Offering: Living & Giving for the Glory of God
Study of Leviticus
The Grain Offering
Leviticus 2:1-16
First Family Church
317 S.E. Magazine Rd.
Ankeny, IA 50021
www.firstfamilyministries.com
Transcript of Message by Todd Stiles
January 16, 2011
Let’s continue in that course today as we see what God would teach us from Leviticus chapter two, what I believe is probably the hardest of the offerings to understand, maybe not to understand factually, but just to relate and to kind of get our hands around it. It is significance is important. But it is definitely remote. It is going to seem distant today. But I think the Holy Spirit will give us wisdom no doubt. It is called the grain offering. It is also known as the cereal offering or the meal offering or even the meat offering.
Now what you will find ironic is this. It is called the meat offering, but there is not any meat in this chapter.
So you might think, “What does that mean, Todd?”
Well, meat simply referred to their... to the general word for food. In other words, this is what we are eating. Don’t think of like meat and potatoes. Just think of like food. And so when it was referred to as the meat offering it was referring to the grain they would use for food or what they used to fix food.
So any number of those words could be used to describe the offering of Leviticus chapter two.
Can I give you a brief overview before we kind of dive into the verses? Your Bibles are open there by now, right? Let me show you how the grain offering is discussed. This is just a fly over.
Verses one through three are about the grain offering uncooked. And I will show you, in fact, visually in a little bit how that might have looked. Verses four through 10 are about the grain offering cooked and the three ways you could have brought it, either in an oven or in a pan or from a griddle. And we will talk about those and show you some things that it might have looked like as well. Verses 11, 12 and 13 talk about ingredients for the grain offering and we will discuss their significance and what the point of those things are and then 14 through 16 discuss a variation of the grain offering called the first fruits and so we will see what that is. It is just another aspect of the grain offering.
And so let’s take a minute now and look at these verses more in depth. My goal today is to teach you what the text says and then make just a few applications that I think we can take home with us about the grain offering, ok?
So you are ready to roll, aren’t you? I can tell. That is great.
How about verses one through three. Here is the grain offering uncooked. He says when anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, again, notice who we... to whom our offering is made. It is to the Lord. It is not to a person. Even in this culture where there were priests and high priests, they didn’t offer things to the priests. It was to the Lord.
The Bible says, “His offering shall be of fine flour.”
Now I brought some fine flour in this morning. The key word there being the word “fi-ne.” We didn’t or I didn’t go to any trouble for this fine flour. You guys on the sides can see ok. I didn’t... I went and bought it. It was pretty simple. But in that day and age if you were making fine flour whether it was threshed from wheat or barley, you had to take a lot of extra time to grind it. In fact, I will show you a picture of a millstone. You will see it here on the next slide. It is what they used, upper left corner. And they would just use this to grind their flour and keep grinding and keep grinding. And you see the weight of that which makes you think about what someone would experience if they had a millstone tied around their neck. Jesus said that is what happens... that is what should happen to someone who offended a little one where they wouldn’t come to Christ.
He says, “If you have that kind of mentality, a millstone should be hung around your neck and you should be cast into the sea.”
That is a pretty heavy thing. You are not going to swim to the top for air with that around your neck, are you? So this millstone is what they used to grind their grain and the Bible here says that God asked for fine flour which means they took more time and it was high-er quality.
Now when I say higher quality what I am referring to is that you would make things from fine flour that were used for more exquisite purposes.
I talked to some chefs this week, women who are really good with food in our church. I think they are chefs.
I said, “What would I use fine flour for?”
They said, “If you are making like a really nice pastry, if you are going to make a really nice cake.”
And so it takes a lot of time in that culture it took a lot of time to really make this flour the kind that would not be course or, as one of the ladies told me, have the look of like flax seed.
So they took a lot of time. They ground their flour. They ground their grain. They brought it... the Bible then next says that they would then pour oil on it and put frankincense on it.
Now here is probably what that looked like because the Bible says that they would bring a lot of the stuff so they might bring some fine flour. Olive oil was probably pretty preva-lent. They would bring this and they would pour the oil on it. Now they probably didn’t have the Tupperware in that day and age, but we will just go with the analogy, won’t, we, people, right?
Work with me here. Thank you very much.
