This was my first ever offering preaching which I spent much effort to understand where God wants me or rather the church to position the thoughts about "Giving" Think I'll just put it here and share with all of you. I didn't think it all myself as I've gotten the fish bone structure of it from a CHC sharing that influenced me.

The Altar on the Threshing Floor

18 And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David, according to the word of Gad, went up as the LORD commanded. 20 Now Araunah looked, and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. So Araunah went out and bowed before the king with his face to the ground.
21 Then Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
And David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people.”
22 Now Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood. 23 All these, O king, Araunah has given to the king.”
And Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.”
24 Then the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25 And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.

Here there is an interesting conclusion to this chapter.

Here in this conclusion, God told King David to go to the threshing floors of Araunah and to worship over there.

So King David went to the threshing floors of Araunah. Can you imagine the King, the King of Israel coming to your house? What could Araunah do? Araunah bow down on face and begin to pay compliments to the King.

And Araunah ask the King why have you come to my place?

And King David replied that I am here to worship God, I am here to build an altar for God.

Then Araunah says you know what King, I will give you my threshing floor and I have oxens as well take as many as you need because you are the King. Wait you know what, I am going to put all these in one encompassing package for you because I love you as King, I would even provide the wood for your offering.

And you know what, David took look at this whole thing, he look at this whole entire package that Araunah provided for him.

David was given an offer to worship God at a discount. In fact David was given an offer to worship God for free!

[Service oriented society example]

You know what David refuse this discount, he refuse this free package and made this statement in v24

“No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.”

Friends, this afternoon when you came to this place, you have the ushers to serve you to your seat.

Just now you had the worship team, the musicians and the vocalists to help you and serve you in your worship.

In a few moments time, we have our Senior Pastor to come to the pulpit to serve you the Word of God.

Really the offering time is the only time where you can give something to God out of your own as a sacrifice.

That’s why in our offering, we want to get it right from this week onwards.

Let us not come and offer to God at a discount

Let us not come and offer to God something for free

Let it be something that cost you

Let it be a true sacrifice

You see the beautiful part of this story is that on this piece of threshing floor, eventually the temple of God was built.

Friends, if you read throughout the bible, God always builds on the sacrifices of His people.

When God’s people would learn to sacrifice, God will say I will build on that, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.