It's piety

from my stewardship series, First Fruits, from Deuteronomy 26:1-11

This past Monday was Martin Luther King Day, a holiday.  The church office was closed, and I got to take a day off.  How many of you had that as a holiday too?

So my wife Cathy and I drove out to Inks Lake State Park to do some hiking and birding.  On the way out, Cathy turned to me and said, "I heard just the best sermon last Sunday."  I start to beam, because I know that she is talking about me.  Then she says, "I heard it on the radio."  Suddenly I am deflated.  She said, "It was by a Scottish Presbyterian pastor, Alistair Begg.  He was talking about how we have lost the honoring of the name of God."

I started getting interested in what she was saying.  What is the 4th commandment about?  Not taking the name of the LORD in vain.  What did just say in the Lord's prayer?  Our Father, hallowed be thy Name.  We remember the first commandment, I am the LORD, your God, who took you out of bondage in the land of Egypt; you shall have no other gods before me.  We remember how God revealed God's self to Moses in the wilderness through a burning bush.  When Moses asked for the name of God, he got the response, "I AM."

Whenever you see in your Bibles, in the Old Testament, the name of God as LORD, all capital letters, that is the verb form, "I AM."  So the Rev. Begg was saying that we have only one true God, whose name is I AM.  Everything else that pretends to be God is really only, I am not.

Let's practice.  LORD.  I AM.  (picture of house)  I am not.  LORD.  I AM.  (picture of powerboat) I am not.  LORD.  I AM.  (picture of expensive car)  I am not.

In our stewardship emphasis, we are trying to get our priorities straight.  There is only one God; everything else are only little pretend gods.  We can only worship the one true God rightly.

The key verse for our stewardship emphasis is Proverbs 3:9, "Honor the LORD with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce."   We are to worship the LORD with our first in time and first in quality gifts.  It is a helpful way to keep our priorities straight.

Today's scripture from Deuteronomy strengthens this message.  As you read it closely, you find that it is an order of worship.  We begin by taking the first fruits of everything to the worship center and giving them to the priest to place on the altar.  We have been passing the collection plates a long time.  What would giving first fruits mean to you today?  When you get paid, making a check to the church your first priority?  Making a budget that includes the church as a first priority?

The order of worship continues with a confession, "I was a wandering Aramean..."  We realize that it is not about how hard we work or how smart we are.  We are all vulnerable.  Maybe you have come here today broken hearted, or with a broken relationship, or with a broken body, or with a broken spirit.  Maybe you can look back over your life and see how the LORD has sustained you, has forgiven you, has healed you.  Maybe then you can enter the next act of worship which is to give thanks.  Out of thanksgiving for God's deliverance, we make our first fruits offerings back to God.  What has the LORD done for you?

Our first fruits offerings come as an act of worship. It's piety.  We remember who God is, what God has done for us, and we give thanks.  Worship...piety keeps the little gods in their proper place.

We still practice this piety today.  I remember the first time I worshiped in a black Methodist church.  It is sad that we use such ethnic labels, "that's the Korean church, the white church, etc."  When I was at Texas A & M, our Wesley Foundation, the student ministry, formed a relationship with the black United Methodist church in Navasota.  We did work projects together and worshiped together.  The first time I went I was impressed with the way they took the offering.  They didn't pass the collection plate.  You got up out of your pew.  YOu walked down front to the altar table.  You put your offering in the basket as you passed by the table, up in front of God and all the congregation.  There was no hiddenness.  It is very much like our scripture passage today, about bringing your gifts to the altar.  I never saw it, but I heard tell, that if the first pass-by didn't produce enough, then a second round took place!

When I was a student at Edinburgh University in Scotland, I worshiped at Niccholson Square Methodist Church.  There, they didn't pass a plate either.  They had something that looked like a bag of cloth at the end of a long pole.  The bags appeared before you in the pew as the ushers swept the pews with their poles.

I know a lot of you place cash or a check in the offering plates as they pass by us here.  The plates don't come by me.  I give by credit card on-line at our website.  I use my Southwest Airlines Visa card and rack up airline miles!  I may be an Aggie, but I am not stupid!

Some of you give shares of stock.  We have the Texas Methodist Foundation as our broker.

Some of you suggested that we put an iPad with a scanner up front here at the altar for people to swipe their credit cards!

There are lots of right ways for us to worship the LORD with our first fruits.  Watch this video of how the Schwarzendrubbers do this and why they do this.

We too can continue our worship all during the week by getting our priorities straight here for these hours here.  It's piety.  That's why we give.  That's the good news I have to share today.