely person, visiting the sick at home or in the hospital, offering hospitality in our homes, and writing letters to missionaries or others. Setting the day aside for God should mean that its unique quality is maintained so that on this day, the Lord is honored, we are enriched, and others are helped. Although we cant insist that unbelievers respect Sunday as God's special day, we certainly can encourage believers to keep Sunday special.

Having the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, and if we are all work and no rest, it is a recipe for physical and family breakdown. The Sabbath is God's unique provision for not only his covenant people but, through them, for everyone, so that those that are far from God might be brought nearer as they are taught a God-centered theology. So lets set out to passionately honor God's day not just for us but so that we might through that teach others our love for the Lord and that He means more to us than anything.

Next notice they and so must we

III. Plainly Value God's World

Notice they promise And we will forego the crops of the seventh year Ne 10:31. It is time to return to the covenants decrees regarding property, especially their farms and fields. This was another aspect of the Law of God given through Moses. This goes back to the expansion of the fourth commandments laws, and by following it, they are asserting for things.

First, they are declaring God's ownership. If the land is the farmers, he can do with it as he pleases, but the law makes it clear that every farmer is a trusted tenant. The land is the Lords. So this law was a regular reminder that he land that they tilled was not their own personal property. God had entrusted the land to them, and they were his accountable stewards. So what God says is to be done with his land is what they are to do. Listen, this is a reminder that everything we have is from God; we don't own any of it. Paul told the Corinthians that their bodies were not even their own but rather God to be used for His glory, he told his readers in Rome that our bodies are to be surrendered to God entirely so he might use them as vehicles of worship and service.

They were declaring God's ownership; secondly, they were revealing God's truth. This was God's plan to impress on His people the truth that proper care of the land was vital. God gives to the people environmental education, revealing that we should not pursue short term gain at the expense of long term desolation. The soil needs time to recover after 6 years of hard work, not only people and animals needed rest, but so did the land to recover its natural nutrients and replenish its resources.

In our day, thousands of people are rightly concerned with questions about ecology and conservation. People going green is not something that we should despise this earth is the Lords, and we are simply stewards of it. With that is mind, shouldn't we be doing the best we can to care for it by not polluting the air, plundering the forests, contaminating our rivers, and acting like the world's resources are there for us to exploit for our own private use.

Thirdly their act of obedience expressed love. Whenever the fields were left fallow for a year, there would be a certain amount of produce that would automatically reseed, and in time the field would yield a modest harvest. Now here is the thing God's word demanded that in that year that produces did not belong to the tenant farmer but to the deprived people of the local community. "that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. Ex 23:11. The farmers would reach the seventh year at different times so that in any locality, there was a likelihood that somewhere or other, there would be fallow fields, olive groves, and vineyards for the poor to collect a modest food supply.

We have a compassionate God telling his children that they are to be like him. He is God of the poor as well as the prosperous, he cares passionately for the widow, fatherless, the orphans, and alien in Israel. In our day, Christians cant be indifferent to the serious deprivation, hunger, and homelessness in many Third World countries. We must offer something more than sympathy and prayer if we desire to honor the God who loves the needy.

Finally, the Israelites were confessing their faith. When the farmer was confronted with the practical implications of this law it was natural for him to question how he could live in any year when he would be denied the normal cycle of seedtime harvest: can you imagine the question "what are we going to eat in the seventh year of we do not plant and harvest our crops?" This rule proved to be a graphic teaching aid obeying God means we also trust Him. God promised that he would send such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. There are times in all of our lives when obedience to God will involve a venture of faith. We can't always see the way ahead with the clarity that we would like, but if we are doing what he says, we trust in him, and he will never disappoint us. May we plainly value God's world for others to see and may it serve as a testimony to others that we truly trust in the Lord,

Next, we notice that they

IV. Publicly Display God's Love

Again in verse 31 And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. Ne 10:31. They are willing to cancel all debt, which is an indication of the compassion of the Lord, the Lord values people more than things. Stop and think about it in God's economy; the welfare of the debtor takes precedence over the prosperity of the creditor. Remember, Nehemiah had already encountered economic and social problems due to the serious poverty in the community, and he had taken active steps to put things right, but the plight of the poor was still there. Debt in Isreal was rarely form careless mismanagement; it was typically traced to unexpected family deprivation, from things like death or serious illness of the wage earner, the collapse of the family business, or adverse conditions like famine. In these situations, people had to borrow money and, even though lending with interest was not permitted, the burden of repayments was often crippling.

