“So Moses summoned Bezalel, Oholiab, and every skilled person in whose heart the Lord had placed wisdom, all those hearts moved them, to come to the work and do it. They took from Moses’s presence all the contributions that the Israelites had brought for the task of making the sanctuary. Meanwhile, the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. Then all the artisans who were doing all the work for the sanctuary came one by one from the work they were doing and said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing more than is needed for the construction of the work the Lord commanded to be done.’ After Moses gave an order, they sent a proclamation throughout the camp: ‘Let no man or woman make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.’ So the people stopped. The materials were sufficient for them to do all the work. There was more than enough.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things you have to learn as a parent is that you can’t do everything for your kids. Some parents learn that lesson better than others. You can typically tell which parents are which by looking at their kids. If you do everything for your kids, they won’t learn to do anything for themselves. They won’t learn to take ownership of things and make their own responsible, informed decisions. They won’t gain the satisfaction of contributing meaningfully to a project, of working hard and seeing the fruits of their labors. When God commanded the building of the tabernacle, He could have just plunked it down in the middle of camp fully completed. But He didn’t. He brought the people in on the project. And, to their credit, they responded. Let’s talk about what we see here and how God still works today.

It was finally time to get started on the building of the tabernacle. Tomorrow is going to be a bit of a different post as we are going to cover the entire description of the building process in one sitting. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to read it. I’m kidding. As I noted last week, we are going to treat it in summary fashion, covering most of four long chapters all at once with links back to their parallel passages where we walked through the various parts and pieces in chapters 26-30 when God was giving Moses the instructions for everything. The construction narrative is almost word-for-word the same as the instruction narrative except that instead of, “God told Moses,” each section begins with a version of, “and Bezalel and Oholiab built…”

Bringing our attention back to the task at hand, there are just a couple of highlights here to which I’d like to draw your attention, and then I have a neat story to connect some dots for us. For starters, this was an all-volunteer effort. No one was being paid or forced to do this. Most of God’s best kingdom work happens that way. God wants willing servants, not preprogrammed automatons.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we should only look to have big projects for the kingdom done as volunteer efforts. When we start building our new building and renovating our old building soon, while I would love to find some builders who were willing to volunteer their time and expertise, I would be lying if I said I was counting on that happening. But the funds for the project are going to come from people who have volunteered freely to give them. No one has to be involved in the project.

True religion is always free from coercion. Oh, there are plenty of false versions that are loaded with it, but none of those are accurately reflective of what God calls people into as citizens of His kingdom. Moses has gone out of his way in this part of the narrative to emphasize the fact that the people of Israel gave to the project freely. No one was compelled or coerced. Even here in v. 3 we see the emphasis again. The people “continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning.”

The second thing to be sure to see here is that Moses had to tell the people to stop giving. They were so faithful in their response that the artisans doing the work had to ask Moses to put a stop to the donations. There was more than they needed, and they didn’t want any of it to go to waste. So, Moses gave the command: “Let no man or woman make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.”

That’s a little hard to imagine. The people were so abundantly faithful and generous in their response that there was more than enough for the task they were seeking to accomplish. There are a couple of different ways to see this. One is cynical. The people really were being coerced by Moses the religious manipulator, and this whole offering was a giant exercise of guilt. That doesn’t match the actual evidence of the text of course, but that is one way of looking at things.

The other way to see this is as a God-inspired response. This is how God so often does His kingdom work. He motivates His people to great acts of faithfulness, and makes that faithful response more than enough to the task at hand. I’d use the word “miracle” here, but that’s probably an overextension of the word.

Instead, what I’m trying to describe here is in some ways better than a miracle. Instead of interrupting the normal operation of creation in order to accomplish what He wants to see happen, God works through its normal operation. He works through the generosity of people who have caught a vision for what He plans to accomplish. He works through the faithfulness of those who have been called to do great things. He takes what little we bring and makes it more than enough to do all that needs to be done.

A few weeks ago, Hurricane Helene devastated the mountainous region of Western North Carolina. The flooding was biblical in its proportion. The chaos it caused was in many ways beyond description. I’ve heard more than one person who had been there in person try to describe it, but you could tell as they did that they were trying to describe something that really went beyond description. People who had been to war torn regions of the world said that it was that bad.

Thousands of people lost everything. Houses were literally lifted from their foundations and carried downstream in creeks that had become raging rivers within a matter of hours. Everyone knew it was going to take billions of dollars and years’ worth of labor to even begin the recovery process.

Then the church arrived.

Almost as soon as the rains stopped falling, the church showed up in every way imaginable. The churches there that weren’t damaged by the storm (and even some that were) became shelters and distribution hubs for the supplies that started pouring in. Pastors became key community liaisons between the community and government officials who were trying to coordinate relief efforts. Churches in the eastern part of the state started sending supplies. Lots of supplies. This was right when the port strike happened too. You could which people at the store were believers and which weren’t by which ones were stocking up for themselves in case the strike went long, and which ones were filling up carts to send supplies to the mountains.

Last week, while I was at the Baptist State Convention, I stopped by the Baptists on Mission (BOM) booth. They’re the group leading the disaster relief and recovery efforts on the ground. In the immediate aftermath, they set up shop and were feed as many as 35,000 meals per day. They have short range plans to get 500 people back in their homes. The cost of each home typically ranges from $15-17,000. They have hopeful plans to expand that number to 1,000. If you would like to give toward that effort, you can find out how here.

In any event, I asked one of the team leaders what physical things they still need up in the mountains that I could invite people to donate to send up there. His answer: nothing. They’ve gotten so much stuff donated that the immediate need for basic household supplies has been satisfied as far as they are aware of it (and they are pretty well connected with the folks on the ground who are most in the know). Followers of Jesus have given so faithfully and generously, that they don’t need more stuff. They’ve asked for those kinds of donations to stop so they don’t get overrun.

That’s still how God does His best kingdom-advancing work. He does it through the faithfulness and generosity of His people as they pray for His help and take the action He has already directed them to take; as they seek to love like Jesus did with a sacrificial and generous love. I heard one story about a woman who had come to one of the churches up there for help. When asked what she needed, she said her family’s basic hygiene needs were met, but they really needed a generator. The BOM volunteer she was speaking with knew they had just given away their last generator and was preparing to break the news to her gently. Guess what pulled in as he was starting to do that? A truck full of generators, ready to be given out to whoever needed them.

That’s how God does it. He did then. He still does today. You really should consider following Him if you aren’t.