Why Christians don't Sacrifice, part 2

[0:00] Come on. There we go. Which way is on? If you'll open your Bibles to Leviticus chapters 1 through 7. Since we didn't read all seven chapters last week, we're going to go ahead and...

[0:15] If you have not been here for Leviticus, let me just give a little bit of review before we get rolling here this morning. It is interesting to me that the book of Leviticus really does answer the question.

[0:30] There is a question that's out there and it answers the question. And the question is, how can sinners, how can wicked sinners like us... And if that bothers you to be included in that group, then you've got a problem.

[0:40] But how can wicked sinners like us, like the Israelites, how could they ever approach a holy God? And Leviticus was the answer to that question for Israel.

[0:51] And it's the answer for us because it was foreshadowing Jesus Christ. And so when we look at Leviticus and see what they understood, what the lessons were that God was teaching them through these things, we get to get a greater glimpse of Christ and all that He has done.

[1:10] Now one of the things that I showed you last week was a picture of the tabernacle. And this is a replica of the tabernacle. And the most important thing in this picture to recognize is what's called the brazen altar.

[1:24] In the text, when we read it, often it is called the altar at the entrance of the tent of meeting. This is where the sacrifices were burned. This is where they would take them.

[1:34] They would sacrifice them off to the side. They would take the animal, the parts that they needed to, and they would put it upon the brazen altar and they would burn it. Sometimes it is just the priest doing the daily, evening, morning rituals of this.

[1:49] And sometimes it was worshipers coming at particular times because of their conscience or because it was a feast day. There's all kinds of reasons you'd be coming. But when they would sacrifice these sacrifices, they would do it here.

[2:04] The other picture of the tabernacle is of the holy place. And we've not really gotten into any of this just yet, but we will when we come to the Day of Atonement. We will talk more about this just so you can kind of see what we've got going.

[2:17] But one of the things that we need to see, let's go to the next one. In Luke 24, verse 27. Now last time I read to you verse 44, but this is on the road to Emmaus.

[2:28] And as these two were blinded from seeing the resurrected Christ and recognizing him, it says that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

[2:42] In other words, the Old Testament is promises made. The New Testament is promises kept. The Old Testament is shadow. The New Testament is substance.

[2:52] The Old Testament speaks of Christ in figures and emblems and symbols. And in the New Testament, it speaks of Christ openly, fully, so that we can understand.

[3:04] And last week you'll notice that we hit the burnt offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, because those three sacrifices deal with sin. And you'll remember that the sin offering, or the burnt offering, the first one that you read, I told you what you needed to think is you needed to think the word reconciliation, that we were enemies of God, but by this particular sacrifice, the two have been brought together.

[3:31] And that's what happened with the burnt offering, and we see the fulfillment in Christ, because in his blood, we're enemies of God, but in his blood, we're brought back near to God. The sin offering was an offering of purification to cleanse.

[3:45] And in the death of Jesus, we are also cleansed from an evil conscience. We're cleansed from the sins and how the sin pollutes us. In the guilt offering, it was a paying of restitution back to God.

[3:59] We had stolen from God the worship and the obedience that he deserved by our sin, and Jesus in his death paid our debt off. You ever heard the song Rock of Ages?

[4:11] It says something similar in the hymn Rock of Ages. Be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure.

[4:25] Because in the one death of Jesus, he accomplishes it all. And there's even more than these three things. You look through the New Testament and you will find many things that the death of Jesus accomplishes.

[4:38] But these sacrifices had these particular object lessons and we dealt with that. Now we're coming to the last two sacrifices in the first seven chapters of Leviticus.

[4:49] And these two sacrifices actually help us deal with the issue of how we live a life of worship. How we live a life of worship.

[5:00] In other words, these are sacrifices that express worship. And what we're going to do is I'm going to go through the grain offering and the peace offering, sort of what you should understand from the Old Testament.

[5:11] Then I'm going to take you to the New Testament and show you how it's kind of fulfilled in the New Testament. And then we're just going to make some application of those two things to us. Are you with me? Let's do it. The grain offering.

[5:23] When you see the grain offering, you need to think of the word devotion. Devotion. Look at Leviticus chapter 2, beginning of verse 1. When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord.

[5:36] Now let me pause right there just so that I can help out my friends that love the King James. The King James doesn't say the word grain offering. It says the word meat offering.

[5:49] But this has nothing to do with the modern word meat. If you think this is about something that's got blood in it, then you need to learn some Elizabethan English, okay?

