Welcome to Turning Point. We're used to cheering. We are number one. to support our favorite teams. But by putting ourselves first, do we forget who deserves that position?
Today, Dr. David Jeremiah begins the series Investing for Eternity with biblical principles for managing our time and money to give God his rightful place. Here's David to introduce his message, putting God first in our lives. And thank you for joining us. For over 50 years of ministry now, every year during the month of January, I take.
several Sundays, and teach the subject of stewardship to my congregation. I think that's one of the reasons why God has honored that teaching. And many, and I would say the vast majority of the people in our church are tithers. And that means we always have what we need to do the work God calls us to do because we follow the principles that are in the Bible. Many people ask us how we maintain all of this, and I think they feel like we have some secret, but we don't have any secrets.
It's all laid out in the scripture, and it doesn't begin in the New Testament necessarily. Read the Old Testament, and these principles are there beneath the surface, just waiting for you to take hold of. Today, we're going to look at a wonderful passage of scripture in Deuteronomy chapter 26 and then Nehemiah chapter 10 as we talk about what it means to put God first in our lives. The first thing that has to happen when you get serious about investing for eternity is you have to invest yourself. You have to say, God, here am I, use me, here am I, take whatever I have, use it for your glory.
Commit yourself to Him. The Bible says when you do that, He will give you the desires of your heart. In fact, I think. He makes the desires of your heart what they ought to be, and then He closes the circle when you are obedient to Him. This is a great lesson.
I hope you have some way to take some notes and follow along in the Scripture. By the way, there's a study guide for this series. Investing for Eternity. The study guide covers all the lessons we're going to discuss here in the month of January. It's beautifully designed, beautiful cover, and all the notes and outlines on the inside are available to help you follow along as we go through this series together.
This will change your life if you let it.
So open your heart and ask God to give you a willing spirit as you listen to the teaching during this month. Let's begin. With putting our God first in our lives. Can we do that together? It's part one.
One of the things that's very encouraging to me is to realize that if you read the Bible carefully, God has instituted in His program for His people Some very practical ways to help us always keep Him first in our lives. If you read, especially in the Old Testament, It is on almost every page, in some way, of the Old Testament, that God desired to be first in the lives of his people. That all of the feasts and all of the sacrifices that He instituted in some way pointed to the priority of making God number one in our life. In fact, the Bible says that God is a jealous God and He won't share His honor and glory with anyone. One of the early feasts, one of the early practices of the Old Testament Jewish people.
was what they call the Feast of the First Fruits, or the practice of first fruit giving. I want you to listen to these words from Deuteronomy chapter 26. These are the words of the Lord to his people to help them keep him number one in their lives. And it shall be, says the Lord, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and you possess it, and that you dwell in it. That you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, and you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make his name abide.
And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days and say to him, I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. And the priest will take the basket out of your hand and he will set it down before the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall set it before the Lord your God and worship the Lord your God in that place. What God said to his people. When you get into the land which I have promised you And I begin to bless the land, and you have all of these good things that come to you. Here's what I want you to do.
In the very first part of the harvest every year, I want you to take the first of the produce. And put it in a basket and bring it. To the altar and offer it there before the Lord, and say, by doing that, I am putting you first. In my life, and I am being reminded that everything that I have comes from you, and I'm bringing back the first fruits of this offering and giving it to you as my sacrifice to God. Do you know as long as the Jewish people did that, God blessed them?
When they stopped doing that, when they began to ignore the importance of God's instruction, they fell into awful sin and decay. In fact, it got so bad that we read in the Old Testament that God took them into captivity for 70 years to punish them because they had neglected to do what He had asked them to do. And if you read the book of Nehemiah, you will discover that one of the first things that was reestablished after they were released from their 70 years of captivity was the first fruit giving that they had neglected during their years of decay. I rather think it's like that for most of us. When we put God first in our lives, God blesses us.
But isn't it easy for us to forget? That he needs to be number one, and we give lip service to it, and it's something that we say we believe in. But if we're not careful, it begins to slip away. And before long, we have a moment of truth in our life, and we look up and realize that. God really just gets the leftovers.
Well, I know that some of you are saying, Well, Pastor Jeremiah, I'd like to be involved in doing what God wants me to do, and I'd like to be involved in being faithful in my giving. And, you know, I hear a lot of people talking about tithing, giving 10% of what they earn to the Lord. But I just have to tell you, I just don't think I can do that. In fact, it just doesn't make sense at all. I'm not making it on 100% of what I've got right now.
