God's Outrageous Love

Introduction: Who comes to mind when you think of the world’s wealthiest people? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Your great uncle? (Wouldn’t that be nice?) Forbes Magazine says that Bill Gates, the cofounder of the Microsoft Corporation has a net worth of approximately $66 billion dollars. Warren Buffet, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has a net worth of $46 billion dollars. That is more than you and I could make in hundred’s of lifetimes. Yet, the ten’s of billions of dollars that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are worth, doesn’t begin to match what one man in the Bible gave to the work God. Before he died, David, the second King of Israel, wanted with all of his heart to build a temple for God. For most of his 80 years, David had given his whole heart to God, and he begged God to let him build the temple. But God turned him down. And told David, you can’t build My temple, but your son, Solomon can build Me a temple. Not to be discouraged, David developed the architectural plans and began amassing building materials, so Solomon would have everything he needed to build the temple. Here are the instructions he gave to Solomon: 14“I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the LORD a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed, and wood and stone. And you may add to them. 15You have many workmen: stonecutters, masons and carpenters, as well as men skilled in every kind of work 16in gold and silver, bronze and iron—craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the work, and the LORD be with you.” 1 Chronicles 22:14-16 Lets put these quantities into modern terms, to give us some perspective on the size of David’s gift. A talent weighed about 70 pounds. That means that David gave roughly 3,750 tons of gold or about 7.5 million pounds. Multiply that by 16 to get the number of ounces, and as of Thursday of this week gold was selling for a low of $1,550 a troy ounce. So David’s gold donation alone was worth: $186 billion dollars. Add to that his 37,500 tons of silver worth today about 32 billion dollars and even without considering, the other materials given, you come up with an offering that three or four times larger than the entire fortune of one of today’s richest people. We don’t know how much David had left over after giving it, but his gift had to be one of the largest donations in the history of the world. What in the world would motivate such an extravagant gift? I believe it was David’s crystal clear recognition that every single thing – every shekel, every cow, every sandal, every fringe on his garment – had come to him from the hand of God, and it was only right to give back to him lavishly as a demonstration of his gratitude. #1. When We Get In Touch With Our Heavenly Father, We Become Extravagant In Our Response To God Because He Is Extravagant By Nature! A. When we think about the nature of God, ideas come to mind like: “God is Love,” and “God is Just,” and “God is Holy.” And they are all true! But we miss something by not recognizing the superlatives that go with each aspect of His nature. - A superlative expresses the highest degree of grammatical comparison of an adjective or adverb. It refers to something or somebody of the highest quality and the highest admiration. B. The angel in Isaiah’s vision cried, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!” It was an extreme exclamation. “Holy” by itself means that someone is already perfect, sinless, pure and righteous. C. But the angel felt compelled to shout it three times for emphasis. That is because God isn’t just kind of holy, or kind of loving, or kind of just. He is lavishly, abundantly, excessively, bountifully holy, loving and just in every part of his being. God is limitless. He is extravagant! #2. It Is This Extravagant Reality Of God That King David Got In Touch With. A. The closer we get to Jesus, the clearer God’s extravagance registers in our hearts and hopefully it flows up to our consciousness. B. Today, I want to call you to a radical, dramatic complete commitment to Jesus, in response to God’s immense love for you! C. Solomon got the message, at least for the first part of his life. His father’s over-the-top devotion to God captured the young King’s heart. D. So Solomon builds a beautiful temple for His extravagant God. When the temple is complete, Priests carry the Ark of the Covenant into the Holy of Holies, and a cloud fills the temple with God’s presence. Solomon offers a prayer of dedication and then: 63Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the LORD: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the LORD. 1 Kings 8:63 NIV E. I have a hard time grasping the significance of that moment. What are the sounds, smells and sights of sacrificing 142,000 animals in a colossal worship service? F. The Lord didn’t command Solomon to sacrifice so much. It was simply the overflow of hi