[6:01] The word meat in that time did not mean carnivore, flesh, muscle sinew stuff to eat. Meat was just a word for food, okay?

[6:12] So that's what the King James means when it says meat offering. It just means a food offering of some kind. Because you keep reading and this offering shall be of fine flour.

[6:23] So how can you have a meat offering with fine flour? So if you're ever confused with the King James, it's probably because you don't understand the English. But that's okay. We'll go forward, right? He shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it and bring it to Aaron's sons, the priest.

[6:38] And he shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and oil with all of its frankincense. And the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

[6:53] But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons. It is a most holy part of the Lord's food offerings. Now what do we have here?

[7:05] What we have here is we have a bloodless sacrifice. We have a bloodless sacrifice. Nothing is killed in this sacrifice. And it is a gift.

[7:17] As a matter of fact, you'll notice in verse 1 it uses the word offering twice in almost every translation. But those are two different Hebrew words. The second one is this idea of a gift or a tribute or an act of veneration, an act of worship, if you will.

[7:32] It was also called a memorial. A memorial. A memorial. That word's not used often in the Old Testament, but the idea is an invocation, a reminding of myself of things that I know about God and what God has done.

[7:47] And what they would do is they would take this flour. They would mix it with oil and with frankincense. And the reason oil and not water is because the oil is more expensive, so it's a costly thing.

[7:57] It could either be offered uncooked, as we just read, or verse 4, baked in an oven. Verse 5, baked on a griddle. Verse 7, cooked in a pan. So you can cook it however you want to, right?

[8:11] Some of it was burned unto the Lord for a pleasing aroma. So just some of it is burned on the altar. And it's a pleasing aroma. Now you see that all the way through the Old Testament.

[8:22] There's lots of things being a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Why is this a pleasing aroma to the Lord? It's because the heart of the worshiper is doing this from a heart of devotion to the Lord, and God accepts it.

[8:38] And it's about all the various sacrifices in lots of places. You can see this back when Noah makes a sacrifice after the flood. That's just what it is. It's something that shows God is pleased with this because of the heart of the worshiper.

[8:51] The rest of the grain offering that was given to the priest as their reward or as their due, as their payment for making this.

[9:01] In other words, they received from what their work. Ah, where was I? Pleasing aroma. It's his reward. Okay. So then this offering then as a memorial, as a gift, as an act of worship was to be offered with the burnt offering.

[9:19] As a matter of fact, the first time this occurs is in Exodus chapter 29. And at the end of that chapter, the priests are told that every morning and every evening, you're to come and offer a burnt offering with a grain offering, a burnt offering with a grain offering, a burnt offering with a grain offering, a burnt offering with a grain offering in memorial.

[9:35] It's supposed to be for all time that they offer these two sacrifices together. As a matter of fact, you cannot come and offer a grain offering without offering a burnt offering.

[9:46] You can't just willy-nilly come and just go like, Ooh, I'm going to be devoted without the payment of sin in the sacrifice of the burnt offering. So this sacrifice then, this grain offering was an act of worship, an act of tribute and reverence, a calling on God and bringing to mind in your mind the things that he's done.

[10:10] And because of that, because sin is taken care of, you offer a bloodless sacrifice of yours fully to the Lord, both to him and to his priest.

[10:26] So the bloodless sacrifice after the offering of the full sacrifice for your sins as a way of worship, devotion, gift, and praise both to God and to his priest.

[10:40] That's the grain offering. Now let's talk about the peace offering. With a grain offering, you think devotion. With a peace offering, you need to think celebration.

[10:53] Celebration. We're going to read a few verses from Leviticus 3, 7 and Deuteronomy 27 to kind of pull all this together. In chapter 3, beginning of verse 3, it says, Verse 16, And the priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering with a pleasing aroma.

[11:43] All fat is the Lord's. That's why I was reading the word fat so emphatically, because all the fat belongs to the Lord. Then when you skip over to chapter 7, now let me pause. Let's remember, in chapters 1 through 7, there's only five sacrifices.

[11:59] Instructions are given to the people first in chapters 1 through part of 6, and then instructions to the priest in part of 6 through 7. So it repeats the sacrifices.

[12:12] And so that's why you drive yourself crazy when you read the book of Leviticus and you go like, He's just saying the same thing over and over again. Yes, he is to the people and to the priest. So now we're going to look at the instructions to the priest about this sacrifice, because it reveals a little bit more for us.

[12:27] Verse 13, He's bringing breadsticks from Olive Garden.

[12:42] And from it, he shall offer one loaf from each offering as a gift to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings.

