1 Chronicles 29 God Owns It All Matt Walker May 22, 2016

Transcription

1 1 Chronicles 29 God Owns It All Matt Walker May 22, 2016 Our church family is in the middle of a journey we began back in January, reading through the whole Bible chronologically together throughout the year. Each week the sermon is taken from a passage found in the previous week s reading. Our passage today comes from yesterday s reading and it s found in the last chapter of the book of First Chronicles. So, take your Bible and turn with me to 1 Chronicles 29. The book of 1 Chronicles concludes with the death of King David the most revered and beloved king in the history of the nation of Israel. Prior to his death, David led the nation of Israel through one final act that would eventually characterize and represent the nature of his entire rule and reign as king. The circumstances of 1 Chronicles 29 build upon, and are the direct result of, the passage we studied two weeks ago in 1 Chronicles 17. Back in 1 Chronicles 17 David returned home from worshiping at the tent of the tabernacle, which housed the Ark of the Covenant the very symbol of God s presence among His people. As David looked at his own immense palace constructed of massive cedar beams, he realized the disparity of the situation. He was king of Israel and he lived in a palace. Yet, the Lord is the King of King and reigns over heaven and earth and His special presence resided in a tent! David s desire was to honor God, so he decided he would build God a home (a temple) worthy of God s glory. But God said, NO! God would not allow David to build the temple. God had not commanded his people to build a temple, he had no pressing need for a temple, and ultimately, as we read in 1 Chronicles 22:8, David was disqualified from building the temple due to the blood he had shed during his many military campaigns. Instead, God told David that he would raise up one of David s own sons, who would succeed him on the throne, and his son would build a house for God. David s response to God s denial of his request is absolutely astounding. Rather than resentment or bitterness for denying his request, David responded in worship, acknowledging God s sovereign control and blessing in his life. The attitude of worship overflowed out of David s life until it finally reached its climax here, in 1 Chronicles 29. David would not build the Lord s temple, but he would gather all the architects, stonecutters, and carpenters. He would collect all the gold, silver, bronze, iron, and wood. He would finalize the construction plans so when his son, Solomon, was ready to begin construction all he would need to do is give the command: build. 1 Chronicles 29 records for us a beautiful, practical picture of authentic worship before God as the people of God give of their treasured possessions to build the temple. What we will see at the core of this picture of worship is that the sacrificial, generous giving of God's people was motivated and shaped by good theology. Theology is the study of God that should drive us to wrestle with the immensity (weightiness) of God s glory in a way that motivates us to live differently before Him. Sadly, there is a lot of bad theology floating around that motivates people to give for a lot of wrong reasons. We want to cultivate good theology that motivates us to worship God through giving in a way that glorifies Him! Everything we are about to encounter here in the text of 1 Chronicles 29 is built

2 around one major theological truth that will be our one and only point this morning. So, let's dive into the text, uncover that gem of theological truth, and look at how that truth should impact our giving to the glory of God. 1 Chronicles 29:1 9 1 And David the king said to all the assembly, Solomon my son, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced, and the work is great, for the palace will not be for man but for the Lord God. 2 So I have provided for the house of my God, so far as I was able, the gold for the things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, and the bronze for the things of bronze, the iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood, besides great quantities of onyx and stones for setting, antimony, colored stones, all sorts of precious stones and marble. 3 Moreover, in addition to all that I have provided for the holy house, I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, and because of my devotion to the house of my God I give it to the house of my God: 4 3,000 talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and 7,000 talents of refined silver, for overlaying the walls of the house, 5 and for all the work to be done by craftsmen, gold for the things of gold and silver for the things of silver. Who then will offer willingly, consecrating himself today to the Lord? 6 Then the leaders of fathers' houses made their freewill offerings, as did also the leaders of the tribes, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and the officers over the king's work. 7 They gave for the service of the house of God 5,000 talents and 10,000 darics of gold, 10,000 talents of silver, 18,000 talents of bronze and 100,000 talents of iron. 8 And whoever had precious stones gave them to the treasury of the house of the Lord, in the care of Jehiel the Gershonite. 9 Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly. 1 Chronicles 29:1 9 continues a public speech by David, which began back at the beginning of chapter 28. David was speaking to a large assembly of the Israelite people made up of key leaders from each of the 12 tribes, commanders of the military forces, palace officials, soldiers, and other royal officers. Anyone in any position of authority in the nation of Israel was gathered in this assembly in Jerusalem to hear the final words of King David and to anoint his son, Solomon, to take his place on the throne. It was a bittersweet time for the nation as they celebrated the life of king David and turned the page to another era of Israelite leadership. The final piece of business David concluded before Solomon was anointed king involved collecting all of the materials required to build the temple. David acknowledged in verse 1 that Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the work on the temple would be immense overwhelming for a new, young leader! So, David did everything he could do. Verse 2 says, so far as I was able to help his son succeed in this enormous building project! In verse 3 we learn that David gave of his own treasure because of his devotion to the Lord, his God. It was because of David s devotion to the Lord, his understanding of WHO God is, that led him to give so much of his own treasure to the Lord. While he hasn t revealed it yet, the author is driving us to the main theological truth that undergirds

