OPEN: Joe had ordered an expensive suit for a banquet, and the tailor finished alterations just in time. But as Joe left the shop, a sudden rainstorm doused the jacket & shrank one of the sleeves.
"We can’t do anything about it today," the tailor told Joe when he returned to the shop. "Just stretch the sleeve over your hand, and no one will notice."
With his arm contorted, Joe left the shop, and again was doused by rain. This time, a pant leg shrank.
"I can’t take care of that now!" exclaimed the tailor. "Pull the bottom of pants over your heel, and nobody will notice."
His body twisted, Joe again left the shop. Two women were passing by.
"That poor man!" said on. "I wonder what’s wrong with him?"
"I don’t know," said the other. "But he sure is wearing a nice suit!"
APPLY: When dealing with Christmas, many people love the tinsel and bright lights - it looks so nice and appealing, but at the same time, many sense that something is wrong. Something just doesn’t quite fit.
It’s not only that the whole season is commercialized beyond imagination so much so that stores across the nation begin decorating for Christmas long before Thanksgiving. There is a vast amount of crass commercialism that accompanies this holiday.
But, even beyond that, one observer has noted that the holiday season has a surprising dark side:
… in December - murder and robbery in the United States reaches its highest peak.
… the Christmas season ranks just under Memorial weekend in the number of car wrecks on the highway.
…the suicide rate will begin its annual climb during this month, until it peaks out at what some call the "big downer" New Years Eve.
He concluded: “This is the reality of Christmas. No tinsel, no glitter--just harsh reality.”
Why? Why has Christmas lost so much of glitter? I believe it’s because many have lost the focus of what the gift giving of the season is all about. So, what we’re going to do over the next few weeks is to understand God’s attitude toward gift giving. We’re going to look at the ultimate gifts – the gifts of sacrifice in the Bible.
I. A little bit of background:
Sacrifices were a daily part of life in the Old Testament. It probably wouldn’t have been unusual to see long lines of worshippers standing outside Tabernacle (every day but Sabbath) with their various offerings to give God
Leviticus starts out telling us about 5 of the most important of these sacrifices. The one we’re going to look at today was called the Peace or Fellowship Offering. This was unique sacrifice for at least 3 reasons:
– it was not required… it was voluntary
– it was THE ONLY one of 5 major sacrifices that the offerer got to share.
– AND It was the only sacrifice that focused on celebration
The other 4 sacrifices were solemn affairs, but the fellowship sacrifice was God’s invitation to party. Not only did you sit down to eat a grand meal with your family. You usually had so much you invited all your friends in to share in the sacrificial food.
And, THEN, the whole celebration was marked by the blowing of 2 special trumpets the Priests kept at the Temple. (Num. 10:10)
II. There are those who complain that Christmas has gotten too commercialized and gaudy. Too much focus on celebration and not enough on Christ
And they’re partly right. But God has nothing against fun and festivals, it’s just that God’s way of celebrating is subtly different than that of the world. The fellowship Offering is an excellent example of this.
ILLUS: The Jews were not the only people to perform Fellowship sacrifices (Even the pagans did them) but the Israelites had a specific command that made their sacrifices different:
“ Any Israelite who sacrifices an ox, a lamb or a goat in the camp or outside of it instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD— that man shall be considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people. This is so the Israelites will bring to the LORD the sacrifices they are now making in the open fields. They must bring them to the priest, that is, to the LORD, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and sacrifice them as fellowship offerings.” (Lev. 17:3-6)
In other words, unlike the Pagans (who could make sacrifices just about anywhere) the Israelites, had to bring their offerings to the Temple.
What God was saying was – YOU ARE my people. If you’re going to celebrate, include ME. Make Me part of the fun. Invite me to the party.
If you think about it (because of the influence the church has had in this nation) 3 of our nation’s major feasts are centered around God:
1. Easter
2. Thanksgiving
3. AND Christmas
Granted, the world may not celebrate these feasts as we do – but even unbelievers have a hard time keeping God’s name out of these festivals.
It’s because God has been left out of so much of the Christmas season that the glitter has begun to look gaudy, and violence and hopelessness mar a season that should be filled with peace and happiness.
ILLUS: In fact, back in the 1600’s (a scholar named Knight tells us that): “before the advent of the Christmas carol, celebrations of Christmas had become so depraved and rowdy in Britain that its observance was once forbidden by the English Parliament. The meaning of Christmas had become lost in an atmosphere of drunkenness, rioting, and depravity. Decent people found it necessary to stay indoors for safety. The situation became so shameful that in 1644 Parliament passed strict laws making it illegal to commemorate the season in any way whatsoever!”
What that illustrates for us is - when God is removed from our celebrations, we open ourselves up to much that is harmful and destructive in life. God wants us to enjoy ourselves and celebrate life - but He wants to be part of it.
So, the Fellowship Offering was time for God’s people to enjoy themselves
III. But it was also a time to celebrate events that were important to the Israelites as God’s people
* These sacrifices were offered when Nazarites fulfilled their vows
* During the festival of the 1st fruits (which we call Pentecost)
* When the 1st altar was dedicated for service in the desert
* They were offered when the Israelites crossed the Jordan river into the Promised Land for the 1st time
* David offered them when he recovered the Ark of the Covenant that had been lost to the Philistines some time before.
