This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day three of week eight of our look through the book of Exodus.
Chapter 38, just a few chapters to go. This week we're walking through these
principles of freedom we've learned throughout the book.

And today I want to focus on one of the most powerful principles of freedom that
you learn in Exodus. That principle we looked at in chapter after chapter. One
of the principles of freedom is I must come face to face with my biggest
obstacle.

You don't become free by ignoring the biggest obstacle, you become free by
becoming face to face with the biggest obstacle and putting faith in God in
light of that. And as we walk through the book of Exodus, we found that as you
come face to face with your biggest obstacle, there are going to be certain
barriers that we all face. There's the barrier of intensification.

It seems to get worse before it gets better. There's the barrier of doubt.
You're not sure you can trust God with this one.

There's a barrier of confusion. God's working but you're not at all sure what
he's doing and he's certainly not doing it fast enough. There's the barrier of
the temptation to compromise, to settle for half the solution or a quarter of
the solution.

Not the faith solution but the me solution that looks a little like faith. Those
are the barriers. And maybe even now as we're coming to the end of this study,
God's been doing some great things in your life to set you free through this
study, but you're seeing some of those barriers in a fresh new way right now.

You see them again and again. They never go away. They're always going to be
there.

But the Lord's always there too. The opportunity to put faith in him is always
there also. So you put faith in him.

You trust in him. Now today, chapter 38, we're looking at what they made and
what they built. And in this chapter, they make an altar of burnt offering, they
make the bronze basin, they build the courtyards, but also in this chapter, down
in verse 21 to 31, we read about the value of what was given.

This is where we sort of get the report on the offering that was given and how
valuable it really was. So I'm going to read these verses and you're going to
have to stick with me through these particular verses. There's a lot of numbers
here, but I want to read these verses for a particular reason that we'll get to
after we've looked at them, beginning in verse 21.

These are the amounts of the materials used for the tabernacle. The tabernacle
of the testimony, which were recorded at Moses' command by the Levites under the
direction of Ithamar, son of Aaron, the priest. Bezalel, son of Uri, the son of
Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made everything the Lord commanded Moses.

With him was Oliab, son of Amisalek, of the tribe of Dan, a craftsman and a
designer, and an embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen.
The total amount of the gold from the wave offering used for all the work on the
sanctuary was 29 talents and 730 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel. The
silver obtained from those of the community who were counted in the census was
100 talents and 1,775 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel.

One beka per person, that is half a shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel,
from everyone who had crossed over to those counted 20 years or more, a total of
603,550 men. The 100 talents of silver were used to cast the bases for the
sanctuary and for the curtain. 100 bases for the 100 talents, one talent for
each base.

They used the 1,775 shekels to make the hooks for the posts, to overlay the tops
for the posts and to make their bands. The bronze from the wave offering was 70
talents and 2,400 shekels. They used it to make the bases for the entrance to
the tent of the meeting, the bronze altar with its bronze grating and all its
utensils, the bases for the surrounding courtyard and those for its entrance and
all the tent pegs for the tabernacle and those for the surrounding courtyard.

Wow. You read through this chapter and you realize this is a bookkeeper's
chapter. If you're a bookkeeper, you love this chapter.

We go through this list of the value of everything that was given. Now, let me
give you a sense of that if this offering were given today. I realize the days
were different and the values are different, but if this offering were given
today, somewhat of a sense of the value of what was given.

The gold that was given, 29 talents, 730 shekels, 2,200 pounds that would be in
the weights and measures if we've got it about right. That would be about, in
today's value, $56 million in gold that was given. $56 million given for this
offering.

The silver that was given was 100 talents, 1,775 shekels, that's about 7,500
pounds in today's weight. That would be about 4. 7 million that was given just
in silver.

And the bronze, the bronze was 70 talents and 2,400 shekels, that's about 5,300
pounds. Today's approximate value of that would be about $1,000 to $2,000 in
bronze. Now with those numbers, there's something shocking here.

The bronze may have been the greatest gift that was given. Not the gold at $56
million or the silver at $4. 7 million, but the bronze at $1,000 to $2,000.