3 ALL that we see in this section. Look at how much David gave in verse 4. This is almost an unthinkable amount gold and silver. The text gives us the weight in talents, which doesn t help us a lot. Most of your Bibles probably have a little footnote that says one talent is equal to somewhere between 67 and 75 pounds. Now, for everyone who already has the calculator app up on your phone screen, don t worry about that right now. I did the calculations for you. That s between 200, ,000 pounds of gold! That s a ton of gold over 100 tons of gold to be exact! Just the weight of that magnitude is hard to comprehend let alone the worth! Using today s market value for gold, that s over $4 billon just in gold. That doesn t include over 500,000 pounds of silver that would be used to cover the walls of the temple! Can you imagine a $4 billion building project?? We do have a member s meeting after the service today maybe you should stick around and see if that s on the agenda. That s an amazing amount of treasure! To put that in perspective, the current tallest building in the world the Burj Kalifa cost just $1.5 Billon. David gave $4 billion of his own treasure because he wanted the people to understand the significance of this structure they were going to build for the Lord. He wanted the people to realize that the weightiness of God s glory should move us to give of our treasures in a way that is crazy in the eyes of the world! But there is another reason that David gave his treasure and told the people about it He wanted to be an example for the people to follow He gave his own treasure and said, at the end of verse 5, who then will offer willingly, consecrate himself today to the Lord? The Hebrew term consecrate here has the idea of filling up your hand. So what David is really saying is, ok guys, who is willing to step up to the plate with me? The NET Bible simply translates David s question: Who else wants to contribute to the LORD today? Basically, David has issued a challenge. He wants to know who is going to stand with him and give, not out of compulsion but willingly, of their treasure to the Lord. And it s quite the matching challenge: I gave over $4 Billion, how about you? Verses 6 8 tells us exactly how the people responded. All those who were in the assembly (the leaders of the tribes, the military commanders, the royal officials, everyone) gave willingly to the Lord. They didn t give out of obligation, they didn t give to make themselves feel better, they didn t even give because they were trying to get a better tax deduction. They gave willingly because they were motivated by the same profound theological truth that moved David to give. We ll get to that truth in a minute, but first look at how much the people gave! David issued the $4 billion challenge and the people responded by giving just shy of double what David had given somewhere in the neighborhood of billion dollars! And again, that s just the gold! The people also gave somewhere around 375 tons of silver, 675 tons of bronze, and 3,750 tons of iron. You get the picture that there are piles of stuff everywhere! And remember, that is just what the leaders gave at this one gathering! Back in 1 Chronicles 22, David tells Solomon the final total of all the stuff that had been collected for the temple: Over 3,750 TONS of gold and 37,500 TONS of silver. Put them together and that is over

