Honor Jehovah with your possessions

I want to title this meditation "Honor Jehovah with your goods" and I have chosen it precisely because of the appropriateness of the topic we are dealing with this morning and I want to enrich it again, these are principles not only applicable to a specific moment in life like the one you are living this Congregation now and a call now to give to a specific cause, these are principles by which we must live every day of our lives; They must always govern all the things we do and there is a blessing, a promise that comes as a result of that way of living.

I am giving you gold here right now in terms of how you can live prosperous, blessed lives, illumined by God's wisdom, eased by God's grace-filled wind when we flow and our lives are founded on sound spiritual principles. .

And I like the fact that this sermon, the verses that I have here are not from the New Testament but from the Old Testament written by a man of great wisdom, Proverbs 3:9 and 10 that remind us that these are eternal principles, they are there and it's there put in a kind of general, generic way in the middle of other meditations and other things.

And that text says: "Honor the Lord your God 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 must." "Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your produce" there are two words that I want to highlight: honor, honor and the first fruits of all your produce. And it says: "And your barns will be filled with abundance and your presses will overflow with must" that is a rule of life for you who are new to the faith, for example, I want to emphasize that principle of Scripture for all aspects of your life.

Forget about this specific call for now, be guided by it throughout your life and I promise you a great blessing. This is the most basic rule of Christian stewardship. Stewardship means that we are stewards, not owners of creation or of the things that we call mine; my house, my husband or wife, my children, my job, my career, my clothes, my talents, my knowledge, none of it is ultimately yours that is one of the clearest principles of Scripture.

We are not really owners of anything but simply stewards, we care, we administer what belongs to God, amen? that's what a butler does. The steward simply manages the things that belong to God. God gave us as a human race the Earth for example and we have to be good stewards of creation; take care of the environment, not be cruel to animals and the things we enjoy, keep the Earth cared for and well managed for future generations.

Sometimes current generations forget that there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have to live on the same Earth, breathe the air that we breathe and that we have to take care of those things too. We are stewards, we do not own all these things. A movie that I saw recently comes to mind called The Pottler, The Butler wonderful movie I invite you to see it because it is a movie that traces the fight for civil rights here in the United States in the African-American community and it touched my heart.

But it's also the story of an African-American White House butler who was a butler for about thirty-odd years through eight presidencies and one of the things you see about a butler is that these men and women, they were specifically male butlers. but there were women working in the kitchen and in other things, African-Americans but although they were in the midst of so much wealth and all the opulence and power of the White House they were supposed to be practically invisible. If they give you a cup of coffee it is as if it appeared by magic, the President is not supposed to pay attention to the butler who is serving it or to anyone, they are beings that come and go and simply serve and manage the things that are put on them in the hands.

And that is a good image of us, we live in the opulence of creation and the beauty of everything that God has given and we have so many good things that God places, our children, for example, to take care of them, to educate them in the fear of the Lord , our spouses to love them and serve them and mutually hold each other and make sure we take good care of them and serve them well, right? the career that God gives us to use it well for the purposes of the Kingdom of God. It is a rule of stewardship.

That is why this word stewardship is a very evangelical one, it refers to the fact that we are stewards not owners, always remember that because if you understand that there is already a great advance in your spiritual life; nothing that you say is yours is yours, it simply belongs to God and you take care of it for the Lord and manage it.

And in that process, enjoy it too, that is the good thing, that God says: look, I am going to put this in your hands, enjoy it but it is not yours, the title belongs to Me. Then that is the rule: Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your produce. That is the basis I would say of prosperity and true blessing in life, a person can be prosperous with money but be miserable in terms of joy and peace in his heart.

This very morning or last night I was thinking about the life of Michael Jackson. Now there is a lot about Michael Jackson after he tragically died because his family is fighting with an advertising and entertainment company there suing them. One of the things that Michael Jackson left behind after his death was a divided family fighting over property and all belongings, he left a reputation both personally and for other people like that doctor who treated him who has seen his life ruined, there are many others who were around him.

But Michael Jackson at the end of his life was a tragic man. And one would think: a person as talented as him, so full of resources and with so much money that he would have won and lost because that is one of the things, when you have money without God you win and so you also lose. But the terrible thing is that this man, so gifted, so admired, with so many financial, intellectual, cultural, and artistic resources, lived a terrible, tragic life at the end of his days, and one that I would not wish on any human being. At the end of his life Michael Jackson had to have a team of doctors and people with medical skills just to sleep at night and that led to his death from anguish and all the distress of his life.