Now why do I say that? I want you to see the source of that gift of the bronze.
In verse 8, "They made the bronze basin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of
the women who served at the entrance to the tent of the meeting.

" They made the bronze basin and stand. Part of what was made out of bronze, not
this whole offering, but part of the offering was made from the mirrors of the
women who served at the entrance to the tent of the meeting. What an offering.

They took their mirror, that thing that they used every single day of their
lives to make sure they looked okay, to make sure their day was going to be okay
because no one would look at them and their hair would be out of place. They
took of those mirrors, in that day a polished bronze would be what you would use
for a mirror, and that's what they gave for the offering. The women gave their
mirrors.

There is something very moving about that. They gave something of everyday
importance to them for the greater glory of God. What an offering.

You see, sometimes the most valuable offerings aren't counted in dollars,
they're counted in sacrifice. They made a sacrifice. They gave an offering that
was of everyday importance to them for the greater glory of God.

They also looked less at themselves and more at what they could give to God by
giving this offering. As long as I look more at myself, I'm going to give less
to God. Focus on myself.

All I can see are my needs, and my needs look like they're getting higher and
higher and greater and greater, and so I'd love to give to God, but I can't, so
I give less to him. But when I begin to look less at myself, then I begin to
give more to God. I realize, yes, I do have needs, but as I look less at myself,
I see the needs of others.

I see how I can meet those needs of others, and so I give more to God. So these
women, they gave something of everyday importance to them for the greater glory
of God. They looked less at themselves, and so they were able to give more to
God.

This chapter, as I said, it's a bookkeeper's chapter, and it's a bookkeeper's
chapter because they wrote down a number. Why did they write down a number?
Certainly not because they were prideful.

In fact, Moses commanded them to write down these numbers. They wrote down these
numbers because the numbers represented a commitment. You see, we can use
numbers in two ways in our lives.

We can use numbers to measure and compare ourselves with others to make
ourselves more and more prideful because I gave more time than you or I gave
more money than you or more sacrifice than you. We can use them that way, or we
can use numbers just for ourselves to represent our commitment, to help us to
see, am I growing? Am I changing?

Now, in your life, when you look at numbers, what numbers represent your
commitment? Well, there's a lot of things that we could say, but let's bring it
down to two today, your money and your minutes. The way that you spend your
money, the way that you spend your minutes represents your commitment to God.

If you look at any person, you look at their checkbook, you look at their budget
book, the way that they budget their money represents your commitment to God.
How you're giving to God? How you're giving to others?

Same is true of your minutes. The way that you budget your minutes, the way that
you use your day, represents whether you're serving yourself or you're serving
others. So as you look at the way that you spend your money, as you look at the
way that you spend your minutes.

The question I have for me and for you is, are you growing in commitment? Are
you growing in commitment? Are you just staying the same?

Or have you never really started? Or maybe have you seen yourself get to that
point that so many believers get to where you start to lag in your commitment?
You see you look at the way that you spend, you count the way that you spend
money and time, not for pride but for growth.

Not to brag at what's going on in your life but to be able to focus on God in a
new and fresh way. So in prayer today, just for a few moments, I'd like us to
consider together our commitment to Him. Lord, today we may not be able to add
up like they did the exact amount of money or exact amount of minutes in this
moment especially, but I pray first that we'd be willing to, not as a matter of
pride but as a willingness to evaluate.

Evaluate our own growth, evaluate our own commitment, and then as we evaluate
it, Lord, give us an honesty of heart before you. It says I want to grow, I want
to change, so that Lord, the minutes of our day and the money you put into our
hands can be spent in the ways that bring you honor and glory. Help us to
evaluate for the purpose of us growing to be more like you.

Help us to evaluate for the purpose of us looking to you for the strength that
we need. We ask for it right now. We pray that if there's some challenge, I pray
if there's some challenge going on in our hearts about the way we're spending
our time, the way we're spending our money, that Lord, instead of pushing back
against you on that, we'd invite you in.

And we just say to you right now, Lord, show us what to do. Show us the next
step to take. Help us to see the step of faith we can take today.

We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Tomorrow, we look together at the value of
doing what you hear.