What made debt such an agonizing burden in Israel was the incidence of economic slavery, people in desperate circumstances would be compelled to sell themselves or even their children as slaves as a way of meeting their financial obligations. Of course, this would have damaging effects on Israel’s family life, which was regarded as one of their nation's strongest strengths.

Debt is a crippling burden on anyone. It does not matter the generation millions suffer because of debt. Money management is an important topic of our time, and believers need to set an example by ensuring they do not adopt a lifestyle that is beyond their income. Let me just put this out there for you if you are having trouble with managing your financial resources would you let me know I will gladly get you some resources to help you out and if there is enough interest, perhaps we could have a financial peace university class. I am just saying as the body of Christ, we publicly display God's love by how we handle our financial resources and how we give possessions to others in need.

Lastly, we notice

V. Personally Support God's Work

As we look at these last verses, we see the phrase "the house of our God" in every verse except 35, where we have "the house of the Lord." The previous verses have dealt with pretty much everyday life, and now the verses turn to the work of the temple, which was built about 80 years earlier. It was one thing to build the temple, and quite another to maintain it. The temple stood at the heart of their religious, moral, and political life. In symbolic terms, the temple proclaimed the presence and power of God among his people and the centrality of spiritual things. In this covenant promise, the people are committing themselves to the worship and service of God and, in so doing, wished to declare openly their determination to honor God in every aspect of their lives.

These verses cover an impressive series of promises to support God's work in a variety of ways, and it gives some really great insight into the importance of Christian giving. Now let me give you a warning that what I am about to say all has to deal with giving, and I understand that for some people, that may strike a nerve, but that is ok I am simply the messenger of what God's word is saying.

First, we notice the Israelites recognize the necessity of responsible giving. They are making this promise declaring that they will assume the responsibility for carrying out the commands to give and what are the giving for? For the service of God's house. They are making a solemn obligation before God to do all that was required to support the temples worship and to maintain the priority of spiritual and moral values in the life of the nation.

Secondly, the people respond to God's word by obedient giving. This is not an impulse of sudden generosity or a passing emotional gesture, but instead, their giving is an expression of practical obedience. Those who love the Lord will do what He says. Therefore they are carrying out the commands to give. God has been good to His people, and therefore generosity is expected from them. Believe it or not, their obedience to follow God would affect the amount of money they had because if they made the required payment towards the upkeep of the temple and everything that is being required here, it meant they would have that much less for themselves. You see, their requirements were no different than ours; they are making a public affirmation through giving that God came first in their life.

Thirdly they recognize the necessity of obligatory giving. It is not optional to support God's work. Everyone was required to give in one form or another. Everyone would benefit from the ministry of the temple, and everyone then must support it. In other words, a work for all is not reliant upon the charity of a few. So much Christian service in our world today evangelistic, educational, medical, and social, at home and overseas, depends on the generosity of a minority who are will to make immense sacrifice that the work is maintained and continued. That was not God's plan for the support of his servants. The promise focuses in on two vital aspects of the ministry of the temple to God's people to offer praise and to secure pardon.

All of the people had cause to praise God for His generous gifts. God had been good to them, and money was needed for the regular grain offering and the burnt offering, for the offering on the Sabbaths, New Moos festival and appointed feasts; for the holy offerings. Sacrifices presented them with an opportunity to express how much they loved God, but they were also a means of supporting the priesthood because the priest would regularly share in the meals provided by the offerings.

But this was also time to bring families and communities together, and so the offerer as wee as the priest would have the food in a communal meal. These were also times when people from the community who were deprived would be generously fed. Thanksgiving is a vital element in our spiritual life, there is always a gift from God to be acknowledged.

