1 Chronicles 29:1-2, 10-18 Blessed

1 Chronicles 29:1-2, 10-18 (Evangelical Heritage Version)

1King David said this to the whole assembly:

My son Solomon, the one God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. The work is great because this citadel is not for a man. It is for the Lord God. 2According to all my strength, I have provided these things for the house of my God: gold for the gold items, silver for the silver, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron, wood for the wooden, onyx stones and settings, antimony, stones of many different colors, every kind of precious stone, and alabaster in abundance.

10David blessed the Lord in the presence of the entire assembly. He said:

Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, our father, from eternity to eternity. 11To you, O Lord, belong greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty, because everything in the heavens and on the earth belongs to you. You, Lord, are exalted as head above everything. The kingdom belongs to you. 12Riches and honor come from you. You are ruling over everything. In your hand are power and strength. It is in your power to make anyone great and strong. 13Now, our God, we are thanking you and praising your glorious name.

14Who am I? Who are my people that we are able to offer willingly like this? For everything comes from you. What we have given to you came from your hand. 15We are aliens and temporary residents before you, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope of staying.

16Lord, our God, all this abundance, which we have provided for building a house for you, for your holy name, is from your hand. This abundance belongs to you.

17I know, my God, that you test the heart, and you take pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things. Now with joy I see your people, who are present here to bring the offering freely to you.

18Lord, the God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, preserve forever this purpose and way of thinking in the heart of your people. Direct their heart to you.

Blessed

I.

God was very important to him. He could see God’s hand in the events of his life. Despite the fact that sometimes he had been disobedient to God, he had the assurance of forgiveness in the Savior.

Thankfulness led to great joy. He wanted the worship of the One True and only God to be something special. It is something special. He knew that, but he wanted to make sure those of the next generation would know it, too. That’s why he made his preparations.

He wanted a new worship facility. He would never live to see it built, but he made the plans carefully and in great detail. In the chapter before our text King David gathered his officials and told them: “In my heart I wanted to build a house as a resting place for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and as a footstool for our God. So I made preparations to build. 3But God said to me, ‘You will not build a house for my name because you are a man of war, and you have shed blood.... 6 Solomon, your son, is the one who will build my house and my courtyards’” (1 Chronicles 28:2-3, 6, EHV).

David had a pretty special connection to God. He had some pretty massive sins on his resume. He had done despicable things. God once had to send the prophet Nathan specifically to confront David about his sin because David had refused to acknowledge that sin and seek forgiveness from God. When confronted, David didn’t balk at the rebuke, but readily, and even with a sense of relief, acknowledged his sin and asked God for forgiveness.

David was a man who knew sin and grace. He had to publically and explicitly acknowledge his sin, and he received the grace of God publically and specifically as forgiveness was announced to him. Worship was so important to the musically talented David that he wrote many Psalms to be used in worship. But he also wanted this beautiful new worship facility to be used to give glory to the God who had given him so much peace in his heart.

Still, God had told him he wouldn’t be the one to build it. But that didn’t mean David wasn’t going to do anything for this most-important project. He wasn’t going to just tell his son Solomon good luck with the project. He made preparations.

You can read all about his preparations in the chapter before today’s text (especially 1 Chronicles 28:11-18). David made architectural drawings and blueprints for the building. He planned carefully for the courtyard of the temple and for all the little anterooms. He even planned the storage rooms that would be built to house the offerings of the people. He made plans for the furnishings that would be in the temple and exact information about how they were to be made and how they were to be used. He even set up rotations for the priests and the Levites who were to serve, and outlined their duties once they would lead worship at the temple.

David found every detail about worship and the worship facility to be of great importance. None of this was arbitrary. Worship of the Lord was the most important thing in his life. He wanted worship to be done by and for the next generation.

