All Things Come From You

We Are a People (Part 1)

A 6 Week Series On Worship & Identity in 1 Chronicles

6. All Things Come From You

Verse :: 1 Chronicles 29:14 (cf. Psalm 145:4)

Big Idea :: History teaches us through its mistakes, but also through its promises. At the end of his life, before a single stone of the temple was laid, David and the whole people gave to God with a whole heart and prayed, all things come from you. The Chronicler hands that to the exiles: the building was never the point, the whole heart offered to God is. We are still God's people. Today is the day to worship Him with your whole heart.

Introduction

ICEQ | Where is your favorite place to sit in your house?

What do you like about it? Do you ever worry it isn’t going to hold you?

Series Summary

1 Chronicles was written to remind a discouraged people who they were, a people who worship Yahweh. Over six weeks we will watch the Chronicler reconnect worship and identity through the genealogies and the life of David, pairing each week with a Psalm to see how worship recalls and reminds a people who they are.

Where We’ve Been. This is our last week in Part 1, so look at the whole road behind us:

Week 1 :: We are a people. Nine chapters of names told the exiles they were not leftovers. Once not a people, now God's people.

Week 2 :: What you seek declares whose you are. Saul sought a medium. David sought the LORD's face.

Week 3 :: Worship is serious business. Uzzah, the ark, and the God who is not safe, but He is good.

Week 4 :: The song at the center. Worship makes us remember, respond, and reinforce who we are.

Week 5 :: The house God builds. God's promises hold because they rest on Him, not on people.

Where we’re going

Today we land the plane. We read the last two scenes of 1 Chronicles, a whole-hearted offering and David's final prayer, and we ask the Chronicler's question one more time: what do we learn from this history?

Introductory Questions

Before we read his song, let’s talk about history…

Q | Q | People say we study history so we don't repeat its mistakes. What else can history teach us besides what not to do?

Q | Israel's history is full of failure. It is also full of promises God kept. Which one do you think matters more for how you live today?

Q | Have you ever looked back on something hard and realized God was keeping a promise the whole time?

Getting Into The Text(s)

David is old now, let’s hear again what the Chronicler wants the exiled Israelites to know….

Read 1 Chronicles 28:9.

David is old, and he gathers all of Israel's leaders to hand the kingdom to Solomon. His charge to his son: know God, serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind, and seek Him, and He will be found by you. Every thread of this series is in that one verse. Seek. Whole heart. Knowing whose you are.

Q | If you could only leave one sentence to the next generation about God, what would it be?

The Whole Heart Offering

Read 1 Chronicles 29:1-3

The temple does not exist yet. God already told David he would not build it. And David gives anyway, out of his own treasure, and then asks the assembly, who then will offer willingly? The leaders give, and verse 9 says the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the LORD.

Q | David gives everything to a building he will never see. What does that tell you about why he is giving?

Q | Verse 9 says the people rejoiced because they gave. When has giving something away ever made you happier than keeping it?

David's Prayer

Read 1 Chronicles 29:14-19.

This is David's last recorded prayer, and it is worship from start to finish. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory. Then verse 14: who am I, and what is my people? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. And verse 15: we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were.

Q | David asked who am I back in chapter 17, when God promised him a house. He is asking it again at the end of his life. Why does he keep coming back to that question?

Q | If all things come from God, what are we actually doing when we give to Him or worship Him?

Hold onto verse 15. Strangers and sojourners. The exiles reading this knew exactly what that felt like. So do we. Peter picks up the same words for the church in 1 Peter 2:11, right after telling us, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Where we started in Week 1.

Chronicles and Kings

Read 1 Kings 1:5 and 1 Kings 2:5-6.

Kings tells this same handoff, and it is messy. David's son Adonijah tries to make himself king. Nathan and Bathsheba work behind the scenes to get Solomon on the throne. And on his deathbed David tells Solomon to deal with Joab.

Read 1 Chronicles 29:20-25.

Chronicles leaves all of that out. The whole assembly blesses the LORD, they eat and drink before Him with great gladness, and all the sons of King David pledge allegiance to Solomon. Even the brothers.

Q | Same event, two very different tellings. Kings shows the mess. Chronicles shows the worship. Why would the Chronicler choose to end David's story here?

Kings was written to explain how they fell. Chronicles was written to remind them who they still are. So the last picture he leaves of David is not a king settling scores. It is a whole people worshiping with a whole heart.

Discussion / Breakouts

Our big idea for the whole series :: worship is fueled by our identity and it refuels our identity, and our identity shapes how we live.

Q | Of everything we have studied in 1 Chronicles, what is one thing you want to remember?

Q | What does it look like to worship God with your whole heart on a normal Tuesday, not just on a Sunday?

Read Psalm 145:1-4.

A Psalm of David. Every day I will bless you. One generation shall commend your works to another. That is what David did in 1 Chronicles 29. That is what the Chronicler did for the exiles. And that is what we are doing right now.

Conclusion

What can we learn from this history? Not just their mistakes. Their promises. God kept His word to a shepherd boy, to a king who was not allowed to build, to a people who lost everything and came home to a temple that looked like nothing. And He is still keeping it.

We are still God's people, whether or not you have felt like God has been good. The exiles did not always feel it either. That is exactly why the Chronicler wrote it down.

David gave his whole heart before the temple was ever built. You do not have to wait for the right building, the right season, or the right feeling. All things come from Him.

Today is the day to worship God with your whole heart.

We will come back to Chronicles in November and watch Solomon build the temple David never saw. Until then, keep the rhythm. Week after week, we are a people who worship Yahweh.

This week, give God one thing wholeheartedly. Your time, your attention, a song, a prayer. Not half. The whole thing. And remember where it came from.