Stewardship and Service

Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions. That's where every weekday morning you and I we get together We have a little bit of that was a long reach there to get my coffee. We have a little bit of coffee We end to God's Word and we grow and I love with Lord together in this year 2024 We're doing we'll make it through what? Numbers Deuteronomy numbers Deuteronomy Hebrews. Oh good job You have some coffee we'll bring into God's Word You got your own coffee today, huh? Oh you think it's hot Well, I think you've put a little bit warm on the kettle. All right, you ready pray Do you want to pray for the devotions or do you want me to?
Me okay Lord, we thank you so much for what a blessing it is to get to read your word this morning. Father, we thank you for the sunshine. We thank you for this new day you've given. Lord, please help us to understand your word. Please apply it to our lives in Jesus's name. Amen.
I'm going to move your tea over here so it doesn't spill. All right. Let me move you a little bit forward, towards the desk. There we go. All right. So we are at Numbers chapter 18, Numbers chapter 18, beginning at verse 25. It's just one paragraph. So Numbers 18, beginning at verse 25. So we're down here. So do you want to start and just tell me when you're tired and want me to pick up?
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak thus unto the Levites, and say to them, When you take from the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them, as your inheritance, then you shall offer up a heave offering of it to the Lord a tenth of the tithe, and your heave offering shall be reckoned to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor, and as the fullness of the winepress.
Thus you shall also offer a heave offering to the Lord from all your tithes which you receive from the children of Israel. And you shall give the Lord's heave offering from it to Aaron the priest. Of all your gifts you shall offer up every heave offering due to the Lord. From all the best of them, the concentrated part of them.
Therefore you shall say to them when you have lifted up the best of it, then the rest shall be accounted to the Levites as a produce of the threshing floor and as a produce of the winepress. You may eat it in any place, you and your households, for it is your reward for your work in the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall bear no sin because of it when you have lifted up the best of it. But you shall not profane the holy gifts of the children of Israel lest you die. All right. You can leave me anything to read. All right. Well, we got three questions.
A, what's this? About? About. B, what's the? Best verse to summarize. Good. And C, what are we? Called to do. Called to do. Good. So A, what is this about? What do you think? The offerings. Yeah, good, right? So the Levites, right? They, uh, they receive a portion of the offerings, right? And so what are they supposed to do with their portion? Uh... So everybody else brings a tenth of their stuff.
They present it to the tabernacle. The Levites get a portion of that. What are the Levites supposed to do? Give the offering of the Heba. Well yeah, but how much are they supposed to give to the Lord? A tenth. So they tithe on the tithe. Right, so everybody pays the tithe and the Levites pay their tithe to the Lord. Who do you think gets that tithe? The high priest. Yeah, right Aaron and his sons and the furnishing of the tabernacle these types of things right and so there's The Levites aren't exempt from this tithing right?
Everybody gives unto the Lord. Why do you think everybody has to give unto the Lord? Because Because the priests need money too. Okay, so you know the priests need to be able to be cared for also, and so this is part of how that economy of God works, right? That's true. Who gave the people the land? God. Who gave the Levites their work? God. Who gave the priests their work? God. So God gave all this, so whose is it ultimately? God.
So what's their job? Don't do that. To give some of it back to God. Yeah, they're supposed to be stewards, right? They're supposed to work the land, they're supposed to work in the tabernacle, they're supposed to do these things, and they recognize that all of this was a gift from God, and so they give back a portion of it to Him. And then it's distributed and kind of recycled. So businesses and farms and stuff like that produce, they make things.
The church, this is just me kind of talking to you, right? The church recycles things, right? The church doesn't actually make, right? We recycle, especially money. Some people give it and then we use it or we give it to others, right? We try to do it for the benefit of others. And then there's another entity that likes to take it, but we'll leave that for another day, maybe for your civics class.
So anyways, so the Levites, what might they be tempted to do with it? Just take a little bit more. Take a little bit more, or when they give a tithe, what might they be tempted to do? If it's a livestock or grain or something like that, what do you think they might be tempted to do? I'm looking specifically at verse 29. Of all your gifts, you shall offer up every heave offering. Oh, the best. What might they be tempted to do? Just give the sickly animal. Yeah, right. Well, man, that that sheep over there, that's a that's a huge sheep.
Well, we'll give God the little one and we'll get we'll take the big one home. Right, they might be tempted to do that, but the Lord says, no, no, no, no. Just like they gave the first fruits. They gave the best of their crops, you give the best of the tithes back to the Lord. Because it's the Lord's is one of the ways that they can show faithfulness. But why did they get a tithe at all? What does it say at verse 31? Why do they get a tithe at all?
It's their reward. For what? For serving the Lord. Yeah, right. God's the one who told them they got work to do. That's a reward, right? When you work, should I give you a reward? Like what? Like dinner. Or sometimes we might have extra chores and you might make extra money if you do extra chores.
Right. So there's an economy of God. But there's a reward. Right. Could you imagine if we just treated you like slaves around the house and didn't feed you and didn't care for you, didn't clothe you? Be a pretty bad deal, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So. Then the last thing, verse 32. If they don't do this, what are they going to bear? Um, death. Guilt and ultimately death, right? Yeah. So is this serious business or is this easy? Serious. Serious business. Does God take this seriously? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, we've talked a whole lot about it.
You tell me, what do you think is the best verse that you would summarize, that you think summarizes all this? Um, 26, 26. You know what? I got the last part of verse 26. I'm going to a tithe of the tithe, a 10th of the tithe. That's what I got. But I also have underlined a verse 31.
It is your reward or your work in the tabernacle of meeting. But then verse 32, you shall bear no sin because of it. When you have lifted up the best of it. Well, we've talked a lot about this. What do you think you're called to do in response to this? To serve him because our rewards will be great in heaven. Okay, serve him because your reward will be great in heaven. That's an awesome application. I love it. Good job. Is it always easy to serve him? Is it kind of sometimes easy to give him our like our leftovers instead of the best?
Oh, yeah Yeah, we could do that Yeah, are you ready to pray? Okay God we thank you so much That you are our great and generous king And we thank you that you have given us the capacity to love you Because you have first loved us Lord, we pray that you would please help us to serve you. Where we know that great is our reward in heaven, the Lord, we pray that we would store up treasures there, not where moth and rust would destroy, but give us strength, Lord, to serve you each day in Jesus's name.
Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week.
If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.