David didn’t just plan for this project and dictate the materials and the dimensions and the furnishings. He gave toward this project whose completion he knew he would never see. In the verses between the two parts of our text, David lists some of the gifts he made for the new temple. We’ll mention just one: “Three thousand talents of gold from Ophir” (1 Chronicles 29:4, EHV). The EHV footnote indicates that it is estimated that the gold David gave would amount to 225,000 pounds. Calculate that into troy ounces and you get 3,281,250 ounces of gold. At the price of gold when I looked it up, David’s offering of gold alone for the temple would amount to more than $5.4 Billion.

Then those verses between the parts of our text indicate that the other officials gave, too. Collectively, they gave even more gold than the amount David had given, so the gold in Solomon’s temple was a staggering quantity.

David and all the people gave their offerings in service to the Lord.

II.

No amount of wealth or opulence is too much for the worship of God. David said in our text: “Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, our father, from eternity to eternity. 11To you, O Lord, belong greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty...You, Lord, are exalted as head above everything” (1 Chronicles 29:10-11, EHV).

The whole purpose of the temple, just as it was for the Tabernacle before it, was to point ahead to Jesus.

Every day in temple worship sacrifices of animals were made. These sacrifices were to teach the people that sin is serious in God’s eyes. Sin demands a life as payment. Blood had to be shed. The writer to the Hebrews summarized: “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22, EHV).

The burnt offerings especially made an impact on the people. Think of the meat on a bull or a calf. Think of it’s hide that could be made into all kinds of useful things. All of it went up in smoke. Not one bit of it could be used by people for anything—it was all dedicated to God in the flames.

Day after day the same sacrifices had to be made. Bulls and goats and calves did not really pay for sin. Sin is too expensive for a mere animal to be able to make a payment. All the opulence of the temple and the expensive sacrifices made on the altars there were simply not enough.

Sin is expensive. Something more than the blood of animals was needed. “He has appeared once and for all, at the climax of the ages, in order to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself... “28so also Christ was offered only once to take away the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:26, 28, EHV). Sin is expensive. Sin demands a life as payment.

Payment has been made in full. Far more valuable than billions of dollars worth of gold, our Lord Jesus poured out his blood to make the sacrifice needed to pay for our sins.

All the sacrifices made in the temple King David planned and King Solomon built taught the people to look ahead to great King David’s greater Son. The people gave willingly to worship the Lord in a special facility designed for that purpose.

Jesus gave himself—perfectly—to serve the Lord and to save us all.

III.

It was time. Now that the pastor was handing the offering plates to the ushers, it was safe for mom to press some money into her son’s hand. The child waited with anticipation for the offering plate to be passed down the pew. As the plate passed by, the boy looked at his mother as he plopped the offering into the plate. He was excited to make that offering. But it wasn’t really his offering, was it? The money came straight from his mom into his hand to be put into the collection plate.

The child grew older and got a job. Now his parents taught him that some of the money he earned was to be put into the collection plate. Now it was his money, not his parents’. Right?

King David shows us something different. “Who am I? Who are my people that we are able to offer willingly like this? For everything comes from you. What we have given to you came from your hand” (1 Chronicles 29:14, EHV). Offerings from older children and adults are exactly like the little child being given a coin to put in the collection plate. Not one bit of our offerings really belong to us. God is just pressing them into our hands to put back in his collection plate.

In fact, David gave thanks to God for the offerings of God’s people. “David blessed the Lord in the presence of the entire assembly. He said: ‘Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, our father, from eternity to eternity’” (1 Chronicles 29:10, EHV). God had moved the hearts of his people to respond in love to the goodness of their God.

We gather here today to give thanks to God for his goodness. He has blessed us with the sacrifice of his One and only Son for our salvation. He has blessed us with our abilities to work. He has pressed the offerings into our hands to put into the collection plate.

As we bring our offerings to the Lord each week, we pray with King David: “Blessed are you, Lord... our father, from eternity to eternity.11... The kingdom belongs to you. 12Riches and honor come from you... 13Now, our God, we are thanking you and praising your glorious name” (1 Chronicles 29:10-13, EHV). Blessed are you, Lord, and blessed are we by you. Amen.