How in the world would I ever make it on 90%? Or some of you might be saying, You want me to give to God first and face all my obligations with diminished resources?
Now, that just doesn't make sense. any sense. That's not logical.
Well, I want to remind you today That if we have to sort out everything God tells us on the basis of our own ability to rationally understand it, we will never get very far into Christian life, will we? Frankly, it doesn't make a lot of sense that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life. On the human realm, it makes no sense at all that God would love somebody like me enough to do that. But I'm sure glad he did, and I believe it, and I've acted upon it.
And in every realm of my Christian walk, I've discovered that when God gets into activity in my life, it's always on a higher level than anything I've ever comprehended in the human realm. Have you noticed that? God always takes everything to the next level, and His instruction may oftentimes seem to us rather illogical. But if we are willing to follow it, It will always be demonstrated in our lives along the way that He is faithful to His promises.
Now, I was reading the Old Testament, and I found a story that illustrates First Things First, about as good as anything I have ever seen in my life. It's in the book of 1 Kings, and I do want you to turn to that passage. We're going to spend a few moments there today. Because in 1 Kings chapter 17, we have a story. of a woman Who was faced with the illogical requirements of putting God first in her life?
Made absolutely no sense to her whatsoever, but she did it. And the story tells us what happened. I rather believe that if we will follow the instruction that is given to us in this story, God will do for us. what he did for her. The record is in 1 Kings, and it has to do with the prophet Elijah.
And I need to set the story a little bit in context so that you will understand how this all happened. Elijah made King Ahab and his wife Jezebel very angry. This prophet was told that his life wasn't worth anything, and Elijah got afraid and he lost his courage, and he ran, and he got into depression. God had to really deal with him. But God didn't forget him.
God took care of him. first of all by the brook Cherith. And then When the brook dried up and Elijah didn't know what to do again, God spoke to him and said, I have some instruction for you. Here's how I'm going to take care of you now. And I dare say that what God told Elijah to do was about as illogical as anything could have been.
For we read in 1 Kings chapter 17 and verse 8 these words. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah saying, Go to Zarephith. which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. And I have commanded a widow. to provide for you.
Now if I'm Elijah I'm checking to see whether or not I heard that right. I'm asking myself, you're going to do what? You're going to provide for me how? When you know the background of this story, it is truly astounding. For Sidon was a hundred miles from where Elijah was at the present time.
There was famine in the land. How in the world was he going to get from where he was to where he needed to go? How would he ever do that? In fact, not only was it illogical because of the distance between where he was and where he needed to go, but the Scripture tells us as we study the background that this place, this Sidon where God said he was going to provide for him, was the city of The Phoenicians Which was the center of Baal worship. And so now God's telling him, You go to the center of Baal worship in Sidon, and I'm going to care for you there.
And Elijah's scratching his head, saying, This makes no sense at all. And then God says, I've chosen the vessel to care for you. It's a widow. There's a widow woman there who's going to take care of you.
Now, I say to you that none of that makes any sense in the human realm. If you and I had planned this out, we wouldn't have suggested that route. In fact, one of the writers that I read Said this, he said, the prophets' national instincts would be against going into a Gentile area. His religious instincts would lead him to abhor a hotbed of Baal worship, and his manly instincts would cause him to shrink from being a burden upon a poor widow. But that's exactly what God told him to do.
You go to Zarephath. And I will care for you there. through a widow.
Now, if you think our story is illogical up to this point, just hang on, because it gets worse. Elijah arrives as we read in the scripture at this place and read what happens.
So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and he said, please bring me a little water and a cup. That I may drink. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.
So she said, As the Lord your God lives, I don't have any bread, only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a jar, and I'm gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die. I wonder what was going through Elijah's mind about this time. Did I get God's instructions right? This is how He's going to care for me? But watch what he did.
And Elijah said to her, Do not fear. Go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake first and bring it to me. And afterward, make some for yourself and your son.
Now, the person who's wondering is the widow. I mean, she is really wondering what is going on. She's just explained to this man that she has got nothing left, that her flour barrel is dry, that she's just got a little tiny bit of oil left in her jar of oil, and she's going to make one last meal for her and her son, and then their history. And Elijah says, well, fine, but just make me a cake first.