[12:52] And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering for Thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning.

[13:04] And then if you go to Deuteronomy 27, verse 7, it speaks of the sacrifice of the peace offerings and shall eat there and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God.

[13:15] Now let's put all this together and talk about this sacrifice for a second. This sacrifice was not a requirement to do. It was not an everyday sort of requirement. This was something that you did for certain reasons.

[13:28] As a matter of fact, we didn't read this, but let me just give it to you. There are three reasons you would do a sacrifice like this. One was to give just thanks to God because your heart swells with joy and worship because of him.

[13:38] Two, you're making a free will offering. So now you want the Lord and everyone around you to know something about the Lord. So you make a free will offering in order to have the Lord worship for the benefit of others.

[13:50] And the third was because you had made a vow to the Lord. The vow had been fulfilled and is over and now you're celebrating that it's over. Like the Nazarite vow. If you had taken a Nazarite vow and you'd fulfill your vow, then you would make this particular offering to end that offering.

[14:06] Now, animals were sacrificed in this particular sacrifice. It could be a herd. It could be the flock. It could be from a goat. Whatever your economic status was, you could pick an animal that you could afford to bring.

[14:19] It could be a male or female. So it didn't matter right there, which shows you it's very different from the burnt offering. And all of the fat and all of the entrails, the kidneys and the liver, basically all the insides are taken out of the animal and burned on the altar.

[14:39] But everything else is left for you and the priest to have a barbecue with Olive Garden breadsticks. That's what was to happen.

[14:51] You go with this heart full of praise and thanks to God and you bring the sacrifice. It's gutted. The bad stuff is burned.

[15:03] That's bad. It's just bad stuff. And the rest of it is barbecued. Right? It's cooked and you and the mediator of God sit down to celebrate in a meal together.

[15:17] It's a celebration. This is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to come and enjoy this moment, eating the bread and eating the sacrifice.

[15:29] So a burnt offering to atone and pay for the ransom of sinners. That's the burnt offering. And then there's a sacrifice of this peace offering of a thanksgiving to God for what he's done.

[15:40] So you kind of see the image, right? He's paid for my sin. I just want to tell him thank you. And I'm going to sit down and enjoy a meal together with the priest of God.

[15:52] It was a party. It was a celebration. It lasted a couple of days. Because God is to be worshipped. God is to be enjoyed. God is to be celebrated.

[16:04] That's what we're to do. So then how is it? I mean, obviously, the answer to this question, why then as Christians do we not make these sacrifices?

[16:16] We know the answer is Jesus. We already know that answer. Last week I even asked you, how many of you know that the answer is Jesus? And all of you raised your hands. Because we know Jesus fulfilled this.

[16:27] But in what way does this get fulfilled? In Jesus, in the gospel, and the life of Christians, how does this get fulfilled? Well, let me go back to the grain offering. This idea of devotion.

[16:39] Because in the new covenant, Christ is our reconciliation. He is our purification. He is our restitution. And the thing that is to be added on top of his sacrifice from us, not because it makes it...

[16:54] Let me back up. Because of what he's done in his sacrifice, we should have a response. That response is a response of devotion.

[17:05] And where in the New Testament does it tell us that we need to have a bloodless sacrifice devoting ourselves to the Lord? But Romans chapter 12, verse 1.

[17:17] I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, which stands for the entirety of the person, as a living sacrifice.

[17:29] Not a dead one, not one that's blooded, but a bloodless living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is what? Your spiritual act of worship.

[17:41] This means that we're to be devoted to him. It means that we're to give of all of ourselves to the Lord because of what he's done in Christ. It means that we're to be devoted to him with our lives and with our lips, with our affections and with our actions.

[17:59] And there is no greater response that any person human can have to the death of Christ upon the cross than to devote ourselves fully to the Lord.

[18:11] And in the peace offering, it's a celebration. And so how does the Lord command us to take care of such a celebration today? What are some of the things that he tells us?

[18:22] I think there's several things we probably could bring out, but I want to try to stick to the biggest picture on this that I can. And I think it has to do with all these examples we see throughout the New Testament of worshiping him, celebrating him, giving him praise.

[18:37] That's what this peace offering is all about, is enjoying and rejoicing in the Lord because of all that he's done. So one verse that captures this for me is Hebrews 13, verse 15.

[18:48] It says, through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name, acknowledges, confess or profess.

[18:59] And verse 16 goes on to say and says, do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Notice that the writer of the Hebrews does not pit helping people physically with their needs and spending time with your lips worshiping God.

