Schmidt, Duane: First Fruits ~ 1Corinthians 15

Is that fun to say or what? Woo! Let's pray. Father, we thank you that the Lord Jesus is risen indeed, and that we can bet our lives on it. We thank you for the opportunity to gather this morning to talk about him, the one that we love. Deepen our love for him as a result of this time together. I pray, Lord, that you would fill me with your spirit, that I may speak your words and only your words, that you would open all our hearts, that it may be helpful. Lord, we love you, we praise you, we worship you. We cast ourselves into your arms, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. As I think about Easter and all the different bouquets that have been up here through the years, and even through Easter, uh, particularly, I remember some of the beautiful bouquets at Golda brought, and it's another way of loving the Lord. This morning I brought actually a bouquet. I'm gonna go get it. How many of you have ever been in the state of Kansas? May I see your hands? I like to start out with one that we can all, something we can all agree with, because we're all in the state of Kansas, obviously, and this is where we are, and this is a part of who we are. Some of us, it goes back into our heritage. Today's bouquet, part of today's subject, but it's not, it's not first. First is what we're going to talk about today. First of all, we're going to talk about first, first of all. First and foremost today, we're talking about first place. First in line. First things first. Anybody understand what I'm talking about yet, what I'm preaching on? Bobby read the scripture for today, and he didn't know it. We're talking about first fruits. First fruits, Resurrection Sunday. Today's word is first. Let's look at First Corinthians fifteen and verse twenty. Paul is here concluding a long argument, kind of from the negative side of what would have happened, or what would happen, what would be the state of things if Christ had not risen from the dead. And here he concludes that, and I'm reading First Corinthians fifteen. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ, the first fruits, after that, those who are Christ's at his coming, and it goes on. The first fruits is what we're talking about today. First of all, first and foremost, first things first. Today we're talking about first. We're going to look at first things first in both testaments. It's a, it was a beautiful custom, incredibly important to the nation of Israel. They couldn't eat until they practiced this. And as we look at it, it's designed to appeal to our imagination. It's designed to appeal to our senses more than just our minds. So as we go through this, I want you to let your imagination run a little bit, and I want you to think about first fruits, the first, the Lord Jesus Christ, the first fruits. Literal first fruits in the Old Testament. Christ, the first fruits, that the first fruits that he has given us, and that he has made us a type of first fruits for the whole world, for the whole universe to see, and... first fruits in our lives. And as we look at it, the different imagery, the different things, I want you to be thinking about this. I'm not just talking about a tradition that happened thousands of years ago and now they don't do, or something quaint or some religious thing. I want you to think about all these things. I'm talking about the Lord Jesus, and I'm talking about you, and I'm talking about us, and I'm talking about our lives. This is a concept that has transformed my life. How many of you, Kansans, for the day at least, have ever been in a wheat field near harvest time. And just listened to, just listened. Yeah, raise your hands if you've done that. I want to, if not, you do that this year, okay? Do that this year. Don't miss it. First fruits. First fruits, appropriately enough, happens in the first part of the Bible. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, Genesis four two, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part, also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offerings, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. Abel brought the first. We don't know that Cain did that. We don't know that he didn't do that. We do know it didn't turn out well for him. Abel brought the first. And it came to be in Israel an incredibly important thing, and it's directly connected to this day. That wheat is connected to Israel, to this day, to our eternity. Leviticus nineteen twenty three, when you enter the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, you shall count their fruit as forbidden. You planted this fruit tree, it's starting to bear fruit. Three years it shall be forbidden to you, it shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year, all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. In the fifth year, you are to eat of its fruit, that its yield may increase for you. I am the Lord your God. Well, perhaps good agriculture to not eat the fruit the first few years, but specifically the fourth year, the first real fruit, the first good fruit, you may not eat it. It's for the Lord. Why is the question? Why would you do that? And why, what's the importance of first fruits? Why did they practice it so much? Because it wasn't just fruit. This was for everything that the ground produced. Everything that the nation of Israel had was for first fruits. Deuteronomy eighteen, Levitical priests one through five, and I'm not going to read it all. The priests do from the people, from those who offer sacrifice. They shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. You shall give him, meaning the priest, the first fruits of your grain, your new wine, your oil, the first shearing of your sheep, wool, fruit, grain, wine, honey, it goes on and on. It's for the Lord. Now, the Lord used it to support his servants. It's for the Lord. And here's the ceremony that happened, and it was connected. This was one of the ceremonies of the first fruits, the offering, the presentation of the first fruits connected with the Passover. We'll come back to that. Connected with the Passover, and this was how it happened. This is a small description of it, and the rabbinical writings, it talks about a lot more detail, but let's, let's jump into this. Uh, speak to the sons of Israel, when you enter the land which I'm going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits. The sheaf of the first fruits of the harvest to your priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted. I'm gonna just court disaster here. Wave it before the Lord. It was a wave offering. Lord, this is the first. It's for you. And to wave it before the Lord. Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect. Its grain offering shall be thus and such. Going down to the bottom, until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. Leviticus twenty three nine fourteen. You're not eating of the new fruit until you give it to the Lord. The first thing, the first fruits. And it wasn't practical for every person in Israel to go to Jerusalem and everyone present the first of their grain, and so they would do it by village. They would gather a group together, and they would get a basket. This is not in the Bible, but in the, in the Israel's literature, that they would gather the basket, and they have this kind of first fruit and that kind of first fruit, and they would get the different first fruits, put it together in the basket. They would guard it. They would travel to Jerusalem with joy because the land is produced, and we've got food. And this is part of it. This is the first of it. This is for you, Lord. They would sleep in the plaza, not in its, not in a building, so that if someone died in the building, their offering wouldn't be unclean. It's an incredibly important thing. It's to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. But it wasn't just fruit, grain, wine, honey, all the other things it talks about. The Lord spoke to Moses in Exodus, saying, sanctify to me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast, it belongs to me. The first is for the Lord, the first. And more detail in Exodus thirteen, talks about devoting to the Lord the first offspring of the womb, what to do with donkeys, and it shall be when your son asks you in that time to come, saying, what is this? Why are we doing this? What is this? Then you shall say to him, with a powerful hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. God saved us, son. Do you understand this? We were slaves, and God saved us. He brought us out. It came about, back to the Bible, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem. He didn't want human sacrifice, but he wanted them to remember that what they had was from him. It all came from him, and he had saved them on top of just creating them. And the Lord in number says, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of every firstborn. Whenever you read about the Levites and so forth, they're ministering to God instead of the firstborn, because the firstborn is his. That's why that tribe served. The first issue of the womb among the sons of Israel, the Levites shall be mine. On the day I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to myself all the firstborn in Israel, from man to beast, they shall be mine. I am the Lord. Pretty adamant about it. And the question is why? Why is it this way? Why is it that God wants the firstborn, and why did they so joyously give the Lord the firstborn? The earth is the Lord, Psalm twenty four, and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. But it's bigger than that. Psalm eighty nine eleven, The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours, the world and all it contains. You have founded them. But I'm made by you, Lord. And this house that I have, and this, this flesh that I have, it's all from you. How can I give to you? And David said, when they consecrated the temple and he had to make the people quit bringing things, it was too much. And David says, who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from you and from your hand we have given you. One of the purposes of the first fruits was to symbolize that it was all his. I can't give it all to you. I can give you the first. I can, I can take this little piece, Lord, and wave it in front of, of your temple, your servant, and say, this is yours. It's all yours. It's all yours. And in memory of that, I'm going to take this little piece and remind me that it's of you. That's what I'm doing. How did they do that? Very specifically set out in Deuteronomy twenty six, Again, connected with the Passover, and we'll get there. When you enter the land, you'll take some of the first of all the produce, all of the produce of the ground which you bring in from your land that the Lord your God gives you. You shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, I declare this day to the Lord my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. The priest will take the basket. And the man continues, my father was a wandering Aramean. He went to Egypt, and and again, it's God delivered us. He