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"Give God Your Firstfruits" Nehemiah 10-32; Mark 10:17

by The Rev. Clancy Nixon

October 22, 2006

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, VA

www.holyspiritanglican.org.

What are you and I to do with Jesus' demand spoken to the rich man to sell

everything he has, give to the poor, and then come, follow him? He went away sad,

and did not follow Jesus. What about those of us who do follow Jesus, but still hold

onto our stuff? What most Christians have done throughout history is to figure some

way to interpret it so that Jesus is not understood to make the same demand of us to

sell all we have. We try to dodge the bullet. Christian interpreters have used two basic

strategies for this: we either attempt to make it apply to someone, anyone, other than

us; or, we try to minimize or spiritualize the command to make it more reasonable. So

people typically reason that this applies only to "the rich," which we define as people

who earn more money, or have more money, than we do. Various exegetes have tried

to enlarge the needle's eye. For example, there is the old tradition about the "Needle's

Eye" being the name of a low gate in Jerusalem. The story goes that a camel can get

through the needle's eye if it throws off its burden and gets down on its knees. Then

the lesson becomes merely moral, not practical: rich people need not worry as long as

they are humble. The problem is that this tradition does not date to Biblical times, but

appears to have been invented in the 11th Century by a rich church looking for

loopholes. Jesus demand looks like a kind of cross. How can we read this story

faithfully?

Most Christians dismiss Jesus' demand to sell all and give it away as totally

unreasonable and out of the question when it comes to all of us. The Apostle Paul,

under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us that if we don't provide for our own

family, we are worse than an unbeliever. The community cannot function if all of us

all give everything away. Indeed, Jesus does not insist that all his followers reject

having possessions. Many of his followers had possessions, and some appear wealthy,

including Mary, Martha and Lazarus of Bethany. We do not need to sell all in order to

be saved; salvation is not a work that we do, but rather something that only God can

do in us. But we need to be careful that we do not evade the lesson that Jesus has for

all of us here. Peter reminds Jesus here in Mark 10:28 that he and the others of the

twelve have left everything to follow him. Jesus tells his disciples that if you forsake

home or family or fields for his sake, you will receive from God a hundred times as

much in this present age. Those who are very generous will have great rewards, both

in this life and in the age to come.

For Jesus, money is a heart issue. It's about our priorities are we seeking first

the Kingdom of God, or do we seek first the things of this world? It's easy to say that

God is first in your life, but it's another thing to demonstrate it. Jesus wants to know,

if he were to ask you, are you willing to give it all away? Are you willing? Few of us

are willing to risk giving away what provides us security in this life to enter a new

quality of life under God's rule. Here at Church of the Holy Spirit, we profess to be an

Acts 2 Community, like the first church in Jerusalem. Acts 2:45 says, "Selling their

possessions and goods, they gave to everyone who had need." Wow, they really did

that. We learn later in the book of Acts that Barnabas sold his land to the church so

the proceeds could be given to the poor. Admiration for generosity is one thing; giving

away everything is quite another. How do you get to the place that you are willing to

give away all for God? It begins with an understanding that God calls all of us to

sacrifice and risk. This call becomes clearer as we look again at the story of

Nehemiah.

In Nehemiah 2, the people of Judah responded wholeheartedly to Nehemiah's call

to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem with him. Notice what they said in Nehemiah

2:18: "They said, "Let us arise and build." So they put their hands to the good work."

Building the wall required sacrifice. It's not like these people had nothing better to do

than build a wall. It was costly for them; to build the wall, they had to give up some

actual good for the potential best. This was an agricultural society; if you did not

work, you did not eat. Other things needed to be put on hold. They had to leave their

homes and farms in the country, come to the city and work. They left their homes and

families unattended for a long time, and enemies were breathing down their necks.

They could do this because they understood that God had a larger purpose for them

than their immediate comfort. Because they understood that God was the Lord of all

their time and money, so they could give this part of their time and money to the work

God called them to do.

Later in Nehemiah 10, after the wall had been built, we read about how Ezra the

priest reinstituted the temple tax, the feast of booths, the Sabbath regulations, and the

tithe to support the Levites. The people committed themselves to all these reforms in a

solemn covenant that the leaders signed. All these reforms were designed to ensure

that God was to be honored first. In verse 31, since the Sabbath is the first day of the

week, it was given over wholly to God, and not to commerce. By honoring God first,

the Israelites refused to make money their God. In verse 36, they dedicated the

firstborn of their sons and their flocks to God, as a reminder that everything we have

comes from God, and that it all belongs to God anyway. In verse 37, the people pledge

to follow the law of Moses to pay their tithes to the Levites, who were dedicated to the

service of God. When the Promised Land was divided among the tribes, the Levites

were given no inheritance of land as the other tribes were. What had happened by

Nehemiah's time was that the people's neglect of the tithe meant that the Levites had

to work in the fields to support themselves. The tithe came to us before the law it is

as old as Abraham, who gave a tenth of his wealth to Melchizedek, the priest of the

Most High God. Melchizedek was a type of Christ.