Then it says they would put frankincense. I had a… here it is. More than likely what this refers to is they would bring the frankincense in some kind of flask or perhaps some kind of pottery piece. No I don’t know if they actually poured it on there. There is indication they could have. They may have just laid the frankincense on there.
But regardless they put all the frankincense, but out of this offering the priest would then reach in... I am not going to do this part. He would reach in. He would grab a handful of the flour and of the oil. He would grab it all. Or as you guys say up here oil. He would grab all of this...
I saw you grinning there earlier. I know what you were thinking.
Man, I never heard the word oil. Well, it is word, Trust me.
He would reach in. He would grab a handful of this and he would throw it on the brazen altar and it would... all of it would be consumed. There would still be some left, though. And with what was left he would take and it would be used to cook for him and his sons. That is what they would use to make their bread, how they would make their food.
And so in this offering, unlike the whole burnt offering, all of it was cooked. In this offering the priest would grab a handful, throw it on the altar. It would be consumed. He would keep the rest and use it to make food for himself and his sons, that is if they brought it as an uncooked grain offering.
Now there were some other things that happened in this offering. I think that the priest probably added salt to it. They did put frankincense on it. All these things were part of the requirement as you read it in verses one through three.
Let’s finish that text, can we?
It says he has fine flour and oil and all of this frankincense and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar.
That is a key phrase because memorial speaks of remembering something.
In our own Lord’s Supper that we have, we are to do it in remembrance, or as a memorial to something. We are looking back tot eh death of Christ. So in this case here when he would take a handful and throw it on the altar, the brazen altar, it was a memorial portion. In other words, it looked back to something.
What does it look back to, Todd?
I think it looked back to the burnt offering. If you will read most of the examples in Scripture when the cereal or the grain offering was made, it was made after the burnt of-fering.
We are going to discuss more on this later, but he is probably saying, “Wow. In light of the atonement God has provided for me here is a grateful remembrance.”
Does it make sense? Here is a mindful, a thankful heart. And so the throws some on the altar. It is burned up. It is a memorial portion.
And then, of course, the text says in verse three the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons it is a most holy part of the Lord’s food offering.
You say, “Todd, why is what is kept considered a most holy part?”
Well, if you recall, the Levites themselves were considered a most holy tribe. Out of the 12 tribes they were set apart. They weren’t given any inheritance in the land division. They were first simply told to reside within the tabernacle area and they were to eat and live of the temple and the tabernacle things.
So just as they were set apart or sanctified or holy, whatever was given to them was also set apart or sanctified. Does that make sense?
That is all he is saying here is things that pertained to the Levites and the priests just as they were set apart, so were the things that were given to them.
So that is the uncooked portion. He then moves to the cooked grain offering. The same idea, but here the offerer prepares it at home. And he says, “First of all, if you bring a grain offering that you baked in the oven as an offering, it shall be unleavened loaves of fine flour.”
And, again, the same flour, but you couldn’t add anything to it to make it rise or to change its constitution. If you made it at home you had to leave it in that... in this pure, fine flour. You still added oil and if you brought unleavened wafers you smeared them with oil.
If you did this in an oven it looked... it might look like this, perhaps. And I am not sure if our online friends who are watching can see or not, but it might look like this piece of unleavened bread here, not real big, a little crusty, probably not very tasty. But if you made it in the oven, it would have some semblance of a loaf and the priest, of course, would... would break off part of it and do the same thing he did with the uncooked por-tion. He would throw it on the altar and it would burn up wholly, not the whole loaf, just a part of it. We will read that in the text here.
Verse five it says if your offering is a grain offering baked on a griddle...
And please don’t think griddle like your electric fry pan. Probably think hot rock as you see here. It is probably how they built a fire. They found a thin rock, one that would ab-sorb more than transfer heat and they would use that as like a... like a hot plate or a grid-dle.
You see the oven on the right. That is a pretty modern one in some ways. But they would have the same concept of stones gathered around that covered a fire. They would place, perhaps, their bread in there and it would cook in that way. And then, of course, we read and it says here about a warm griddle. Fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil. You shall break this in pieces and pour oil on it. It is a grain offering. It will look something kind of like this perhaps. You might bring lots of little wafers in. And then, of course, he says you break it, you pour oil on it and then the parts of this you throw on the altar as well. It is a memorial portion.