Every person also had reason to seek God for cleansing. Support was always necessary for the upkeep of the token and its priesthood so that guilty people could present sin offerings to make atonement for Israel. Sure they could rejoice in all of the gifts from God, but the greatest was his promise to forgive them when they sinned, The Levites would be supported by these gifts for God's house. They were the teachers and pastors in Israel, and from their rich store of spiritual knowledge they could reassure the people that God would wash their sins away, blot then out, sweep them away like a cloud, hurl them into the depths of the sea, put them behind his back, separate them for the offender as far as the east is from the west, and remember them against them no more, The people stood in something more of a reassuring word the sin offering was a visual convincing that their sin was forgiven. Christian believers have the assurance not only of God's unfailing promises to cleanse us but also the assurance that Christ's death on the cross as he offered himself in our place as a substitutionary sacrifice. If we acknowledge our sin and seek his pardon, our cleansing is assured on the basis of what Christ has done and what God has promised. Every person in Israel needed the ministry of the temple and its staff; therefore, everyone was required to support it.

Fourthly they recognize the need for systematic giving. This was not haphazard giving everything was carefully planned there was an orderliness about all of it, and people knew precisely what was expected of them and exactly how and when they were to make their offering to the Lord.

Fifthly there was proportionate giving. In Israel's sacrificial system, there was a clear recognition that not everyone could afford to give the same kind of offering, provision was always made for those who had less. For example, those who could not afford a bull, a goat, or a lamb could bring two doves or young pigeons, and if they could not even give that, they could bring an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering.

The wood offering described here would have given many of the poor in Isreal an opportunity to make a gift to the Lord, which would demand time rather than money. Many of the poorer people could collect wood and would be pleased to dod so even though it would take them many hours to gather a modest amount as wood was scarce. We are not always in a position to give substantial amounts of money to the Lord's work, but one of the most precious commodities we can offer is time. Time to pray, to meditate on God's word to listen to what he is saying to us, to think about what we might do for him, to share the gospel, to listen to others, to visit the lonely or sick, to do practical kindness for others all in the name of Christ. It is the spirit in which we make our offering, and the element of costliness it entail that counts; some can give large amounts of money, but it really does not cost them much because it is not really a sacrifice for them if that is you I would ask you to consider giving even more, for some time is their most costly commodity, and that is what they can give, and for others, it perhaps is money.

Sixthly they were called to sacrificial giving. They were to give the firstfruits. The firstfruits were the choicest gifts to offer the firstfruits declared three critical things. First that the Lord is the giver of all good things. Second that everything belongs to him and third that he is worthy of the best they can give. The Lord had given so generously to them; it is not appropriate to withhold gifts from him.

Seventhly they had prescribed giving. They were also to give a tithe of their crops to the Lord. Giving a tenth of their produce or income to the Lord was a long history in the life of God's people, and there are many to this day that regards it as a useful guide to start their Christian giving.

Eighthly they gave comprehensively. The tithe of the crops was for the maintenance of the Levites, but those who were supported also gave a tenth of what they received. In other words, the Lord's servants were not exempt from giving. There was not one set of rules for the people and another for the pastors and teachers. The Levites would benefit from the generous regular giving of God's people, and in turn, maintain the priesthood.

Lastly, they had organized giving. They were told not only how much was to be given but also who was responsible for the collection of gifts. It was to be in the hands of the primary beneficiaries the Levites, but they were always accompanied by another responsible person who was a priest. Financial matters should be conducted in such a way that there won't be any suspicion or accusation regarding misappropriation of funds. From this passage, it seems pretty clear that such provisions were not peripheral or marginal, nor do they convey the hint that the person that is handling the money can't be trusted. Rather they are safeguards to protect an innocent person who might well be unjustly accused of improper use of the Lord's money.

In closing, I want you to take a moment and consider these 5 specific promises that these citizens made. They declared they would Pursue God's Will, Passionately Honor God's Day, Plainly Value God's World, Publicly Display God's Love, Personally Support God's Work, and be reminded that these truths are just as vital for us today. What they were doing was very specifically confessing God's Sovereign control over every single aspect of their lives at home, at worship, at work, in trading, in commerce, in their social contact, and in their spiritual obligations. Will you learn from them this morning? Will you this morning wholeheartedly be specific about your commitment and confess Jesus is Lord of your relationships, of your time, and of your possessions. Will you specifically surrender it all to Him so that others will see that Jesus is Lord of your life? Maybe you are here this morning, and you have never surrendered your life to Christ. I would invite you to do so today.

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