Honorable Offerings 2 Samuel 24 Main Idea: How much one is willing to give to God reveals how much respect one has for God Exactly two months from yesterday, our wonderful son, Lucas, our beautiful and very pregnant daughter-in-law, Grace, and our adorable grandson, True, will be coming to live with us for four months while they are on home assignment after serving as missionaries in Cambodia for two years. I m not sure I ve ever been more excited about anything, because not only do we get to spend all that time with them, but we get to be present when they give birth to their daughter in April, Lord willing. In anticipation of their visit we have been thinking about all the things we need to do and all the things we d like to get in order to make everything just right for them and bring them as much pleasure as we possibly can. In other words, we want to spoil them. So it felt a bit strange the other day when we got an email from Lucas saying, We insist on doing something when we re home and we re not going to take no for an answer. Then he went on to say that they were going to pay us so much a month for room and board, and the amount they insisted on paying us was quite generous far too generous, in our opinion. We re your parents! I protested. We don t want your money! We ll pay you to stay with us! Save your money for the baby. Put it in a college fund for True! And so the arguing has begun. And we still haven t come to any resolution. Except that I m sure there is going to be a compromise at some point and we need to meet halfway. Because we know why they re doing it. And we ve come to a point where we ve finally realized we need to let them do it. It s pure and simply a matter of consideration. They re thinking about us, and they re doing it out of love and respect for us. Not to buy our love; not to earn our respect; not even to pay their own way because we can t afford to have them stay with us. But simply as a way to honor us to let us know that they re not sponges, they re not freeloaders, they re not going to exploit or presume upon our hospitality. This little episode with Lucas and Grace and us has caused me to think about our relationship with God. Obviously, God doesn t need anything from us. He doesn t need our money, our time, our talents, or our resources. What s more, there is nothing that we could give to Him or do for Him that would make Him love us any more than He does, or that would contribute in any way to the salvation that He has already given to us freely in Christ. However, because it is a real relationship, those who really, truly love God want to give of themselves and their resources to Him. It s one of the ways we express our love to anyone with whom we have a relationship. And the Scriptures tell us that God loves it when we are generous with Him that He loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). Furthermore, we are told that those who give to Him sparingly, reluctantly, or grudgingly are suffering 1
from a serious problem. Not a money problem, but a heart problem. A lack of respect and affection for the Lord. Here s the principle: How much one is willing to give to God reveals how much love and respect one has for God. I would like to look at a passage today that illustrates this principle. It is 2 Samuel 24, which describes an incident that occurred toward the end of the life of David. David, as you know, was a man after God s own heart, which meant, in part, that he was in sync with God. He understood how God felt and what God wanted. Our focus will be at the end of the chapter, but we need to understand the context since we re jumping into the middle of the story. We read in verse 1. Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go and take a census of Israel and Judah. The specific reason for the Lord s anger is not stated. Many scholars believe that His anger toward Israel was because so many of them had rallied around David s rebellious son, Absalom, when he attempted a coup on his father s kingdom. David, remember, was God s chosen and appointed king, and their support of Absalom was an act of treason and treachery, not only to David, but to God. We need to understand this wasn t primarily their kingdom or David s kingdom, it was God s kingdom. Israel was not a democracy; it was a theocracy. Verse 1 also says that David was incited to take a census. This census is an important part of the rest of the story, so it s important that we discuss it for a bit. At first glance it appears that it was the Lord who did the inciting that this census was His idea. But in 1 Chronicles 21:1 we are told that it was actually Satan who inspired David to take the census. In other words, this idea didn t come from God, it came from the devil, and as we read on you ll see that it makes a lot of sense to understand it that way. This census was not a good thing. Now, you might read this and think, What s the big deal? It seems perfectly natural to want to know how many people, in particular, how many fighting men are in your kingdom. After all, wouldn t it be in the best interests of national security to have those figures available? But we read in verse 10. 10 David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the LORD, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing. During King David s reign Israel had become a very powerful empire, and along with that came some temptations for David. The temptation, for example, to become proud. Hey, look what I ve done. Look how successful I ve been. Look how strong I ve made this country. But the truth was it was not David who did it; it was God. And that s why David was so conscience stricken. Taking this census revealed his pride. He was trying to bring glory to himself, rather than the Lord, and he knew it. David had sinned, the people of Israel had sinned, and so God sent a plague on the land, and many people perished. But David was so humbled by a sense of his own guilt, and so grieved that his fellow countrymen were suffering, in some measure, because of something he had done, that he cried out to the Lord in the last part of verse 17. I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall upon me and my family. 2
