sermonette: Sacrifice and Offering

Offeratory
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 16-Sep-02; Sermon #577s; 22 minutes

Description: (show)

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Thank you, Bill. Good afternoon to all of you. Only 5 more hours. We'll try to make the next 2 go fairly quickly. Usually when you're studying God's word, that's what happens. In a way, you know, it's still hard to believe, at least it is to me, that we are living in the 21st century. You know, I spent most of my life in the 20th century, and I guess old habits are hard to break. Even though it's been 2 years since The turn of the century has passed. I still find myself occasionally wanting to write 1990 something on it. Uh, like I said, old habits are, are hard to die there. Maybe I'm just living in the past. I, I'm not exactly sure, but I still every once in a while think, wow, I write 20, you know, 02 on there, and it's just seems so strange, you know, we thought, well, how many years ago that we'd be in the kingdom by this time. But now we are in the first few years of the 21st century and uh. That's not all bad. It has its benefits living in this time. Because we live, as Mr. Armstrong used to say, in a time of astounding progress. We live better than anybody has ever lived, even kings and prime ministers and emperors up to probably about 100 years ago. I mean, they lived in places without electricity, without real you know, good sewage good running water, hot and cold, you know, both flavors of water, um. You know, all these other things that we pretty much take for granted. That we have the you know, just at the flip of a switch or a turn of a faucet. We've got all these things going for us. Uh, you know, our day is one of plenty. No one really, especially in this country, needs to go to bed hungry, except unless you're fasting on the Day of Atonement. In fact, we, most of us probably go to bed too full. With all that food that we have available to us on our stomachs. Work is really not too hard to find for most of us if we really want it, and you know, we can go out and get it. We have toys and entertainments galore. Right, go to the store, go to Best Buy, and you can spend your whole wad on toys if you want them, or on entertainment or on, you know, whatever it is that you want. Just go into any store and there is shelves and shelves and shelves of things, manufactured products that You could just take if you've got the money, and many of us take them without having the money and decide to pay for them on credit. Over however many months it takes. Technology itself is leaping and bounding forward. Some of the things that we can do today were unheard of, undreamed. Just a few decades ago. You know, the late 1960s, Star Trek was on and they had these communicators that everybody thought was just so, you know, wonderful. Now we have them in our back pockets or front pockets or purses or what have you. They're called cell phones, and they are basically the same idea as the communicators in Star Trek were back in 1960, whatever that was, 1966, that was futuristic. Well, that wouldn't happen for another 100 years or so, and it did just a few years later, about in the mid 1980s when not cell phones, but portable phones began to become popular and usable. So Things in these days are easier, faster, more efficient, and more plentiful than just about any time in world history. We can, in this age pretty much have it all. If we are willing to work hard enough for it. Yet this kind of life has its downside too. One of the most obvious problems. When we have it all is that our perspective on things begins to get skewed. We do not look at life and situations that come up in our lives properly anymore because we think Money can solve it, or if we just have more of it or more time or whatever, we can solve any problem that we want. Probably the clearest example of this in the Bible is Deuteronomy, the 30 chapter verse 15, where God says there in a prophecy about Israel that Jeshuon grew fat and kicked, meaning rebelled from God's rule, or yeah, rebelled from God's rule, and then it says he forsook God who made him. Now that's a big downside to having it all. That there is this propensity in human beings that when we have plenty, when we have prosperity, we forget God. Because our lives and everything are so wrapped up in our things. In what we have For a Christian, especially. Plenty and ease is potentially dangerous to our spiritual lives, and I think that's probably the one reason why more of us aren't rich wealthy. We've got enough, but few of us have more than we need. Or a lot more than we need. So today I'd like to examine another drawback of abundance. And that is the decreased need to sacrifice. When you have it all, It's so easy I mean, it's so easy not to sacrifice because there is no need to sacrifice anymore because all the things that we ever need, we have. And I think in a time like this we need to think more and more about sacrifice. Not having to go without or to put ourselves out can leave a gaping hole. In our spiritual development. If we are not careful, let's begin in Psalm 40. Psalm 40 We'll, we will read verses 6 through 8. Psalm 40:6 says, sacrifice an offering you did