“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)
There is a pulse of freedom that beats in every human heart. We weren’t made for slavery. And yet so many find themselves there. And I don’t just mean physical slavery. People are trapped by all sorts of different things…often in ways they don’t even realize or understand. And yet we know inside that something is keeping us from being able to do what we want. Then Jesus comes along promising freedom. Freedom comes with truth, but that idea comes with context. Let’s talk about it.
If you have a problem at work that you need help solving, you don’t go to the lowest employee on the org chart. You go to the person who has the most power and authority you can get on your side. And, when you have that person firmly on your side, the size and scope of the problem aren’t nearly as intimidating as they were before you secured their support. When we look at the world around us, it’s hard not to be completely overwhelmed by the problems we see. Sometimes it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the problems just in our own lives. There’s a solution for this. When Habakkuk was feeling overwhelmed by the problems he was facing, he prayed and came away with a new perspective that was up to the task. Let’s talk about what he learned and what we can learn from him in this third part of our teaching series, Asking God Hard Questions.
God Is Big Enough
So, I was watching the Chiefs play the other night, and Mahomes was running from a defender who looked to be about three times his size and absolutely intent on sacking him. Now, Mahomes has been there a lot over his career, and has a remarkable knack for getting out of those kinds of situations unscathed. Mahomes ran out of the pocket and back about 10 yards toward the sideline. Then, just when it looked like he was going to get caught and brought down hard for a rather devastating sack…he was. Rather than throwing the ball away like he should have so we didn’t get hit with a huge loss on the play, he just held onto it and got tackled while he was all by himself. There wasn’t another Chief’s player within 10 yards of him. That meant there were lots of available guys in whose direction he could have thrown the ball just to throw it away and avoid the loss. But he didn’t. He just let himself get sacked. Meanwhile, I’m busy hollering at the screen, “Throw the ball!”
“So all the work for the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was finished. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses. . . .The Israelites had done all the work according to everything the Lord had commanded Moses. Moses inspected all the work they had accomplished. They had done just as the Lord commanded. Then Moses blessed them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
There’s an old saying that goes like this: Practice makes perfect. It sounds good, but it’s not really true in that form. A more accurate rendering would be this: Practice makes permanent. If you do something enough times, you will always do it that way. But if you don’t do it quite correctly all of those times, you will always do it wrongly. In order for practice to make perfect, it has to be evaluated. Once the tabernacle construction was complete, it came time to evaluate what they had done. Let’s take a look at how this process unfolded.
“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.
“Then Moses said to the entire Israelite community, “This is what the Lord has commanded: Take up an offering among you for the Lord. Let everyone whose heart is willing bring this as the Lord’s offering. . .Then the entire Israelite community left Moses’s presence. Everyone whose heart was moved and whose spirit prompted him came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its services, and for the holy garments. . .So the Israelites brought a freewill offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts prompted them to bring something for all the work that the Lord, through Moses, had commanded to be done.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
How is God’s work accomplished? The answer is in all kinds of ways, but there are two basic categories into which all of these different ways can be sorted. The first category is when God does His own work by Himself. Creation would be an example of this kind of work. No one helped Him with that. It was all God from start to finish. Salvation also falls into this category. The second category is when God does His work through us. This is a much larger category because it’s how God usually works. We see this kind of work happening as Moses finally calls the people to begin the actual construction of the tabernacle. Let’s explore what’s going on here.
The Nexus 