1.
Grace, mercy, and
peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue
our stewardship emphasis is taken from Malachi 3:10 and is entitled, “Ten Bags of Gold Relate to the Plate,” dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Picture
this. The sermon is done and here comes
the plate—the offering plate! Shall I leave a tip . . . to fulfill my
obligation to God for his care? Some of my guilt goes away when I give; I’ll
feel less guilty. Or, shall I leave the price of admission? Surely it costs
something to put on the Sunday service. I’m a member; I’ll give my dues as a
good member. Or, I’ll give “for services rendered.” After all, someday I’ll
need those services: Baptism, wedding, funeral.
3.
Picture all the
blessings God gives you: food, clothing, home, land, money, goods, a devout
spouse, devout children, good weather, peace, health, good friends, faithful
neighbors, and the like. Picture God giving those blessings to you wrapped in
bags of gold. And imagine that with each of these blessings God gives you, he
likes to divide the blessing into in a collection of ten golden bags—each
blessing divided up into ten portions and wrapped in ten bags of gold. God
gives you ten golden bags of groceries. God gives you ten golden bags of
clothing; ten golden bags of money; ten golden bags of good weather; ten golden
bags of peace; ten golden bags of good health; and the like.
4.
The question that
the prophet Malachi sets before us today is “How do those ten bags of gold
relate to the plate?” Those hit-and-miss reasons—leaving a tip, feeling less
guilty, the price of admission, dues, for services rendered—they all miss the
point of how you relate to the plate. God, in his Word, gives noble reasons as
to how your ten bags of golden blessings relate to the plate—the church
offering plate. God Calls for Returning
to Him One Bag of Gold Out of the Ten Bags He Gives You.
5.
Through the
prophet Malachi, God says, “Bring the
full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby
put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I
will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing
until there is no more need” (3:10).
Of course, let’s recognize to begin with that the offerings you put in
the plate are not between you and the plate. The tithes, or offerings, Malachi
wrote about were given to God in his house, the temple. All offerings brought
to the temple and all the offerings you put in the plate are given to God. Yet,
for the sake of this message today, and because the offering plate is passed to
you, we’ll speak of how ten bags of gold relate to the plate. So—and this is
crucial!—as you look into the plate, see God there in the plate, receiving your
offering.
6.
Now in the
prophet Malachi’s time, it had been about 80 years since the Israelites
returned from captivity in Babylon. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren
now were working the soil and eating of the good of the land. But some drastic
changes had come with the new generations. They had fallen back into the same
sins that had led to the fall of their great nation to the Babylonian army. They
were bringing crippled sacrifices to offer to God. Some were saying it was so
tiresome to bring an offering to God. Some promised good offerings, but the
offerings they brought were flawed. Finally, God declared that, in fact, they
were stealing from him in the offerings they were bringing.
7.
God gave the
Israelites in the Old Testament several laws about the offerings they were to
bring to the temple. The law referred to in our text is the law about the
tithe. The Israelites had an agricultural society, so the tithe offering was
stated in Lev 27:30: “Every tithe of the
land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord.”
Simply stated, the people were to bring an offering of 10 percent of the
family’s increase in goods.
8.
Another important
offering the Israelites brought to the temple was the offering of the
firstfruits. Ex 23:19: “The best of the
firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.” As they began to harvest their grain,
and as they began picking fruit from the trees, they were to bring the first of
those fruits. And they were to bring “the best,” that is, grain with no
spoilage and fruit that was juicy and ripe—the best for the Lord.
9.
In the prophet
Malachi’s day, the people again were having heart trouble, the kind of heart
trouble the prophet Ezekiel had described two centuries earlier: hearts of
stone when they should have had hearts of flesh (11:19). A heart of stone is a
hardened heart. A heart of stone shows no signs of life. A stone-hard heart
leads a person to serve self. The prime example in the Bible of a hardened
heart is Pharaoh, ruler in Egypt: “He
hardened his heart and would not listen to [Moses and Aaron], as the Lord had said” (Ex 8:15). People with hardened hearts
do not want to listen to what God’s Word says to them.
10.
We look back to
the time our ancestors came to this land of plenty, America. They worked the
soil and ate of the good of the land. They gathered together in their homes and
church buildings to give thanks to God, bringing their thank offerings to God.
Are we content, satisfied, with every gift God gives us? Or do we think we need
to hold back the best? We have some of the same heart trouble people had in
Malachi’s time: hearts of stone that don’t want to listen to what God says in
his Word.
11.
God makes it
clear that he has something to say about the ten bags of golden blessings he
gives us. In Malachi’s time, people were to bring a tithe, 10 percent, as a
thank offering to the temple. “Bring the
full tithe into the storehouse” (Mal 3:10). We who live after Jesus offered
himself for us on the cross and was raised for our salvation no longer have a
law from God that we must put 10 percent into the offering plate, nor that we
must bring the first of everything we harvest.