That is to say that you can have many things in the world but if you do not have God's blessing you are miserable and we see that over and over again in human life. What ensures that you can have peace in your heart and know that at the end of your days you know where you are going and that you live with God's approval no matter what happens is that sense that you know that your life is not your own. and that it is in the hands of God and you are a good steward of the resources that you have, you do not become attached to them, you do not cling to them but you know that there is a God who is watching you to make sure that you are using for the glory of His Name and blessing, by doing that you are blessed too.

So this verse, Proverbs 3:9 and 10 gives us first a condition and then a result, the result is a consequence of the prerequisite. If you divide that verse here you will see on the one hand it says: Honor Jehovah with your goods, another phrase with the firstfruits, another phrase with all your fruits, that is the precondition, honor Jehovah with our goods and with the firstfruits of all our fruits that is to say all the result of our experience.

And there is a result: And as a consequence of that lifestyle, the Bible says that, not me because many times people say: well no, this is a cheap prosperity preacher, I am saying what the Bible says; "and your barns will be full and your vats will overflow with must" if you don't like the theology behind it fight with God not with me because that's there in the Bible right? and that is why there are so many passages in Scripture that encourage us to believe in God's blessing.

Now we can exaggerate that, distort it and take it out of context and that is a serious sin that is committed a lot today but in its original context it is something precious and we can go to the bank with it and live under that promise brothers okay?

So it's no coincidence that this advice is in Proverbs, maybe you can't see the handwriting that was years ago when my technology was a little poorer than it is now, I'd do better now don't worry. It is no coincidence that this advice is found in Proverbs, as I said before, the Book of Wisdom, it is a fundamental rule for life, it is the secret of success and abundance.

Look at the word honor first: honor Jehovah. It is a strong, defined, solid word, it means to prefer someone, to flatter someone; exalt, enhance a person, give someone a special place. When the Bible says: honor your father and your mother, that is a very strong prescription. Children: give preference to your parents, treat them with honor, do your best to show them your appreciation for the things they have done and that is a promise, it says: honor your father and your mother so that things go well for you, so that you may have long days and that life goes well for you and likewise I would say: honor Jehovah your main Father and it will go well for you and you will have long days in a positive sense of the word, you will not die prematurely I would say you will die at your time when God wishes it and that is the specific moment you have to do it.

So honor is a very specific word and it speaks about the essential ethics of the believer and that is to say, putting God above all things, you will love Jehovah your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your soul, with all your mind also says: you will have no other gods before me, God demands first place because He deserves it. Honoring God means putting him above all else, loving him above all things.

Our life in all the details and aspects of it must reflect that passion, that commitment, that preference of God. David exemplified that like no other. David was passionate with God and did not eat as we say with God, he showed it on many occasions and the great men and women that God blessed throughout all of Scripture always reflected that passion for honor and the Name of God.

So when we give generously to the Lord in our life always and I am going to talk about what it means to give to the Lord, when we give generously either tithes, our tithes, our offerings and when we help others in the Name of the Lord and for His glory it is because we are then honoring the Lord and we are pleasing Him.

It says: "Honor the Lord with your goods" what are our goods? Well, our belongings, everything we have. Our profession. Sometimes people only think about money but no, it is with all your assets, the good that is in your life. It can be your belongings but it can also be your profession, your talents, your time, your material possessions, your body, your knowledge, your human relationships. Sometimes we have human connections that can help the Kingdom of God.

Esther had absolutely privileged good and access to the king and when her people were threatened with extinction she used that resource and played an absolutely key role in preserving the lives of her Hebrew brothers. He had a relationship, he had access. We sometimes have access to, we work in a place, for example, you can work in a hospital. Do you know how many people there are, brothers from the Church who help because they work as translators or as doctors or whatever in a hospital?

If more people thought about it, all you have is a resource. You are in a school, you are there an antenna ready to receive instructions from God for someone and you have to use your talent. English if you speak it, if you know anything about computers; everything must be identify it and say thank you Lord for giving it to me now I put it at Your disposal and do with it what you want.

Everything, honor him with all your goods, everything has to be consecrated and set aside for one thing: honor Jehovah and His Kingdom, that is the primary use of all the goods that we have, it must be and is what justifies them and gives us ennobles. Now that attitude that everything must be for the glory of God, advancement of the Kingdom of God, everything I have is His, comes from Him and is for Him and I use it lightly and humbly while I hold it in my hands is very That attitude is different from how the world sees it, how the world sees possessions.