He then talks about how you might bring a grain offering that you prepared in a pan. You see that in verse seven. In this way you ought to think deep fryer. Now we like that word, don’t we? Of course we do.
If your offering is a grain offering cooked in a pan, something larger that you might dip it in, it shall be made of fine flour with oil. You shall bring the grain offering that is made of these things to the Lord.
And it might look something like this. I think this is really just pretend Styrofoam actual-ly. It is called a rice cake, but, man, these things taste awful. They are nasty. Who would give this to a priest? You know? I am just telling you. That would be awful in Leviticus.
But it is something kind of like this. They would mix it up. They would fry it. Kind of dip it. They would probably get a real hard consistency at some point and look kind of like this perhaps if they did it in a pan.
But whatever you brought, whether it was something like this or maybe a loaf you made in the oven or perhaps even a cracker on a griddle or even if you brought something that was uncooked, here is what it says here about those that were cooked.
You should bring them, the priests, according to verse eight, he would take it. He shall... verse nine. He shall take from the grain offering, the cooked ones here he is talking about, its memorial portion. Again, he will take part of it and burn this on the altar. It is a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. The rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons. This, too, is a most holy part of the Lord’s food offerings.
So here is the real succinct understanding of the grain offering that was brought by the offerer either unprepared or prepared. The priest would take part of it and burn it as a re-membrance, what I think, of course, is the burnt offering. He would keep the rest and then they would be able to eat off of that or use it to make their food.
Now I want to remind you that in Leviticus chapter six he does give some further re-quirements about the grain offering. You might want to jot above Leviticus two this ref-erence to Leviticus 6:14-23, because there he gives further parameters. And, in fact, he talks about how the priest on their anointing day, they are to actually offer grain offerings for themselves.
You can read that on your own, but it is further instructions about the grain offering, ok?
He gives some more here now in verse 11. Look at what he says about the ingredients of the grain offering. Because it wasn’t just fine flour or just oil. There were a few other things as well. In addition to fine flour, oil and frankincense, the Bible says in verse 11 that you could not have anything made with leaven.
For you shall bring... you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the Lord.
So this wasn’t a problem if you brought it unprepared, because you brought your grain already milled into a fine flour. You probably didn’t add anything yet. You just brought it. But if you prepared it at home, you had to make sure that you didn’t add any honey or any kind of leaven, anything that would change its constitution.
Now understand something, church. The Scriptures never tell us why they couldn’t add honey or leaven. We just don’t know. There is no verse that says that you don’t do this because. We just have to surmise some things from other New Testament verses.
One of them might be this that leaven at times did picture sin. And so God may have been saying, “Listen. We really... you know, this is to be a pure offering. Nothing that pictures sin should be a part of this.”
However, I am not sure that is the best answer because in the New Testament we know that one time Jesus used leaven as an example of the kingdom of God and quickly it ex-pands and how it changes whatever it touches. So not every time is leaven considered bad.
I think probably the root reason is this. Leaven and honey are both fermenting agents. They change the constitution of something. And God here, I think, is asking for a pure sacrifice.
He is saying, “Bring me the best of what you have, something you have worked hard at, so to speak, you have got investment in. Don’t bring me something that has been changed or been altered by a foreign substance. Bring me a pure sacrifice.
This is probably my best guess at why he doesn’t want honey or leaven involved.
He says in verse 12, however, that if your offering is an offering of first fruits that you may bring them to the Lord, perhaps indicating that some of these offerings if they weren’t burnt on the altar, you will see, maybe they could have leaven.
The commentators disagree and see this differently, but it does seem to perhaps indicate, verse 12 does, that if your offering is not being burnt on the altar and it is a first fruits grain offering, that you might could have leaven. Just a possibility to thinking about.
This verse does seem to have that you might could have it in that case. Regardless of this in verse 13 here is what you have to have in all of your offerings. He says you must have salt. But in this case he gives us a reason.
Look at what he says in verse 13.
“You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain of-fering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.”
He connects the word salt with the idea of God’s covenant indicating, I think, that there is a sense of permanence.
You know, salt does preserve. It keeps things intact. And I think when an Israeli person and a Hebrew may have mixed up the uncooked stuff and added salt or when they brought even the cooked portion, whenever salt was used it reminded them that, do you know what? God will be faithful. He will not forget his promises to our father Abraham.