* And 1 Kings 8:63 tells us (at the consecration of the Temple) "Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the LORD: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the LORD."
In those days, ANY TIME they celebrated (and had a good time) it was centered around God.
AND that’s a good example for us as God’s children – when we celebrate (and everytime we celebrate) we should find some way to honor God in what we do. It shouldn’t matter if it’s Christmas, Easter, New Year’s or the 4th of July. We should strive to find a way to put God at the center of what we do.
- SO, the fellowship offering was a time for God’s people to have fun - and that’s what we do at Christmas.
- And it was time for God’s people to celebrate their relationship with God. And at Christmas, Christians DO celebrate the gift of God’s son and the importance that event has had in our lives
IV. But perhaps the primary purpose of the fellowship offering was… fellowship
Fellowship has always been important to God. In fact, the Church was built upon fellowship.
Acts 2:42 tells us the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Fellowship has always been important to God, and perhaps that’s because God knows how important fellowship can be to us.
ILLUS: In America, we have unprecedented ways of communicating with each other, but we have become more and more isolated from one another.
Vance Packard calls America has become “a nation of strangers.”
Another expert has noted that we’re experiencing an epidemic of loneliness in our society.
One Gallup poll reported that 4 in 10 Americans admit to frequent feelings of “intense loneliness.” Americans are, in fact, the loneliest people in the world.
ILLUS: The Wall Street Journal once carried a cartoon where one man said to another: “We’ve got his e-mail, fax, pager, cell phone, voice mail and private line, but absolutely no reason to contact him.”
One of the commands regarding the fellowship offering basically forced God’s people into having fellowship.
In Leviticus 19:5-8 God declared:
"‘When you sacrifice a fellowship offering to the LORD, sacrifice it in such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf. It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it or on the next day; anything left over until the third day must be burned up. If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is impure and will not be accepted. Whoever eats it will be held responsible because he has desecrated what is holy to the LORD; that person must be cut off from his people.”
ILLUS: Bear in mind, a cow or a sheep is a pretty big animal. Even after you’d have given the priest his portion, there would be a lot of meat left over.
Now, we just got done having Thanksgiving, and usually there’s a fair amount of food left over from that feast. What do we generally do with all those leftovers (laughter swept the audience). That’s right! We eat those leftovers for the next several days.
But even if the Israelites had had the benefit of refrigerators, they could not have kept their leftovers more than 2 days. It was forbidden by the Law. God said, any food that’s left after 2 days had to be destroyed. Use it, or lose it.
It forced the Israelites to share the food they had offered in this fellowship sacrifice. So, as one scholar (Harmer) observed, the Israelites gave “to their friends with liberality, and bestowed on the poor with great generosity, that they might partake with them of these sacred repasts with joy before the Lord."
The law of fellowship offering forced God’s people to share & fellowship with others. It kept the Israelites from having a selfish, self-contained, and self-centered celebration.
V. Now, there are those who will say "well no one ever seems to fellowship with us."
"This church, or that church isn’t friendly enough because they don’t meet our needs."
Well excuse me - do we need to burp you too?
God’s desire for fellowship is not directed toward the Church, it is directed toward each and every one of us of us believe. If someone isn’t initiating fellowship with you, then YOU go and create some fellowship. Go knock on their door and invite yourself in to eat if you have to! But realize, it’s not the church’s job to hold your hand in this. YOU must decide that fellowship is so important that YOU will create it wherever you find the opportunity.
One of the reasons the Christmas season can have a darker side, is when people forget that crucial part of the season – sharing with others.
One of the purposes of the church (during this season) should be to reach out in fellowship to others.
IT could be through caroling to the sick & shut-ins or donating some time to places like the Emmaus center (a local homeless shelter), or sharing food with a needy family.
CLOSE: One of the ways we can keep Godliness in this Christmas season is to remember build our build that type of thinking into our lives and into our church. When we do it the way we should, even our children pick up the importance of that message.
Christy Ehman wrote about an event that happened in her church, she explained that they were holding a Christmas pageant with 4 year olds as the major actors.
Apparently, everything moved along smoothly until the children playing Mary & Joseph “arrived” at the inn in Bethlehem.
Young Joseph asked “Do you have any room for us?”.
“No, the inn is full,” replied the innkeeper.
“But it’s so cold outside, and my wife is going to have a baby,” pleaded Joseph. “Don’t you have any place for us?”
To the surprise of the director and the audience, instead of showing the couple to the stable, the 4 year old innkeeper replied compassionately, “I’m not supposed to say this, but you come right on in.” (Christy Ehmann in Christian Reader Nov/Dec 99)
That was the Spirit of the Fellowship offering
That’s the spirit of the Christmas season
AND that’s the spirit that we need to impress upon the world around us so that the birth of Jesus can be more than just glitter and commercialism…
So that it can be the true season of hope and peace.
SERMONS IN THIS "CHRISTMAS GIFTS" SERIES
* The Gift of Fellowship
Leviticus 3:1-3:5
* What Do You Get For the God Who Has Everything
Leviticus 2:1-2:16
* God’s Christmas Gift
John 3:1-3:18