The world says: no, what I have I earned it, nobody gave it to me! How crazy, no one gave me this, I worked for it and I earned it with the sweat of my brow and why give it to that crazy preacher there who is asking for money for this and that, right? People say my assets are mine, I earned them with my strength and I will use them as I see fit; they are mine and I distribute them as I want, if I want to drink them or eat them or simply build myself bigger houses wherever, a mausoleum for my glory and my greatness, I do it for myself, right? That is the attitude of the world, of the man who does not understand the things of God.

There we have in the Bible the example of the rich fool, right? that in Luke chapter 12 verses 16 onwards this man has acquired so much money and so much greatness and he says: oh I don't know what to do with all this I have, there are so many people like this brothers who destroy houses to build bigger ones that are there today in day, they invent new projects because they don't know what to do.

Someone who works here in an airline calls me a sister, she told me out there we met outside for a little while, she works for one of these European airlines: a man came who thought he had made his reservation to travel to France I don't remember where he was and when he arrives before her he discovers that the reservation had not been made, rather the ticket was not issued but there was room for him on the plane, there was first class where he wanted to travel but at that moment to go I think it was to France or Italy or a relatively close country in Europe and she told him: well, look at the only thing we have in first class, the ticket will cost you 19,900 dollars and some, 20,000 dollars.

He says that man without blinking took out his credit card and said: no problem, you paid $20,000 to pay. And there are people like that, perhaps what that man wanted was the privilege of being seen by two or three women drooling (laughs) and that microsecond of him passing the card to her and with the corner of his eyes seeing them drooling that was worth the 20,000 pesos and there are people like that in the world, brothers. There are people who don't know what to do, they have to spend it somehow, they don't want to leave it to the servants and they have to spend it before they leave.

And this rich man does not know what to do with so much, so he says: I will tear down my barns, I will build bigger ones and there I will keep all my fruits and my goods and then I am going to tell my soul, when I contemplate that opulence again I am going to tell it : soul, many goods you have saved for many years, rest, eat, drink and rejoice.

But God said to him: fool, fool. There are many people who enter the world with great honor but God says: foolish. I want God to call me: prudent, good servant even though the world calls me a fool and that when I get to heaven they tell me: come good and faithful servant enter the rest of your Lord. Then they said: fool tonight you who are saying that you have many days for yourself tonight they come to ask for your soul and what you have provided, that you have worked with so much effort, whose will it be? and the Lord said his final dictum: So is he who makes treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

That is the ethics of the world: they are rich towards them because they are their money, their time, their space, their place, but for God they are miserable like the other rich man Lazarus and the other rich man. So there is a paradox in the Bible that the more we retain for ourselves, the more attached we are to our money, the more advantageously for our own benefit we manage what belongs to God, the more we actually lose. Whether we lose in money, in joy and peace, or in blessings for our loved ones and our environment, because that is also a loss, we will always lose much more if we use this personalistic ethic.

Now if you consecrate your goods to God and serve him with them, I have found in my life that at least they grow more and are blessed more and you take advantage of them more and they give you more and they give you more joy, even if it is less, but every dollar goes to you much further and each life that God places around you and each project you get more out of, that is the beauty of living in the Will of God.

So it is about a rule of life that blesses us and not seeing that rule, so what it says is yes, what I want to say here is this: let's not see that promise that comes as a result of a life given to the Lord as something Mechanic, that is the problem that I think many people commit when they turn this into magic or a chemical formula; if I sow 10 dollars God will give me 10,000 and many foolish preachers encourage people with that horrible technique.

I can't promise people anything like that, practically mechanical, what I can say is: God is going to bless you and you can go to the bank with that. Now let's not see it as something mechanical if I give so much I will receive so much, but for me I prefer to see it as the general pattern of your life will reflect the blessing of God. When others look at the graph of your life, when they look at the graph of your life they will see an essentially rising line. Now if you zoom in you will see a few small dips here and there to a few bigger ones but when you see the entire trajectory it is an upward trajectory.

Because difficult situations can come to life at a given moment but in the totality of what God; hey, how many have not had losses in their lives? raise your hand and I'm going to call you a liar here in front of the whole world, no. We've all had losses, if you don't understand what I mean, we've all had losses, yes or no? We have had failures, sufferings, struggles. Who has not had a terrible illness, who has not lost a loved one, who has not been betrayed, who has not had a great failure in their spiritual or personal life? who does not have something that is like a sore in their flesh that bothers them right now?

But we can also say: wow God has been so good to me, there is so much blessing right? And in five years we won't even remember that moment because God's blessing is what predominates in our life, right? So there may be times of trial, of loss, of scarcity, but the net balance of our life will be truly positive. Not being generous towards God, brothers and His purposes, is not only an omission, it is not only passive, but it is a sin. Meanness toward God is an active fault that leads to ruin and scarcity.

