Honor the Lord with your goods

I want to share with you some scriptures that I hope will be of inspiration for this moment. I want to frame the moment of giving the Lord this offering of gratitude, with a scriptural basis. And the theme of this material that I want to expose and share with you is the following, "honor the Lord with your goods", the Bible calls us to honor the Lord with everything we have. Verse 9 and 10 of Proverbs 3, Proverbs 3:9 says, "Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the firstfruits of all your increase, and your barns will be filled with abundance, and your presses will overflow with new wine."

It's a bit of an odd terminology for us living in the 21st century, this passage was written for an agricultural community and in terms of the land, the crops, the produce of the land. At that time, for the people that was the most important thing, to have a good harvest, to have a barn with an abundance of food, etc., from a reserve. Today we use other things, we use money, we use a bank account. But we can do the translation into that modern terminology. And what that verse, what those two verses encapsulate, is the most basic rule of Christian stewardship, is the foundation of prosperity and blessing. Stewardship is a weird term, as you know it comes from the word butler. What is a butler? A butler is a person who takes care of a home, who takes care of a house of a normally wealthy person, who can employ a butler. And the butler is the person who manages the money, who makes sure the food is on time. The butler is not the owner of the house, the owners are the people who employ him, but he is in charge of the administration of the house's assets, he makes sure to perform his work well. The important thing about a butler is that although it would seem that he is the owner of the house, it is not so, the owner is the owner. The steward simply manages the homeowner's property.

And so, we too are stewards of all that we have. We are not the owners of our children, we are not the owners of our money, we are not even the owners of our bodies. God has given these things to us simply so that we can administer them in his name and for his glory. Amen. In other words, we should never consider ourselves the owners of anything, but rather that God is the owner and we are his administrators. And this is the most basic rule of the Christian life. And I would also say that it is the basis of prosperity and blessing. If you examine the writings of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you will see that there is this idea that we have to honor God with everything we have, that we have to please Him and always recognize that He is the one who has priority. And if you look at this verse, you're going to see that there's a precondition, a precondition for the blessing. And so there is a blessing, there is a condition and a result. In these two verses we see that there is a consequence of honoring God with our goods.

Let's examine that verse now, I have divided it into different parts it says, "honor Jehovah" there the key word is honor. And then it says "... with your assets" I would say the key word there is assets. And then, "... and with the first fruits" is an important word, I'm going to explain it in a moment, "... with the first fruits of all your fruits" that means absolutely everything that you receive, everything that you produce That is the condition and what is the result? It says, "...and your barns will be filled", I would emphasize the word filled there. And barns, let's see, as I have already said what it means. First, your barns are going to be filled and second it says, "your winepresses." The presses are the places where the grapes are trampled to produce the wine, it is the place where the grapes are stored. "Your presses will overflow" note there, that terminology, full and overflowing, is an idea of abundance, God's blessing is abundant, "...your presses will overflow with must". Must means new wine, and I am going to explain that a little later.

It is no coincidence, brethren, that this advice from God is found in the book of Proverbs. As you know the Proverbs in the Bible, it is the central book of Scripture, they are dedicated to science, the discipline of wisdom. Wisdom is what allows you to live a practical life, a productive life, make good decisions, it is what leads to prosperity. So this wonderful verse is there, in the book of Proverbs, dedicated to wisdom. And as I just said, it is a fundamental rule for life. I would say, rather, that it is the secret of success and abundance. If someone wants to be truly successful in life, and I say this by the way, that success is more than just money, how many know that? A person can be very successful according to men but not have joy, not have peace, not have happiness. When the Bible talks about success, abundance, prosperity, it is talking about something very comprehensive, something that includes all dimensions of life. In the Bible there is a word, it is pronounced "shalom". And, "shalom", many times we translate it as peace, but the word "shalom" in the Bible means much more than this, it means a general blessing, an integral blessing, a blessing that includes all aspects of life. When the Hebrews said "shalom" to another person as a greeting, they were saying God bless you, prosper you, give you health, bless your house, your family, everything else, the word "shalom". So it is a fundamental rule for life, the secret of success and abundance.