12.
But, the Old
Testament law of bringing the offering of the tithe and the offering of the
firstfruits can be a good guide for us Christians. Could we possibly want to do
less? Think of how much more richly blessed we are than were those Old
Testament believers—and I’m not talking about the air-conditioning, satellite
TV, and indoor plumbing they never dreamed of. They lived every day by the
promise that the Messiah would come someday, but when they didn’t know. We live
knowing Jesus did
come, that he did
fulfill God’s Law for us where we so badly fail, that on the cross he did suffer
the punishment of hell so that we never will, that he has fully and completely
accomplished our salvation so that we absolutely will live in the limitless
joys and riches of heaven with him forever.
13.
What’s more,
specifically because Jesus’ death on the cross has reconciled us to God,
removing the sin that separated us from him, that would have cut us off from
every blessing, God has now given us everything we have and everything we truly
need: food, clothing, home, land, money, good weather, peace, health, and the
like. Today we picture God giving us all those gifts in ten bags of gold. Those
ten bags of gold relate to the plate as a firstfruit offering. The first action
a family does with those ten bags of gold is to give to God first. The family
does that first, before making any purchases, before paying any bills. The
first portion goes to God as a firstfruit thank offering. The ten bags of gold
also can relate to the plate as a tithe, 10 percent of everything God gives.
That means out of every group of ten bags of gold God gives, one bag is placed
in the plate. In our cash economy, that means we determine, we work out, what
the 10 percent is and write that check first. When you place that check in the
offering plate, picture it as the first bag of gold out of every ten bags of
gold God gives to you. And, remember, look for God in the offering plate,
because he’s the one with whom you’re relating with a firstfruit offering and
with an offering of a tithe, just as the Old Testament people did. The
remaining nine bags of gold are for the family to use for savings and for
living.
14.
The devil and the
world around us set in front of us many temptations about the ten bags of gold
God gives us. We see how the world uses all the blessings that come from God’s
hand. “I worked hard for it; it’s mine. I
can do with it whatever I want.” We are tempted to think the same way. Some
people use all ten bags of golden blessings only for themselves. They serve
themselves, without a thought of God, who gives his blessings to all people
alike, whether they be good or evil, just or unjust (Mt 5:45). The temptations
to serve ourselves with the blessings God gives us work on us when our hearts
are hearts of stone. Hardened hearts tend not to listen to God’s Word.
15.
So God does his
surgery on hearts of stone. God promised: “I
will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will
remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh”
(Ezek 11:19). God preps us for surgery by washing us clean in the water of Holy
Baptism. That is water combined with God’s Word. Thus it has the power to work
forgiveness of sin and to rescue us from the devil and his temptations. Jesus
gave his heart for us; he gave his all for us on the cross. Now in our Baptism,
those blessings of forgiveness and deliverance and eternal life are ours, and
that very Baptism gives us new hearts to believe that.
16.
The new heart of
flesh God gives, replacing our heart of stone, is fashioned after the heart of
Jesus, a heart that does the will of the Father in heaven. After God’s heart
surgery on us, we work at making the ten bags of golden blessings relate to the
plate. Our offerings flow as thank offerings, out of our renewed heart. Following
God’s surgery comes the recovery—a lifelong recovery. And the prescription for
a strong recovery is a regular dose of hearing, reading, and studying God’s
Word and regular attendance at the Lord’s Supper, for where there is
forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.
17.
God used the rule
of law in Old Testament times for the offerings brought to the temple. For us
people with a new heart, our offerings turn into a rule of gratitude. God sets
the stage in Deut 8:18: “You shall
remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives
you power to get wealth.” That changes our relation to the plate: “Remember the Lord
your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.” The new heart
God puts in us leads us to make this commitment, 2 Cor 8:5: “They gave themselves first to the Lord.”
That is how you relate to the plate. “They gave themselves first to the Lord.”
Then 2 Cor 9:12 describes the bag of gold you put in the plate: “overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.”
The new heart God puts in you beats in time with these words from God in 1 Cor
16:2: “On the first day of every week,
each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper.” Close
up all your thoughts with the words of 2 Cor 9:7: “God loves a cheerful giver.”
18.
In our Malachi
text, God makes a promise: he will “open
the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is
no more need.” This is only a picture, because there are no windows in the
sky. But God says he will continuously pour blessings on his people from above.
The plate will keep coming to you. “Here
I sit, and here comes the plate. God’s blessings keep on coming to me. Those
ten bags of gold all relate to the plate. I return to God some of what he gives
me.” See God in the plate. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment