Look around at our church building.  One of the comments we often here at Zion is how beautiful of a church we have.  Sure, things could use some upkeep and a little work here and there, but still. Now, look around at the each other, at the church of God gathered in this place.  We could say the same things: beautiful, though at times could use some work.  We are surely blessed here at Zion, both with our family and with those things which the Lord has given us.

This is always been the way God has treated His people – better than we deserve.  In our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy, we heard a brief history of how God rescued His people and keeps His promises to them. He delivered them out of slavery and brought them into the Promised Land, blessed them with an abundance to sustain this body as they take possession and live in that which the Lord have given as an inheritance.

The offering of the first fruits serves as a reminder that the Promised Land is God’s gracious gift and it to be received with joyful thanksgiving. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were required to give of their first fruits, 10% of what God has blessed them with.  This isn’t the leftovers.  It’s not, you give whatever you have left at the end of the month after you pay your bills.  This is giving the best of the best back to God in grateful devotion for what He has given.

And so it is with us. We pass the plate every week as a reminder that God has answered our prayers, that He sustains His people with daily bread.  We receive many good things from God. We are beyond blessed in our country and in our lives, though we often take for granted what this means.  Even the Pharisees gave 10% of all they had back to God, though they thought it earned them God’s grace.  We who have been freed by the Gospel, released from the burden of earning anything from God, how can we not share our blessings with others?

Repent, you tight fisted, ungrateful people. Repent for grabbing what belongs to God and lacking trust in Him to carry you through your life. Repent for thinking that you deserve an easy life full of money and goods and that is not part of your Christian duty to share the blessings of God.  Holding onto your sin drags you away from Christ.

Notice we are not to give away all that we have.  You do not starve your children in order to feed your neighbor.  You do not give away what the Lord has not given to you, you do not overreach your blessings to spend more than have, and you don’t hoard treasure here on earth where moth and rust can destroy.

You who pat yourselves on the back, thinking that you have done more than you share, repent of your sinful pride and self-righteousness.  Your sins of greed, of selfishness, of pride condemn you.  Faithfulness to Christ does not rest in what you give to God, but in what God gives to you.  He has bought your salvation, redeemed you not with gold or silver, but with the holy, precious, blood of Christ. What is a dollar, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars compared to the forgiveness of sins? 

Like Jesus in the desert, the devil tries to tempt us with doubt and worry, questioning if God really cares for us and if we really have enough.  He spoke to Jesus, “If You really are the Son of God,” going after His pride and His devotion to the Father.  Jesus will have none of it, none of the twisting of God’s Word and none of lies.  How easy though we fall to these same temptations, doubting our position in God’s family as His child, questioning whether He will really take care of us in our times of need, and worse of all, trying to make ourselves the god and ruler of the kingdom of our lives.

We are all tempted to make excuses.  Most of us probably wonder whether that is really possible for us to give back the way we know we should.  Perhaps we are so consumed by the practical challenges of just making it through the day that we find it difficult to imagine that our struggles could have any larger significance.  Maybe we think that only what rich, powerful, and famous people do really impacts the world in meaningful ways.  Perhaps we imagine that the little we have can never make any kind of difference. It may be that our previous efforts to grow in faithfulness have been somehow disappointing or frustrating, so we have given up.  I imagine that many of us feel as insecure and helpless as those enslaved by the Egyptians.

So we make those excuses to hold on to what we have, and to give God what we think he really wants. That we will show God our thanks devoid of any action and just by giving Him our heart. A faith that refuses to show itself through its actions is devoid of Christ.  If you think you are saved because you give Jesus your heart, you will not be saved.  It is one thing to choose Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior, to give Him your heart and commit yourself to Him, and that He now accepts you into His flock. It is a very different thing to believe in Him as a Redeemer of sinners, of whom one is the chief.  One does not choose a Redeemer for oneself, nor give one’s heart to Him.  The heart is a source of your evil thoughts and intentions. The heart is where the devil tempts, for it easily tricked and corruptible. What the Lord wants from you simply faith in Him, fear, love and trust in God that Jesus takes that blackened offering of your sinful heart upon the cross and crucify it, offering His life up as a sacrifice to the Father.

A few verses later in Deuteronomy after our Old Testament reading, we hear the truth of the matter, “And the Lord has declared today that you are people for His treasured possession, as He has promised you, and that you are to keep all His commandments, and that He will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that He has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as He promised” (Deuteronomy 26:18-19).

People of God, you are God’s treasured possession, brought from the slavery of your sin to the freedom of the Promised Land, an eternal heavenly inheritance. He didn’t give up 10 percent of what He had to save you, but He gave it all, the blood of the Son of God. Life itself and all our blessings and abilities come from the Lord.  Ever since He created us in His image and likeness, He has called us to invest ourselves in ways that enable us to flourish as His sons and daughters.  God invites us to an abundant life that bears fruit for the Kingdom, blesses others, and radiates the light of Christ. The Lord desires a cheerful giver, yes. But the cheerfulness comes only through faith in Christ who has given everything to buy you away from the slavery of your sin.

If we are to be faithful stewards, we have to begin with our lives as they are now, and it can only be as we are anchored to Christ and His Word.  To wait until all is perfect and we have time, energy, and resources to spare is to fall prey to an illusion, for life in this world will never be without its challenges.  No matter how sad, sick, frustrated, or deprived we may be, the Lord still calls us to invest our lives in holiness for the blessing and salvation of the world.  We probably will not do that on as large or obvious a scale as others have throughout history, but that is irrelevant.  Like it or not, we have the lives in this world that we have.  We cannot say a magic word and become someone else or change anything about the past.  Jesus has overcome these things.  We can, however, be faithful stewards of the present as we fulfill our identity as those blessed by God though faith in Christ as a holy precious treasure, called to become a blessing to others as a sign of His love, mercy, and holiness.