The Power of a Project

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Today's scripture reading is taken from several places in the Old Testament book of Exodus.

So I'll be reading from chapter 25, verses 1 to 8, chapter 35, verses 20 to 22, 25 and

29, chapter 36, verses 3 to 7, and chapter 40, verses 34 and 35.

It's all printed in the liturgy.

A reading from the book of Exodus.

The Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites to bring me an offering.

You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give.

These are the offerings you are to receive from them.

Gold, silver, and bronze.

Blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen.

Goat hair.

Ram skins dyed red and another type of durable leather.

Acacia wood.

Olive oil for the light.

Spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense.

And onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastpiece.

Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.

Then the whole Israelite community withdrew from Moses' presence.

And everyone who was willing and whose heart moved to them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting.

The tent of meeting for all its service and for the sacred garments.

All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold jewelry of all kinds.

Brooches, earrings, rings, and ornaments.

They all presented their gold as a wave offering to the Lord.

Every skilled woman spun with her hands and brought what she had spun.

Blue, purple, or scarlet yarn of fine linen.

All the Israelite men and women who were willing brought to the Lord free will offerings for all the work the Lord through Moses had commanded them to do.

They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary.

And the people continued to bring free will offerings morning after morning.

So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses,

The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.

Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp.

No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.

And so the people were restrained from bringing more because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it.

And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I want to just reflect this morning together on this theme, really today and next week,

this theme of building God's house together.

Building God's house together.

For what was that first great collective project, you know, that the people of God were working on together in the desert

after they were liberated from slavery in Egypt.

They were building the house of God together.

They were building this sanctuary of God, the tabernacle of God.

Now, why have I chosen this text and this theme?

Well, I want to prepare you for our congregational meeting that's following.

I want to prepare you for conversations we're going to be having over the next six months.

If you've been with us before, hopefully you've heard us say that the mission of Christ Church

is to lead people into a deeper relationship with Christ and His church through community and for the city.

But the primary inhibitor to our mission right now is the debt that we owe on this facility in which we sit.

And so it's mission critical for us to eliminate that debt over the next 12 months.

And our solution to this problem is to raise an additional $600,000.

And the urgency to do that, to take this bold step of faith,

is that we have a balloon payment due on this building at the end of 2024.

Now, I can already see some of you are looking for the exits, eyes glazing over,

the preachers talking about money, and that's kind of weirding me out.

It's hard enough to listen to NPR's pledge drive without changing the channel.

But to hear this, you know, religious professional talking about money, that's just a step too far.

But what I want to do, my goal today is just to slowly, gently, kindly put this opportunity on your radar.

I've not buried the lead, I've just put it right here on the top of the newspaper.

And I want to give you a little bit of teaching today about biblical generosity.

And in the new year, after Christmas, after Easter, we'll circle back and slowly just define and teach

what the Bible has to say about stewardship.

Now, if you don't want to wait for six months, you can go ahead and begin giving now.

I give you permission.

You can come to our meeting.

You can get the information you need and figure out what God is prompting you to give.

And we thank you for that.

But I believe that I've been here about 18 years.

And I think this is the most important budget that we've ever brought before this church.

We launched our church in 2005-06.

And so we have our 20th birthday as a church in sight.

And we really want to position ourselves over the next few years for the coming 20 years ahead of us.

As we look back to what God's done, we want to look ahead to what He wants to do.

And we sense that God is leading us into a season of ministry that's about growth, that's about growing deeper and growing wider.

So we want to provide you the information today.

And we really want to provide you the motivation that you need to join in and participate in that mission with us.

So enough about our budget.

Let's talk about God's Word.

When you look at the first book of the Bible, Genesis,

the story of God's creation of the universe is told there in a mere 34 verses with utmost brevity.

And so it's quite striking that one-third of the book of Exodus is devoted to this building project.

Why would the author of these books take 15 times as long to tell the story of the building of the tabernacle

than he did telling the story of the building of the universe?

It's to communicate to us that the house of God and the worship of God is extremely important.

The story of the Exodus, as you know, starts in slavery.

But it doesn't end when the people of God leave Egypt.

In fact, the story does not end, it's not complete, until they finally get to the house of God and worship.

The point of these people being set free, the point of them being set at liberty,

is not just to be free, it's to worship God and to serve God.

And so until God becomes the most important thing in their lives,

until God becomes the most central thing that's organized in their lives,

they're actually not a liberated people, they're not a free people.

