"Why We Worship" 1 Chronicles 29:10-22 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Would you please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter six?

Matthew chapter six, verse thirteen.

This is the text that Jesse has assigned me to preach this morning.

Matthew chapter six, verse thirteen.

Footnote four.

Which says in the ESV, some manuscripts add, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

What's going on here?

This is what's called a textual variant.

You don't need to know a ton about this.

I'll just explain it really briefly.

Basically, there's lots of different manuscripts of the New Testament out there.

There's about 5,000 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, and they don't always agree in every single point.

And so there's some debate between the manuscripts about the ending to the Lord's Prayer.

Should it include this doxology, which probably you learned when you memorized this as a kid, or is it not really part of it?

And to spare you the long drawn-out explanation, basically it's it's complicated with this one.

Uh there are four main old manuscripts that people uh codexes that people appeal to.

Two of them don't include it, one it's unclear, and one does.

The one that does, actually, you can go down and see, it's in the freer gallery just down in Washington, D.C.

You can see it for yourself.

And it includes four yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

But there are others that are older that don't, and then there's some that do, and it's complicated.

Basically, it's inconclusive whether or not this actually is an original ending to the Lord's Prayer or not.

Either way, it's certainly true.

And what is conclusive is where this text is taken from, what inspired those very words that may or may not be the ending to the Lord's Prayer, and that's what I'm going to preach this morning.

So would you turn with me to 1 Chronicles chapter 29?

1 Chronicles 29 · chapter mention

I just wanted to explain to you why we're going to 1 Chronicles.

1 Chronicles chapter 29, as we look at verses 10 through 22, which contain the potential ending to the Lord's Prayer.

1 Chronicles 29 · chapter mention

This prayer of David is found in the context of a massive outpouring of wealth by the people of Israel for the building of the temple at Solomon's second coronation.

And David responds to this massive gift with a prayer, which will be our focus this morning as we consider why we worship.

Therefore, David blessed Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly, and David said, Blessed are you, O Yahweh, the God of Israel our Father, forever and ever.

Yo, O Yahweh, 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 Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all.

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.

And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.

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.

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.

O Yahweh, our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your own hand and is all your own.

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.

O Yahweh, 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.

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.

Then David said to all the assembly, Bless Yahweh, your God.

And all the assembly blessed Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to Yahweh and to the king.

And they offered sacrifices to Yahweh, and on the next day offered burnt offerings to Yahweh, one thousand bulls, one thousand rams, and one thousand lambs, with their drink offerings and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel.

And they ate and drank before Yahweh on that day with great gladness.

So reads the word of the living God.

In 2017, Duke researchers Ruth and Lim published a landmark study entitled Lovin' on Jesus: A Concise History of Contemporary Worship.

And in their extensive research, they compiled what they believe to be several marks of Christian contemporary music.

Here's a few of them.

Quote, a dedication to relevance regarding contemporary concerns and issues in the lives of the worshipers, using musical styles from current types of popular music, a centrality of the musicians in the liturgical space and in the leadership of the church.

And finally, a commitment to adapt worship to match contemporary people, sometimes to the level of strategic targeting.

Isn't it interesting that in an activity that is purportedly worship to the eternal God, none of the marks have anything to do with God.

They all have to do with man.

It is totally man-centered.

It is a profoundly man-centered paradigm for an activity that ought to be all about God.

If you were to ask in this paradigm, why do we worship?

It's, well, because it's therapeutic.

Because it feels good.

Because I've had a hard week, man.

And I'm coming in here kind of beat up and I need a pick-me up.

Is that what worship is for?

It's because we like it.

Now before you start picking up stones and throwing them at contemporary Christian music, appreciate the glass house that you're in.

All of life is supposed to be worship.

It's not just songs.

This particular passage is really about financial giving, worship through their gifts for the building of the temple.

Seriously, if you were to listen to any other sermon on this passage, you would find out it's a giving sermon.

It's always when someone's trying to do a building project or retire the dead or whatever.

They preach this text.

Because giving is a part of worship.

And so is reading the scriptures, and so is evangelism, and so is obedience to God and raising your kids to love the Lord.

All of that.

All of life is supposed to be worship.

And aren't you and I just as man-centered in so many other areas of our life that ought to be worship?

And aren't?

Aren't we tempted towards man-centeredness rather than God-centeredness in our lives?

We think, what do I want to do with my finances?

