Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : September 5, 2004
Bring Your Mission Offerings to God
Pentecost 14
What did you bring for an offering today? I'd like to see everyone's offering. Does that make you a little uncomfortable, or angry? "That's none of your business!" you might be thinking. Asking what someone else brought to church as an offering is a big no-no in our circles. It's kind of like asking someone how much they make. But if you were listening carefully to my question you realize that I didn't ask how much money you brought in your offering; I asked what you brought for an offering. As we go through our sermon today, listen for something besides money that God wants you to bring to him, as we look at the theme: Bring Your Mission Offerings to God.
God is looking for a number of things from us in offerings. In the words from Isaiah before us, God wasn't happy with the offerings his people were bringing him. So he says, "I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory." In other words, because the Jewish nation had for the most part rejected God and the gospel message, God would take that gospel away from the Jews, God's Old Testament people, and give it to others, who would rejoice in God's glory.
And what was that glory of God that mainly others would rejoice in? They would rejoice in a man who was beaten and bloodied, crushed in body and spirit, rejected by men and by God himself. The greatest glory of God is seen in the lowest God made himself to win us as his own. The greatest glory of God is seen when one looks at Jesus Christ, loving us so much that he chose to suffer the torments of hell in our place to give us a life with God forever.
But many of the Jewish people in the Old Testament didn't think a man dying on a cross was a very glorious thing at all. They wanted more of the fire of the Lord coming down from heaven and consuming all his enemies. That's what they wanted to see. Is that sometimes what we want to see? We are God's people! We know God's power and his grace. We have the truth of God's word. We know that God did everything for our salvation. We know that by God's grace alone we have heaven already through faith. But does it always show in our actions and our thoughts? We know God wants us to share his message of salvation to the world, but we often say that we're looking for the right time. And that's good -- you don't want to pester someone so much that they just don't listen to what you're saying at all. But on the other hand, most likely, God isn't going to send down fire from heaven to show you that it's time to tell others about Jesus. The fact is, God already sent fire from heaven. Yes, he sent fire from heaven in Elijah's time to consume a sacrifice to show all Israel that he was God. But also remember that the raw demonstration of God's glory changed little -- the next we hear about Elijah is that he was running for his life. To make any lasting change in people's hearts and lives, we need to tell about how God sent the fire of his wrath against the world's sins, including ours, onto his own Son Jesus when he died on the cross, consuming that sacrifice as Jesus suffered hell for us while he hung there. And in the place of our sins, Jesus gave us his perfect record and credited it to our account. That is the sign that God has already given us -- given 2000 years ago, and just as powerful in changing hearts today.
That's what God meant when he said through Isaiah, "I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations...to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations." Not all the Jews rejected God. Some Jews by the Holy Spirit's power and working saw the sign -- Jesus -- as their Savior. Some of them were sent, not to the Jews, but to the Gentiles. We remember the mission work of Paul and many believing Jews like him. Because of them, we have heard the message and seen the sign of God's glory -- Jesus. We rejoice in God rescuing us from destruction simply by calling us to faith in Jesus.
But God rescued us from destruction for a reason -- God chose you for service.
In Ephesians 4:11-12 Paul says, "It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service." What kind of service? All kinds. Every kind of service. After knowing that God has rescued you from the destruction of hell's eternal flames and has given you eternal life simply by believing in Jesus as your Savior, you have countless numbers of ways that you can serve your God, from teaching Sunday school to serving on the Land Search Team, from setting up chairs each Sunday to living as a Christian father or mother or child. Simply put, Jesus lived and died and rose for you; now you live your life for him. That is our offering to him.
But God mentions one special offering we can give -- a true mission offering. "And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD... They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the LORD in ceremonially clean vessels." The offering God is talking about is people. The picture of approaching the holy God on his holy mountain is quite daunting, don't you think? But there is only one way we can approach God in such a way -- through Christ, who offered himself on Mt. Calvary so that you and I would be perfect in God's eyes. And when we share that message of God's grace in Christ Jesus with others, they, too, can come before the holy God on his holy mountain as perfectly clean. Just as the offerings of the Israelites in the Old Testament were pleasing to God through faith, so when we bring another person to Jesus, we are really bringing God an offering -- a mission offering.
How many offerings of people have your brought to your Lord recently? They are mission offerings. And they in turn will bring others to know Jesus. What other greater offering can you give to your Lord and Savior than one more person that calls him Lord and Savior? Take some time right now to write down the name of one or two people that you will share your faith with this week. You can invite them to church and even offer to pick them up. You can invite them to discover what the Bible says in one of my Bible Discovery Classes.
So we have seen that God wants you to bring him your mission offerings because he rescued you from destruction and has chose you for service.
How long will you be able to bring these kinds of mission offerings to your Lord? Only as long as he gives you life here on earth. Jesus tells us to "Work while it is day before the night comes when no one can work." Jesus tells us to bring others to him now while you have the opportunity because eventually, you won't be able to work to bring any more souls to Christ any longer because the end of the world will stop our work of reaching out to the lost and giving mission offerings of people to our Lord. But that is what we're all looking forward to -- our true home of heaven.
God gives us a glimpse of that happy home in the concluding verses of our text: " 'As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,' declares the LORD, 'so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,' says the LORD." The Old Testament people of God were to worship when the moon was new every month and on every Saturday, the Sabbath Day. In the New Testament, we are free to worship any day and in any way, but we usually worship every week on Sundays. That worship of God is one thing that is constant in the believer's life, even when it seems that everything else if falling apart. One day, though, we will be able to worship God not just in reading and listening to his word in church and at home, in singing songs while we think of what Jesus did for us, in living our every moment for him because of the forgiveness he won for us -- but we will see him face to face. We will hear God himself speak directly to us. We will join the angel choirs in singing God's praise eternally as all of God's people join in that praise. That is assured to believers because God promises it. And God is able to promise it because Christ made it all possible by opening heaven for us through his life and death.
That is what every believer longs for, isn't it? But even though heaven is ours through faith, we're not there yet. And until then, we have mission offerings to bring. So what did you bring as your offering today? Did you bring a person as your offering to Christ? This week tell someone who doesn't know God's glory about how Jesus has rescued you from destruction. Tell them how God chose you for service in his kingdom and how you will worship him forever in heaven because of Jesus. And tell them Jesus has rescued them as well and wants their service for all eternity. Then bring them as your mission offering next week. Amen.