Let's look, first, at that initial word "honor Jehovah with your possessions." Honor, honor is a pretty strong word. To honor means to prefer, it means to flatter, exalt, give a special place to someone. It's not just a general reconnaissance. There are many people who consider themselves Christians and think that, well, going to church from time to time, giving the Lord alms, an offering. They are generic Christians. But let me tell you that in the Scripture, anyone who reads the Bible knows that being a Christian is, as we said before, being a disciple, it is training people so that their whole life is dedicated to the Lord. I have always believed, for example, when the Bible says "honor your father and your mother", that means giving them an aggressive, complete, active affirmation. Honoring the father or mother means giving them the place they deserve, recognizing them for everything they have done for us, attending to their needs, celebrating what they do, their fatherhood or motherhood.

We see a difference between generic attention and attention that is equivalent to honor. When the woman who brought the alabaster vase. Jesus was in the house of a Pharisee who had invited him, but that man did not give the Lord the attention that the Lord needed. This woman, however, knew that Jesus was in the house of this Pharisee and went to where He was and says that she took an alabaster vase, which was a jar of tremendously expensive perfume, broke the lid and poured the perfume on the Lord. in the form of honor When this woman did that, the Pharisee thought to himself, “hmm, this woman, how dare she come near the Lord, she is a sinful woman,” because she was a sinful woman. And Jesus said to him, “Simon, I want to tell you something, when I arrived at your house, you just gave me general attention. You did not wash my feet as is normally done in the Middle East, as a sign of honor, you did not attend to me as you should. You simply gave me general attention, but this woman -says- since I arrived she did not stop honoring me, blessing me with that perfume, she dried my feet with her hair." It's the difference, the Lord celebrated the abundance of this woman's gratitude while the other Pharisee received it with a generic courtesy.

And, many times, we are like that, we give the Lord the basics, the minimum, but God wants to be honored in a special way. We have to prefer the Lord and give him glory and honor at all times. That is the essential ethic of every Christian, to put God above all else and love him above all things. Our life should not simply reflect a casual affection but a great passion for the honor of God. Like David, when he sensed that God was being offended by the giant Goliath insulting the Lord's armies, he raged and said, “I can't allow that,” and charged at the giant. Because the glory, the honor of God was being compromised and that is why God blessed David so much, because David had a preferential love, as we have to have towards God. When we give generously of our goods, when we give of our belongings, when we give our tithes, for example, our offerings, when we help others and others, we are honoring the Lord. And we have to, any gesture of blessing for others, of help to the Kingdom of God, we have to do it in the name of Jesus and for the honor of the Lord. I want God to always fill my heart with a sense of gratitude, honor, preference to the Lord.

Now it says, “honor the Lord with your possessions.” The word goods, in English they say with your wealth, with your riches. I think assets is a more encompassing word, what are our assets? Our assets are our belongings and everything we have, our profession, our money, our talents, our time, our material possessions, our bodies, all our knowledge that we have acquired over time. Everything we have, everything must be dedicated to the Lord and we must see ourselves as simply caretakers, people who attend to God's goods. God has entrusted our children to us, for example, our children are not ours. Our children belong to the Lord and we have to take care of them, we have to give them good instruction, we have to attend to their formation and growth. Because God has placed them in our hands and we have to make sure that we give them the attention they deserve, because they are God's property.

Brothers, in life everything has to be consecrated and separated for one thing and that is to honor Jehovah. We have to be consumed with a sense of commitment, that everything we do reflects the excellence, the glory, the beauty of our God and everything has to be at His disposal. The primary use, the very nature of all our possessions is that, that they glorify God. We have been created, how many know? For the glory of God. So there is a difference in how we see possessions and how the world sees them. The people of the world, the people who don't know about God, see their properties and their work, their things like, this is mine, and if I can, I'm going to give something to the Lord. The Christian sees things in a different way, the Christian knows that everything is and belongs to the Lord.

