When We Give Together We Get to Experience God Together
There’s an incredible ancient story about what happened when the people of God were captivated by uncommon generosity toward a common vision.
At this point in the story, God has delivered His people, the people of Israel, out of Egypt. They had been slaves there for hundreds of years. But now, they are no longer slaves. Now they are a nation. They are a people. They are the people of God.
As the new people of God, God himself casts a vision for them. The vision God casts is for His new people to build a tabernacle, a tent, a place of worship where He, God himself, can be literally present among His people.
Up to this point in the story, God had been present in different ways among them. They had seen the presence & power of God when He had sent 10 plagues on Egypt so that the pharaoh would let them go.
Then they had seen the power of His presence when they came to the Red Sea, on their way out of Egypt, with the Egyptian army chasing after them. Pharaoh had changed his mind & decided he didn’t want to let his slave labor which was a driving force in the Egyptian economy go! But God literally parted the Red Sea in half & Israel walked between two walls of water on dry ground. Then, when the Egyptian army followed, the water came crashing down & they were defeated.
They had seen the presence of God as God led the people every day with a cloud by day & a fire by night. God was in a very real way present & visible & leading His people out of their old life & into their new life.
But now, God had a new vision for His people. He wanted to be present with them every day. He wanted to dwell with them every day. He wanted a place where they could worship & meet with Him. A place where the people of God could meet with God.
So God gave instructions to Moses to give to the people. Listen to what happens…
4 Then Moses said to the whole community of Israel, “This is what the Lord has commanded: 5 Take a sacred offering for the Lord. Let those with generous hearts present the following gifts to the Lord:
gold, silver, and bronze…
and then Moses goes on to detail all the resources people can generously give toward the vision of building a place for God to dwell among them. Then he said,
10 “Come, all of you who are gifted craftsmen. Construct everything that the Lord has commanded…
Now Moses explains all the ways the people, men & women, can generously give of their talent & time toward the building of this place for God to dwell among them. Here’s what happened next…
20 So the whole community of Israel left Moses and returned to their tents. 21 All whose hearts were stirred and whose spirits were moved came and brought their sacred offerings to the Lord. They brought all the materials needed for the Tabernacle, for the performance of its rituals, and for the sacred garments. 22 Both men and women came, all whose hearts were willing. They brought to the Lord their offerings of gold—brooches, earrings, rings from their fingers, and necklaces. They presented gold objects of every kind as a special offering to the Lord.
29 So the people of Israel—every man and woman who was eager to help in the work the Lord had given them through Moses—brought their gifts and gave them freely to the Lord.
2 So Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and all the others who were specially gifted by the Lord and were eager to get to work. 3 Moses gave them the materials donated by the people of Israel as sacred offerings for the completion of the sanctuary. But the people continued to bring additional gifts each morning. 4 Finally the craftsmen who were working on the sanctuary left their work. 5 They went to Moses and reported, “The people have given more than enough materials to complete the job the Lord has commanded us to do!”
6 So Moses gave the command, and this message was sent throughout the camp: “Men and women, don’t prepare any more gifts for the sanctuary. We have enough!” So the people stopped bringing their sacred offerings. 7 Their contributions were more than enough to complete the whole project.
The amazing thing about this story is how the people of God were moved by a common vision toward uncommon generosity. They kept giving & giving & giving until Moses had to instruct the people to stop giving because they had more than enough to fulfill the vision that had been set before them.
[Tweet “Amazing things happen when people are moved by a common vision toward uncommon generosity.”]Why did they give so generously?
3 Reasons WHY They Gave
1. To build a tabernacle where God could be present among His people & where the people could be present among God.
The idea that they could be the generation that made space for God once again to descend & dwell among His people was a vision worth giving up everything for! What if we were to catch that same vision? To create a place where God could be present among His people & where the people could be present among God? What wouldn’t you give toward that vision? What wouldn’t you do to help someone else experience God?
When you give to the local church, you make it possible for the church to have the resources it needs to share the love God has for the world with the world. We get to partner with God to create a place & a space where the presence of God can dwell in the city & intersect the lives of people here in the community.
What God wanted then & what I believe God wants now is to dwell among His people, to be able to meet with people & be among us. When we give toward a God-centered goal we experience God’s goodness among us. If we never give to God we never experience God’s goodness.
2. They gave because when you have experienced the goodness of God in the past you’re not afraid to trust God with the future.
This is important because, as far as we can tell, they had no fear in giving. The number one reason why most believers don’t give is FEAR. People who are afraid don’t give. They circle the wagons. To be honest, this reveals where our hope & trust really lies. When we experience the goodness of God in the past we won’t be afraid to trust God in the future. We will no longer be slaves to fear. We’ll be free to give!
3. They had a common vision to bring God, His rule & His reign, from Heaven to Earth.
This story points again to the downward motion of God throughout the pages of scripture as God seeks to make things on earth as they are in heaven. What if we had a common vision to bring God, His rule & His reign, from Heaven to Earth? What if we gave toward this vision of God to participate in making things here as they are in Heaven? This is part of why we give. Because we want to be the people of God who are participating in bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth!
[Tweet ” When we give together we get to experience God together.”]Here’s why I get so excited about our future as a church. We have such incredible opportunity to do so much good when we decide to give. And just like the people of God we read about earlier, when we give together we get to experience God together. And I don’t know about you, but I would love for us to learn to give together so we can experience God together.
