“LET US OFFER UP SACRIFICES OF PRAISE!”

Blessing

Our Torah Portion this morning is from the first five chapters of the book of Leviticus. It is called Vayikra or “He called”. In fact, the name of the book of Leviticus in Hebrew is Vayikra. It is sometimes referred to as the Torah of the Kohanim. You could say it was the instruction text for the priests because Leviticus largely is about how to conduct the sacrificial system and the form of worship that God was setting up for the Israelites.

Parashat Vayikra specifically outlines the types of sacrifices that are required at what time and for what purpose with what kind of animal or produce.

TEXT: Heb. 13:15-16; Rom. 12:1-2
INTRO: Mention the word “Worship” to someone and see how they respond! To most people the idea of “Worship” is something that happens on a Saturday or Sunday morning in a building somewhere called a Synagogue or Church. For some, the conditions have to be just perfect in order for them to worship…too often people don’t enjoy worship unless things are just right, thus we are good at finding all kinds of reasons to avoid coming to synagogue or church…imagine the world acting like this!

ILLUS: What if we gave up sports: football in the fall, baseball in the summer, basketball in the winter, based on the following 12 excuses:

1. Every time I went, they asked for money.
2. The people I sat next to didn’t seem friendly.
3. The seats were too hard and not comfortable at all.
4. The air conditioning is always too hot or too cold.
5. I went to many games but the coach never came to call on me.
6. The referees made decisions that I couldn’t agree with.
7. The game went into overtime and I was late getting home.
8. The band played songs I’d never heard before and it wasn’t my style of music.
9. It seems the games are always scheduled when I want to do other things.
10. I suspect that I was sitting next to some hypocrites. They came to see their friends and they talked during the whole game.
11. I was taken to too many games by my parents when I was growing up.
12. I hate to wait in the traffic jam in the parking lot after the game.

Worship and praise are not something that comes just from the right conditions
around us, it comes from the heart and from our life….we are always worshipping…it is not just what happens on Saturday or Sunday morning!

The Bible will teach us that both our LIPS and our LIFE should be offering up praise to God continuously.

I. PRAISE FROM OUR LIPS! Heb. 13:15; Rom. 12:2
A. A New Communication Heb. 13:15

1. Notice in the text the link that makes this new communication possible:
“Through Yeshua…..”
a. Praise and worship is possible before coming to faith in Yeshua. We see it in thousands of synagogues throughout the world every day as they read from their siddurim. But praise and worship is enhanced because we have Yeshua!
b. Praise is not just something we do, it is what we are and who we are
connected to….connected to the Messiah makes praise even more possible!

2. Notice here also the sense of praise being “continual”!
a. It is not just at the synagogue where praise from our lips is supposed to happen!
b. The reason it is called a “sacrifice of praise” is because it won’t always
be convenient or when we simply feel like it!
c. There is a real sense here that how we communicate all the time is a
part of worship, every word from our lips should be “praise” in some
form or fashion to God reflecting Yeshua in our lives.
3. Our lips should confess praise and gratitude at all times reflecting Yeshua’s
reality in our lives!

ILLUS: Alexander Whyte, the Scottish preacher, always began his prayers with an expression of gratitude. One cold, miserable day his people wondered what he would say. He prayed, “We thank Thee, O Lord, that it is not always like this.”

4. It is our language at home, work, and shul that is in view in the passage, that our lips are offering up to God ’CONTINUALLY’ a sacrifice of praise!

a. How should this impact that way we talk about others?
b. How should this impact that jokes we tell co-workers on the job?
c. How should this impact our speech around home and family?
d. As well as how we enter into the service at Tree of Life!

5. Too often it is far easier to express praise in a worship service than it is in
day to day routines…yet the sense of “continuously” and “sacrifice” here indicates the daily routine as well as the Worship service.

B. A New Communion

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

1. It is clear that what we say comes from how we think…hence how this passage fits well with the “fruit of lips” issue in Heb. 13:15!

a. We speak how we think!

Luke 6:45 “Out of the good treasure of his heart the good man brings forth good, and out of evil the evil man brings forth evil. For from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.”

b. If we are to offer up a sacrifice of praise as the “fruit of our lips” on a
ongoing basis, it will have to spring from the way we think in our hearts
and minds!

2. Paul writes here to express the importance of “conformity”….but to be
cautious not to conform any longer to the thinking of this world!

a. The world has little concern for worship and praise of God…and if we
allow the world’s influence to infiltrate our entire thinking processes we
will find our sense of worship distorted as well!
b. The world puts little value on verbal expressions to God…it is a low priority if one at all!
c. We must be careful that the emphasis of the world does not become ours!
Philippians 4:8-9 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any virtue and if there is anything worthy of praise—dwell on these things. (9) What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—put these things into practice, and the God of shalom will be with you.

ILLUS: Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play and to play at their worship. As a result, their meanings and values are distorted. Their relationships disintegrate faster than they can keep them in repair, and their lifestyles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot.