In the Bible there is a parable that teaches us the difference, it talks about this rich fool. The story says that the Lord told that parable, to this man, very rich, he had a lot of money, and so much money that he didn't know what to do with it and then he said, "Oh, I already know what I'm going to do, I'll tear down my barns and I will build them greater and there I will store all my fruits and my goods." I have met such rich people who have a very nice house. By the way, in the original sanctuary, the platform floor, that floor has a history as many things already have in the original sanctuary. The flat on the platform belonged to a very rich lady from Newton and that woman had so much money that she had her house torn down and a new house built. The house was perfectly, in good condition, but she wanted a bigger, more luxurious house. And so he ordered a floor, and when the floor arrived, he didn't like the size of the boards, he didn't like the color of the wood, and he gave them away to a store. And we, neither slow nor lazy, got that floor for free, and we put it on the platform there, in the original sanctuary. So this idea of this woman who didn't know what to do with her money. There is a door there too, the door that leads to the lobby of the church, it is a very nice metal door. And that metal door also belonged to some people who had a very expensive house in another part of the city. And, they did the same thing, they demolished their house to make a bigger house.

So this parable of the Lord reflects a very real intuition and that is that sometimes people have so much money that they don't know what to do with it and what they do is simply move it from one place to another. And this man felt like, this is my money, I don't know what to do, he said, “Now I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to tear down my barns and make it bigger. And then I am going to say to my soul, soul, many goods you have stored, for many years, rest, eat, drink, rejoice." How sad it is when people live only for the material, simply wanting to please and entertain their mind and body with good wines, good food, but they do not think about eternity. When we give to the Lord, we are thinking of eternity, we are, he says, accumulating wealth for eternal life. The word says, "command the rich of this world to be generous, to give to others, to give for the Kingdom of God, to accumulate wealth in heaven." I prefer a thousand times to accumulate wealth for eternity than for this world. Eternity is that, what never ends. Make sure your life is worth eternity. And what happened? As this man thought, my money is mine, I'm going to do what I want with it, he offended God with his selfishness and the Lord told him, “You fool tonight they come to ask for your soul, and what you have provided? who will it be? A rhetorical question, and the Bible says, "So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." Don't be like the rich fool, who thought this is mine. No, think it's from God and God has entrusted it to me to use it for the benefit of His Kingdom.

There is a paradox in Scripture and it is that the more we want to retain and keep and grab, many times the scarcer our riches become. And the more we give to the Lord, the more we are blessed. If you consecrate your goods to God and serve him with them, do you know what will happen? That your assets will grow and you will retain more. There are people who have money, but the money goes away in medicines, in different types of expenses, in legal problems, many times, in so many things, inflation eats up money. I have seen that when one is generous with God, God preserves our money, God preserves our goods. Look, even the house itself, magically, the woods and floors of the house last longer. I believe, personally, I always say, Lord, preserve our house, preserve our property, and I have seen that when one is given by the Lord, when God's blessing is on one's life, everything lasts longer, clothes lasts longer than one, inclusive. Less one gets sick, many times. God's blessing is resting on us.

Don't withhold if you don't give, it's a rule of life in general though. Let me say something about prosperity and blessing. Prosperity is not just material prosperity, when God gives, God gives in many different ways. Sometimes God is not necessarily going to give you a huge house and two cars and many material things. God's blessing is an all-encompassing blessing. Don't see giving to the Lord as something mechanical. If I give so much to the Lord, then I am going to receive so much money. Sometimes, as pastors, in our desire to see people give, we are a bit mechanical, and we make people think that you give this to the Lord, He is going to give you something. I prefer to see God's blessing as something that permeates my whole life. When I am generous with God, God's blessing falls on everything, including the next generations. Don't worry, in the long run, when you give to the Lord, about immediately seeing a result, or about seeing a material thing in return. No, say "I'm going to give it to the Lord and then I'm going to let Him bless my life long term." And, then, believe that the Lord will send his prosperity and his blessing in all areas of your life.

I cannot guarantee that you will not have times of trial or scarcity. Lean times come to all of us. I remember that when my wife and I got married, the first years we were very cramped, the church was small, they could not pay us an adequate salary. And we were just starting out in life, we had bought a house that, in fact, the Lord had provided for us, and we were paying a mortgage that was a little more than we could comfortably afford. And I believe that, I have shared with you that, there was a time when we experienced scarcity, not a scarcity of starving, but of being very cramped. Having to count every penny at the end of the month to make sure everything was given to us. And how the Lord invited me one day, through a little card that I found that said, "leave it to the Lord." And when I saw this little card, I never know where it came from, God was inviting me, I felt like saying "Don't worry, I'll provide for you." And the truth, brothers, is that through all these years, we have seen how the Lord has blessed us and provided us. But there may be times of scarcity in your life, too, but I believe that the general rule of the children of God, and something to which we have the right, in a sense, to aspire, is to have the basic things, the primordial things that we need for life.

