I think it is surprising that I can find only three highpoints of Israelite faith in the entire book of Exodus. One is when Moses returns to the land of Egypt to lead the people out of slavery. Aaron speaks the Lord’s words to the Israelites and performs the signs which the Lord has given. Exodus 4:31 then reports the people’s response: "the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had given heed to the Israelites and that [the Lord] had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped."

This book’s second highpoint of faith occurs after the Lord saves the people of Israel from the Egyptian army by drowning that army in the sea. Exodus 14:31 tells its readers that "Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in the Lord’s servant Moses."

To see the third highpoint of faith we must look first at Ex 25:1-9. Please open your Bible to that passage and follow along as I read.

The Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to take for me an offering; from all whose hearts prompt them to give you shall receive the offering for me. This is the offering that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and crimson yarns and fine linen, goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and for the breastpiece. And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them. In accordance with all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.

Notice that the offering is to come only from those "whose hearts prompt them to give." There is no divine coercion here. Notice also that the offering is explicitly stated to be for the Lord, because the Lord, in v 2, twice says that the offering is "for me" and in v 8 the Lord says, "And have them make me a sanctuary."

Now look at Ex 35:5-10b. There we read,

Moses said to all the congregation of the Israelites: This is the thing that the Lord has commanded: Take from among you an offering to the Lord; let whoever is of a generous heart bring the Lord’s offering: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and fine linen; goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, and fine leather; acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and the breastpiece.

All who are skillful among you shall come and make all that the Lord has commanded.

Now let’s see how the people responded. Look down at v 20 of this same chapter. Ex 35:20-29 reports,

Then all the congregation of the Israelites withdrew from the presence of Moses. And they came, everyone whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing, and brought the Lord’s offering to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the sacred vestments. So they came, both men and women; all who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and pendants, all sorts of gold objects, everyone bringing an offering of gold to the Lord. And everyone who possessed blue or purple or crimson yarn or fine linen or goats’ hair or tanned rams’ skins or fine leather, brought them. Everyone who could make an offering of silver or bronze brought it as the Lord’s offering; and everyone who possessed acacia wood of any use in the work, brought it. All the skillful women spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun in blue and purple and crimson yarns and fine linen; all the women whose hearts moved them to use their skill spun the goats’ hair. And the leaders brought onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and the breastpiece, and spices and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense. All the Israelite men and women whose hearts made them willing to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord.

Now please read with me one more passage, the passage which gives the final result of the Lord’s request for this offering. Please follow along as I read Ex 36:2-7.

Moses then called Bezalel and Oholiab and every skillful one to whom the Lord had given skill, everyone whose heart was stirred to come to do the work; and they received from Moses all the freewill offerings that the Israelites had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the artisans who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task being performed, and said to Moses, "The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do." So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp: "No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary." So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.

What a great faith highpoint. What a wonderful spirit of giving. You can feel the joy of those who brought the precious metals, the fine textiles, the leather goods, and all of the other costly items. You can feel the joy of those skillful women who worked at spinning wheels making fine fabrics and fine yarn for the Lord, for the tabernacle of the Lord.

Why did they give so generously? Why did they give so lavishly? The relevant texts are very clear. They gave generously, lavishly because their hearts were "stirred" and their spirits were "willing" (Ex 35:21). Such a presentation causes me to think that these passages in Exodus are showing Israel at one of those rare moments, one of those rare moments when they truly were grateful for the countless blessings God had poured down upon them. They had been delivered from Egypt by God’s mighty hand. They had been delivered from Egypt’s pursuing army by God’s mighty hand. They had been provided with both food and water in the desert by God’s mighty hand. So they gave, and they gave generously and lavishly to God.

When I stop and think about the barrenness of life without God, without the Holy Spirit, without the saving and life-giving power of Jesus––my spirit is stirred. When I think about the abundant life God has given me, my spirit is willing to give and to give generously, lavishly. Thinking about the grace of God brings out the best in me. Thinking about all that God has done causes the focus of my eyes to be removed from all of the world’s stuff; it causes my focus instead to be fixed on offering all that I have to the glory of the God who has given me life, abundant life. I have been delivered from slavery to sin. I have, by the grace of God, been raised to walk "in newness of life." I have joy because God is with me. As the Dennis Jernigan song says, "For all that you’ve done, I will thank you." Amen.

Sisters and brothers, our monetary giving is currently below budget, but I do not want to lay guilt on anyone. I want to stir our hearts. I want us to be so aware of the ways God has blessed us that our hearts are pulled loose from material possessions by the joy of offering to God, by the joy of giving to the matters that matter most to our divine Creator.

All Broadway members should be receiving, in the next two or three days, a letter from me outlining our current financial needs. My hope is that this letter is both clear and candid. Next week we want everyone to give as our hearts and spirits have been moved, stirred to give. We want to eradicate completely our current shortfall. But I want that to happen because we truly realize and value all that God has done for us. Please, allow your spirits to be moved by the wonderful grace of our Almighty God.

I recently read this quotation from Frederick Beuchner, a well-known Christian scholar. He said,

In the Christian sense, love is not only an emotion but is also an act of the will. [It is as if we say to Jesus], I may not have much, but what I have . . . and what I am . . . are yours. Use me to heal the hurting and help the helpless. Here are my bread and fish. I sacrifice them to feed a hungry world."

The world is indeed hungry. It is hungry for meaning, for purpose, for direction; and, yes, much of it is also hungry for food. We are so blessed by God. We have meaning, purpose, direction, and food. May our hearts and our spirits fill so full with the joy of those blessings that we give and give generously to the glory of our God. "For all that you’ve done, I will thank you!"

Now I want to share with you a story told by Eddie Ogen. I have shared this story before, but it is one of my favorites. It helps me remember how rich we are because of Jesus.

I’ll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. We thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s electric bill.

Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible and both of us baby-sat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.

That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we’d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom & Darlene. We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn’t care that we wouldn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn’t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn’t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes and I felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn’t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn’t talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night. We had two knives that we passed around to whomever needed them. I knew we didn’t have a lot of other things that other people had, but I’d never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn’t like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed––I didn’t even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor.

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at the time.

We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much.

Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor. We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn’t talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.

At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene, Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some very rich people in this church." Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary said so?

From that day on, I’ve never been poor again. I’ve always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

We are rich because of Jesus. May our hearts be stirred to offer ourselves and all that we have to God because of the rich blessings that have been poured down upon us.

Jesus offers the riches of His grace to you this morning. If you have never accepted those riches we want you to do so this morning. Please repent of your sins; please confess Jesus as Savior and Lord; please submit to the saving power of God by being buried with Christ in baptism. Please come now as we stand and sing.