That's the point of the book of Exodus.

So, of course, here they are, they're called to build the house of God,

but they can't build that house of God together without the resources,

without the materials for that building.

So I want to take a deeper look at this scripture to, again, just slowly, gently, kindly introduce to you

a biblical definition of generosity and stewardship.

You ready to go?

Okay.

Well, I want to talk about the gift of giving.

I want to talk about the gladness of grace.

And I want to talk about the glory of God with us.

The gift of giving, the gladness of grace, and the glory of God with us.

Look at the first verse in our reading today.

It says, the Lord said to Moses,

Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering.

You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give.

And then in verse 8 it says,

Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.

Now, this is brilliant, because how do you take 12 tribes of former slaves

who've been stripped of their identity over the course of 430 years,

and how do you unite them together as a free people?

These are people who share a past in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They share a present in Egypt, and now it's Sinai.

But how do you help them share a common sense of responsibility for the future together?

Well, in God's wisdom, he gives them a group project.

And this is not your typical 20-80 project.

Kids, youth, I hate to tell you,

but you're going to spend the rest of your life working on 20-80 projects,

where 20% of the people do 80% of the heavy lifting,

and you can make your parents very proud by being part of that 20% and not part of the 80%.

But this group project is supposed to be different.

And in fact, it's the turning point of the book of Exodus,

because until now, God has done all the work.

God struck Egypt with plagues.

God took the people out to freedom.

He divided the sea.

He gave them dry land to walk on.

He's given them manna from heaven and water from the rock.

And even still at this point, they don't yet cohere as a nation.

They're still a group of individuals, a group of tribes.

There's a lot more me than there is we.

They're not yet taking responsibility and acting collectively.

And so what can God do to transform these people?

Well, God instructs Moses to take the people through a role reversal.

So he says, instead of me doing things for them,

I now want them to make something for me.

I want you to ask them to build something together,

to make a visible, symbolic home for my divine presence

and construct this collective house of worship.

It doesn't need to be large.

It doesn't need to be permanent.

In fact, God doesn't need the sanctuary at all.

He's at home everywhere.

But he wants to use this tabernacle to teach his people

how to live with him at the center of their lives.

And so God says to Moses to get them to give,

get them to make something, get them to become builders.

And this, in fact, transformed this disparate people

into a cohesive group and gave them a sense of shared identity

and common responsibility for the future.

And I want you to notice how they gave to this project.

Look at chapter 35, verse 21.

It says that everyone who was willing

and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord.

And then in verse 22, it says,

all who were willing, men and women alike,

came and brought their gold and jewels.

And then it says in verse 29,

all the Israelite men and women who were willing

brought to the Lord freewill offerings.

What's repeated here?

That this is a willing offering to God.

That this is a freewill offering to God.

That the generous giving of these people

is actually the evidence that their wills

as former slaves have been set free from bondage.

They've not just been set free externally from bondage,

but their wills on the inside have been set free from bondage.

Because generosity at its core is not a financial issue,

it's a spiritual issue.

And Israel had been learning up to this point

a very important lesson on their journey so far with God

about the will of God and the willingness of God.

Right?

Here in this place of the wilderness,

this place of desert and scarcity and nothingness,

here in this place of emptiness and void and threat,

they experienced God over and over,

not as a God of scarcity,

but as a God of generous, miraculous abundance.

In this place, they experienced and they met a God

who they realized was willing for their sakes

to fill the desert with bread.

They met this God who was willing to make these dry rocks

bubble up and over with water.

And day after day, every morning they would go

and they would harvest this willing, plentiful abundance,

this daily bread that God had provided for them

in this place of scarcity.

And each evening they'd come home

and they'd find this meat on their tables.

And what they learned about this God who was willing

and this God who was so generous in his abundance

was that it began to unlock a generosity in them.

It began to unlock a generosity in their wills.

That as people made in the image of this God,

they began to imitate him

and their giving out of willing hearts

began to express, more fully express,

their humanity and who God meant them to be.

But I want you to notice not only how they gave to this project,

but notice what they gave to this project.

Look at the list of offerings that they bring before God.

Precious metals of gold, silver, and bronze,

expensive dyed yarns of blue, purple, and scarlet,

which were marks of wealth and nobility and royalty.

Brutches, earrings, rings, ornaments.

This is not the kind of stuff you put out

at your garage sale, right?

These are costly, precious things, costly offerings.

