Complete Sacrifices
Montreal/Cornwall
September 18, 2004
The central issue of life is worship. This has been the case from the very beginning. Worship was the central issue for the first war. In eternity past, the sin of pride entered Lucifer’s heart and he became jealous of God, wanting to be the one who received heaven’s adoration and worship. He wanted all of heaven, including God, to bow down to him. He wanted to be the one in charge, and this led to the organizing of the universe’s first rebellion and war. There was mutiny in heaven, and it was over worship.
Lucifer and his followers were cast from heaven, but the effort to unseat God from His throne was not over. Following Jesus’ baptism, Jesus went to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. At the heart of this encounter with Satan was the issue of worship.
Matt.4.9- Worship was at the centre of the last offer Satan made to Jesus.
Because of this history, let us not think that worship is not central to our lives, too. The central and most important issue to be resolved, in human lives, has to do with worship. Who will you worship? Whom will those created in God’s image worship? Before whom will the heavens and earth bow? The reality is that we all have to serve somebody- we all have to worship someone, and we are called to choose. We have declared our choice, I know- this is what happens in public declaration of Jesus as personal Saviour, and in the public affirming of this in the ceremony of baptism. But let us not think that once this declaration has been made that we’re done. Let us not think that once done finishes the battle and the cause of worship in our lives. This is not the case. Daily, we have to declare our allegiance and faithfulness to God.
Ro.12.1- Paul, the mature Christian, through writing to the Roman church, tells us to be living sacrifices. This instructs us about the need for constant worship. Let us get some idea of what is involved by looking back at what was involved in primitive sacrifice.
Lev.1.1ff- what was involved here? What was involved was the sacrifice of everything. The whole being of the sacrificial animal was involved. Notice the detail of the process. What does it mean to ‘flay’? (Does anyone know?) What does skin provide? It provides protection, covering, beauty, hides flaws, toughness- but it all had to go before the sacrifice could be made- all that outer covering had to disappear first. There are some lessons in this for us, aren’t there? When we come to worship God, we have to do so without all we might use to protect us or cover us or make us out to be more, or different, than we really are ‘under our skin’.
Comparing Paul’s message and the example of the ancient sacrifices shows us that being living sacrifices requires more than form of us. It requires more than part of us. It requires our complete selves. It require more than just dedicating a closet to God, or a house, but takes hold of the entire person, and has the whole life dedicated to God.
How do we so offer ourselves? How do we so bow down before God continually? Jesus tells us how to do this, as he instructed his disciples. As his 21st century disciples, the same instruction and guidance are ours.
Jn.15.10- Jesus tells us of our need to be in obedience to His commandments. This obedience, which is referred to several times in Jesus’ words, and those of others we’ll see, is important to the Christian life. What are the commandments of Jesus? Clearly, they are what we read in Matt.22.37-39, and other places that restate this.
Now, I know what comes to mind when we read this. I know what comes to our minds. “Oh, yes, I know. Jesus summed up the 10 commandments in theses two, so really it’s just the 10 put a little differently. The first 4 are in the 1st, and the last 6 are in the 2nd.” No! That’s wrong. We taught that wrongly and you and I have to wrestle to get that out of our minds. That interpretation is patently incorrect and leads us to wrong conclusions. What that interpretation does is to establish the 10 as the most important, so we default to trying to keep the 10 commandments.
No, no, no!
The 2 are the more ancient. They existed from the very beginning. The 10 commandments were NOT in force before Moses, contrary to sermons I have given, in years past, and that we’ve written about and taught. The 10 are a ‘dumbing down’ of the 2 for a people without access to spirituality at the highest levels. The 2 were before the 10 and are after the 10. The 2 are where we are to begin- and where God ever intended people to begin, not the 10, and the 10 are not meant to be worshipped, as they are by far too many people, and exalted. Now, you might not see the difference. But it’s great. Do you begin at God’s level, or at a human level? Do you begin at the higher level, or at the lower? It does make a difference to your spirituality. Be sure you are thinking accurately and correctly. Challenge yourself. Do NOT exalt the 10 anymore. Exalt Jesus Christ and what He declared. This is fundamental- will you exalt Jesus or Moses? That’s the choice. Will you exalt the more spiritual or the less spiritual? That’s the fundamental choice before us on this matter.
Bowing down- worshipping has us keeping Jesus’ commandments- all of Jesus’ instructions. The focus is on Jesus for us today!
Rev.22.14- obviously, the idea of obedience is not from the perspective of earning any salvation- this is after that could have happened, anyway.