3. The problem for many Believers today is that we have too compartmentalized our lives into chunks… we think of worship as only this “chunk” of time spent in Synagogue on Shabbat morning, and don’t see how worship is a part of the rest of our week or our activities!
a. We should develop a “worship” mentality in everything!
b. We would be completely different as people if we really had a “KINGDOM OF GOD” mentality over everything in our daily lives and not just when we are in a synagogue!

4. In the strictest sense…everything we do is a part of worshiping God, and all our daily mundane things in life are a part of that expression!
a. Think about how the emphasis in our lives would be changed if we really thought this way?
b. Everything we say and everything we do tests and approves the will of
God … hopefully our lips and our actions will show “His good, pleasing
and perfect will!”

5. The idea here is to have our minds transformed by God’s Word so that we
are no longer conformed to this world and its way of thinking
a. The Greek word translated here “transform” is “metamorpho” from which we get our English word “metamorphosis” from. The idea is that we change from the way the world thinks to the way God thinks, a process of becoming something new and different!
b. This is no doubt a process…worship always is!
c. The renewing of our minds will enable us to think very different from
this world, and by thinking different we will speak different!
d. This will enable us to have the fruit of our lips worship God continuously!

II. PRAISE FROM OUR LIVES!

Hebrews 13:16 Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Romans 12:1 I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy, acceptable to God—which is your spiritual service.

A. A New Compassion Heb. 13:16

1. As soon as the writer of Hebrews talks about the “fruit of lips” as a sacrifice of praise he moves to his next thought tying this together with “do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”
a. The “fruit of lips” results in the “fruit of living” & vice versa!
b. What we SPEAK we tend to SHOW! (remember in school “SHOW & TELL”) and what we SHOW we tend to SPEAK!

2. What we do as good to others is also a part of our worship of God, it will bear fruit at some point in our lives as well as theirs!

ILLUS: Many years ago two young men were working their way through Stanford University. At one point their money was almost gone, so they decided to engage the great pianist Paderewski for a concert and use the profits for board and tuition. Paderewski’s manager asked for a guarantee of $2,000. The students worked hard to promote the concert, but they came up $400 short. After the performance, they went to the musician, gave him all the money they had raised, and promised to pay the $400 as soon as they could. It appeared that their college days were over. “No, boys, that won’t do,” said the pianist. “take out of this $1,600 all your expenses, and keep for each of you 10 percent of the balance for your work. Let me have the rest.”

Years passed. Paderewski became premier of Poland following World War I. Thousands of his countrymen were starving. Only one man could help, the head of the U.S. Food and Relief Bureau. Paderewski’s appeal to him brought thousands of tons of food. Later he met the American statesman to thank him. “That’s all right,” replied Herbert Hoover. “Besides, you don’t remember, but you helped me once when I was a student in college.”

3. The world does not just look at what we “say” but also what we “do” in determining what kind of “worshiper” we are!
a. The world will rarely criticize our worship style if they know our lifestyle is also godly!
b. We show people what a “sacrifice of praise” is not just by the way we verbally worship on Saturday mornings, but how we live throughout the rest of the week.

4. God is pleased with our “sacrifices of praise” when they come from both our LIPS and our LIVES!
a. The idea from God’s standpoint is that our LIPS match our LIVES!
b. Since this “sacrifice of praise” is supposed to be “continuous” it is supposed to be a constant flow from both our lips in a “worship” service, and from our lives in “willful” service!

B. A New Commitment

Romans 12:1 I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy, acceptable to God—which is your spiritual service.

1. Here Paul picks up this very theme…
a. to worship means to give up more than a couple of hours on Shabbat morning to offer worship as LIP SERVICE, it means to offer up our own bodies as a LIVING SACRIFICE!
b. To offer up our bodies as a “living sacrifice” is “pleasing” to God!
c. The only problem with a “living sacrifice” is that it has a tendency to
“crawl off the altar when the fire gets hot under it!”
2. This really means that God should get the best of us!
a. For too many Believers, our faith is like a weekend thing you do, and so it is treated like “going to the movies” or going somewhere else, it doesn’t have the commitment of the best from us all the time.
b. Only western belief system has this concept of compartmentalizing our relationship to God….many other religions see their commitment to their gods as all embracing, their gods always get their best, not their leftover time and resources!

ILLUS: A missionary tells of a woman in India holding in her arms a weak, whining infant, while at her side stood a beautiful, healthy child. The man of God saw her walk to the banks of the Ganges River and throw the robust youngster to the crocodiles as an offering, and then turn toward home again still clutching the sickly child to her bosom. Tears were running down her cheeks when he stopped to question her concerning her shocking actions; however, she proudly replied in defense of her conduct, “O sir, we always give our gods the best!”
c. Can we say that God gets our very best, or just whatever we have leftover in time, resources, and priorities?

3. It is always too easy to see a sacrifice as something we give, or even something we do, but we need to see the sacrifice as OURSELVES!… a
living one!