When God's word says to tithe, God is not saying to give him 10% of what we

have. It's not ours to begin with, it's God's. God is generous; God lets us keep 90% of

what is His anyway! The Bible says, all of it belongs to God. From God's perspective,

we don't really own anything ourselves, we are only stewards, who are looking after

the assets of the master until He returns. Amen? Since Jesus is Lord, there is to be no

area of our lives that is not under His Lordship, including our wallets, our checkbooks,

and our budget. Let me ask you this: Is your wallet baptized? Have you dedicated it to

the Lord? Deuteronomy 14:23 says, "The purpose of tithing is to teach you to put God

first in every area of your life." This verse says you don't tithe after you have become

spiritually mature; tithing helps you to become spiritually mature.

Use the 10-10-80 Plan. Here is my advice for you: You need goals in three areas

of your finances: giving, saving, and spending. Here is a simple formula you can use:

Give 10%, save 10%, and live on the rest. Just do that, and you'll have few financial

problems in life. Give 10%, save 10%, and live on the rest. The minimum standard of

giving in the Bible is the Tithe: I want to be very clear what the tithe is; the tithe is

10% of your pre-tax income, off the top, to the local church. When the Bible says

10%, it does not say that you calculate that 10% after you have paid Caesar your taxes.

It's 10% off the top. The tithe operated in times of oppressive taxation by occupying

powers. It's the firstfruits, the first check you pay, before your mortgage. And you

bring your tithe to the storehouse, Malachi says, which means to the local church, not

your favorite TV preachers or missionaries--that's what offerings are for. An offering

is anything you give over and above your tithe. After you give the tithe, and offerings

and alms, from God's perspective, only then can you talk about generosity. The tithe

belongs to God, it is sacred to him.

Get there gradually or immediately, but get there soon. When we take up our

offering, you've heard me say, "God loves a cheerful giver." The first part of that

verse from Second Corinthians reads," don't give reluctantly or under compulsion."

Here is a word of grace in the midst of the law. Friends, listen to me. If you can't

bring yourself to tithe now, then let this verse speak grace to you: give only what you

can give cheerfully. The way you start is to give proportionally, and then raise that

proportion over time. That is how many of us got to tithing. Choose a percentage of

your income that you and your mate feel good about giving, that you can give

cheerfully, without any resentment. Otherwise, that gift is a "burnt offering;" the

resentment that you attach to that gift burns and spoils it. Resentment is poisonous. In

years past, I have given what I did because I have found that were I to give more, I'd

resent it. My own discipline over the years had been to give 10% to the local church,

4% to offerings, save 10%, and live on the rest. God really worked on me this year

with our Capital Campaign to help me get beyond my resentment, and so we now give

far more than that to offerings. Jesus said, all things are possible with God. Trust me,

it was God that did that miracle work in me!

Make a commitment to God that you will give proportionally, and that you will

increase your giving until you reach the tithe. Maybe you start at 2%, or 4%. Live

with that for a while, and determine to raise it until you give the full Tithe. As you get

a raise in your salary, you can raise the percentage of your giving. You can put your tax

refund check to your tithe. Every year, review your giving. Don't resent your giving!

The same principles apply to service in the church. If you are resenting your service,

please ask to be released. You are released.

Some people say, "I can't afford to tithe." If I were a betting man, (in a Christian

sort of way, of course!), I'd bet that there was a time some of you parents said that

about having children, too. Somehow we make room in our budgets to provide for our

children. There's grace none of us have achieved perfection in every part of our

spiritual lives. I don't know about you, but I can't afford not to tithe. I need it. I need

God's help in my life. He blesses me when all my priorities line up with his Word. It's

more about our hearts than it is about our wallets anyway. I ask you: give what you

can't keep to gain what you can't lose: give your money to gain the kingdom for

others. Invest in your church, and we will reach the lost of Loudoun County with the

love of Christ. That is our primary calling. Before they came to us, over one third of

the people who have been in this congregation did not have Jesus as the Lord of their

lives.

If you have not already done this, this week, I'd like you to think and pray and talk

to God and your mate about your financial commitment for the year 2007 to our

church. We ask you to pledge so we can better plan our spending. If this is your church

home, please look at your budget this week, and give us your pledge commitment by

next week.

In the book of Nehemiah, by the time you get to the Ezra reading the law to the

gathered people at the end of the book, there is no more mention of the wall. The

building of the wall was simply the catalyst for the people's renewed interest in God

and in the Word of God. All the focus is on God and God's work. So should our focus

end there. Finally, it's not about money, it's about God. We look at money because it

is an indicator of our heart condition before God. As we close, let's fix our eyes on

Jesus, who gave away all for us. He left the security and comforts of Heaven to show us

how to live. He lived with no possessions to speak of, and he had no place to lay his

head. Jesus endured the cross and its shame, so that those who believe in him, who are

called by his name, might have everlasting life.

Let's close in prayer.