4 82 million pounds of gold and silver. I can t even picture one pound of gold! That would be over $170 billion in gold and silver! Again, to put that in perspective, the census David conducted in 1 Chronicles 21 concluded that there were 1,100,000 men in all Israel who drew the sword. If there were only two men per household that were of the age to draw the sword then that means there were just over half a million households. There were probably far less than that considering the size of most families, but just for the sake of argument to help us grasp how much gold and silver was given per family lets say there were 500,000 families. That s an average of over 160 pounds of gold and silver per family! What an incredible amount of treasure given for the construction of the Lord s temple! The shock and awe of the massive amount of treasure is compounded by the manner in which it was given! Look at verse 9: The people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord. You get the sense from the passage that this was an exciting, contagious time! They weren t given just for the sake of giving or because they felt obligated or pressured into giving. They weren t giving their old, used junk either. They were giving willingly of their prized, valuable treasure! I picture in my mind people running to their homes and grabbing all the treasure they could carry good, valuable treasure and bringing it to the assembly! For many people today this attitude of giving is completely foreign! It s beyond strange in our culture, especially in many churches today. We are trained to give our treasure either to relieve some sort of guilt or because we are trying to meet this minimal standard that has been taught to us. When we think about giving, the questions that we ask go something like this What is the least amount I can give and still feel good about myself? Or, Do I tithe on the gross or on the net income? Or, Was tithing in the Old Testament really meant for today? Or finally, How much can I give so God will, in essence, pat me on the back and say wow Matt, you did really good this year and you can feel good when you do your taxes next year. Let me tell you right now, that s not the biblical understanding of giving to the Lord! There is no magic line to cross or percentage to give when you can then feel good about yourself and check the box that you ve given to Lord. The heart of giving treasure to the Lord is not a percentage but an attitude an attitude that flows out of good theology, revealed now for us in David s prayer beginning in verse 10. The reason David gave so much of his own treasure and then the people followed is because of the theological truth in this next section. David and all the people are standing around looking at tens of thousands of tons of treasure that had been given and this is what he says: 1 Chronicles 29: Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. 11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 13 And now we thank you,

5 our God, and praise your glorious name. 14 But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. 15 For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. 16 O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. 17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you. 18 O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you. 19 Grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I have made provision. The gem of theological truth that motivated the people to give so much treasure is woven through David s prayer. It s the theological truth that should keep us from asking about the line or the percentage in giving. We see it in the middle of verse 11, for ALL that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours verse 12, BOTH riches and honor come from you verse 14, For ALL things come form you, and of your OWN have we given to you. verse 16, ALL that we have provide for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is ALL your own. Here s the truth our only single, important point this morning: Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God. And that statement has no limit! If you were to somehow quantify all of creation: the stars of the heaven, the grains of sand, the single molecules of water in the world s oceans everything would be listed on God s account. The author of Psalm 50, who incidentally was David s song leader, understood this truth. He wrote in verse 10 that every beast of the forest is God's, the cattle on a thousand hills! It s not your car, it s Gods. It s not your house, it s Gods. It s not your lawnmower. It s not your profession or job. It s not your bank account. It s not your 401K! And here s where it really hits home and pushes the limits of our understanding: It s not your child, it s Gods! The people of Israel got it for once! They understood everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God. Look at the tension and the irony that David acknowledged in verse 16: O Lord our God all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house is all your own. The people were merely giving back to God that which was already His! Here s how C.S. Lewis described what David said in verse 16: When we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what that is really like. It is like a small child going to it s father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence

6 to buy you a birthday present." Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. 1 Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God and only when you really, completely believe that truth will you give treasure in a way that glorifies God and brings the joy experienced by David and the people of Israel. For those of you who are here this morning and you re wrestling with this truth that everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God, perhaps you re thinking, I worked hard for my stuff and I deserve to enjoy it! I submit to you today that you will never find true joy in the things of this world. David s son, Solomon, gave us that conclusion at the end of his journal we call Ecclesiastes. He had everything under the sun and concluded it was all empty and meaningless apart from God. True, lasting complete joy isn t found in things. David was a man just like us. He worked hard to build the kingdom he ruled. He was fully invested in it, but he looked at the kingdom and said, It s not mine for everything, in heaven and on earth belongs to the Lord. David s life had been transformed by God, as we saw last week in Psalm 40. David proclaimed He (God) put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. (Ps. 40:3) In the New Testament book of 1 Peter we discover that the key to inexpressible and glorious joy in life is belief in Jesus. (1 Peter 1:8) If you have not believed in Jesus, you will never grasp the key truth of 1 Chronicles 29 and you will never experience true joy. Believe in Jesus today experience new life in Him. For those of you who are believers in Jesus, the moment you repented of your sin and believed in Jesus you were ransomed you were purchased by the work of Jesus. The apostle Paul reminds us at the end of 1 Corinthians 6 You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Brothers and sisters in Christ, your life is not your own it s Gods. How you invest your time, the thoughts you dwell on, the dreams you pursue, the words you speak belongs to God. Are you spending your life well living worthy of the calling you have in Christ? I know that many of you believe this truth that everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God but how does your attitude in giving treasure reflect that belief? The text gives us three ways to evaluate and guide our stewardship our giving of God s treasure to his kingdom building. The first one is found in verse 14 with David s statement who am I, and what is my people. It s an attitude of humility not entitlement. More than any nation on earth, the Israelites could have said, We are your chosen people Lord! You gave us all this stuff to give to you because we deserve it! Brothers and sisters, we deserve nothing! (1) Hold treasure humbly The disease begins when we are children. We got a new toy and our best friend in the whole world wants to play with it No, this is my toy! And pretty soon you heard the voice from the other room Share your toys!