[19:19] He doesn't say that, listen, you spend too much time worshiping God, not enough time handing out food. He doesn't say you spend too much time handing out food and not enough time worshiping God.

[19:31] He's saying we're to do both, to celebrate and worship him with our lives, with our mouths, everything that we are. And so there we have it.

[19:42] We have, we're to live a devoted life and we're to live a life of celebration. So then what does that mean for us? Let's take and let's apply this to us and say, how can we do this? How can you and I live, first of all, a devoted life?

[20:01] Let me give you two big things. Number one, surrender your rights. To be devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ because of what he's done and his sacrifice for you.

[20:17] You must surrender your rights. There's a lot of analogies that describe the relationship between us and God.

[20:32] And yes, there is this idea that we are his children and he is our father. But there's also this idea that he is our creator and we are his creatures.

[20:43] He's our redeemer and we are his redeemed. But the one that I'm talking about here is that he is our master and we are his slaves.

[20:58] We must surrender our rights to our lives, which means we have to give up calling the shots in our lives.

[21:08] If you are a Christian, if you have been bought by the blood of Christ, then you do not have the right to choose whom you will marry out from underneath the lordship of Jesus Christ.

[21:22] If you are a Christian and you've been bought by the blood of Christ, then you do not get to decide out from underneath his lordship what kinds of things you'll participate in the culture that end up being immoral.

[21:36] You do not get to decide what to do with your money, what to do with your time, what to do with your calendar, what to do with your energy, what to do with your talents, or whatever it is your spouse wants you to do, your boss wants you to do, or your mom and dad wants you to do.

[21:51] You're not the one that gets to call the shots about any of these things if you belong to Christ. If you belong to Christ, you are to do what he says for you to do.

[22:04] And that requires that you're going to have to understand his word to know what he has told you to do. Because there are some things where he tells you, yes, you just need to decide this. And they're definitely in the scriptures.

[22:17] But the question is, are you willing to surrender your rights, or are you going to tenaciously hang on to them and not let them go? Because I'm just going to tell you here now, if you refuse, if you refuse to give up your rights and surrender your rights, then my question to you is this, how can you even be bought with the blood of Christ?

[22:38] The second thing we need to do to live a devoted life is to come by the cross. To come by the cross.

[22:53] For us to be able to live a more devoted life. You remember, the grain offering always follows the burnt offering. You cannot devote yourself to the Lord without the Lord paying for your sin upon the cross.

[23:11] You cannot devote yourself to the Lord without a massive picture of the death of Christ always present in your mind. You cannot devote yourself and become just more devoted apart from what it is that Christ has done upon the cross.

[23:29] Which is why we have to talk about the cross all the time. Which is why we preach the gospel as we're preaching. Because you as a Christian need to remember what Christ has done.

[23:41] We were guilty of sin and breaking God's law. And yet in God's love, he sent his son to take the punishment that we deserve. And because of what he's done, we can then devote ourselves to the Lord because of two things.

[23:58] Number one, his death pays for the lack of devotion that we have. And number two, his death purchases the promises of the Holy Spirit being poured out up in our lives so that we can devote ourselves to the Lord.

[24:14] You cannot devote yourself to the Lord by sitting there and sort of psyching yourself up. When my brother and I were in Taekwondo, we would go and we would fight in tournaments.

[24:25] And if you've never seen anything peace in and you're about to waylay somebody or they're about to waylay you, you stand outside the ring and you start smashing your hands together and you get everything out of your mind.

[24:36] And you start flaring your nostrils and you're sweating. And it's like, I mean, it's kind of gross. But like, you know, you're just psyching yourself up. And that's the way I think a lot of Christians do. Is a lot of Christians look at the cross and say, well, that's really great.

[24:47] I'm going to really be devoted. But I'm not going to surrender and say that I'm a sinner and actually need that. I'm just going to do better. There's no place in the Christian life for doing better. There's only a place in the Christian life to see what Christ has done and let that overwhelm you.

[25:04] Look at the cross. Look at his death. Look at his body torn apart. Look at the spear ripping open his side. Look at the Son of God saying, God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[25:15] And let it inspire, convict, challenge. Let it save you. Let it forgive you. Let it change you. And then devotion will come forth.

[25:25] That's how we live a devoted life. But we also need to live a life of celebration. We need to live a life of celebration.

[25:38] To do that, we need to do a few things. One, we need to understand the significance of the sacrifice. We need to understand the significance of the sacrifice. I just want you to imagine for a second that you have committed a crime.