What do I want to do with my time?

I need a little me time.

I need to relax.

What's your first thought when your alarm goes off?

David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29 is a corrective to our disordered hearts of self-worship that reorients us toward the very purpose of worship to begin with.

Who and why we worship.

And it's what we need to hear this morning.

The context in 1 Chronicles 22 to 29 is a lavish outpouring of wealth for the building of the temple.

This is near the end of David's life.

He's an old man.

He has seen much battle.

And now he goes to establish the temple, knowing that he himself can't build it, but that his son Solomon will be the one to build it.

And they coronate his Solomon, Solomon's son, as the king.

The immediate context of this prayer in chapter 29 is David and the people of Israel giving large sums of their wealth for the building of this temple.

And just to give you a sense for how huge this is, this is very much intended to parallel with the first contribution for the building of a place of worship, which is in Exodus, the tabernacle.

God commands an offering for the building of the tabernacle.

And in Exodus chapter 38, verse 21, it tells us that the people gave lots and lots of gold over and above what they had to give.

Exodus 38:21

They gave 29 talents of gold.

Talent is 75 pounds.

So it's a lot of gold.

The second temple, after this one is built and burned, and they come back into the land, they take an offering to rebuild the temple, and that's 13 talents of gold.

And then a Persian king gives them a hundred more talents.

The Queen of Sheba, during King Solomon's lifetime, came and visited Solomon to see all of his grandeur, and she gave to him 120 talents of gold.

King Hiram of Tyre gave 420 talents of gold.

Solomon himself, during his reign as king, his annual income was 666 talents of gold every year.

It was a massive amount.

And in this passage, when David and the people of Israel give for the building of the first temple, they give 108,000 talents of gold.

This is about 8.1 million pounds of gold, essentially the size of Fort Knox.

Half of America's gold reserve given in one instance for the purpose of the worship of God.

It's incredible, isn't it?

And at this unparalleled act of monetary worship, David's response is to pray.

And his prayer is a reminder of why we worship God, why we would give not just money, but voices, talents, time, and whole lives for God's worship.

He gives us two reasons and one request, and that's going to be our outline for this morning.

Why we worship you, God.

Why we worship you, oh God.

It's a prayer.

And the first reason is this God, it's because you own it all.

Because you own it all.

Look at verse 10.

David says, Therefore, or therefore, David blessed Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly, and David said, Blessed are you, O Yahweh, the God of Israel our Father, forever and ever.

He begins his prayer with the language of worship.

Blessed are you.

Not I'm giving God a blessing like he doesn't have it and he needs it, but I'm attributing to God what is already his.

You are blessed, God.

And the language of worship continues.

Verse 13, we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.

Verse 20, that the people bless Yahweh and they bow down their heads and they pay homage to Yahweh.

This is a worship service.

And David is praying a prayer of worship that is focused singularly on God.

And why?

Why is it, he says, that we worship God?

And it can be summed up in one word.

Look at the beginning of verse 11.

Yours.

Yours.

Yo, O Yahweh, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.

David is just piling up terms of regal, majestic, royal authority and power and wealth in order to say God owns all of it.

That's what this language is.

When he says yours, he's saying it belongs to you.

You have possession of it.

It is by divine right, yours.

And he uses comprehensive terms.

All that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.

Yo is the kingdom.

You're the king over all of this, and it all belongs to you.

I think in a democracy we we can lose the sense for what it means for someone to be a sole ruler and owner of all.

That's what he is.

He's the king.

He's the only one who owns everything.

Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all.

It's in your hand to give strength to all, all of it.

It's just breathtakingly comprehensive.

And you say, well, if it's true that God owns all of that, the strength, the might, the power, all goods, all things, all wealth, all energy, all strength, all thoughts.

If God owns all of that, don't we own anything?

I mean, David says in verse 3, I have a treasure of my own, of gold and silver.

So we own stuff too, right?

Don't we own things?

Well, not like God.

His ownership is on a whole different level.

We are stewards.

He's the master.

We are renters.

He's the homeowner.

He owns it in the truest sense of the word, owned.

This is a very common emphasis in Jesus' own ministry.

He tells the parable of the talents, Matthew chapter, uh sorry, the parable of the tenants in Matthew chapter 21.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

There's a master, a vineyard owner, who hires people out.

That's Israel.

He tells the parable in Matthew chapter 25 of the talents.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

He's the one who owns all of the talents.