Okay. I know that's the way some of you feel about giving to God. You've got all these bills and all these responsibilities and all this, and somebody stands up and says, put God first, and you're saying that is the most illogical thing I have ever heard in my life. But if you read this story carefully, you will learn some things that will encourage you because they certainly have encouraged me. For many of us, we already know that when we put God first in giving Him the first 10% of what He entrusts to us, He always is there for us to meet our needs.
And for us, that's just an encouraging review. But for some of you who are seekers and maybe you're new to this ministry and you've never trusted God in this realm in your life, you're saying there is no way, Pastor Jeremiah, this could ever work. It's too illogical. Watch carefully. I've written down four things that we can learn about putting God first from this story.
Number one. When we tithe and put God first, We possess our possessions.
Now, I want you to read the story carefully and watch that when Elijah met the widow of Zarephath, she was fast in the clutches of a handful of meal and a little tiny bit of oil. That's all she had. We sympathize with her. In fact, we identify with her. This is a lone woman against a famined land.
She has nothing. For weeks, this poor lady has been watching every day as the flour level goes down in her barrel of flour. And now she's at the dead end. There isn't anything left. Anyone who reads this story is touched by the pathos of this woman who is now at the end of herself with no resources available to her at all.
Our heart goes out to her. We identify with her. But so did the prophet's heart go out to her. And you see, the difference is he knew something which she did not know. He knew that the way to have what you have and have it to the fullest.
is to always put God First. That's why he said, Make me a little cake first. Trust God by putting Him first and watch what He does. When we first see this woman in the story, she is clutching everything she has. At the end of the story, she is releasing it all to God.
There are many of you Who don't understand that the way to have what you have. is to give it back to God. That's the only way you can ever possess your possessions. If you clutch them to yourselves, the only thing you will ever have is what you can hold in your hands. But if you give it back to God with open hands, He is obligated not only to bless you.
But what we've been reminded of many times over is that when you open your hand to God, He can take what He wants, but can also put back what you need. the principle of the open hand.
So, when we tithe, we put God first and we possess our possessions. Notice secondly, when we tithe and put God first, we prepare for the future.
Now, before this woman gave the first cake to Elijah, What was she doing? She was preparing to die. I mean, she said, this is it, this is our last meal, and then we're just going to quietly fade off into the sunset. How bleak was the outlook of the future for this woman. She left the future in the hands of God, and she gave what she could to God.
And God took care of her, as we shall see. I know some of you say, I can't afford to tithe. If I didn't have to worry about this and I didn't have to worry about that, and if we didn't have this and that, then we could do it. But the fact is that the acquisition of more goods does not diminish fear, but it multiplies it.
Some of you say if we just get to the next level, we're going to be okay. The problem is, the more you have, the more you hold on to it. If you haven't given it back to God, when you have this, when you have a little bit more, it gets harder and harder to put God first. Jesus in the New Testament talked a great deal about money. And I've always been intrigued by why he did that.
In fact, I thought if Jesus were the pastor of a local assembly in today's evangelical world, he wouldn't last very long. Because he talked about money more than he talked about heaven, more than he talked about hell, more than he talked about a lot of spiritual priorities. Every time you turn around, Jesus is saying something about money. And I rather think I understand that now better than I ever have before. I think it's because Jesus understood the human mind as no one ever understood the human mind.
I believe it's because he knew how prone we are to reason that if we just get a few more of those great, big, beautiful dollars, then we can relax and enjoy life, then we'll be more generous, and then we'll put God first. And Jesus knew it didn't work that way. He knew that when we dance too long before the golden calf, before we know it, we're powerless to do anything else. He knew that this would be a growing problem in each individual life, which did not put the Heavenly Father first.
So he talked about it continually. And every time you see Jesus talking about important things, sooner or later he'll get to this subject because he knew that where a man's treasure is, there his heart was. And he knew that if we didn't put him first in this very practical area, then it was just lip service to talk about putting him first in any other way. I'm reminded of a story that I read some time ago about a woman. Who had one treasure in her life?
It was her silver that had been given to her on her wedding day. And when she and her husband were married, that was her treasure and for twenty years she worried so much about that silver. In fact, She would nudge her husband at night, saying, John, get up. I think somebody's downstairs and they're going to get my silver.