And the question is, where in the world

did this desert-dwelling group of refugees

get all this costly stuff?

Well, if you go back to Exodus 12, it says this.

The Israelites did as Moses instructed

and they asked the Egyptians for articles

of silver and gold and for clothing.

And the Lord made the Egyptians favorably disposed

toward the people and they gave them what they asked for,

so they plundered the Egyptians.

Not only did God deliver his people out of bondage,

utterly unharmed, but he also somehow

moved the wills of their captors.

He moved the wills of their oppressors

so that they gave gifts to take with them.

And what the people learned in this

is that everything that they had

was not an entitled right,

but was an undeserved gift

that had been given to them by God.

Precious metals, luxury fabrics,

fine jewelry, priceless gems and stones.

When God asked them,

in your freedom,

will you offer these things up to me?

They knew that God was only asking of them

what he had already given to them in the first place.

They knew that when God commands the tithe

over and over in the Torah,

he's not asking them to give 10% of what is theirs.

He's asking them to only keep 90% of what is his.

And they're to say to themselves,

you know, we're not owners with entitled rights.

We're stewards.

We're managers.

And everything we have is an undeserved gift.

And when they realized that,

it unlocked a radical generosity in them.

And so that's just the question today.

It's not about how much money we have

or we're gonna give.

It's do you know this God?

Do you know this God who's willing and generous

in his abundance?

Do you know this God

and have you received undeserved gifts from him?

And has his generosity been unlocked in you

so that you're now willingly imitating back to him

his generosity toward you?

That's the gift of giving.

Amen.

So I wanna talk not only about the gift of giving,

but also I wanna talk about the gladness of grace.

The gladness of grace.

Look at verse 21 of chapter 35.

It says,

everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them

came and brought an offering to the Lord.

And I love that word everyone.

All the people had an opportunity to take part.

It wasn't just the men,

it was the women too, right?

First egalitarian society in the ancient world.

It wasn't just the elites,

it was the people as a whole,

everybody, no matter what you had,

you could participate in this project.

But when it says,

everyone whose heart moved them brought an offering,

does that sound familiar to you?

Do you remember another story

where the hearts of the people moved them

to take off their gold jewelry

and lift it up as an offering?

That's what the people did

when they created the golden calf, right?

When they fashioned this idol

in the middle of this building project.

It's interesting.

We started reading in chapter 25

where God says,

I want you to make this offering

and build this sanctuary.

And then you have in chapter 32

this great betrayal,

this massive infidelity

on behalf of the people of God.

And now we come to chapter 35

where the gifts are actually given.

And what's happened in this intervening time

is that though the people have betrayed God,

God has graciously put

the infidelity of his people right.

God and his grace,

if you just go back and read

these last few chapters,

he's forgiven them.

He's restored the relationship

and he's received them back

into a renewed covenant with him.

And so when these people,

these forgiven people

are thinking back

to that golden calf moment,

what were they doing there?

What were they doing there

at the golden calf?

Were they giving to that project

out of a sense of duty

and a sense of sacrifice?

No, it says that they were giving

to that project

out of revelry and dancing.

They were giving to that project

with an effortless generosity.

They just gladly gave to this idol

everything that they had

in the hopes that this idol

would make their lives okay.

And you know,

most of us,

we can probably think about

ways in which we ourselves

have effortlessly

and gladly given our money

to get things.

But you know,

usually it's not just

to get the material thing.

We're trying to get

the thing behind the thing,

the thing beneath the thing.

So we give our money

to get security or comfort.

We give our money

to get independence or belonging.

We give of our money

to gain status or power

or approval or control.

All of us,

if we followed our money

far back enough,

beyond just the material thing

to the thing beneath the thing

and behind the thing,

it will usually lead you

to some sort of golden calf

in your life.

Some sort of false idol

that you think this thing

and not God

is going to make me okay.

But we should always

be asking ourselves

of these things

that we so gladly

and effortlessly

give our money to.

Do you love me?

Will you die for me?

Will you forgive me

when I fail?

Will you fulfill me

when I succeed?

Will you hold me

when I have nothing

to offer you?

Will you save me?

You see why it's so important

for these people

who had just been

worshiping the golden calf

to come and bring their gift

and to give this gift

from the heart.

They're to be moved

from the heart.

And it's that moving

of the heart

that's so critical

because this moment

is a matter

of repentance.

