All to Jesus

1^st Chronicles 29:10-19; Romans 8:5-14

Rev. Chris Harbin, Rocks Baptist Church—Pamplin, VA

24 July 2005

A little boy walked into a store with his family one day and read the banner across the back wall. “Entire store, 50% off.” His question was simple, “How much does the store cost?” The question caught the clerk off guard. No one had pointed out that the sign did not mean what it said. The clerk had given no thought to the sing, just reinterpreted it in light of the standard way they did business, selling items piece by piece with no thought of the whole. How much is everything?

When David received answer that Yahweh did not want him to build a temple, David found some comfort in the fact that Solomon would be allowed to build it. David began making preparations for the construction of the temple, gathering materials that would be necessary. As King of Israel, David collected precious metals and stones for the ornamentation of the building. Then he took of his personal wealth and made an offering as well. David’s personal gift was over 100 tons of gold and more than twice that in silver. At David’s challenge and example of giving, the leaders of the people matched David’s generosity, more than doubling the gift.

They brought together a lot of wealth. They rejoiced at the success of their giving and applauded themselves for their generosity. The people were happy with the example of David and their leaders. Then David spoke to God in prayer and placed it all in perspective. It all belonged to God, anyway.

David remembered that it was Yahweh who had called a nomadic people to this land. David recalled how the only way they were able to give was because of God’s bountiful blessings upon them. While it was a great deal of wealth, it was not really theirs to give. They were simply returning a token of what God had provided and already belonged to God.

In an agricultural and pastoral context, perhaps dependence upon God is an easier concept than in the industrial and informational context in which we live. We do not seem quite as directly dependent on God when our sense of security stems from paychecks, contracts, and technologies that allow us to water plants with water from a well. We do well not to overlook that David’s prayer was also a reminder to the nation experiencing a new level of wealth to trust God, rather than their stores.

Our tendency is to look to God’s provision somehow as a supplement to the normal ways of taking care of our needs. The philosophy of the industrial age was a growing sense of “I can make it happen—we can control our environment.” Indeed, we have learned much. We can control the temperature within our buildings and cars, but we still can’t call down rain. We can develop medicines to treat all nature of ills, but we are still discovering the complications of their side effects. We want to be in control of life, but it still overwhelms us like Japanese beetles on ripening fruit.

At heart, we still struggle with understanding the call to submission. The very word clashes with the terms liberty and freedom that we hold so dear. David’s words would remind us that submission to God brings freedom, liberty, and the blessing of God’s provision. Paul’s words are different, but they strike a similar chord. Submission to Christ brings us a new character of living. This is no addition to our natural way of living. Its character is wholly new.

In writing to the Roman believers, Paul has taken as his main theme that of the difference between law and grace. While the Hebrew term for law really means instruction, Paul concerns himself with its focus on cataloging actions. He shows us that measuring actions will get us nowhere, as we all fall short of the mark. Rather than a system of measuring the quality of our actions, Paul takes us to the inner sanctum of a relationship with God. Paul calls this relationship of trust and confidence faith. He reminds us that faith is not the product of deeds, but is made possible by the grace of God.

In the chapter we read this morning, Paul would remind us that grace frees us from slavery to a nature of rebellion. That spirit of the industrial age has done many wonderful things for humanity. It has provided many technologies that aid our comfort, health, productivity, and quality of life. Inherent to that spirit of industry, however, is a spirit of struggle against constraint. The principles of this spirit are contrary to a life of pleasing God, for it is a struggle against submission of any kind. At its worst, we call it rebellion. Where God enters the picture, this nature fights against recognizing our dependence on and the propriety of submitting our lives before God.

This fierce spirit of independence is akin to what Paul calls the sinful nature. The law spoke of restraining it by creating a code of acceptable behavior. The ongoing struggle against restraint, however, forces the box at every point. We can restrain and catalogue and punish, but we have no recourse to peer into the intent of the heart and by legal reform address one’s intent. The force of law can intimidate and instruct, thereby hoping to redirect the actions of a society. It can grant clemency and pardon, but it has no power to alter the inner struggle against submission.

Grace is not simply a remedy applied to an existing structure. Grace is not like a system of pardons for rebels against divine standards. Grace is rather the invitation to a new relationship with God. It is not a patch that somehow overlooks the ills of human nature and smoothes everything over. It is the invitation to submit to a wholly new nature.

Paul contrasts our old nature as a lifeless body due to sin, while the spirit is life due to righteousness. He does not compare a dead body to a living body. He compares what is lifeless to life itself. Some of our translations don’t do justice here, but the Greek contrasts the adjective lifeless to the noun life. The lifeless body is incomplete and useless without life. Grace then, becomes the means of possibility. Its nature is to enable and empower.

The first issue it enables us to overcome is that issue of submission. Grace allows us to recognize that we are insufficient to direct our own lives. They are not really our lives, anyway. As David noted long before, all that we have and are already belongs to God. The only reason we can give them to God is that we first received them. Perhaps David had some kind of handle on grace. He saw that God was faithful to bless his own life and that of the nation.

David’s gift was a gift made in confidence. He knew that all he had received had come from God. What did he really stand to lose by returning even a large portion of it? Would God then become less faithful? Paul reminds us that grace and faith exist that we might live as the children of God. Do we have David’s confidence in returning such a large gift to God? Do we have the courage to give God our all? Do we still struggle with rebellion and submission? When we say we submit our lives completely to Christ Jesus, do we mean the entire store? Life is in the balance.

—©Copyright 2005 Christopher B. Harbin

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