And God responded by asking David to offer a sacrifice on behalf of himself and the people. We pick it up in verses 18-20. 18 On that day Gad went to David and said to him, Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 19 So David went up, as the LORD had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his men coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. Try to put yourself in the place of Araunah. Your king, who happens to be one of the most powerful, popular, prominent men in the world, comes to your house to pay you a visit. You look out your window and there he is, with all his entourage, and you say to yourself, I must be dreaming. And you run out the door and bow before him and say, Verses 21-23. 21 Why has my lord the king come to his servant? To buy your threshing floor, David answered, so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped. 22 Araunah said to David, Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 O king, Araunah gives all this to the king. Araunah also said to him, May the LORD your God accept you. Araunah is a devoted, loyal citizen, and you ve got to appreciate his good intentions. He says in effect, King David, I don t want your money. I wouldn t dream of accepting a shekel from your majesty. I just want to be of assistance to you! Look, I ve got the land, I ve got all the materials, all the tools, everything you need is here for you to use and dispose of at your pleasure. Here, take it, it s yours. It s my gift to you. But listen carefully to David s response in verse 24, because this is the key to understanding the principle in this passage. Read. 24 But the king replied to Araunah, No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. Don t miss the significance of David s words. On the surface it seems like it would be perfectly reasonable for David to accept Araunah s kind offer. After all, David s not going to need the land or the tools after he s performed the sacrifice. Let s be practical for goodness sake! Let s make it simple. Why go through all the complications of agreeing on a price and changing the deed and all that unpleasant stuff? Just accept this generous offer and get on with it! I ll tell you why David couldn t accept this gift. First, he feared God. He knew that there s a right way to relate to God and a wrong way, my friends. He knew there was a particular protocol when offering sacrifices that if he didn t follow, could be extremely dangerous. His predecessor, Saul, had lost the kingdom for violating this very protocol. David feared God. Anybody who truly knows God fears God, even those who have an extremely close relationship with Him. You don t mess around with God. You don t come into God s presence with a second hand sacrifice that doesn t cost you anything personally. You don t come into His presence with somebody else s gift that you re going to pass off as though it were your own. That s an insult. Years ago somebody (not somebody from this church) gave us a gourmet dessert that we just raved about. We said, thank you so much for making this. You had to have gone to so much trouble and put in so much time and effort to make this just for us. Wow, this is quite an expression of your love. She just nodded, and smiled, and said, You re welcome. 3
A couple of weeks later we saw that exact same dessert being sold at Costco it was when they first started selling these things. Look, it s not the dessert we would have appreciated it almost as much if she would have told us it came from Costco. But when you lead someone to believe that it came from your own efforts and that you made a personal sacrifice, and then you discover later that it s not so, somehow it sours the whole thing a bit. David feared God. He knew that God is Someone you don t trifle with. He s Someone you relate to with absolute integrity. And that s the second thing. David was a man of integrity. He knew how important this activity was and how important it was to perform it with all his own heart and from all his own resources. I mean, it would hardly be a sacrifice if it didn t cost him anything. He d simply be going through the motions. But that s not what God wants. David knew God well enough to know that sacrifices in and of themselves were not the real issue. It s what it means. The sacrifice was the means to restore intimacy in a broken relationship in a relationship in which God had been neglected, ignored, and offended. And this relationship was so precious to David that his sacrifice had to be personal. David was not a freeloader. He didn t improvise, or skimp, or cheat, or hold back, or do things to just get by. He put his heart and soul into it. He put his effort and time and money into it. Because he knew that the sacrifice that counts is the sacrifice that costs. Thanks Araunah for your kind and generous offer, but no thanks. You must understand that this is a matter between me and God, and if I were to offer a sacrifice that cost me nothing, it would be an insult to Him. It would demonstrate that I didn t take this sin of mine very seriously, and it would prove that I thought His forgiveness was little more than a formality. My friends, when we offer something to God, anything, it should reflect the best that we are and the best that we ve got. It should come from the resources that are most precious to us whether it be our time, our money, our skills whatever. Because what we are willing to give reveals what we think and how much we care about the person who is receiving our gift. I ve told you before about the time my sixth grade girlfriend went to a lot of trouble and expense to get me a nice gift for Christmas. That really caught me off guard. My first thought was, Man, I don t have anything to give her. No one told me that was part of going steady. I didn t know what to do. I started to sweat; I started to stutter, when suddenly I came up with a brilliant idea. I whipped out my wallet, pulled out a crumpled dollar bill, and said, Merry Christmas to you, too. I don t believe I ever saw her again after that, and I don t blame her a bit. She was insulted by my thoughtlessness! The sacrifice that counts is the sacrifice that costs. It s something that requires thoughtfulness and intentionality and time and energy and money. Now I realize we no longer live in a day in which we offer animal sacrifices to God the same way David did. Jesus abolished that. When He hung on the cross as our Substitute He paid the price for our redemption and provided a means for us to be forgiven, and that sacrifice is once for all. We have favor with God and relate to Him only through 4