So salt was always added. Leaven and honey were not.
And then, of course, in the last three verse he mentions a variation of the grain offering, what was called the first fruits offering. It is fresh ears, verse 14 says, roasted with fire, what you would call crushed new grains.
Well, it appears that in this type of grain offering you might to your fields, you might go to where you have some recent harvests, you might take the freshest ears. You would cut of the kernels, perhaps. You would cook them on fire. You would roast them. You would take that to the priest.
Verse 15 says, “You shall put oil on it as well and lay frankincense on it.”
So, again, you get the concept that the frankincense was like a perfume, like a... some-thing that they brought on top of that. Maybe they added it to it. Maybe they just lay the whole flask on it. We are not sure exactly. But regardless even though the priest took part of the crushed grain and some of the oil, the Bible hear says in verse 16 he took all of the frankincense. So in each offering, whether cooked, uncooked or even the fresh grain, all of the frankincense was offered and then just part of the grain and part of the cooked stuff.
And this, again, is a food offering to the Lord.
So there is your grain offering, not static facts to keep in mind. You are probably think-ing, wow, Todd, I am glad I understand some things about history, but, man, I am not going to be offering any grain or cereal offerings any time soon.
Well, I am not either.
So what do we learn from this? What do we see from the grain offering?
I think there is about three things I want to bring to your attention and I think carry over, principles that undergird this offering that are still.... that will help us today.
First of all, I think there is what I call the principle of sacrifice which says to me that liv-ing and giving my life as an offering to God includes thanking God. Just make a note of that, would you?
When I am living and giving for the glory of God, when I am living as an offering, part of that is thanking God. It is the principle of sacrifice.
I have been asking myself this week. Can you be thankful without a sacrifice? I am not sure I have an answer yet, by the way. Because sure I can say to my wife, “Hey, thank you.”
Let’s say she does something nice for me, a gift for me or she... and I say, “Thank you.” That doesn’t cost a lot to say thank you to my wife.
But the heart behind my gratefulness is one that says, “This is kind of...”
I am sure all of us would say this. It says, “What can I do for you now? How can I sacri-fice for you? How can I show you I am thankful?”
Sure the words don’t cost, but she is looking for something fare more than words. Amen, men? Yeah, she is not doing a gift to say, “Ok, it is your turn, buddy.” We are not say-ing that. “ But I think an honest frank assessment is, yes, behind every grateful word, though the words may not cost anything, behind every grateful word is the willingness to show that in a sacrificial way.
Does that make sense?
And sot he offerer here brings part of their... their grain, whether cooked or uncooked and they say to God, “Listen, in light of your atonement for me, in light of the burnt offering, when everything was consumed. Here is a way to say thanks. And there was investment involved. There was time to get the grain in a fine way. there was the cooking time or the carrying time.
By the way, just to let you know the amount aspect of this offering. This is just a symbol of what they did. More than likely if they brought a grain offering there seems to be other passages that say that they should bring about 22 liters of flour. And out of that the priest took about 2.2 liters which is a tenth. Numbers 28, Exodus 12 talk about these other kind of numeric variations.
But that is a lot of flour to be hauling around, isn’t it?
And then you bring oil and that is a lot of stuff you are carrying. But it shows that, hey, God, I am willing to do whatever to say thank you for what you have done for me. And giving and living my life as an offering to God, part of that is thanking God.
Now listen very carefully. I want to share something with you that has helped me this week, because when I say that and even when I have written that this week and thought about it, I don’t want you to think that we are thanking God and we are doing things as a grateful expression to God because we are trying to earn anything. In fact, let me astound you with this understanding that you can’t repay God even if you tried.
Do you realize that? You can’t. What he has done for you, you can’t repay him. You are never going to like match up and say, “Oh, good, I finally did enough to repay God for dying for me.”
That is not what God is after. He is not trying to get you to repay him. Instead, God did for us so that we would live... watch this, not in a way to earn his favor, but as a way to express our gratitude which is why I said to you several times. We don’t serve because we have to. We serve because we get to. We serve because we want to.
You see, it is hard to know why you serve. In fact a person next to you this morning that you are within elbow reach of. They don’t know why you serve and why you give and why you thank God. They don’t know. Only you really know.