[25:54] You little sinners. You've committed a crime. You've been found guilty. And your sentence is, you have to wash the windows of the parsonage one time.

[26:06] Now, how would that affect you? You might kind of be like, well, okay, I won't ever do this again. But it really doesn't make a great impression, does it?

[26:18] I mean, it's kind of like, well, I mean, if I can keep doing this and just wash windows every time, why not? You see what I'm saying? Like, it's just not a lot that's happening there.

[26:29] You're not really got a lot you have to pay. But what if we change it, and that you're guilty of a crime, and the punishment is that you have to lose your life? And all of a sudden, the weight of that is greater, right?

[26:45] Do you remember the statement that Jesus said? Jesus said this when one of the ladies was washing his feet. He said that whoever has been forgiven much loves much.

[26:57] And often we understand that from this perspective, that whoever has more external sin that looks gross to everybody else, and they've been forgiven, usually loves a whole lot more.

[27:13] That is not the way to understand that. The way to understand that is to recognize the sentence that you deserve. Here was a woman who had sin for sure, but she recognized what she deserved.

[27:29] And she realized she wasn't going to get it. And because she wasn't going to get what she deserved. Because what did she deserve?

[27:41] Same thing all of us deserve. Death and hell. The wrath of God. So when she's forgiven much, what he's saying is that she's been let loose from the punishment she deserves.

[27:58] And if you think, if you think that you can celebrate God without a strong understanding that where you should be right now is in hell, I just want to press that on all of us for just a second.

[28:13] I mean, right now, where I should be in my existence is I should be burning for all eternity in hell. That is where I should be. But by God's grace, I'm standing here.

[28:28] Why? Why in the world would you want to save me? There's nothing good about me. If he paid the ransom price for me that set me free, if he cleansed me from my sin, if he paid the debt I owed, then and only then can I really celebrate the Lord Jesus Christ.

[28:54] Then and only then can I bring a peace offering of rejoicing and celebrating all that he's done. But the second thing about it is that we need to respond in obedience to his sacrifice.

[29:06] I mean, he's given instructions about how to worship him. And what we have a tendency to do is we have a tendency to think that because my heart feels so full that whatever it is I do and bring to the Lord, he will accept.

[29:23] Whatever pops into my mind, that's what I can do and he's going to accept it. You know, if my grandkids were to take their crayons and draw me a picture and they come running up to me and they hand me this picture, I mean, it's going to have wild colors all over it.

[29:48] It's going to have drawings on it that an archaeologist is going to have to interpret. And I'm going to take that picture and I'm going to treasure it. I'm going to be like, oh, what a gift.

[29:59] What a glorious gift. I'm going to be on cloud nine. That is going to be such a wonderful thing. So I feel so loved that they bring me that little thing.

[30:12] I want you to think about God. And I need to tell you something really hard to hear. God is not your grandfather. He's not waiting for you to have something pop into your mind and you scribble it down on a piece of paper and come run into him and give it to him and for him to go like, oh, I feel so loved.

[30:35] No, he is the creator of all things. He's the sustainer of all things. He's your redeemer. He is your master. He is your king.

[30:46] He is the king of glory. And he has told you. He has told you in his word what pleases him. So we don't have to come up with something out of our own minds.

[31:00] He's told us this is what you are to bring to me. This is how you are to worship me. But the problem is that we've turned worship into something that is all about, all about how we feel when we're done.

[31:19] Instead of, I'm coming to give an offering of praise to the Lord. And that happens when we begin to start demanding our own way about what we sing, how we sing, when we meet, how we meet, how things, when we begin to demand that, we've slipped out of worshiping the way God wants us to and making it something about us.

[31:45] And so if we're going to live a life of celebration, we need to do the things that he has called us to do, that he's told us to do in his word. And it needs to be something to be with the right heart.

[31:58] That's why Jesus said that those who worship the Father must worship in spirit and in truth. But celebration is more than just what we do when we gather here on a Sunday morning.

[32:09] Celebration is about what you're doing every single day of the week. And that is that you have to pursue his glory in all things.

[32:20] I mean, listen to this. You can celebrate the Lord Jesus Christ. You can celebrate what he has done for you. You can celebrate and give him glory in all things while peeling potatoes, shopping for groceries, paying your bills, tying your shoes, changing diapers.

[32:39] Because in all of these things that God hasn't given us explicit directions about, by the way, never shop at H-E-B. Like there's no commandment that says that.

[32:50] And if we thought we found one, it probably was not from God. You know? But the point is, is that he doesn't tell us where to shop, but he does tell us how we ought to live.