They're turning

their hearts away

from this false idol

for whom they had

gladly danced

down the aisle

and effortlessly given

their most precious possessions

and they're turning

their hearts back

to this God of grace

who made them

and who redeemed them

and who protects them

and provides for them.

And they're saying

in this moment

that God

and God alone

deserves

not just our stuff,

He deserves our hearts.

He deserves

the movement

of our hearts

and our affections.

You know,

the message

of the gospel

is that God

has not withheld

from us

but He's graciously

given to us

His only Son.

He's given to this world

of idol-making,

calf-worshiping people,

His beloved Son,

Jesus.

And amazingly,

Jesus sees us

giving ourselves

and our lives

to all these things

that are not worthy

of our lives.

But Jesus gladly

and willingly

gives us His life

and His blood

and He gives us

His breath

to win us back

to the Father.

So that when we see

God,

this God of all grace,

giving Himself for us,

when we see this God

of all grace,

dying for us

as our substitute

on the cross,

when we see Jesus

making us

in that moment

His treasure,

what do we want to do?

We want to make Him

our treasure

above all else.

Right?

When we see Jesus

as the one true

willing giver

whose heart

moved Him

to be emptied

of all the riches

of heaven,

when we see Jesus' heart

moving Him

to be stripped

of everything

that He had,

when we see Jesus' heart

moving Him

to dance down the aisle

to the altar of God

for the joy

set before Him,

and when we see Jesus' heart

moving Him

to gladly lay down

His life

as an offering

in our place,

when we see Jesus

giving Himself

like this for us,

this God of grace,

displaying

the infinite grace

that He has for us

on His cross,

does it cause your heart

to move?

Does it fill your heart

with gladness

and with gratitude?

Does it make you

want to dance down the aisle

to the altar

and just gladly

and effortlessly

give to God

all that you are

and all that you have

because He's the only God

who made you,

who's given His grace

to redeem you,

who day by day

is protecting you

and providing for you?

I think that's what's going on

with these people

in chapter 35.

There are people

who've been touched

by the grace of God.

And so it says

in chapter 36,

actually,

verse 3,

it says,

the people continued

to bring freewill offerings

morning after morning

so all the skilled workers

who were doing

all the work

on the sanctuary

left what they were doing

and said to Moses,

the people are bringing

more than enough

for doing the work

the Lord commanded

to be done.

Then Moses gave an order

and they sent this word

throughout the camp,

no man or woman

is to make anything else

as an offering

for the sanctuary.

And so the people

were restrained

from bringing more

because they already had

what was more than enough

to do all the work.

And of course,

you know,

this is every pastor's dream.

You know,

that the hearts

of the people

would be so moved

by the grace of God

that their hearts

would just be so urging them,

their hearts would be

rousing them

to respond

to the grace of God,

their hearts would be

pushing them

in an inward

voluntary compulsion

to give

that they'd not be

saying to themselves,

what's the bare minimum

required?

How much is enough?

But rather,

they would be saying

to themselves,

like these people

were saying to themselves,

look at how gracious

God is.

Look at how wonderful

his works of grace

are toward us.

The Lord's unstinting,

overflowing grace,

particularly in the midst

of our betrayal

and our infidelity

and our lack

of faithfulness,

God's grace toward us

is so great

that it's getting inside

of our hearts

and it's moving

our hearts

not to dance

for all these

false gods

and these substitute

counterfeit gods,

but to just dance

down the aisle

and at extravagant

personal cost

to ourselves

just to lay

our most precious

treasures

down before him.

You know,

this outpouring

of plenty

and excess,

it caused

these skilled craftsmen

to say,

Moses,

make them stop.

We actually

can't even process

anymore.

And Moses had to say,

cease and desist.

He had to put

a restraining order

on their glad,

grace-based

generosity.

Why?

Because they all knew

there's more than

enough grace

from God.

And so there's

going to be

more than enough

for the work

that God wants

to do among us.

And that's what

the grace of God

and the gladness

and the gratitude

of responding

to his grace

does to us.

So the gift

of giving

and the gladness

of grace,

and Andrew,

do I have time?

Can I just,

a few more minutes?

I want to talk

about the glory

of God

with us.

Okay?

So,

Genesis begins

with God

creating the universe

as a home

for humankind,

but Exodus

ends with

human beings

creating a sanctuary

as a home

for God.

Genesis,

God is there,

he's creating

the heavens

and the earth

as a space

for people.