not desire. Notice, you did not desire sacrifice and offering. My ears, you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. Then I said, Behold, I come in the scroll of the book, it is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh my God, and your law is within my heart. Now a very simple and superficial reading of this passage, and unfortunately that's probably the most common way of looking at this. People take this That take from this that we no longer need to make sacrifices. Now, the same could be said if you turn to page to page. If you want to, it's in my Bible, it's 6:55. It's probably easier to find it by Psalm 51, verse 17. It must be the effects of the fast, making my mind slow down or something. Psalm 51:17, where David says in this prayer of repentance, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken at a contrite heart. These, oh God, you will not despise. I should have read verse 16, for you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. You do not delight in bird offering. Actually, I should have read 16 instead of verse 17, but once again we have the problem with the vast happening and uh. My brain is brain cells are slowly decreasing and being used up as food or something. Anyway, from looking at this, one could think that sacrifice is no longer necessary. But they are, they are very much necessary. Let's go now to Mica 6. Mike is 66. There it is, after Jonah. Mica 66. And with what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Verse 8. He has shown you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy. And to walk humbly with your God. There is another Old Testament verse that seems to say that sacrifice is not really necessary. Now it's obvious that in all of these passages, The thing God is no longer looking for or requiring from us are animal sacrifices, and I think this one made it the most clear. He's not pleased with the deaths, deaths of thousands of rats. Because they aren't efficacious toward anything. They're a symbol, a type, but they cannot cleanse you from sin. And so the writers here go on and show each one of them in these in the Psalm, the two Psalms that we saw, and here in Mica, they go on to show that what God is really looking for are changes of heart, of mind, of character, so that we will be better people. Now What we see here is that the sacrifices are types, they are teaching tools, they are object lessons that look forward to a better, greater, more effective sacrifice. And one sacrifice that is so transcendent and spectacular above all the others. Let's go now to Hebrews the 10th chapter. Hebrews 10 We'll start in verse one. And we will allow Paul here, or the author of this book, I always think it's Paul. To explain What has happened here between the Old Testament need for sacrifice of an animal type to the New Testament. Anti-type of Christ's sacrifice and the other Christian sacrifices that that We are required to do verse one, for the law, having a shadow of the good things to come. Not the things that were done in the Old Testament are merely shadows of the good things that were to come, and we are going to read about an especially good thing here in the next few verses and not the very image of the things can never with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year make those who approach perfect. That was one of the proofs that shows that those sacrifices did not really mean anything. Because if you gave them year by year, it was showing that they really did not cleanse any sin. Verse 2, for them, would they not have ceased to be offered? There is your answer. For the worshipers once purged would have had no consciousness, no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sin, sins every year, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Therefore, when he came into the world, he in capital, says Jesus Christ, he said, sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do your will, oh God. Now Jesus here is saying through this Psalm that when he came, he came in a body that was going to be prepared as that was prepared as a sacrifice, and he then would by doing God's will perform that sacrifice. And by that sacrifice do away with the need for these other sacrifices. Verse 8, previously saying sacrifice and offering, burn offerings and offerings for sin you did not desire nor had pleasure in them which are offered according to the law. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will, oh God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. By that will, the first thing that he did was take away the sacrifices and offering, but the second thing that he came to establish was that he would do God's will, and those who follow him would then do God's will also. But that will, we have been and by that will, excuse me, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God from that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool, for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. So in this one bloody perfect sacrifice of himself, the need for animal animal sacrifices came to an end, but not the need for sacrifice. The animal sacrifices ended, but the need to sacrifice did not come to an end. Christ's offering of Himself fulfilled all those Old Testament