[33:02] Let me show you this verse in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

[33:16] A life of celebration and praise and thanksgiving to God can be done while we're doing the most mundane things in life. And how would you eat?

[33:26] Let's just do this as a test case just real quickly, and then we'll be done. How can you eat food for the glory of God? Let me give you three things.

[33:36] Number one, are you submitted to the Lord first? You see, a submitted heart always starts with wanting God to get praise. Where does that food come from?

[33:47] It comes from the Lord. I know it doesn't. I'm the one that worked. I went to the grocery store, and I bought the food, and I cooked it. Yeah. And who sustains you while you do all of that? The Lord. So a submitted heart that recognizes that even eating my food is a gift from God, and I'm to eat my food to His glory.

[34:06] That's where you have to start. If you don't recognize that, then you can't do anything for His glory. Changing the diapers on that little one, it's for the glory of God because He's given you the gift of that little one. Secondly, you have to understand that when you eat, this is a clear picture of the power of God.

[34:23] It's a clear picture of the power and the creativity of God. I have often said that God could have easily just made the nutrients that we need for life to be little gray square cubes that fit in a square hole right on the side that you never taste.

[34:40] You just plug in a new Jell-O cube, and you're good. It's like, oh, I'm running low, honey. Oh, give me another Jell-O cube. I'm done. Okay. There are no restaurants in that case.

[34:50] God could have made nutrients exactly like that. But in His power, in His creativity, in His goodness, in His beauty, we now have steak.

[35:04] Everything about it, that plate, those forks and knives, the spices, the way that that thing has come together, the succulentness of that steak, the tastiness and the savoriness as that's going in, that is a moment to go, God is good.

[35:26] And I'm not kidding. Can you imagine sitting there at the table with your kids, your grandkids, and you put a bite of steak in your mouth, and it is so good that you stop and you say, listen, I want you to understand something.

[35:40] Because of God's goodness, because of God's beauty, because of God's power, because of God's creativity, you are eating something that is divine.

[35:51] It is wonderful. And as good as it is to taste this thing that tastes good, can you imagine if you taste and see that the Lord is good?

[36:08] You see, that food serves a greater purpose, and that's the third thing. Not only do you need to submit your heart to the Lord, not only do you need to see Him in this, in His glory, in His power, but you need to see this as a means to a greater purpose.

[36:23] Why do we eat food? So that we can be strong, so that we can serve the Lord. So that we could use that food even as a testimony, an opportunity to witness to those that we're sitting with. We don't offer the grain sacrifice.

[36:38] We don't offer the peace sacrifice. Why? Because the Lord has given us new responses that fulfill the object lesson of the Old Testament of a life of devotion and a life of celebration.

[36:54] Let me say one final thing. There are some who are not believers, some who are not Christians, but there's a lot of religious people in this world. And there's one particular woman that I'm thinking of from probably like six or seven years ago was having a conversation with her, and it was interesting to me because she recounted several of the struggles that she had had.

[37:15] And I was asking her, if you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity? And she says, oh, I would go to heaven. And I said, okay, that's great. How do you know that?

[37:28] Because every time I pray for something good to happen, something good happens. Something good happens. And if you don't understand what's wrong with that answer, you need to really think.

[37:45] I'm looking at some faces in here. There's several of you that you got it just like that. You know, when God sends rain on the crops, he doesn't like block out the atheist.

[37:58] He sends rain on the atheist as well. Here's the problem with that statement. That problem says nothing about what Christ has done. God blesses people who are lost and people who are atheistic all the time with all kinds of blessings.

[38:16] It's not because your prayers are answered that you know you're saved. It's because you repented of your sin, turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he covered you and paid for your sin by his death. So I don't want you to think to yourself that you can come and offer a life of devotion and celebration to the Lord without coming by the cross and the birth offering.

[38:34] So today, you need to understand that you have violated God's law. God's law tells us not to murder, tells us not to get angry, right?

[38:45] That's what Jesus says about the murder, tells us not to tell a lie. But let me ask you something. Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever gotten angry with someone? Do you know that God one day is going to judge us by the Ten Commandments?

[38:58] And the question I have for you is, will you be innocent or guilty when he judges you by the Ten Commandments? I'm guilty.

[39:12] So does that mean heaven or hell? It means hell. So what has God done for sinners who are in such a state?

[39:24] He sent his one and only son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to pay for your violation of his law. So will you today turn to him and be saved?

[39:40] Let's pray together.