brought us to this land flowing with milk and honey. He saved us, and at the bottom, now behold, I have brought the first of the produce the Lord has given me, and you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship the Lord your God. Very, very, very specifically set out when to do it, why to do it, how to do it, what it meant. First, the first fruits. Connected. Actually, the presentation of the first fruits happened three days after the High Passover. And they counted partial days as full days. Friday. And he was killed on Friday, wasn't he? Saturday. He was dead in the tomb all day Saturday. And Sunday, part of the day, he rose. The firstborn from among the dead, the first fruits of those who died. On that day, on that day, he rose from the dead and presented us, and I think presented himself to God his Father, saying, this is the first fruits, this is the first fruits, this is the first part. When I'm in that wheat field, and when I was a kid back in the day, it was always better, always better back in the day. When I was a kid, the wheat was this tall, and I don't mean that, that it was this tall on me and I was this tall. I mean, it really was. This was before the hybrids. Carolyn is nodding her head, so you know this is true. Kids could go in a wheat field, you s- take three steps in, and you're lost because the wheat is like literally six feet tall. The first fruit symbolized honor to God. We give it to you, dependence on God. Were it not for you, we'd have nothing. It symbolizes the whole harvest. When you listen to this, you can hear the whole section of wheat. It symbolizes it all. And the choice and the best. The first fruits. The Lord Jesus as our first fruits in First Corinthians fifteen. If it were not for the resurrection, we're of all men most to be pitied. But Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of all who are asleep. The first one to be raised from the dead and never to die again. There were others raised from the dead. The Lord raised people from the dead, but they rose from the dead to to die again. Lazarus died again, the widow's son died again, the little girl that Paul raised, she died again, but the Lord Jesus was raised never to die again. And he symbolizes the whole harvest. When he ascended before God, his Father, on the day of the presentation of first fruits, it was the representative, it was one ear, albeit the most important one, of the mighty harvest that would follow. Millions of believers. He was the first, and he is the best. But he symbolized the whole, whole first fruits, the whole crop. The sheaf was presented before God. His ownership, God's ownership, and it represents all those who would be saved in any land ever. It was you, and it was me that was there when the Lord Jesus presented himself. When you look at the sheaf, you're not only looking at last year's harvest, you're also looking at next year's harvest, are you not? Because the seed is there. And the same thing. The Lord rose from the dead that he would give us life, that we could raise from the dead. The proof that sin is paid for. It's paid for. Sin is not the issue. Death is not the issue. Receiving Christ is the issue. What are you going to do with the Lord Jesus? Proof that his sacrifice was sufficient. He was declared by the power of God to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead in Romans one. because he rose from the dead, the first of the ones that would come, symbolizing the harvest, symbolizing the plenty, symbolizing the most. This is for you if you know the Lord Jesus. If you do not, then this is for you. Don't say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is to say, to bring Christ up from the dead, but it says the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's the power of the resurrection, if you believe in the first fruit, the one who was raised from the dead. We beg you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He bore our sin. He was the sin sacrifice. He was the offering. As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. To those who believe in his name. We beg you. First fruits, symbolizing the many, symbolizing the complete whole. I can't bring the whole section's wheat in here, God. I've even, I've got to eat some of it, but it's yours, and I'm giving it to you. Symbolizing the beauty, symbolizing the life that was in it, symbolizing the power, symbolizing the harvest that would come, but he has also given to us believers first fruits. Such a wide-ranging symbol, so powerful, so encouraging. Romans eight. Think of first fruits. Think of what it re- represents. The anxious longing of the creation. Do you understand? Not the planet, the creation. Waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pain of childbirth together until now. How many planets, how many races, how many species? And not only this, but we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. God gives us a first fruit. He gives us a proof. He says, Dwayne, I'm, I've saved you, I've paid the price for your sin. Dwayne, I'm gonna live in you. I'm gonna live in you. My spirit is gonna be in you. That's the first fruit. That's the sheaf. Do you understand? That's the sheaf of the section, is the Holy Spirit. No limit. Wow. Has it been a good week? Yeah, it's been a pretty good week. We have the first fruits of the Spirit, and we groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. We're waiting, Lord. We're waiting. Man, it's hard. Sin, my own sin, the frustrations, the limitations, this world, this corrupt system, this whole thing. Dwayne, remember, you've got the Spirit. You've got me in you, the Holy Spirit. He's inside of you. Oh, yeah. Forgot that. And we're waiting eagerly, and he's given us a pledge of our inheritance, as if we would say, well, God, you've given the Spirit, are you going to give the rest? It's a down payment on a house. If you bought a house recently, typically you have to have earnest money. You have to have something to prove you're going to really do it. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you've got the earnest, you've got the down payment, you've got it in you. Wow. He is given as a pledge to our inheritance. Duane, I'm not done with creation yet. Until I am, here's the Holy Spirit. Use him. Let him live in you. Let him have control of you. And if you look at James, God has made us a type of first fruits. So first fruits, the nation Israel. First fruits, the Lord Jesus being raised from the dead. First fruits to us, the Holy Spirit, and first fruits that we are. First fruits. James one eighteen, in the exercise of his will, he brought forth by the word of, brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among his creatures. You, brother, and you, sister, you're one of these. You're one of these. You're one of the first fruits among creation on this world, on this planet, in this country, in this county, in this city. You are an example of the whole. You are a symbol and an example of the mighty power of God. The whole harvest is symbolized in you. And one of the things he wants to do is to show the world, if I can do it for Dwayne, I can do it for you. If I can do it for you, then I can do it for you. And I noticed Christians were different before I got saved. If God can reach down and take one person and pick them up out of the mud and the mire and the sin and turn him into someone who loves God and who tries to live for God, then he can do it for anybody. This little sheaf, it's the wheat field symbolized. I'm quoting. What a harvest is dimly hinted at in these words of my text, the first fruits of his creatures. It goes wider than humanity and stretches away into the dim distances of which we can speak with but bated breath. The whole creation, as we looked at in Romans. You are a specimen, you are an exhibit, you are God's look at what I'm doing project. He's made us first fruits. Application. Give God the first fruits. Do not give God the tired, worn out leftovers of your life. If that's all you've got, if that's where you are, then that's what we give. But give him the first. Give him the best. Give him the best of your ability, of your desire, of your time. I'm talking about tomorrow morning. Get up five minutes early. I can be blunt. Spend five minutes with the Creator and say, this is the first fruit of my day. I give it to you. The first fruits. I want to give you the whole day, Lord, but I can't. I've got to work. I've got to do this. I think I have to do that. We're so careful to take for ourselves. And it's all through the whole Bible that to live is Christ and to die is gain. And to he, that he is to have the priority. When he says, if anyone loves father or mother or whatever more than me, then he's not worthy of me. Isn't he saying the same thing? Doesn't it say the same thing in the same way over and over and over, and we shrink back because we can't do it, and of course you can't do it. But we can give him the first. We can give him a piece, we can give him a kernel, we can give him a grain, we can give him the first. John Wesley said, he who is the first and best deserves the first and the best. Not just money, although that's included. It's an attitude that invades every area of our life, and it's a joy. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Seek it first. We get it turned around, and we always have. Man said, Lord, I will follow you. He said it to his face, and he said, but let me first go bury my father. Well, that's the problem, is that we say me first. And it's not me first. It's not my house, my job, my career, my I need to have these things. But he is the first, and I can show him and reassure myself that he is the first when I give him my first. Give God the first fruits. We sing a song in Proverbs that says, don't be wise in your own eyes, turn the Lord and, or love the Lord, fear the Lord, and turn from evil. And the verse right after that says, honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first fruit of all your produce. Jeremiah twenty nine, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. Now we're not talking about some ecstatic trance or some odd thing or some living in a cave. We're not talking about that. We're, we're talking about trying to keep the priority straight, giving the first to the first. It doesn't say you will find me, you will find half of me when you search for me with half of your heart, but it's seek first the kingdom. Give the first fruits to the one who gave us first fruits, to the one who is the first fruits, to the one who deserves our first and our best. Father, we worship you this morning, Resurrection Day. The Lord Jesus rose from the dead so that we would be assured that we would, and all the power of the Roman Empire and all the laws and officials and ceilings of the tomb and all that stuff was not a problem for you, Lord. You burst out of there. And we worship you, Lord Jesus, and we look to you, our older brother, the first resurrected man, knowing that we'll follow in your steps, and we want to live resurrected, first fruit lives here for you, Lord. Make it so, in Jesus' name.