Well, on one of those rare nights, When John decided to obey his wife, He went downstairs and he actually found a burglar downstairs. And he introduced himself to the man And suggested I want you to come upstairs and meet my wife. She's been looking for you for 20 years. Yeah. I know a lot of people like that.
You know, what they have is so important to them, they just clutch to it all the time. And they can't think of anything else. And so all they do is worry about the future. Worry about this investment, that investment, because they haven't put God first. I want to tell you something.
When you put God first and give him what is rightfully his, you can quit worrying about the future. God is obligated to take care of you. He will never be in debt to somebody who puts him first in this regard. When you put God first, And tithe, you prepare for the future. Notice the third principle: when you tithe and put God first, you place faith over sight.
You know, the Bible says that as Christians, we're to walk by faith and not by sight. I never met anybody who started to tithe because. It just looked like a good thing to do, an investing thing to do, a right thing to do, it made sense to do it in the human realm. You will never do that. The only way you will ever do that is if you respond to what God has said in His book and you say, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
And you do it.
Now that's what this woman had to do. I want you to notice as you look at the text, That the only thing Elijah said to her was, Bring me a little cake first. That's all the word she had. She could have reasoned, well, let me see if I have enough for myself and my son first, and then I'll respond. She could have said, Let me see how things go first, and let me see if I can do that for you, Elijah.
But the Bible says, and you look at it in the text, she went and she did according to the word. of the Lord. She understood that Elijah was speaking to her from God, and she did what God told her to do. Not because it made sense, because it's the most illogical thing you ever saw in your life. Not because she'd reasoned it all out and figured it out how it was going to work, but God said it, and she did it.
And that's how she got involved in God's wonderful plan of economy for her.
Someone said that Elijah gave this woman just one, thus saith the Lord. And it changed her entire life, did it not? It changed her whole life. She was a dead woman in a couple of weeks, maybe. But one, thus saith the Lord, changed her whole life.
Do you know that in our Bible there are 31,173 verses of Scripture? She had one promise. And she listened. And God Honored. His word.
She gave all of her strength on one verse from God. And God honored his word. Let me just say to you, if you're trying to figure out when is the right time to begin to tithe based upon where you are and thinking things through in your family economy, you will never do it. Here is the truth. This is what God has said we should do.
And this is how we respond. by faith. When we put God first in our lives and tithe, we pass through the realm of sight and reason and we begin to operate on the principles of faith. And finally, When we put God first and tithe, We put him to work in our behalf. I want you to read verse 14.
For thus says the Lord God of Israel, The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth. That's what God said.
So verse 15 says, She went away and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days, and the bin of flour was not used up, and the jar of oil did not run dry, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke. By Elijah. Do you see the relationship? God spoke. She responded.
And the fulfillment of the promise was sure. God did exactly what He said He was going to do. It's not hard for me to imagine. the joy in the household of this lady. As every day she went to the pantry to look in the barrel, And every day there was just enough to sustain the three of them for one more day.
Just 24 hours worth of flour and oil, and the next day she went back and it was replenished again. And then, because she had also allowed the prophet to stay in her home, she had the added blessing of this man who was a man of God praying for her and her family.
So, that was an added resource that she got. And by faith, this widow put God first, and God blessed her and met every one of her needs. That's what God has promised to do for any of us who will put Him first in our lives. Amen. You know, you can't learn that in a book.
You have to do it. When you do it, you find out it's true. You put God first, and everything is different. Everything changes. If the thing you want to do more in your life than anything else is to please God and honor Him, you're in for an adventure, I promise you.
Hey, here during these days of January, we're making available a resource that we believe will add value to your life. It's a beautiful book called What God Promises You. It's brand new. It just came off the press a few days ago. And it is seven truths that will change the way you live.
What a great thing to investigate as you start the new year. We're trying to get you going, get you going strong, and we want you to have this book. It's available for a gift of any size during this month.
So when you send your gift, please ask for your copy of What God Promises You, and you will be blessed by the content and encouraged and hopefully changed as you face 26. And we want to join that whole process with you by providing these materials. We'll see you next time right here. Thanks for listening. For more information on Dr.
Jeremiah's series, Investing for Eternity, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, What God Promises You: Seven Truths That Will Change the Way You Live.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James Versions, available in your choice of attractive and durable cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Investing for Eternity on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
