1 Chr. 21:21-24 – ‘…As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out from the threshing floor and prostrated himself before David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to the LORD; for the full price you shall give it to me, that the plague may be restrained from the people.”
Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself; and let my Lord the king do what is good in his sight. See, I will give the oxen for burnt offerings and the threshing sledges for wood and the wheat for the grain offering; I will give it all.”
But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.”‘ (NASB)
It is with welling shame that I write this, for I feel guilty of the very topic I am about to address. Nonetheless, I am told that preachers preach sermons first and foremost to their own souls before any congregation; likewise, I believe we are not exempt from the advice we give to others (Rom. 2:17-22), and I have heard someone say, “The truth still has to go forth; we just have to stop the hypocrisy.”
Over the course of my Bible reading, I came across the gripping passage above. It is something I would probably have overlooked normally, but the end of the passage is what stood out to me, like God was calling me into class for yet another lesson.
In the passage, a lot has happened, but what I want to draw your attention to is that King David had been called to do some service to the LORD, and he needed the piece of land that one of his subjects owned. This subject of his, Ornan, out of his respect for the king and the fear of the LORD, would gladly give him the piece of land and all that David required to fulfill his called service. However, it is the king’s reply that struck me:
“…I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.” (1 Chr. 21:24b, NASB, emphasis added)
Not Just Going Through the Motions
The owner of the land willingly offered it to David, even though he said he would buy it. Now, David could have gladly taken Ornan up on his offer, and fulfilled what he was called to do. However, his heart was more concerned with worship than form. He knew it wasn’t simply about the actual action, but rather it was about an attitude that was dedicated to the LORD and His call.
I am often guilty of prioritizing actions over motives; as long as the ‘right’ thing is done, it is good enough, right?
No.
Over time, we have been blessed to receive the fulfilled revelation of God’s heart since receiving His Son, Jesus Christ. And one of the things that has been made evident is that the outward expressions of faith and worship God requires are always expected to be an outflow of an inward reality—from circumcision in the OT (Rom. 2:28-29), baptism in the NT (1 Pet. 3:21), to simple acts of praise (Isa. 29:13), morality (Matt. 5:43-48), or generosity (Matt. 6:1-4); they are right things that become righteous things when fuelled with hearts of faith in worship, and likewise, are admirable things that become detestable things when fuelled by self-righteousness.
What this means is that if our service to God begins and ends outwardly, then we have missed the point.
The Reasonable Worship of a Believer
Simply put, David was not prepared to offer to God anything that wasn’t a sacrifice on his part. Giving to God the choicest of the livestock, without blemish, was one of the statutes laid out by God in sacrificial worship. Ultimately, this was a foreshadowing of the spotless Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29; Heb. 9:12-14). However, I also believe that among the other lessons this was to teach the nation of Israel, it called for a giving up of something in order to commune with God.
The Bible teaches us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6), and that we will find Him if we search for Him with all of our heart (Jer. 29:13). This diligence and commitment of our hearts demands placing our main affections on Him—counting no cost too great, no price too steep, no sacrifice too demanding, no moment of time lost, all for the sake of drawing nearer to Him. Among other things, this forces us to weigh our desire for Him over our desires for other things. Like Jesus warns, whoever would be His disciple must first count the cost, lest he finds the path too steep and the way too thorny and the desperation for God’s grace too dependent for him (Luke 14:26-33). If we would not sell all we own to receive a treasure we find more valuable than all we own, then one would have to conclude that it is either that the treasure is not as valuable as first thought, or we do not desire said treasure as much as we thought.
The Application
I am not implying a blanket notion for all that you do for God, or that fun cannot be had in service to God. I am not suggesting that unless you struggle to make ends meet or become homeless or go hungry then you are not really serving God. What I am trying to encourage is a right attitude and a worshipful heart from which all you do as a believer unto God flows. Along with revelling in who God is and all He has done, our worship should also be a dying to self; a desire to decrease that we might see Him increase in all.
If you are a believer, today I would challenge you (along with myself) to give unto God your choicest, and not the crumbs from your life. Let us not be satisfied with form, but with the spirit of faith and worship. Let us count the cost and pay the price in full, for Christ Jesus paid for us the price we could never pay (1 Pet. 2:21-24). Besides, what do you have that wasn’t given by Him anyway? (1 Cor. 4:7)
If you are not a believer, then I would encourage you to seek the Lord today. If you live your life based on your own merit and believe that you will be fine as long as your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, I tell you now that no other merit saves your soul except that of Jesus Christ, so turn to Him and be saved, that any good works you do will not be a testament to yourself, but rather to the grace and glory of God. (Phil. 3:7-11)
‘O not for Thee my weak desires,
My poorer, baser part!
O not for Thee my fading fires,
The ashes of my heart!
O choose me in my golden time,
In my dear joys have part!
For Thee the glory of my prime,
The fulness of my heart!’ – Thomas H. Gill, ’Lord, in the Fulness of My Might’
