FBC Daily Devotional – February 4, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good morning to you, a good Friday morning, last day of our work week, I assume, for most of us anyway, and looking forward to the weekend and gathering together on the

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Lord's Day. Lord willing, we'll be doing that and this Lord's Day be enjoying fellowship together with one another as well as gathering around the

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Lord's table and reminding ourselves of what our Savior has done for us and the cross as we share in those communion elements on Sunday.

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I hope you can make it Sunday, Bible study at 1030 or 930 in the morning, then a morning service at 1030.

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And then we do a lunch after the morning service and then at one o 'clock an afternoon service.

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So you make these services on the Lord's Day. I hope you will. Well, today, again, we're back in First Chronicles, chapters 28 and 29, and just want to point out three simple ideas from this passage of scripture.

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One of them is, just think how encouraging and helpful it is to know that what the

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Lord has chosen me and called me to do, I can be strong and confident in the doing of it.

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And we get that in verses six and seven of chapter 28. Listen to what David says to his son.

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He says, now, he, the Lord said to me, it is your son, Solomon, who shall build my house and my courts for I have chosen him to be my son and I will be his father.

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Now, imagine that you're Solomon and you're hearing this, that the

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Lord has chosen me to build this house. The Lord has chosen me to be his son.

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And he says, moreover, I will establish his kingdom forever if he is steadfast to observe my commandments and my judgments as it is this day.

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So what an encouraging, helpful thing this would be for Solomon to hear his father say that God's told me

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Solomon is to do this, Solomon is to build this house, Solomon is to be the king, and his line of rule will reign forever.

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How encouraging that is. And yet, here's an important thing. Even though it's encouraging to know what

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God's chosen me to do and called me to do, that I can do it with confidence and be strong in the doing of it,

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I nevertheless can't presume upon the Lord and I still need to pursue his word, pursue him and to pursue his ways.

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This comes out in verses 9 and 10. So David turns his attention to Solomon and he says, consider now, for the

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Lord has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary. Be strong and do it. You can be strong and do it because God's chosen you to do it.

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But David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule and so forth.

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But he also said to him earlier in verse 9, as for you, my son Solomon, know the

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God of your father, know him and serve him with a loyal heart and a willing mind.

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For the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intents of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found of you.

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But if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever. Yes, my son,

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David's saying to Solomon, God has chosen you for this task, but that doesn't mean you can ignore him.

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It doesn't mean you can presume upon his grace. You need to pursue him, seek him, know him and walk in his ways.

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Well, the second thing I wanted to point out is that it seems, this seems to be a good principle to get into our minds, that behind every individual who gets credit for some great thing, there are a whole bunch of other people behind it that made him successful.

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And this comes out in chapter 28, verses 11 to 19. Because David says to Solomon, his son, it says

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David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule. David gave to Solomon the plans for this temple that Solomon was to build.

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And he also points out in verse 14 and following that David gave gold by the weight of things for gold and silver for things of silver and so on and so forth.

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He gave all of these materials. David had been accumulating the materials necessary for the building of this temple for years.

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And he was passing all of this on to Solomon. And then in verse 19, it says this, all this said

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David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me all the works of these plans.

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So behind the success of Solomon and the credit that he gets for the building of the temple,

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David is the one who received the plans and he received them by divine inspiration, if you will, because verse 19 says the

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Lord made me understand in writing how this was to be done, the works of these plans.

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So David received the plans for this temple and David provided all this material for Solomon to do the work.

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So remember that when you see people getting accolades, being applauded for success that they achieve and so forth, they have a whole lot of people behind them, supporting them, enabling them to be successful.

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And then a third point that we see in this passage is that people who truly love the

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Lord and love his work will rejoice to give willingly to a worthwhile endeavor.

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You see this in chapter 29, verse 9, as the temple is needing to be built and David has provided a lot of materials, but there's a lot more that needs to be accumulated.

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And verse 9 says, then the people rejoiced for they had offered willingly because with a loyal heart, they had offered willingly to the

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Lord. And King David also rejoiced greatly. You get the, you get the emotion behind this.

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People rejoiced at the opportunity to give to this work.

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What's your attitude about giving to the Lord's work? That's really something for us to seriously think about, isn't it?

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I've known many Christians through the years, professing believers in Christ who gave very little, very little to the work of the

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Lord. And I've known others who gave, but they gave so that they might be seen.

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They wanted to be credited. They wanted the accolades for it all. But then

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I've known most of the people in the ministry where I've served, ministries where I've served, most of the people who give,

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I have no idea what they give. I know some people give just because I see their actions.

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I see as they put something in the offering plate or, you know, now in our church, we have an offering box. You know, people walk in and they put something in the offering box, but I have no idea how much they give and so forth.

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And they just do it. They just do it faithfully. And I, I'm, I'm assuming that there's a sense of gladness in the opportunity to give.

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This should be the attitude of our heart. And listen to Solomon as he expresses the attitude every one of us who are followers of Jesus ought to have as we give to the work of the

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Lord. Solomon asked this question, he says, but who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer so willingly as this for all things come from you and of your own we have given you for we are aliens and pilgrims before you as we're all our fathers, our days on earth are a shadow and without hope, everything that we have,

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Solomon says, we got it from you and we're giving you what is yours.

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We're not giving what is ours. We're giving back to you what is yours. This should be the attitude of our heart and, and the humility that says, who am

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I that you and your grace would allow me this privilege, this blessing, this benefit of being able to offer so willingly to you.

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What a sense of joy in giving. I hope that's ours. As you gather together on the

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Lord's day, meeting at God's house, and there's an opportunity to give to the work of the

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Lord, I trust you'll do so rejoicing in the privilege, the privilege to support the work of the

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Lord. May God give us the grace to do that. So our Father and our God, we do thank you for these challenges from Chronicles today.

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We realize, oh Lord, that we have all our responsibilities that you've been, you've given to us, you've called us to our callings.

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I pray that we would do what you've given us to do with our might, do so confidently, but without presuming upon you.

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And Lord, we thank you for the privilege of giving. May we do so with rejoicing, because you have enabled us, provided for us, benefits from your hand that allow us then to turn around and give them back to you for your work.

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Bless us as we do that. With that spirit, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well have a wonderful weekend.

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I trust God will bless you in it, especially on the Lord's Day as you meet with God's people. Good day.