Because even the abundance of goods does not provide the happiness that it should provide. We can have many things but it is a sin to just keep it, store it, be miserable with it. It is a sin, it offends God, it offends the generous God that we have and it offends the God who calls us to use it well and make it run and invest it like talent, right? God says: invest your talent, don't keep it to yourself, don't put it under your pillow, don't put it under the mat; put it to work for My Kingdom and I will bless you. Don't let fear dominate you either: oh if I give I'll miss it.

When giving to the Lord and giving to others, fear should never rule our lives. There are times when I give a cause or whatever for something and I tell my flesh: stop. I really like to think about what I am doing at that moment, the flesh and the mind often betray one in generosity towards God. It does not mean that we are reckless, but one has to drink a glass of water, just a pill, one drinks it and does not think about how unpleasant it is at the moment, but one knows that it is for their own good and that is how we have to be with the Lord.

When we give to the Lord we must give out of principle, not out of emotions because the flesh is always sticking the spoon where it shouldn't and fear, right? You have to give to the Lord on principle because it is so.

So there is a verse for example in Scripture, Proverbs 11 also verses 24 and 26: "There are those who distribute and more is added to them and there are those who keep more than what is fair but come to poverty" which of the two principles exemplifies your life? Are you one of those who distribute or those who retain more? I have told you I have made many efforts in my life to have a very nice bank account but I always fail because there is always a need or something and I give, I give, you know? and God has never failed me. If your faith gives you that, do it, if you don't, don't worry, I understand, not everyone can live at that level.

But it is that in the world there are so many opportunities to be a blessing and to give and share with loved ones, with children who need a strategic investment that is something. Look: if you are going to give it to a child, give it to him at the time when he can take advantage of the money. Sometimes our children need a push to go to university or to pay a down payment for a condominium or a little house when they get married or to take a trip that will enrich them culturally and we are there.

"No, I'm going to give it to you when I die and this and your inheritance that I am" look now when you die, maybe that young man will be 30, 50 years old and he no longer needs that money, you know? but if you invest it now when you need a little push in life, what you give it will be worth ten times. So in a sense we want to give it to our children when, if we have it, give it to them at the strategic moment, at the moment when it's worth the most and that's going to be worth about three or four times later when they're old and don't need anything and you He's already dead and you can't, you can't even enjoy seeing them enjoy what you invested in them.

That's a ñapa, I'm not going to charge you for that advice (laughs). It says: "The generous soul will prosper and he who satisfies, he will also be satiated" satisfies people with your blessing and they will be grateful that you are alive. So withholding more than is fair means giving God less than He deserves, which is everything.

Honoring God with our goods also means being generous with others, I'm going to get through that quickly because now, right? because once again it is necessary to expand not only giving to the Church, giving to the Kingdom, giving to obviously spiritual causes; be generous with others.

Another way to be prosperous is by blessing others with our goods. That is why I believe that the proverb says: "And the generous soul will prosper." I think that there he is broadening the scope of his advice and he is saying: honor God with your goods but he is also saying the generous soul will also prosper. Use your assets to enrich the lives of others who don't have as much as you do. Bless a relative in Central America, in the Caribbean or wherever if you can, a mother who needs a house at that particular moment, then don't send her flowers; She's not going to be able to make those fifty dollars for that bouquet of flowers, send it to her so she can buy a little suit or have a good meal, right? that's what we have to do.

Use your goods to enrich the lives of others and when you find yourself in need then strangely you will also be satisfied, you will also receive blessing and provision is a rule of life. And then we go to this Word: "With the firstfruits" "Honor the Lord with the firstfruits of all your goods." Scoop means the first, it also means the best, the cream of the cream. With the firstfruits, the firstfruits is a good word from the Old Testament, it was when the farmers brought the first fruits of their harvest, the chosen, the best spikes, the largest and most juicy and beautiful fruits they brought to the Lord as a way of put God's blessing on your finances and express to the Lord that I recognize Father that this comes from You and that is why I get the best of you, it is like the firstborn that was Jehovah's, right?

And for me the first thing that we should get out of our salary is the tithe. Sometimes we wait; Well, this month I'm very sorry, Mr. You know how we are, there isn't, so maybe next month we'll see, let's talk then and see how things go. Take out the tithe before you even know it because then your meat won't trip. You have to give to the Lord first and don't worry that God will take care of the rest, that's how it is. The people who tithe know what I am talking about and they are the ones with a smile right now, the others may have a wince but don't worry we bless you too.