7 But, I don t want to share because it is MINE and I deserve to enjoy it! Until you learn how to hold treasure humbly, you will never be able to give back to God what is already his in a way that honors him. Sure, you may give a little because you feel forced to give (like mom and dad made you share the toy), but you will never experience the joyful giving described by David and the people of Israel until you hold treasure humbly. When you wrestle with the wonderful theological truths of the Bible and learn that every good and perfect gift comes from God because everything belongs to Him, you will hold treasure humbly because it s not yours it s Gods. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19) In other words, don t hold on tightly to treasure. Not only do we need to hold stuff humbly, the second way we need to evaluate and guide our giving is also found in verse 14 and again down in verse 17. In verse 14 David said the people were offering willingly and in verse 17 he said the people offered freely to God. (2) Give treasure willingly There was no guilt trip going on behind the scenes. They didn t sing 2,719 verses of "Just as I Am" and keep passing the plate until it was full. The people in 1 Chronicles 29 gave freely and willingly to the work of the Lord. Part of the reason we have a tithes and offerings box by the front door is that it takes a little extra effort, as you come to worship, to remember to give. You may think that sounds counter-productive don t we want people to remember to give? Yes, we do want you to remember to give, but we want you to give willingly and purposefully not out of compulsion or obligation as a plate goes by. Giving to the Lord isn t some sort of obligatory in-law Christmas gift. It s a willing, joyful gift given out of the overflow of your love for the Lord. The apostle Paul gave some of the clearest direction for giving to the Lord: 2 Corinthians 9:7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And that statement came on the heels of his personal testimony regarding the giving of the churches in Macedonia to his own ministry of the gospel. The church in Philippi, in particular, gave generously willingly beyond their means to support Paul s work in the gospel. Paul didn t want the Corinthians to give because they felt shamed into giving by the example of the other churches. He wanted them to know that God wanted them to give what they had decided in their heart to give willingly. Hold treasure humbly, give treasure willingly. Both of those things are good; they are helpful, but you might consider them to be too general or theoretical. You want something tangible and concrete. You want a percentage or a line to move toward in your giving. Let me tell you this: God doesn t care about the percentage or a line, he cares about your heart. Everything you have belongs to God not just 5% or 10% or even 90% and you will give an account