But in Exodus,

the redeemed people

of God,

with all their gifts

and their labor

and their skills

and their time

and their energy,

they're creating

a space for God

in this world.

They gave their

precious resources,

but they also gave

their physical presence.

They gave their treasures,

but they also gave

their time

and their talents.

And because

these many people

freely gave

their many different gifts,

they built

the first house

of God.

Now,

I actually have a slide.

Hopefully,

this first slide

comes up.

It's a black and white

slide that sort of

shows you

all the 12 tribes

and how they're

centered around

this one central tent.

And then I have

a colored slide

that shows you

that this is

a luxurious tent.

It's full of pure gold

and expensive fabrics

and precious stones.

It's really

the mobile palace

for a king.

And they built

this amazing building,

but that's not

the end of the story

because if all you have

built is a house of God,

who really cares

about that?

It's just a mailing address.

And if all you've

really planted

is just a community

of people living

around that building,

who really cares

about that?

That's just another

social group.

So what do you need

more than just

a house of God

and a community

of God?

You need God

himself.

You need God

himself to

come down

in all of his

presence

and his power.

You need the glory

and the goodness

of God.

You need the glory

and the goodness

of this king

to come and fill up

this luxurious palace

that the people

have made for him.

And that's what God

says in chapter 28.

He says,

have them

make a sanctuary

for me

so that I can dwell

among them,

so that I can dwell

in the center of them.

And then it says

in chapter 40,

it says,

then the cloud

covered the tent

of meeting

and the glory

of the Lord

filled the tabernacle.

God comes down

from heaven

to earth.

He comes from

the top of Mount Sinai

down to the people

in the valley.

This transcendent God

of awe-inspiring power

comes down

as this imminent

indwelling presence.

God,

the God of the universe,

becomes our neighbor.

He becomes intimate

and close

within the camp

and among

the people.

And he says to them

when this happens,

he's saying to them,

I want you

to have all

my goodness

and all of my glory

dwelling in your midst.

I want my beauty

to be the center

of your life.

I want my holiness

to be the focal point

of all that you are

and all that you do

wherever you go.

And I want to meet

with you here

day after day,

week after week

as this point

of connection

and communication

and communion

between you

and me.

And what's amazing

is, you know,

we quote this

all the time,

but in the Gospel

of John,

it says that

in the beginning

was the Word

and the Word

was God

and the Word

became flesh

and in the Greek

it says

he pitched his tent

among us.

He came

and he tabernacled

right in the center

of us.

And you know,

what's so astonishing

and so breathtaking

about Christianity

is not only

that God came down

in the human flesh

of Jesus,

it's that God

continues to come down

by the Holy Spirit

to dwell in us

individually

as little temples

of the living God.

He comes down

by the Holy Spirit

to dwell among us

corporately

as a mini-tabernacle,

a mini-sanctuary

for the living God.

You see,

God lives

not in houses

of wood and stone,

but he lives

in the souls

of his people.

He lives

in the loving relationships

of his people.

God is not to be found

in great buildings.

God is to be found

in the regenerate heart.

God is to be found

in a revived church.

And so when we

pray for revival,

what we're praying for

is this.

What we're praying for

is saying,

God,

all the activity

that we're doing,

all the time we're giving,

all the money we're spending,

all the energy

we're exerting,

none of that's really

going to amount

to very much

unless and until

the glory of the Lord

fills the tabernacle.

Unless and until

the Holy Spirit

comes down

in greater

and greater measure

and you give us

more and more

of yourself.

And isn't that

what we want

in this next season

of our life together?

An unusual

outpouring

and manifestation

of the very presence

of the one true

living God.

His goodness,

His glory,

making its home

here among us,

saturating us

with the presence

and the power

of this King

who's worthy

of all these

precious things.

Right?

And so that's my prayer.

You know,

it says that Moses,

he can't even

enter in

to the tabernacle

because the glory

of God

is filling it up

so much.

There's no room

for Moses,

there's no room

for anybody else

because God's fullness

is so thick

in that place.

And that's my prayer

for us

that in this next season

God's presence

and His power,

His goodness

and His glory

would be so thick.

It'd be so full.

It'd be so weighty

and so substantive

and so undeniably real

here when we come

to meet Him

that we feel

we can barely,

just barely

enter in.

We can barely

stand up

before this God

who's given us

the immense privilege

of building

a house

for Him

together.

And that's my prayer

in the name of the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.