The Tabernacle - Exactly

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. In this year 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll jump into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Joy to get to read your word. We pray that your spirit work in our hearts that we would love you and that we would follow after you in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, let's go ahead and jump into our Bibles. Exodus chapter 35, and we are going to read verses 4 through 29 together. All right, here we go. And Moses spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which Jehovah commanded, saying, Take from among you an offering to Jehovah. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to YHWH. Gold, silver, and bronze. Blue, purple, and scarlet thread of fine linen. And goat's hair. Ram's skins dyed red.
Badger skins. and acacia wood, oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. All who are gifted artisans among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded, the tabernacle, its tent, its covering, its claps, clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets, and the ark and its poles, with the mercy seat and the veil of the covering, the table and its poles, all its utensils and the showbread. Also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps, and the oil for the light. The incense altar, its poles, the anointing oil, the sweet incense, and the screen for the door at the entrance of the tabernacle. The altar burnt offering with its bronze grating, its poles, all its utensils, and the laver and its base. the hangings of the court, its pillars, their sockets, and the screen for the gate of the court, the pegs of the tabernacle, the pegs of the court, and their cords, the garments of ministry, for ministering in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, to minister as priests.
And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. Then everyone came whose heart was stirred and everyone whose spirit was willing. And they brought to the Lord's offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting for all its service. and for the holy garments. They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart, and brought earrings and nose-rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold, that is, every man who made an offering of gold to the Lord. And every man with whom was found blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen and goat's hair, red skins of ram and badger skins, brought them. Everyone who offered an offering of silver or bronze brought the Lord's offering, and everyone with whom was found acacia wood for any work of the service brought it. All the women who were gifted artisans spun yarn with their hands and brought as they had spun a blue, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. and all the women whose hearts stirred with wisdom spun yarn of goat's hair.
The rulers brought onyx stones, and the stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate, and spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense. The children of Israel brought a freewill offering to the Lord. All the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work, which the Lord, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done."
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? Well, this is a beautiful passage. The people done messed up before with a covenant breaking when they had bowed down to these fake idols.
But now, the covenant's been renewed, God has shown he's gracious, he's still gonna go along with the plan of having the tabernacle dwell in the midst of them? What does he do? He doesn't compel with a tax. He wants them to give willingly. And so he says, bring it.
It's not that God doesn't have a right to say, all right, you need to bring me all the gold, all the silver, all the yarn, all the, no. This is a willing sacrifice. It's a free will offering. This is saying, I want from my own heart to be a blessing. And I want to have God's tabernacle built in the midst of us.
And so this is what happens. They go and they do it. People's hearts are stirred. They give gold, they give silver, they give acacia wood, they give oil, they give jewels, you know, the onyx stones for his shoulders and the different stones for the breastplate and they give the gold for Aaron's ephod and his breastplate and for the turban plaque that would go across his forehead saying holiness to the Lord. They gave it. People are stirred with a love for this and notice it's not just giving but it's also working. There are people, women, who are working hard and they're spinning thread out of different hairs and fibers to give.
There are people who have badger's fur and pellets and things like this and they're giving it for the tabernacle to be made beautiful. A royal residence. They're loving God and showing it in their works. This is a beautiful passage. Man, I love this passage. This is a great passage to remind us of what is this about? The people built God's house because they loved him. Yeah, they had messed up and they're going to continue to mess up, but they show, they show that they do love him and they want to follow him. by building this tabernacle, by supplying all the needs for it. They give it.
What's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I think it's verse 21. That's what I've underlined in my Bible. This is this beautiful passage that it's their hearts were stirred. It's what they wanted to do. And so they freely gave of it. What are we called to do?
You know, I was just reading a book, it's on my shelf somewhere over there, on the tithe. The guy's really heavy handed with it. I mean, he's like, we should go and look at people's tax returns and see do their tax returns actually line up with 10% of their giving? Are they actually giving another bunch to the poor and stuff like that? And I'm sitting there thinking, man, this guy missed the point. This guy missed the point of Not into compulsion, but the Lord loves a happy giver. The Lord desires, even now today, not for you to be manipulated emotionally or to be drilled down legalistically.
But the Lord is pleased even now when we live our lives as a living sacrifice and every time that you might give to the church, every time that you might donate towards the glorification of God. I hope that's what's the primary purpose in the church, bringing God glory and loving others.
But I hope that when you do that, It's out of a heart of free will. That's 2% or 10% or 35% of your budget. I don't know. I hope it's because you love the Lord. You recognize what he's given you is meant to be for his glory. Yeah. He's given you income to enjoy, to enjoy the good things of this life. the building up of your own estate and for you to help build up the estate of others, but it's also given for His work, for His glory out of a heart of love. And so I hope that the Spirit is working in your heart even now as you think about these things. Are you giving with your teeth grit? Or are you giving knowing that He's redeemed you? and that he's given you everything in your hands, you're a steward.
And now you get to love him every time you give. I'm not just saying this because I'm a pastor. You can come and talk to me sometime if you want to know my giving habit. The Lord loves generous people. He loves to see people be generous. It brings him delight because he's generous. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you have shown us how generous you are. You made an entire universe. You formed the earth. You created us. And then you gave it to us to steward and to enjoy.
And then Lord, if that was not enough, we thank you that you gave us your son out of your will. that you gave us life everlasting. Lord, we pray that we would learn that type of generosity. That we will learn that type of self-sacrifice, that we would learn how to seek your glory. Father, we thank you, and we pray that you would please let us love you more and more. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, may the truth of Jesus Christ's sacrifice and love for you stir up in your heart thankfulness and generosity. And may you do so with joy, knowing that he is with you until the end of the age. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.