But I would challenge you and encourage you to take this simple test. When you are in front of the mirror one morning or evening ask yourself. Why do I live and serve and give to God? Is it because deep inside I am hoping that he will just do some extra stuff for me? Wow.
We are not to live to earn anything from God. We are to live and to give and to serve as an expression of our gratefulness. That is true, truly the deepest form of worship. Other-wise our worship is clouded by ulterior motive, isn’t it?
Well, I will do this if you will do that, God. Well, maybe I will go the extra mile if you will go the extra mile. I will give a dollar, Lord, if you give me back 10.
We have all these weird ways of thinking. The truth is that the heart of the genuine, pure worship of God, you have done everything that is needed already. This is just simply a way just like thanks.
So living and giving the grain offering in Leviticus was just one of the ways that they said thanks. It followed the burnt offering. And it was a grateful response. It is also a way to share with the family of God.
Make a note of this, would you? That in this offering, unlike the whole burnt offering, see, the priest actually shared what the offerer brought. And, in fact, this is actually dis-tinct from the next offering which is the peace offering or the fellowship offering in that the fellowship offering which is really the Old Testament type of communion, not only did the offerer share and the priest, but the family shared. It was like a communal meal. But in this one the priest and the offerer both shared. It was what I call, based on the principle of support. If thanking God is fundamentally supported by the principle of sac-rifice, here he is talking about sharing and I think that is undergirded by the principle of support.
Let me explain what I mean. The Levites, the tabernacle workers, were supported by the portion of the offering that the Israelites brought. When the Hebrews brought things, whether it was uncooked or cooked, they would throw a portion as a memorial gift on the altar. It was all or nothing. And then what was left was used to take care of those who work in the tabernacle, the Levites.
Now while we are not, as ministers, we are not considered priests today, we are consid-ered priests as believers, amen? So I am not closer to God than you. I don’t have some special, you know, bat phone that gets me to God that you don’t have, you know, access to. That is all done because of Jesus. He is our high priest, Amen?
So we don’t need a high priest. But there are people who vocationally work in the body of Christ. I will use this phrase, as their job. Don’t hear that. We are... that is just kind of what we do. We preach. We pastor. We disciple. Those kind of things are things that we do in a focused, full time, quote, unquote, way. I am not really fond of the word full time, but it is kind of gives the meaning of what I am saying.
And in this case this grain offering often can resemble much of what you do. When you give, yes, there is a portion that is kept, that is used in order to help those who minister in a full time way, in a focused way in the family of God. In fact, if you think that is odd, this is exactly what Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians chapter nine verses 13 and 14.
Will you look at this reference real briefly? 1 Corinthians chapter nine verses 13 and 14. Paul talks about he Old Testament priests and tabernacle workers when he says this in 1 Corinthians chapter nine. He is actually defending his right to... I don’t want use the word “collect money.” That is not what I am trying to say. But he is defending his right to financial remuneration for preaching. And he says... and though he didn’t make use of that right, he did not deny it.
Look at verse 13 and 14.
“Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple?”
A direct reference to the grain offering. Do you see that?
“And those who serve at the altar, they share in the sacrificial offerings?”
Verse 14. “In the same way the Lord commands that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”
Now this is kind of hard to talk about because I am directly affected by this, but let me just say to you a word or thanks for in a symbolic kind of way bringing your offerings and letting them be shared with those who focus fully here at church. Thank you. On be-half of our staff and our pastors, thank you, because this is one of the ways that we live and give to God glory. We learn to share with the family of God.
Lastly, though, I think that living and giving for God’s glory in relation to the grain offer-ing means that... that we not only are thanking God and sharing, but we are participating in the work of God. I like this one the best.
Living and giving for God’s glory, one of the things we learn from Leviticus two is that it means participating in the work of God.
Now listen very carefully because I don’t want you misunderstand me. Hear my theolo-gy correctly. In the grain offering which I think speaks to the grateful response of the believer to the complete work of the substitute. It is similar to the believer responding and working with God in his sanctification, looking back to the complete, finished work of Jesus in salvation. The burnt offering representing the atonement, the complete fin-ished work that Jesus did for us.
In fact, in the burnt offering the offerer, what did he do? He brought the animal. He said, “You got to do all the work. You have got to die. You he got to give it all. I am not doing anything.”