The tithe belongs to the Lord, the tithe is the first fruits, it is the first of our goods, it should not be the last thing that comes to mind, it is not if we can or if we have left after paying. No, the idea is that when you give to the Lord first then the blessing comes. For me the clearest image of this is Elijah going to the widow and Elijah tells him: give me a little bit, that little bit of flour and oil that you have left and the widow says: but how am I going to do that, are you crazy? Yes, the last thing I have left is just a little bit more to make a tortilla with oil and now to die because there is nothing left, no no. Give me a little bit first and I promise you that you won't lack it during the whole period of the drought, and that's how it was. That is the principle of giving to the Lord and you have to believe that it is so.

If the musicians can come so that the brothers feel hope, come here. You have to give the Lord the best, the chosen, what costs, what hurts. What the Psalmist David says: "I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing." If you gave and it didn't hurt, check what you're giving, if you gave and you didn't feel a sting there in your mind or in your body, an alarm didn't sound there on your cell phone saying: you're giving a lot, you're giving a lot, you have to give a little more because giving has to be something that causes alarm in our flesh, uh! That sounded nice, someone write it down so I don't forget it later. Giving generously to the Lord must cause alarm in the flesh, you know? it is so.

So when we are generous towards God, we not only receive material prosperity, but God allows us to enjoy our possessions, gives us joy, gives us peace, gives us health, gives us the desires of our hearts, blesses our environment, gives us a capacity to enjoy more. Listen to me, I enjoy a mashed banana with olive oil and a little onion with a little vinegar on top as if I were eating myself, perhaps the Caribbean people appreciate that more, translate it into its own equivalent, honestly.

Brother, I don't need a chicken cordon bleu with a lot of cream and a lot of things, no man, leave that for later, a well-done white rice with some stewed beans on top and a little concon on the side, that's it, it doesn't require anything else. The Central and South American brothers also do their translations there, it doesn't occur to me right now. When one is at peace with the Lord, listen to me, a little piece of bread and butter tastes like heaven.

I don't really need great things to be happy. This past week I was sleepy because I stayed here all day, I had service at night and I threw a mate that I had under the desk in my office, I threw myself there. How many Pastors have a bedroom in their own office? i enjoyed that hour i lay there to refresh my mind. One can enjoy the simple things in life brother, one does not really need great things because God increases your ability to enjoy the small things in life, that is the glorious thing about living under the Will of the Lord, right?

The Bible says that because God gives to the man who pleases him and to the woman God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he gives the job of collecting and piling up to give it to the one who pleases God. You know what? I am going to release it, we are going to leave it there. You have already received too much information this morning, but let this sediment of blessing and promise remain in your life and in your spirit this morning, the call of a God who says: Hey, learn to live. life through the interpretive lens of the Kingdom where giving is receiving, losing is winning, dying is living, sharing is increasing, blessing others is being blessed too. Giving to me God is ensuring the future blessing for you, those are the rules of the world. When you live like this with the paradoxes of the Kingdom of God, the blessing is incredible.

Young people take away from that advice. New families in the Church learn to give to God generously, others who have been there for many years reinforce their commitment to God to give to God and live generous lives in the Kingdom of God, amen? I bless you in the Name of the Lord let us stand up, let us stand up now and thank you Lord, thank you Father because you take us out of this place with hope in our hearts, you bless us, renew our strength, you take us in Your arms, you promise us blessing.

I bless every life here present Lord. Those who are in other rooms, those who have not heard this message, those who have to listen to it, I bless the families of this Church. Autumn, beginnings, harvest, blessing, renewal of efforts and work and life. I bless you my brothers, live in the Kingdom of God, live in the principles of the Kingdom of God. Do not get carried away by your flesh or your mind, live according to divine theology and I assure you of blessing and prosperity.

Renounce everything that is not of God right now. Father, I renounce the last coin that You do not bless and approve, I renounce it and keep only what You bless and prosper and I know that You will not fail us and you will bless us. I bless this people in their struggles, their tribulations, their anguish, the giants that they are fighting right now, the diseases that they are battling right now; fear, anguish but also joy, life, illusion about the future, hope, I bless you.

I bless Your people, Lord, and may this Church always be a refuge and a castle where souls in need can come to be healed, Lord, thank you for Your Love. We place our struggles in Your hands, we will serve You until the last of our days, Father, and we will be You. faithful, thank you with Your help Lord we close this time in the Name of Jesus and the people of God say: amen. I bless you my brothers, the grace of the Lord be with all of you, amen and amen.