He gives them so that he could get some return.

He says in Matthew chapter 28, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

He owns it all.

God is the owner of everything.

And why does God own everything?

Well, it's really simple.

It's because he made it all.

He's the creator.

He made it, so he owns it.

Psalm 24, verse 1 the earth is yours and the fullness thereof.

Psalms 24:1

Romans 11, verse 36, for from him and through him and to him are all things.

Romans 11:36

Revelation chapter 4, verse 11, in heaven, worshiping God at the throne, and they say, Worthy are you, O God, to receive power and glory and might.

Revelation 4:11

Why?

Because you created all things.

God owns everything because he made it all.

Hughes Elephant Old says, quote, we worship God because God created us to worship him.

So that stuff that you think you own, that home that you're still paying the mortgage on, that you own, you're just renting it.

That car that you paid off got the title?

It's on a lease.

Those kids.

They are a stewardship.

The skin that you're wearing right now is a rented tux.

You're very affectionate.

Your thoughts, your intentions, your desires, your life and breath and everything come from God and belong to God.

He owns it all.

And that is why we worship.

The Heidelberg Catechism begins: what is your only comfort in life and in death?

Answer that I am not my own.

But belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

I'll throw this one in there.

I didn't tell the first services, but uh you guys get a freebie.

Uh we were at breakfast this morning, and every morning we do a little catechism thing with our kids, and we do it in Spanish.

And so I'm asking my my daughter, um, can't do you so who made you?

God, uh, what else did God make everything?

Why did God make you and everything else for his own glory?

Well, how can you glorify God by loving him and obeying him?

And then this question debes glorificar a Dios, why should you glorify God?

Because he made me and cares for me.

Because he owns me.

That's from the lips of a three-year-old, by the way.

I think we tend to think of worship as this kind of tit for tat with God, like he did something nice for us, and so we give something nice back to him.

And there's a sense in which that's true, but that's not the fundamental reason why we worship, and it's not where David begins either.

I mean, just imagine, think about it for a second.

Imagine you're renting an apartment and you drive to the landlord's office to give him a rent check.

And as you're handing him the rent check, you say to him, I'm giving you this rent check because you have been so kind to me as a landlord.

You haven't evicted me this month, which has been great.

I'm so glad to know you.

You're really sweet.

Whenever I talk to you, you're very kind.

So thank you.

Here's the rent check.

What would the owner say?

He would say, Well, thanks, but yeah, I mean, you owe me this.

This is your rent.

Whether I'm kind to you or not, you pay.

And friends, God has given you life.

He has given you health.

He has given you a home.

He has given you a job or a car or a family.

Anything that you have of any good worth comes from God and he still owns it.

It belongs to him.

David's most fundamental reason why we worship God with all these faculties is because God deserves it.

This is what we mean when we say that God is worthy.

He's deserving, he owns it all.

He should get it.

It belongs to him.

J.I.

Packer says, quote, God is eternal, infinite, and almighty.

He has in his hands.

We never have him in ours.

Like us, he is personal.

But unlike us, he is great.

That's why we're Worship doesn't begin with us and our felt needs.

Worship begins with God and who He is and His glory and grandeur and splendor.

His ownership of all things is what circumscribes and provokes worship.

He deserves far more than we could ever give.

The temple that they're building, this massive outpouring, it's just a footstool for God.

So how do you think about your life?

How do you think about the things that you own?

Do you get upset when it seems like other people think that your stuff is their stuff?

Is it really yours to begin with?

Worship begins when we realize who owns us and everything else.

However, that's not where his prayer ends.

Secondly, he says, not only God, you own it all, but you give it all.

The astounding reality is that God, who could demand worship from his creatures without doing anything kind for them, who could stand up like Nebuchadnezzar did and build an idol and say, worship it or die, does not simply do that.

But he wins worship from his creatures by giving freely to them.

That's what David says, verse 14.

But who am I?

And what is my people that we should be able thus to offer willingly?

This isn't the first time David has said this.

Back in 1 Chronicles 17, 16, in response to the Davidic covenant, David says the same thing.

Who am I?

What a great question.

Who are you?

He knows who he is.

He's David.

The question is: in comparison to God, what right do I have to give anything to him?

And yet, here I am joyfully offering something to him.

How did that happen?

David's jaw is on the floor when he considers the unchallenged authority of God manifest in the kindness of God.

