Deuteronomy 33: 18-19 When the Sacrifice is Hot
When the sacrifice is hot it has the right form, it will have the right balance, and it will be right amount.
If there is a challenge to the meaning of true religious faith, it is found in the weakness of people of our era to demonstrate righteous sacrifice.
Gone are the days when collective action was the tenor of the times. When throughout this community people collected pennies and dollars to build hospitals and schools. Gone are the days when parents of children worked multiple jobs to send their children to school because they knew they would have a better opportunity at life then they had. The times would say, I have mine and you have yours to get.
The truth of the matter is that we have watered down the meaning of sacrifice and placed before adjectives like – token sacrifice, modest sacrifice, and minimal sacrifice. In fact these terms are by definition oxymorons. They are antithetical incongruous terms. They don’t fit together. We want to call it sacrifice, but in reality it is sacrilege.
The reason why what we call sacrifice is sacrilege is because it does not have the right form, it is not in the right balance, and it is not the right amount.
We must be very careful that our hearts and minds are in tune with God, in line with God, and in step with God.
We lean upon these attributes of God - his mercy and his grace, and forget that God is also a jealous God. He will have no one before him. And He definitely will have no thing before him.
That’s why Amos says,
“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies, though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteous as a mighty stream.”
There is something about God that requires that a sacrifice is a righteous one.
In the early development of the Hebrew people, righteousness meant right standing before the law. That’s why the first five books of the Bible are called the Pentateuch. Or the laws of Moses, they were intended to establish processes for people to relate together and create a sense of just dealings.
That’s why you should commit Deuteronomy Chapter 11 to your memory, because Moses informs the people that the law as they once knew it which was written on tables of stone should be now written in their hearts.
In other words righteousness is not your standing before the law, but your standing before God.
Right relationship with God is now the standard by which all of your dealings should be measured, with each other, with yourself, and definitely with God.
What is my standing before God? What is the right relationship?
What is a righteous sacrifice? A righteous sacrifice is a hot sacrifice. When a sacrifice is hot it is in the right form, it will have the right balance, and it will be the right amount.
A righteous sacrifice will be one that honors God’s presence, which affirms God’s purpose, and respects God’s power.
This morning’s text illustrates for us Moses final instructions to each of the individual tribes of Israel. He has led out of bondage. He has led them through the wilderness. Just like one can say about David, you can say about Moses - with the integrity of his heart and the skillfulness of his hand he has led them.
Now he approached his time, the time that all flesh must go. And he wants each individual tribe to have the benefit of his wisdom. You will find that his words are tailor made for each family. No generalities here. No blanket statements. Every word is intentional and purposeful.
Zebulum in thy going out you shall suck of the abundance of the seas – they were international traders, traveling the great waterways trading goods throughout the land.
Isachar in thy tents you will find treasures in the sand – they were tent makes, builders in our modern day language. Their community was experiences a population boom and the need for affordable housing was great.
Both tribes where entrepreneurs, they were doing well.
And Moses says to them to go to the mountain – the place of God. And offer sacrifices of righteousness.
That what we need to do today, when we get drunk with the wine of the world and forget God, we need to go to the place, My God, where we meet thee.
You need a mountain place. It may be on a hilltop. I may be in your secret closet. I can suggest to you that in the middle of the 1200 Block of Druid Hill Avenue or forefathers built their mountain top and we can come to it today.
Go to your mountain. Offer sacrifices of righteousness. When your sacrifice is hot it will have three distinct things:
1. It will be in the right form.
We are no longer in an agrarian society. Most of us don’t know what it means to cut tobacco, or pluck chickens, or pull beans. We are in the information age. Therefore, the right form of our sacrifice should be our time, our talent, and our treasure. Our time because one of the greatest gifts that God give us is the gift of time.
That’s why we say the poem we only have a minute,
only sixty seconds in it, forced upon us,
can’t refuse it, didn’t seek it, didn’t chose it,
but its up to us to use it, give account if we abuse it,
just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it.
It should be our talent. Romans Chapter 8, “I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” God apportions these spiritual gifts for the edifying of His Kingdom, for the building of His Kingdom on earth.
It should be our treasure.
2. It will be in the right balance.
This is where I part company with my prosperity brothers. They would suggest to you that damnation will come if you do not tithe. I want you to know tithing is important. Tithing is necessary. Tithing has its purpose because when Malachi says, “bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
Then they stop right there and people develop the attitude that your relationship with God as it relates to tithing is a conditional relationship. If I give God this, God will give me that. That is flawed theology and errand thinking. When tithing is used to beat people over the head, it wrong. Tithing really deals with right standing before the law. That’s the reason in the 11th verse of Malachi 3 you will find that Satan follows the tithe. He is always seeking to devour it so it never gets to God. That was the whole issue with Cain and Abel. Abel gave his first of his flocks as an offering to God and God had respect for Abel’s offering. But Cain brought fruit from the ground, not the first, but just fruit and God did not respect his offering. The right balance is not the portion of what you give – that’s righteousness under the law.
3. The right balance is not determined by how much you give, it determined by the right amount that you give.
The right amount is not determined by the condition of your pocket book, but by the condition of your heart. The right amount is determined by your right standing with God. And nobody knows that but you and God. In Mark 12 you will find Jesus watching people give money and he sees that because the people are rich they gave much. But he notices a widow who places two mites into the offering. He points her out to his disciples and says that they poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury; for the first group cast from their abundance, but she gave all that she had. The right amount is determined by your right standing with God. If God has blessed you, give a tithe and more. But be certain that you give God the best that you have with a clear conscience and a clear understanding that God knows the condition of your heart.
If we look at the right standing by the law it is a tithe, but if the measure is right standing before God it is what your heart, head, and hand will give.
Let me close by saying that the reason why there is a shift from right standing by the law and right standing before God is that Jesus Christ paid it all.
The gift of his sacrifice for us paid the price. And now God is looking for those who have a right relationship, right standing with Him.
That’s why you can’t beat God giving no matter how you try.
When a sacrifice is hot it is in the right form, it has the right balance, and it is in the right amount.
