“WHY GOD EXPECTS THE BEST YOU HAVE TO GIVE”
EXODUS 12:1-14
12:1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in
the land of Egypt:
2 This month shall mark for you the
beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.
3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for
each household.
4 If a household is too small for
a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of
people who eat of it.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish,
a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth
day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.
7 They shall take some of the blood
and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
8 They shall eat the lamb that same
night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled
in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.
10 You shall let none of it remain
until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
11 This is how you shall eat it: your
loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of
the LORD.
12 For I will pass through the land
of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the
gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.
13 The blood shall be a sign for you on
the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 This day shall be a day of remembrance
for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual
ordinance.
Life
is full of do’s and don’ts. There are rules and regulations and restrictions that you’re supposed to follow
no matter who you are or where you are. For example, no parking, no smoking,
keep off the grass, speed limit 55 mph, do your homework and no snacks before dinner.
All of those do’s and don’t make sense. Other do’s and
don’ts are a little harder to understand. For example, did you know that it’s illegal in Florida
for a woman who’s single, divorced or widowed to parachute out of an airplane on a Sunday afternoon? In Amarillo, Texas, it’s against
the law to take a bath on the main street during banking hours. In Halethorpe,
Maryland, a kiss in public that lasts more than one second can get you arrested. Here’s one more for you. In Saint
Louis, if your automobile spooks a horse you have to start dismantling the car until the horse calms
down.
Life is full of do’s and don’ts. The people
of Israel also had a lot of do’s and don’ts when
it came to celebrating the Passover meal. For example, the lamb couldn’t be boiled or eaten raw. It had to be roasted and you had to eat every bit of it before the sun came up the next morning. There
were also instructions on what you had to wear while you celebrated the Passover meal.
You had to wear a robe and sandals and you had to eat the meal with a staff in your hand.
Since
we’re not Jewish we don’t have to worry about all those do’s and don’ts except for one. There is one that does apply to us today.
Moses
and Aaron were told that the lamb that each family sacrificed had to be without blemish.
Now that’s significant. It meant that the lamb you sacrificed to God had to be the best that you had to offer.
You couldn’t go and get an old scraggly lamb. You couldn’t get a
lamb that was getting along in years and wasn’t of much use to you anymore. It
had to be a young lamb that still offered the promise of many years of wool and milk and cheese.
Why?
Because God expects the best that you have to offer. That was true then and it’s just as true today. So, that raises a question that each of us needs to answer. The question is this: Are you giving God the best you have to offer? Or are you
giving God your leftovers? Your leftover time…your left over coins…your
leftover talents?
God
expects the best that you have to offer. Now, that’s not because God has
a huge ego and needs to feel important. It’s not because God wants you to feel totally needy and obligated. God isn’t
petty like that. God doesn’t play those kinds of games. That’s why
you can smile at the story about the conversation that God had with Adam one day in the Garden of Eden. “God,” Adam says, “I’ve been wondering. Why
did you make Eve so beautiful?” God smiles and says, “Because I wanted
you to like her.” Adam nods his head.
“Okay,” Adam continues, “but why did you make Eve so gullible?”
God smiles again and says, “Because I wanted her to like you.”
That’s
not the relationship that God wants with you. God doesn’t want you to feel insignificant and small. So, the expectation
that you’re going to give God the best that you have to offer isn’t for God’s benefit. I’m mean think
about it. Does God really need anything from you? Does the all powerful all knowing God of heaven and earth really need anything
from you? The answer to that question is a resounding “No!” What
that means then is the expectation to give God the best you have to offer is for your benefit.
It benefits
you in a couple of very important ways. First of all giving God the best you
have to offer changes your perspective on who you are and what life’s all about. It gives you a deeper appreciation
of your blessings. It helps you understand how truly good God is and it helps you not to take yourself too seriously. A good example of that can be seen in the conversation that a man by the name of Thomas
Wheeler had with his wife. Thomas Wheeler used to be the CEO of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. The conversation took place at a run down gas station out in the middle of nowhere. While the gas station attendant was filling up the tank and checking the oil Wheeler went for a walk to
stretch his legs. When he came back he noticed that his wife and the gas station
attendant were engaged in a lively conversation. As they drove away Wheeler asked
his wife if she knew the attendant. Well, it turned out that the two of them
had gone to high school together. “Wow,” Wheeler said, “you
sure were lucky I came along. If you’d married him, you’d be the
wife of a gas station attendant instead of the wife of a chief executive officer.”
“My dear,” his wife replied, “if I’d married him, he’d be the chief executive officer
and you’d be the gas station attendant.”
Give
God the best that you have to offer and it will change the way you look at things. You’ll
look at yourself differently. You’ll look at life differently. You’re
relationship with God will deepen. You’ll appreciate your blessings like you never have before, and not only that but
you’ll discover what it means to be a blessing to others. You’ll
experience the joy that comes from touching the lives of others. After a while
you experience life the way a little girl did one day when she got into an elevator for the first time. Later that day when asked what it was like to ride on the elevator she said it was fun. “I got into this little room,” she said, “and the upstairs came down.”
That’s
a good way of describing what happens when you give God the best that you have to offer and become a blessing to others. Heaven
comes down and you see it all around you. Not only that, but when you give God
the best you have to offer, God gives you more and more blessings to give away. Good
things happen when you give God the best that you have to offer.
That’s
what happened one day when a poor young man knocked on a stranger’s door. The
young man was poor and was selling good door-to-door so he could go to college. He only had a dime left to his name and he
was hungry. So, he decided he to ask for a meal. However, he lost his nerve when
a young woman opened the door. Instead, he asked for a drink of water. The young woman could tell that he was hungry though and brought him a large glass of milk. “How much do I owe you?” the young man asked. “You
don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught us
never to accept pay for a kindness. The young man nodded his head. “Well
then, he said, “I thank you from my heart.” Howard Kelly left that
house that day with his faith in God and man renewed. It gave him the strength
to continue on and he eventually went to college and graduated. Years later that
young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. So, they sent her to the city hospital where a specialist was called in to take a look at her. When Dr. Howard Kelly heard the name of the town the woman came from he immediately went to see her. As soon as he walked into her room he recognized her.
From that point on he spent many hours focusing on her treatment and recovery.
After a long struggle she did recover. Just before she was discharged Dr. Kelly asked the business office to send the
bill to him for his approval. When he got the bill he wrote a note on it and
sent in on to the woman’s room. The woman was afraid to open the envelope. She was sure it would take her the rest of
her life to pay off the debt. Imagine her surprise when she opened the envelope
and read on the bill, “Paid in full with one glass of milk.”
God
doesn’t want your leftovers. God want the best, the very best that you
have to offer. That sacred regulation or requirement or rule if you will isn’t
so that God can feel important. It’s so you can really appreciate your
blessings and become a blessing to others. Amen.
Rev.
Dr. Richard A. Hughes
September 4, 2005