It's kind of like Psalm chapter 8, when I look at the heavens, the moon, and the stars which you set in motion, and I just consider the vast expanse of the sky.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

What is man that you're mindful of him?

Just an ant with like a dot underneath a shadow of a dot.

We're nothing compared to God.

And yet God gives to his creatures so freely.

He says, For all things come from you.

God has given gloriously and graciously to his creation.

All good things come from God, from the Father of lights.

James 1:17.

James 1:17

First Corinthians 4.7, Paul says, What do you have that you did not receive?

And David appreciates that this is the case, that we're not in the position of first giver, verse 15, for we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were.

That's a fascinating thing to say.

They're in the land.

They own the land for all intents and purposes.

They're there, they're not strangers and sojourners, and yet David remembers, kind of like we sing in the old hymn, this world is not my home.

I'm just a passing through.

This isn't it.

Because of death, I don't really own anything.

I'm a temporary steward of the wealth that God has given to me.

I mean, do you really own something if you have, if you just have it for a few minutes?

This is what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 2.

Ecclesiastes 2 · chapter mention

Your whole life, you're gonna toil and work and accrue money, and then you're gonna die, and you're gonna give it to someone who's probably gonna waste it.

Some numbskull who's just gonna spend it on something else, and there goes your inheritance.

Your life is a library book.

This is borrowed.

You're gonna have to give it back sometime.

So ultimately, everything doesn't come from you and from me, it comes from God who gives it.

And look at this astounding way he says it.

He says, For all things come from you, this is verse 14, and of your own have we given you.

Write that on the doorpost of your life.

Of your own we have given to you.

Literally, from your hand we give back to you.

I just imagine like two hands, take it one, give it over here, put it right back in the other hand.

Same person.

That's us with God.

He gives it, takes it right back.

Everything we have comes from God.

Recently, I, along with several hundred of you, paid for my kids to attend vacation Bible school here at Emmanuel, which was wonderful.

And one of the crafts that they brought home at the end of the week was a picture frame with a picture in it.

And it has little hearts and things glued onto it and a kind of surprise-looking picture of my child in the middle.

It's delightful.

And I thought about that this week.

I have the picture sitting on my desk.

I looked at it and I thought, I paid for that.

Like they gave it to me at the end, like, here's your prize.

But I paid for it.

I put the money in so that they could even do that to give it back to me.

Do you realize that's us with God?

God gives you everything.

And he says, give back to me a picture that looks more like me.

That looks more like my son.

God gives life and breath and everything, and you grow in Christ's likeness, reflecting his glory more and more each day.

And in his kindness, God does that.

I mean, why do that?

Why include us in the loop?

If God owns the thing to begin with, why the runaround through humanity?

Well, because our greatest joy and satisfaction is found in worship, isn't it?

He includes us in his generosity and love in the experience of his eternal joy.

That's why David says in verse 16, O Yahweh, our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house and for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.

He's saying, This temple that we're about to build, this site of worship to you, you built it.

You know what's incredible about this moment?

The very site where they are building the temple, St.

Chronicles tells us, is the very same place where Abraham offered up his son, Isaac, on the altar, and then God provided the ram for the sacrifice, where God's mercy and justice met.

And then later in David's own life, this is the very site where David made a rash census, a wicked choice, and God brought a plague on the people of Israel, and then he goes to this threshing floor and offers up an offering to God, and God stays his hand.

The mercy and the justice of God.

And this is the site where the temple will be, where sacrifices are offered day and night throughout the history of Israel, as they continue to remember that sin has a cost of judgment, and yet God has mercifully provided a way of escape.

And do you know that this is the very same mountain where God Himself will climb up step by step, bearing a cross on his shoulders, in order to cause justice and mercy to meet in one final glorious act of salvation.

Not only does God give you life and breath and everything, God in his generosity gives you himself.

He gives you his son, Jesus Christ.

In order to receive perfected worship.

So free, so infinite his grace, emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race.

All immense and free.

For oh my God, it found out me.

Amazing love.

How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

God, the owner of all, gives more than all to you.

He empties the court of heaven for sinners.

Who are we indeed?

Worship is the right response to God having given all.

And so we also give all, we give ourselves wholly to him.

And David ends this prayer not just by rehearsing why it is that he worships, but then with a request to God for continued worship.

He says, Oh God, you own it all and you give it all.

So come have it all.

