Sermon Tone Analysis

/Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly.

And David said: “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever.

Yours, O Lord, 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 Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

Both riches and honour 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 Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your 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 Lord, 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.”

[1]

 

In a previous message, I explored the reasons God commanded the offerings of firstfruits.

Firstfruits, we discovered, were an offering of the best of the first harvest that was to be brought before the Lord.

The giving of firstfruits was not an afterthought, but rather these gifts represented the finest gift the giver could offer.

These offerings were to be provided in a thoughtful and deliberate manner.

The offering of firstfruits required that God’s glory be considered first, instead of perceived need of the one making the offering.

There is another point that I did not stress, but that is nevertheless consistent with offering gifts for God’s glory and mankind’s good.

That which was given was to be for the support of God’s appointed leaders, thus glorifying Him through providing for His appointed leaders.

Other contributions were to be provided for building a place for worship.

In fact, the worshippers of God were responsible to provide a place for worship, though God would direct them where they were to provide that House of Worship.

Through Moses, God said, You shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there.

There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.

And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you [*Deuteronomy 12:5-7*].

In a similar manner, the people of God are responsible to worship in this day; and they should provide places for worship of the Living God.

To be certain, we can worship in the great outdoors, in our homes, at our work places, but it is not unreasonable that we will provide places dedicated to the worship of the True and Living God.

We are to provide these places without asking the world about us to pay for our worship.

Christians are not to be beggars of the world, asking outsiders to underwrite our work of faith.

David was a man of prayer, and what prayers he offered up to the Lord his God!

Our text today consists of a prayer presented by this man of God.

The prayer was offered following David’s generous contribution designated for the building of the Temple.

His generosity stimulated the leadership of the nation to be likewise generous.

Witnessing the liberality of the leaders, the entire nation responded generously to provide the materials required to build the Temple.

Generosity begets generosity.

What is fascinating is that the donations were designated for building the Temple—a place of beauty with no practical purpose other than worship of the True and Living God.

God Himself is the Basis for Worship through Giving — /Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever.

Yours, O Lord, 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 Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

Both riches and honour 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/.

As we read this prayer, it can be summarised as a blessing of God defined by one word—*/all/*.

No less than ten times David uses the word */all/*.

/Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever.

/Yours, O Lord, 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 Lord, and you are exalted as head above *all*.

Both riches and honour 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 Lord our God, *all *this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your 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 Lord, 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.

All that is belongs to God—He made all, He rules over all.

Greatness and power and glory and victory and majesty describe God’s attributes.

Compared to God, man has neither greatness nor power nor glory.

There is neither victory nor majesty for man that exalts him above God.

Though the temptation is ever present for us to promote ourselves, it is God who must be glorified, not man.

One great reason we should glorify God is because of His goodness to us—goodness demonstrated through generosity.

Let me give voice to an unspoken truth—a house of worship is not a necessity.

Christians do not “need” a house of worship in order to worship the Living God.

As Solomon prayed at the dedication of the Temple, the Temple for which David provided so lavishly, he asked, will God indeed dwell with man on the earth?

Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built [*2 Chronicles 6:18*]?

Clearly, God does not dwell in a house.

Nevertheless, Solomon provided a justification for building a house dedicated to worship of the True and Living God when he wrote to Hiram, King of Tyre.

The account is recorded in *2 Chronicles 2:4-6*.

Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him, and for the regular arrangement of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the Lord our God, as ordained forever for Israel.

The house that I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods.

But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him?

Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him?

The purpose of the house is to honour God through acceptable worship, especially through making offerings before Him.

A church building reflects our values; perhaps we need to reassess what we value.

Christians, worshippers of the True and Living God, drive people of this world mad with their generosity, and especially with the choices they make as they practise their generosity.

In the view of this world it is enough for churches to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide shelter to the homeless and generally be available to do good.

Social meddlers are aghast at the thought that Christians would think that anything other than the personal agenda of the world would receive serious consideration.

If Christians seek beauty in the act of worship, it is selfish and evil.

If Christians surrender their call from God to fulfil His direction, it would permit the social engineers of this fallen world to continue their various projects without moral or ethical review.

This is undoubtedly a materialistic world.

For instance, Karl Marx hated religion, calling it the “opiate of the masses.”

Socialists, including an astounding number of our own leftward-leaning Canadian political savants and media elite, demonstrate a visceral hatred toward the Christian Faith.

One reason they hate the Faith of Christ the Lord so much is that biblical Christianity does not support fomenting revolutions to materially better people’s lives.

Christians keeping in step with God are not motivated by wealth.

Wealth is convenient, but we realise that all that we hold is given to honour God and not simply make our lives comfortable.

Social engineers want to decide who should receive largess from our pockets, and our political elite determines who will benefit from our tax dollars, since “the people” apparently cannot be trusted to make such decisions.

In addition to tsunami victims and victims of hurricanes promised billions of tax dollars, our political elite shovel vast sums of moneys to political cronies and tyrants, calling it foreign aid.

Churches are expected to further this socio-political agenda through acquiescing quietly to governmental dicta.

It is tragically apparent that a majority of “aid” taken from our pockets seldom benefits those suffering as result of natural disasters or those suffering under dictators.

Private charities, including our own Sharing Way and Canadian Baptist Ministries, prove far more generous toward the obvious needs of hurting people.

Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked */are/* priorities for Christians, but there are other values, including feeding the soul, that would be utterly neglected except for the generosity of Christians.

At issue is not an either~/or situation, but rather a both~/and situation.

We are to be concerned for the needy about us, but we dare not neglect feeing the soul.

Part of that caring for the spiritual aspects of daily life in the modern world is providing a place for God’s people to gather for worship, and for underwriting preaching and teaching the Word.