sacrifices and offerings, but other kinds of sacrifices are still necessary in the process of building godly character. There is no way that we can do the will of God without sacrificing. It is impossible in this world. If Christ learned obedience and was made perfect through suffering and his sacrifices that he did throughout his entire life, then those who come after him and try to walk the same path as he walked will have to do the same. So our sacrifices are necessary. Let's quickly go to Ephesians 5. I'm slowly bringing this back to Our sacrifice Here today. Ephesians 5:1. Paul writes, therefore be followers of God as dear children. Imitate him and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. Now this touches on why sacrifice is so important. First, he says in verse 1, imitate God. And then He says, secondly, one of the ways we can do this is to follow Christ's example of love. It's the first part there in verse 2, and then he says, 3rd, Christ showed love toward us by giving His life and sacrifice. And then 4th, God took pleasure in it and accepted it. So what we see here is instruction. If you want to show love, you do it by performing sacrifice. And if you perform sacrifice for others, then God will be pleased and accepted, and pleasing God is our chief aim in life. As Jesus said in John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this than to lay down. One's life for his friends. The greatest love springs from sacrifice of ourselves. Giving to others of what we have. Let's go to Romans 12. Verse one, this is probably a memory scripture for some. Paul writes, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable acceptable to God, which is your reasonable or spiritual service. See, God no longer requires our death necessarily in sacrifice. He wants our life in sacrifice. He wants us to be continually giving of ourselves to others, especially to those of the household of faith, so that we can. Practice this way of love for one and grow in in God's character, but also so that others can be helped. And this is what is entirely reasonable for us to do since God has given His life for us. And so being his slaves, it is only fitting that we should be living sacrifices for him and for those who, those others that he has called. No. Let's go to Hebrews 13. Hebrews the 13th chapter. Verses 11 through 16. And Paul was talking about The sacrifice of Christ again. For those bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to Him outside the camp bearing his reproach, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore, by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. Now I came here because I wanted to show 3 types of sacrifices that he mentions here. The first is going outside the camp. That's tough having to leave. This world It is a sacrifice. We're sacrificing all those attractions, all those allurements that are out there. We might be sacrificing a job or sacrificing a position, sacrificing, I do not know, maybe even an inheritance. We sometimes have to sacrifice father, mother, sister, brother, you know, wife, aunt, uncle, cousins, you know, whatever it happens to be in order to come out of this world and go with Christ outside the camp and bear his reproach, to be called a Christian. That's a great sacrifice. And then there is the sacrifice of praise. We should do this every day, praising God and praying to him. And you know, giving us our time in prayer for others. And also To do good and to share. There are sacrifices that we make of our time and of our money that are necessary, and if we do these things in a proper attitude, God is very well pleased, he says here. Those are things that we can put into our lives and practice every day. But here we are on the Day of Atonement. And says in Deuteronomy 16:16 and 17. 3 times a year all your mail shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the feast of weeks, and at the feast of Tabernacles, and they shall not appear before the Lord empty handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessings of the Lord, blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you. Holy day offerings are also sacrifices. They are things that we give above and beyond. are tied. And other offerings that we might give. Sure they are required. But We were supposed to sacrifice in order to fulfill them. Your holy day offerings fit into several of these categories of sacrifice. By them we thank God for blessings. By them we do good for others in terms of proclaiming God's way. And giving to them By then we share our prosperity with others who have the need. Not just the widows and the Fatherless, but the Levites and those who are actually performing the work. And these sacrifices also prove our presence outside the camp. We're showing obedience to God in our doing them. And that we are willing to bear the consequences of obeying him. And doing the work or helping the work that he is accomplishing. They also remind us every holy day. That as Paul said in Romans 12:1, we have given ourselves to God as living sacrifices. So now we will take up an offering. Offering will be offering music will be played by Brian Wolf on the piano, and he's going to be playing his own composition, Reflections on the eighty-eighth Psalm.