He puts his hand on the head. There is the symbolic transfer of guilt. They slay the ani-mal, but the animal does all the work, doesn’t it? It dies. It bleeds. It burns. An atone-ment is made and the offerer simply benefits. Atonement is provided. But then suddenly you find in the very next offering there is this participation that begins to happen. They are gathering their grain. They are milling it. They are making it fine. They are investing time. They are putting forth effort. They are bringing it. They are cooking it.
And I don’t want to press this typology too much because if we make a parable or a type walk on all fours we get some really weird theology sometimes, ok? But as a general rule I can see the salvation and sanctification sequence really, really clearly in these two offer-ings.
When God saves us he does the work wholly and solely. We are redeemed because of the complete and atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
But suddenly, as Peter describes in his first and second epistle, then God says, “Now I want you to watch this.” The says, “I want you to add to your faith.” Do you recall those verses? And he begins to talk about this cooperation process we have with God, this par-ticipation in his sanctification of us where our time and our effort and our involvement really matters.
That is what I see in these offerings, that we are called as a way to respond to the com-plete and finished atoning work of Jesus. We are called to respond by investing and par-ticipating in our sanctification. That alone is a grateful response. That is an offering to God.
So we don’t say to the Lord, “Lord, thanks of saving me. I will see you next year on Eastern and Christmas.”
We say, “Lord, thank you for redeeming me. I will make meeting with the body of Christ. I will make meting with the family of God a priority every single week.”
Does that make sense?
Well, Todd, that is going to cut into my schedule? That is going to take time and plan-ning.
Exactly. It is going to take your effort, your participation. You are exactly right. It is an offering to God.
It is one of the ways that someone might say, “Well, you know, God, thanks for saving me. I want to... I want to express that and I will be involved in a small group.”
Well, Todd, that is going to take effort, too. I have got to go another step. I have got to take another... I have got to go the extra mile?
Sure, why not? Do it as a way to express to God your thanks and grow and work with those... that small group as they disciple you and you disciple them and there is an envi-ronment of accountability and growth.
Do you have to? No. You don’t. Do you get to? You bet you do. You get to express your thanks to God in an even deeper, more tangible way.
Is this making sense? I hope you are tracking with me because sometimes we take... and it is like what I said last week. We take the route of least resistance. We take the avenue of minimal obedience.
What will it take to get by? What is the least I have got to do to say thanks?
Well, that is the wrong question to begin with. The right question is “God, what can I do and say as a way to say thanks for all that you have already done?”
And so we put in the effort and the work. Not to save ourselves, but to express our ap-preciation for the salvation that God has given us. That is part of participating in the work of God in our life. It is called sanctification. I have told you before and I will stand by it. One of the reasons some people grow faster than others is this. They work with God better in their sanctification. They just participate with him in a higher degree. And so the pace of their sanctification quickens.
And you can see it around you. I bet you can see it in your small group. You can see it on... in all kinds of places. Some folks are growing like crazy.
And you are not going to like me saying this, but I am just going to be frank with you here. They are spending a lot of time in God’s Word. They are spending time with God alone praying. They are taking every command just at face value.
God, I will do it. And they don’t just sit there negotiate and try to committeeize with God. They just do it. And, man, they just grow like crazy.
Some of us, though,we are like, well, God, ok, I will have been giving you 10 minutes. I will give you 11 next week.
We think, and pardon this. We think that daily bread is like some massive step of devo-tional study. And, you know, you read a page that is like this big once a day. Come on, people.
Maybe you need to hear that.
I mean, no wonder we are... we lack power and substance. We rarely read the Word. We just read what somebody says about the Word like three paragraphs and we go on and live 23 hours and 50 minutes to ourselves.
I am not knocking daily bread. I am knocking our decisions. Sometimes we don’t work with God in the intensive participatory way that really gets our sanctification fired up. This is really the heart of the grain offering. It took time, proactivity, intentionality. There was a lot of effort into it. That is really distinct from the burnt offering. But when some-body looks at the brazen altar and sees an animal wholly consumed for their atonement, they would probably strike a cord that would make them say, “You know what, God? When I come back next week I am bringing a really nice loaf of bread and I am going to make it out of the finest flour. I am going to cook it perfectly. I am going to bring it not because I have to. The animal is dead. All the atonement is done. But I am just going to bring it because I want to and I get to.”