Second Timothy says, "... having food and clothing let us be content with this." And if you analyze this logically, that means that if you do not have a livelihood, if you lack your daily bread, if you lack a roof over your head, if you lack shelter for your family, you have, in a sense, a logical right to not be happy and say, "Lord, I need, I need you to bless me." And also the Bible says, of course as I say that, to be satisfied in all situations. But don't stay there, don't think your life is destined to have lack. I believe that the default posture, the basic position of the children of God, is a position of well-being, of profit, of abundance, of sufficiency for all of life's needs. What I want to do is rather balance one thing with the other. God's blessing is comprehensive and not only have to come in terms of money, but also that it comes in terms of peace, joy, harmony in our home, blessing for our children, blessing for our descendants. It is a general, encompassing, organic blessing.

Now, there is another thing that is implied in this idea of honoring the Lord with our goods and that is that not being generous towards God and for the purposes of his Kingdom, is not a mere omission, it is a, I would say, a sin, an active lack leads to ruin and scarcity. When one is stingy towards God, when one is tight towards God, it is indicating a lack of trust in the Lord who has told us that if we honor Him, He will bless us and He will multiply our assets. When we put up with more than we should we are, in a sense, sinning with God. Not giving the Lord what belongs to Him is an active withholding, it is enduring and not just stop giving. And we have to be careful with such a position, as conservative and stingy towards God.

In the book of Proverbs, too, in chapter 11, there is another passage that I would like to analyze briefly, it is in verses 24 to 26 it says, "...There are those who distribute and you have added more to them, and there are those who withhold more than what is fair but they come to poverty" What is he saying there? We have known and in our own life we have also seen it, when there are people who are stingy towards God, are tight-lipped towards others, are not generous, are very conservative with their money, they are always storing, storing, storing for A rainy day. And it doesn't give them the money. And there are those, who are generous to others, who are detached with their money in the name of the Lord and, magically, the money yields to them and they receive more. I believe that the rule of the spirit is that, the more you give to others, the more you give to the Lord, the more God blesses you. I do not believe that abundance depends on us, it depends on God. When we care about the Kingdom of God and the principles of the Kingdom of God. God, then, takes care of blessing us. Isn't that what the word says? "Seek, first, the Kingdom of God and his justice and all other things will be added to you." Withholding more than is fair means giving God less than He deserves, which is all we have.

Honoring God with our goods also means being generous with others, that is what that passage says there, that "the generous soul will prosper." Another way of being blessed in our life is blessing others with our goods, it is not only blessing God, but also, sometimes, we have the opportunity to bless people who perhaps do not have a home, people who need help from us, ways we can pray for someone, a call to a person who is lonely, share a special offering for a person in need. These are all ways of being generous to others. And it says that if we have a generous soul we will be blessed and prosperous. Use your assets to enrich the lives of others, those who do not have as much as you. And what is going to happen? When you see yourself in need, you too will be satisfied. The generous soul will be prosperous, it will be blessed.

Many times, time will pass and we will see how God will be replacing things that we invested for his glory and for the blessing of other years ago. The person who is generous to others in the name of the Lord is always reaping blessings. You will receive blessing and provision. There is another word here that is used in this verse, firstfruits. "Honor the Lord with your goods and with the first fruits of your first fruits." The scoops means the first, it means the best, it means the cream of the cream, it is preferred. In the Old Testament there are different occasions when the Hebrews recognized this principle, giving the Lord the first fruits. The firstborn, in the Old Testament, were dedicated to the Lord. The animal that would be his mother's womb was dedicated to the Lord. The first harvest, the first part of the harvest, was dedicated to the Lord. And that was a way in which the Hebrew people expressed that idea, that the Lord must be given first. And we have to translate this to our current times. The first thing we should get out of our salary, I would say that, the tithe. The tithe belongs to Jehovah, it is the first of our goods, it should not be the last thing that comes to mind. I think it's not if you can, sometimes we hope, "Well, first I'm going to pay all the debts, I'm going to make sure everything is covered, and then I'm going to give it to the Lord." Do you know what honors the Lord? When you take away the first of your salary, the first of your harvest. That is what God wants, because that indicates that you trust Him and that you believe that if you give to Him, you will not lack. We should not give the Lord what we have left over or what we do not need. We must give the Lord the best, we must give him the first fruits, what is chosen, what costs us, what hurts us.