How can we obey, and, through that obedience, offer worship to God? How can we bow down to God through our lives, lived in obedience? It seems these are hard questions, and questions that Christians have considered and wondered about for hundreds of years.
Jas.2.10- tells us that if we keep the law but offend in one point, we’re guilty of all. How can we live at this high level? It seems impossible. EM Bounds, noted author on the subject of prayer, writes, “The spirit which prompts a man to break one commandment is the spirit which may move him to break them all. God’s commandments are a unit, and to break one strikes at the principle which underlies and runs through the whole. He who hesitates not to break a single commandment, would- it is more than probable- under the same stress, and surrounded by the same circumstances, break them all.” That really sets a very high bar, doesn’t it?
John 14.16-18- gives part of the answer. We have to trust the Spirit who lives in us. Do you trust the Spirit in you to lead you to do the right thing? You know the wrong things- you know, even intuitively, if it were not from teaching and socialization, that it’s wrong to take something that is not yours, or it’s wrong to tailgate and look like you’re trying to drive someone off the road. You know, even intuitively, if not from teaching, that it’s wrong to date someone else’s spouse, or to speak badly about someone else. We have no lack of knowing what is not proper behaviour. From that understanding of yourself, then, do you trust the Spirit in you to lead you to do the right things?
God, in giving a high standard, does not give what cannot be done. Again, quoting from EM Bounds, “Does God give commandments which men cannot obey? Is he so arbitrary, so severe, so unloving, as to issue commandments which cannot be obeyed? The answer is that in all the annals of Holy Scripture, not a single instance is recorded of God having commanded any man to do a thing, which was beyond his power. Is God so unjust and so inconsiderate as to require of man that which he is unable to render? Surely not. To infer it is to slander the character of God."
1 Jn.3.22 gives us an incredible promise. We have to pray with the assurance that allows this to be true in our lives. This matter of obedience has to be a constant quest in our lives, but we have to live knowing that we live in a spirit of obedience, too.
Ro.8.9 tells you what your state is. Your state is a state of obedience. The Holy Spirit in you urges you to obey. He directs you to do what God wants. You KNOW if you’re not doing what God wants- there is no question of that- and why? Because of the Holy Spirit in you! Do not discount the Spirit you’ve been given.
How does this translate into our lives? How do we go about obeying the commandments of Jesus? I was thinking of this and happened to open my Bible to an interesting passage:
John 5.8- read in the context- “rise, take up your bed, and walk”- how do I obey that? This is what true study of the Word is all about. How does this passage apply to me? Jesus has touched me and healed by Him, have I not? So, I need to do this, too. What is my bed? What is a bed? It is a place of rest; also, it is a place of retreat. People, hiding from life, retreat to their beds. Jesus instructs me to take my rest, but when I’m done, to get up and get going. He tells me not to retreat to inactivity or the state of the ill, if I’m not ill or incapacitated. He tells me to get going, in faith, as this man was urged, indeed commanded, to do. If I want to worship God, offering my life as a living and complete sacrifice, I will take this as a command of Jesus, which it is, and will apply it in my life.
How about v.14, in this same chapter? Here is a command to not sin anymore. Again, Christ has touched me. I’m to stop sinning. This is a command that I need to pray about and ask guidance and help about. If there are corners of my life, that have sin in them, then I need to allow them to be purged, as I pursue a life of worship and obedience. If I am really bowing my life before God, then I’ll take this seriously.
We can follow the same approach toward anything Jesus said. His words offer us instruction and commandments. His life offers us the pattern we are to set free in our lives, so that Jesus is seen through us. To study His life and words will give us more than enough for us to be doing, in our lives of obedience.
Conclusion
Through the atonement of Christ, we are enabled to obey. There is no sense, anywhere in scripture, that we are free, now that we’re in Christ, to simply do ‘whatever’. Bounds says, “Implicit and perfect obedience is the state to which the man of prayer is called.” As praying and worshipping children of God, sacrificing our all each day, we live in obedience. Obedience is the way we offer our lives as living sacrifices. This is not a legalistic obedience to written codes. This is obedience in following the lead of the Holy Spirit who is active and alive in us. Without His being there, we would be reduced to needing a written code. We don’t need such anymore. From writings, we learn, without question, but the Holy Spirit leads us, even without such a written code. Trust the Spirit in you. And live, free and obedient to God, Jesus, and the Spirit. They are completely united in their leadership.
How can we offer God proper worship, daily, all day long? We do it through being sacrificial in our lives- through giving everything to Him. We do it through trusting Him to have done what Jesus said would be done in giving the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to live in us. He will lead us- in fact, does lead us- to obey, and through obedience, to worship every hour of every day.