So they work and they invest and they put their effort forth and they bring it to the tem-ple.
Are you following the grain offering? It is the most responsive of the five offerings. And so its sequence really matters. It almost always follows the burnt offering. It is one of the ways that the Israelites showed their gratefulness to God.
Question for you. How will you show your gratefulness to God in the next seven days either by how you live or what you give? Think that through for a few minutes, ok? How will you show your gratefulness to God in the next seven days either by how you live or what you give?
Now a couple of suggestions here. And you may think these are out of left field a little bit. Some of them may actually be. I am not sure. But just some ideas. Because as I thought though this text I noticed that when they were thanking God and responding to God’s Work, it often included other people.
You know, some of you might want to write a letter to some one who has really impacted you and thank them for letting god use them and actually thank God as well for his work in your life through them. That would be one way to thank someone this week for the work of God.
You are like, “That would be, perhaps, like a... like a 21st century grain offering.”
Don’t hear that weird, but this is a way to respond to what God did by giving something.
Take the time to write someone a letter. Say thank you. It is a grateful response.
Some of you might want to give someone a gift. Some of you may want to start saving for the offering coming up in May. May first is our special offering. We are trying to fin-ish some things here with regards to our future renovations. Maybe you want to begin to save every month that, every week for that.
Some of you may want to give more of your time. You may want to start putting forth more effort to work with God and so you are going to join a lighthouse and you are going to begin to spend more time in God’s Word.
And it is not all centered around what the Church does. You are going to spend more time in prayer alone.
There is just a number of things that you can do this week as a way to say, “God, I want to show you that I am extremely and deeply grateful for your work on my behalf.”
So I want to ask you. What are you going to do in the next seven days to show God your gratefulness for what he did?
That is right. I am actually asking for a concrete specific action. Because some of you are like, Todd, you have asked me that question three times. I know. I am going to ask you a fourth one because I want you to do something. I want you to actually kind of live out eth principles of this grain offering and this week do something tangible that says, “God, I am so glad you saved me.”
I used to on the anniversary of my spiritual birthday I used to call the man who led me to Christ. And God would have saved me no matter who it was that day because, man, I was broken and repentant. God didn’t need a man to do it, but our assistant principle was close. He read me the Scriptures and God was moving in my heart and he was available and he said, “Todd, here is what the Bible says.” He showed me God’s Word and I re-pented of my sin, confessed Christ, believed in my heart and God saved me.
And I used to, for a number of years, call Dr. David Bragg every April 20th.
I would say, “Hello, Dr. Bragg, this is the guy that you had in you office several times in junior high.” He would laugh and I would say, “I just wanted to call you again this year and say thanks for taking time to show me from the Bible what it means to be a Chris-tian.”
I try to call my parents at least once a week. Now, I know some of you think, “Man, that’s all?” But we live a good ways a way and so I call them at least once a week and just, you know, I say to them every time I talk to them, I say, “Hey, dad, just remember. You are my hero and I love you. Thank you for raising me like you did.”
I call my mom, “Hey, mom, I love you. You are sweetheart and thanks for raising me like you did.”
And they will always say, “Oh, it is all God. We messed up more than you realize.” And they will laugh about it, you know. But the truth is I owe a debt of gratitude to my par-ents for their incredible training and wisdom and just raising us under God’s authority.
And so just a good way to show them gratefulness because of what God has used them in my life. And maybe that is something you want to try. Or maybe you have some better ideas. I am asking you for a specific concrete action. We are a simply, intensely, selfless church. So you don’t get out of here today with some... sure, Todd, I will say thanks to God before I go to bed tonight.
You should do that, but there are some better ideas than that, amen? So start thinking. What could you do in the next seven days that is tangible, physical, concrete that would say to God I am so glad that you saved me? What could you give as your, quote, un-quote, grain offering, the responsible offering as a... that was given after the burnt offer-ing? What could you give?
I think the Holy Spirit will tell you. Do you know that, if you just ask him.
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This resource is provided as a learning tool produced by First Family Church in Ankeny, Iowa. The Church’s mission is to develop devoted followers of Jesus Christ in people groups around the world who celebrate, grow and serve. For more information on First Family, visit our website at www.FirstFamilyMinistries.com.
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