8 for all that he has entrusted to you. Everything God places in your care is an opportunity to leverage things for eternal investment. If you re looking for a starting point let s look to the example of others who have gone before us: John Wesley was a preacher that God used to revive 18th-century England. He was an amazing preacher who traveled the countryside and as his fame grew, so did his income. Early in his ministry he made 30 pounds in year and was able to survive, so he determined that he would only spend 30 pounds a year on himself and everything else would be given away. As his income grew, his standard of living remained. Each year he gave more and more away until at one point his annual income reached close to 1,400 pounds a year. Still only 30 pounds was spent on himself. There was such a disparity that the English tax commission investigated him because he reported giving away such a large portion of his income! A Christian financial planner one time told me that he often counsels his clients to do what Wesley did set a limit for their standard of living otherwise, spending can easily snowball. He told me about one client of his that made the decision to not raise his standard of living and ended up giving away over 60% of his income one year. It s not about a percentage or a set amount! The greatest illustration of this point is found in Mark 12: Jesus and his disciples were sitting near one of the collection points for the temple treasury. Jesus saw many rich people put in large sums, but then he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins (basically nothing). And he called his disciples to him and said, Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. (Mark 12:43 44) I ve shown many of you this before. I keep this envelope as a reminder of willing, sacrificial, generous giving. It was given to me from a small south Sudanese refugee church that I preached at in Africa a couple years ago. These brothers and sisters have nothing! Many of them were wearing the only clothes they own yet they gave me this huge gift (about $4) after I preached in their church. I do want to say this. I don t know what anyone at this church gives and I never want to know it s between you and God. When we give to him of our time, talents, and treasures it s not about a percentage or a set amount it s about our heart. While I don t know what anyone gives, I can confidently say it is a joy to pastor such a generous, giving church. God has given us a privilege like the church at Philippi to have a global impact for the gospel that for most churches our size would be unthinkable. But we have an opportunity to make an even greater impact on kingdom ministry in the future. When I first came to Geist, the church was straddled with a huge building debt. The elders told me very plainly before I accepted the call to be your pastor that they weren t sure how long the church could pay me. God provided in amazing ways (one of which I ll share in a moment) for us to pay down a significant portion of that debt. We still have more building debt to eliminate that would enable us to expand our global impact for the kingdom in even greater ways not only here in our own community through various opportunities, but around the world!

9 This fall we ll celebrate 25 years as a church family and I ll be sharing an exciting vision of where I believe God is leading us in the next five years but a key part of that vision is eliminating that debt so that we can send out people from our own church family to launch new churches fully funded. So that we can send out missionaries from our own church and say, "Don t bother going around to 100 other churches finding support we ll support you." We have a line item in the budget so that nobody in our congregation would be in need, but that line item often needs to be much larger than it is! That s our desire as a church. That is what it looks like to hold treasure humbly and give treasure willingly, but we have to remember the third way to evaluate and guide our giving to the Lord. It s found in verses of 1 Chronicles Chronicles 29: Then David said to all the assembly, Bless the Lord your God. And all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to the Lord and to the king. 21 And they offered sacrifices to the Lord, and on the next day offered burnt offerings to the Lord, 1,000 bulls, 1,000 rams, and 1,000 lambs, with their drink offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. The people responded to what God had done (enabling the people to give so much) by bowing low and worshipping God. Giving is worship. If you don t give, you are robbing yourself of the joy of giving; but most importantly, you are robbing God of the worship and glory due to his name. (3) Continually Credit God We can t take it for granted, we can t state it enough, we can t assume people know! Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God it's all his doing! The last time I preached on this passage was over six years ago (one of the last times I really preached a series specifically on money). It was after I had only been at Geist for a few months. We actually passed out envelopes filled with money to everyone here on Sunday. It was the church's money and we challenged you invest it in God s kingdom outside of this church. I still have the cards people returned describing how they invested in the kingdom. At the same time we passed out envelopes full of money our church was still financially strapped. It didn t make sense, but then the church received our own envelope of money and it came from the electric company. It turns out we had been overcharged around $75,000 for our electric service over the previous ten years! They didn t have to repay us but they did! And I also keep a copy of the check in the front of my financial folder as a reminder that God did this. We mush continually credit God so that He gets the glory! I must admit that I m hoping another utility company calls this week, since I m preaching on this passage in first Chronicles again. David and the Israelite people credited God by responding to God in Worship. Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God. Did you know that roughly 15 percent of the recorded words of Jesus in the New Testament had something to do with money and possessions? More than his teaching on heaven and hell combined! Why do you think there is such an emphasis in the New Testament on stuff? Jesus devoted so much time to teaching about money and possessions because there is a fundamental connection between our spiritual lives and how we think about and handle the things He had entrusted to our care.

10 Tucked away in the middle of the sermon on the mount Jesus said, your heart is where your treasure is! Like a needle of a compass that always points north, our treasure points us to the true focus of our heart. Where does your treasure point? What does it say about your heart? Are you in love with the treasure of this world, or are you in love with the Lord your God? Hold Treasure Humbly. Give treasure willingly. Continually credit God. Because everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God. 1 C. S. Lewis ( ) in Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Geist Community Church Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the content in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. Questions? church@geist.org. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: by Matt Walker. Geist Community Church McCordsville, Indiana.