that sacrifice. Praise God! But the attitude that David had when he made his sacrifice, the way that he approached God and related to God, still has relevance to us. God deserves our best. He deserves everything we are and everything we have. Not that we re trying to earn His favor or pay Him back for what he s done. No. It s simply a matter of principle. He s God! Think of a famous person you really like and respect. Somebody who s really made a profound impression on you. Maybe it s your favorite author, or your favorite athlete or leader. What if that person called you up and said, Hey, I m going to be in your neighborhood next weekend and I d really like to stay in your home? What would you do? How would you prepare? I ll bet you d work your fingers to the bone getting everything ready. You know that list of things that need to be repaired that you keep putting off? You d probably take care of every one of those things. You know that old chair that s got the spring sticking through it? You d get rid of that thing and get a new one. You d give up your own bed and sleep in the basement if you had to. Chances are you d spare no expense and no effort to make sure that everything was just so. Because that person is worthy of the best. What about God? How must God feel when some of His children, whom He loves so much and for whom He has done so much, relate to Him or serve Him in a half-hearted manner? They don t go all out, they just sort of get by. Oh, it s not that they re not capable. If it s for the business or the bank account or the Beavers, man, they go for it. But if it s for God, Ah, anything s good enough for God. How must God feel when we think about giving our offerings to Him so that His work can be done through His church and His missionaries, and we think to ourselves, Well I can t really afford to give Him more than 3 or 4% of my salary because I need so much for my vacation fund or my entertainment budget or my retirement account. Once again, if it s for me and my needs, I m gonna go for it, but if it s for God Ah, anything s good enough for God. David says, No, I don t think so. How can we offer to God that which costs us nothing? When we came home from the mission field in 1996 our home church did something for us that was very thoughtful. Everybody brought a food item to the church one Sunday and gave it to us to fill our cupboards. I was so excited because one of those items was a box of Cheerios, something I hadn t eaten for two and a half years while we lived overseas. I eagerly opened that box Monday morning, poured some in a bowl and took a bite and thought, Yuk! Then I looked on the box. The expiration date was 1983. I don t know who gave us that box of Cheerios, and I m not saying the person who did so knew that it was thirteen years old. But it did cross my mind that somebody might have been rather thoughtless and inconsiderate to have given us something that he or she would never eaten him or herself. It made me feel kind of like chopped liver. Do you ever wonder how God must feel when we give Him our scraps, our leftovers, our halfhearted efforts, or our pocket-change, and call it good enough? In case you don t know, He feels insulted. He feels dishonored. And why wouldn t He? He s God! He s worthy of our very best. He deserves everything we are and everything we have. And especially when He asks us to do certain things in a certain way, or when there is a particular protocol in how we should relate to 5
Him or serve Him or give to Him. Look at what David did. Verses 24b-25. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. 25 David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the LORD answered prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped. I titled this message, Honorable Offerings. And I believe the main idea of this passage is: How much one is willing to give to God reveals how much love and respect one has for God. I want to close with two short stories of people whose giving thoroughly impressed God. The first is the story of the woman who poured a very expensive jar of perfume on Jesus head at a dinner party a few days before He was crucified? Those who were dining with Him, including His own disciples, were indignant. They said to one another, Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year s wages and the money given to the poor. And they rebuked her harshly. These men interpreted her act as meaningless, senseless, and wasteful, and they condemned her for it. But Jesus had a completely different interpretation. He said, 6 Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her (Mark 16:4-9). She did what she could. She wasn t a public speaker at the time women weren t even allowed to speak publicly. But in this act she preached the gospel, and Jesus called it beautiful. It was extraordinarily pleasing to Him, and extremely consequential. On another occasion Jesus was sitting near the place where people put their offerings into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything all she had to live on (Mark 12:41-44). Once again, she did what she could. It may have been insignificant in the eyes of men. But it was extremely significant to God. He took notice, and He was tremendously pleased and proud of her, just as He was of the woman with the jar of perfume. So much so that their stories are written in His eternal Word as reminders of just how precious these kinds of offerings are to Him. I want to remind you what I said at the beginning. God doesn t need anything from us. He doesn t need our money, our time, our talents, or our resources. However, because we have a real relationship with Him, those who really truly love God want to give of their resources to Him. It s one of the ways we express our love to anyone with whom we have a relationship. And the Scriptures tell us that God loves it when we are generous with Him that He loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). What we give to the Lord means something to the Lord. It tells Him what we really think about Him, and how much we really love Him. 6