That's what he says in verse 17.

I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure and 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.

He's saying, This is a genuine gift.

You know it, you see the heart, you test the heart and mine, you know what's going on inside of us, and you know that this has been true worship.

And so, verse 18, O Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers.

Here's the request: keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people and direct their hearts toward you.

He's saying, God, may we please continue to worship you like this.

May this still be our heartbeat day after day after year.

And verse 19, he makes it specific: grant to Solomon, my son, a whole heart, that he may keep your commandments and your testimonies and your statutes, performing all.

The phrase there, whole heart, it means undivided affections, single-minded worship, desires that are all bent towards one end, the worship of God.

And sadly, we know that Solomon did not have a whole heart.

1 Kings 11:4 literally says Solomon did not have a whole heart, and so he started worshiping idols.

1 Kings 11:4

But what I don't want you to miss, that's pretty obvious about this prayer, this request, if David has to pray to ask God to give them hearts to keep worshiping, then that means that God is the one who has to give the heart.

Right?

Which is astounding when you think about it.

That means that God gives us worship to God.

God is the author and the giver of his own worship.

And praise God that he does because our hearts are made to be satisfied by this undivided worship to the true and the living God.

This is what it means to say, yours is the glory.

It means he owns it, he gives it, and then he takes it right back.

And so we're praying, God, would you continue to give me a heart that longs to worship you?

I want that heart.

I know that I'm fleeting and sinful.

And God, would you just capture me and not let me go?

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, take it, seal it for thy courts above.

Worship is from God, through God, and to God.

I don't know how you get more God-centered than that, right?

God starts the worship, He provides the worship, and He receives the worship.

The way we normally sing this: let all with heart and voice before his throne rejoice.

Praise is his gracious choice.

Did you ever think about that?

God is being kind to you when you sing to him.

God is showing grace to you when you raise your kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

God is showering you with love whenever you give of your whole life for his sake.

Because, look at verse 22, the product of all of this is our benefit.

They ate and drank before Yahweh on that day with great gladness.

I mean, joy just permeates this whole event.

Beginning of it, verse 9.

People rejoiced because they had given willingly.

And David the king rejoiced greatly.

I mean, there's so much joy bound up in worship because this is what we were made to do.

This is what our hearts are most satisfied by.

Meaning that you will never be happier in your life than when you loosen your vice grip on the things that God has given you to steward and instead open-handedly offer them back to him.

That's where your joy is found.

Not in accumulation, but in worship.

In giving to the God who has given all.

So which will it be?

Man-centered man-worship?

Or God-centered worship of God.

I don't know ultimately if the language found here in 1 Chronicles 29 is the actual ending of the Lord's Prayer that he taught to his disciples.

But if it was, that is an astounding moment.

Because here's God walking on the earth that he made, teaching the people that he made how to worship God.

Pray then like this.

Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

Here's how you worship me, Jesus says.

God in his matchless grace, owning everything, your own life, he says, I want it back.

And in order to get it, he has offered you his very son, himself.

He says, let go of this world and all of its goods, and you will get far more in return.

Paul says, I counted as rubbish everything that I had in order that I might gain Christ.

Who have I in heaven but you?

There is nothing on earth I desire beside you.

My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Friend, can you say that?

And if you cannot, the blood of Jesus Christ is crying out to you now.

Come and worship him.

The veil has been torn in two, the way is open.

Paradise is for free if you would come in and worship.

It'll just cost you everything.

So would you?

Would you receive Jesus this morning and find him to be the supreme desire of your life and the satisfaction of your worshiping soul?

He owns it all.

He gives it all.

Ten thousand years from now, when you are in eternity, will you want to look back and say, I spent it on myself?

Or will you want to say, Yours is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever?

Let's pray.

Our Father who is in heaven.

Hallowed be your name.

May you be regarded as the holy king of the universe that you are.

May you get for yourself from this congregation the worship that you are due.

Father, may you work in our hearts, even in this moment, so to cause us to rise and worship.

May we lay down goods and kindred, this mortal life, even, that we might inherit eternal life and Jesus Christ Himself.

Would you make us true worshipers in spirit and in truth?

Would you draw us to yourself the owner of all and the giver of all, that we might give you thanks?

Would you work in our hearts to win for yourself the worship that you deserve?

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

And we ask all of this in Jesus' name.

And now, from parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or a current service time, go to ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you speak to the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with both folks.