David once said, "I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing." I tell people that in these times of a pandemic, that we can stay at home calmly, not having to go to church when it is cold or uncomfortable. But how good it is when the person says, "No, I want to go to the Lord's house, I want to invest that time of my life in preparing myself the night before, preparing the clothes, preparing our children. Going to the house of God .” That requires effort, but that honors the Lord. Our offering is not only what we give to the Lord financially, it is also the effort of our bodies, it is the mental investment we make in coming to the house of the Lord. Let us be like David who is not we will offer the Lord comfortable burnt offerings, but we will offer the Lord burnt offerings that cost us, make us a little uncomfortable. When we are generous towards God, as I said before, we not only receive material prosperity but also God allows us to enjoy our possessions, God gives us joy, he gives us peace, he gives us health, he gives us the desires of our hearts. And after all that, the most important thing. As I said before, a person can have many material goods but not have the satisfaction of heart.

The wise Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, also says "There is an evil on earth and it is those people who have money and property, but God does not give them the power to enjoy them." There are so many people in the world like this, they have a lot of money but they don't have the power to enjoy it. Why do so many rich people commit suicide many times? Because money is not everything. When God is in your life, God not only gives you the material blessing, but also gives you the ability to enjoy it. Ecclesiastes 2:26 says "... For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he gives the work of collecting and piling up to give it to the one who pleases God."

That brings me to one of the last considerations of this passage. He talks about the must, he says that your presses will overflow with must. The must refers to the new wine, when at harvest time, in Old Testament times, for those cultures wine was, and still is, something very important. Wine was even used as a medicinal form and was sometimes used when the water was contaminated. In the Middle Ages, for example, beer - excuse me for saying this but it's true - in the Middle Ages a lot of people drank beer because the water was generally polluted, so even children were given beer. Wine too, in ancient cultures it was like that, it was like something necessary, almost. But the new wine, when people could crush the recently grown grapes, was like a sign that the harvest is here. And the new wine was cause for celebration. In the Bible, the new wine means, it is also used symbolically to refer to the Holy Spirit, the effervescence, the joy of having the Holy Spirit. The Lord said, "Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within." So, the new wine was also a symbol of celebration, joy, happiness, etc. And then, it says "your presses will overflow with new wine." And I believe that this is one of the things that God gives us as well. When we honor him, he gives us that new wine, that ability to enjoy life, he gives us the Holy Spirit, he gives us his revelation for our lives. So when we honor the Lord with our goods, He blesses us in many ways.

I'm going to ask the musicians to come over here, we're going to finish. When we honor the Lord, brothers, and this is the message that I want us to take with us this afternoon. When we honor the Lord with our possessions, our assets, our talents, our family, our marriages, everything we have, God gives us the power to enjoy, to enjoy life in all dimensions. Joy, peace, conformity, deep enjoyment, are the patrimony of those who honor Jehovah with their goods. So this afternoon, as we give to the Lord now this special offering that we have collected, I want you to do it, not as something obligatory, we don't want anyone to feel obligated. And again, we know that some are not in a condition to give, because they didn't come prepared or whatever and that's fine. But if God puts it in your heart to give to the Lord this afternoon, remember that, "honor the Lord with your goods and your presses with the first of your fruits and your barns will be filled with abundance and your presses will overflow with new wine." The Lord bless you and may the Lord continue to make this church a congregation, a community of joyful givers. Let them know that everything we have we owe to the Lord, amen. And that we feel grateful to be able to give to the Lord.