4. Paul says that such a living sacrifice in view of God’s mercy is a “SPIRITUAL ACT OF WORSHIP”!
a. The word “spiritual” here in Greek is “LOGIKOS” from where we get our word “LOGICAL” from!
b. In view of God’s mercy it is only LOGICAL that we offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice for God to use!
c. This is both “reasonable” (KJV) and “logical”!
d. Why would God want just the worship of our lips without the worship from our lives?
5. If we are to offer up “sacrifices of praise” we must be willing to offer up our lives as living sacrifices, this will then include what comes from our lips!
a. When done out of love, this sacrifice will not be viewed as a LOSS, but as GAIN!

ILLUS: It is told that in the First World War there was a young French soldier who was seriously wounded. His arm was so badly smashed that it had to be amputated. He was a magnificent specimen of young manhood, and the surgeon was grieved that he must go through life maimed. So he waited beside his bedside to tell him the bad news when he recovered consciousness. When the lad’s eyes opened, the surgeon said to him: “I am sorry to tell you that you have lost your arm.” “Sir,” said the lad, “I did not lose it; I gave it — for France.”

William Barclay, in his commentary on the Gospel of John said “Yeshua was not helplessly caught up in a mesh of circumstances from which he could not break free. Apart from any divine power he might have called in, it is quite clear that to the end he could have turned back and saved his life. He did not lose his life; he gave it. The Cross was not thrust upon him; he willingly accepted it — for us.”

b. too often we think of “sacrifice” as a painful loss, but in reality it is a joyous thing… “holy and pleasing to God” …
c. to God, the content of our worship is wrapped up in the character of the
worshiper!
6. The real life of “worship” then is both what comes from our “LIPS” and from our “LIVES” !
a. So did you come this morning “to worship” or as “a worshiper” ?
b. Are you “continuously offering up to God a sacrifice of praise” or just when you are in the “service” ?
c. Are both your LIPS and your LIFE engaged in praising God?

7. “LET US OFFER UP SACRIFICES OF PRAISE!!”

CONCLUSION: The concept of “praising God” is far more reaching than just what happens on a Shabbat morning worship service! It is also far more reaching than a song of praise or two! The crowds on Palm Sunday were quick to praise Yeshua with their lips, but not with their lives! Praise is a lifestyle of glorifying our Messiah and not just lips that gush “Glory to God in the highest”! Did you come TO worship, or did you come AS a worshiper!? Let us offer up sacrifices of praise through our lips and our lives!

20200314 Parsha Ki Tisa – The Finger of God

Blessing

The Parsha this week begins with a census where all the men over 20 were counted and taxed one half shekel as atonement for their souls. There are further instructions regarding the Mishkan and its furnishings.

Chapter 31 relates the commissioning of Oholiab and Bezalel who were to be in charge of everything concerning the construction of the Mishkan. The chapter conclude with Moses coming down off Mount Sinai with two tablets of stone. Verse 18 says that the tablets of stone were written by the finger of God.

Chapter 32 tells the story of the Golden calf, an extraordinary episode of failure. First, on the part of Aaron for his lack of leadership. And second, on the part of some of the Israelites who abandoned their moral compass to follow their baser instincts which devolved into idol worship and debauchery. Punishment quickly follows with the elimination of those who led and participated in this sad escapade.

Moses intervened to avoid the destruction of the entire nation of Israel. Even though they sinned greatly, God did not abandon His people Israel.

Israel was told to leave the region of Sinai. They had been there a year. It was time to move on. Moses was instructed to carve out new stone tablets upon which he, Moses wrote down the Ten Commandments. God renewed His covenant with Israel and declared their future victory in Canaan.

The Parsha ends with Moses coming down off the mountain after a miraculous time of fasting of both food and water for 40 days. His close encounter with God was evident, in that his face literally glowed so that he had to wear a veil over his face.

This morning, I want to jump back up to Chapter 31

Exodus 31:18 When He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave the two tablets of the Testimony to Moses—tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.

The tablets of the Testimony were what we call the Ten Commandments or the Ten Words. Contrary to today’s interpretation, these were the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.

What I would like to focus on is that these were written “by the finger of God”. His instructions to His people were so important that God felt that He, personally, should write them.

There are several other places in the Bible that speak of the finger of God, but this morning I want to discuss only three aspects of what is the finger of God.
I. The Finger of God – His Instruction

God is not the author of confusion. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14:33 for God is not a God of confusion, but shalom.

He does not like chaos. He spoke into existence a world of order, where even the smallest particles, smaller than atoms behave in a predictable pattern. Ocean shores are generally fairly constant. We don’t have the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston beach one day and on 29th street in Lubbock the next only to retreat a hundred miles southeast of Corpus Christi. In a macro sense, the earth and all of God creation is neat and orderly. I know the sun will shine tomorrow and I can predict the next blood moon. God is a God of order.

For that reason, He gave us His instructions called Torah, so that we may know what His standard of holiness is. We know what He considers sin. Torah is an act of grace, because we are not judged by some nebulous concept that changes with the seasons. His word is constant, just as He is. We can know how we should act because God wrote it down for in with His own finger.

II. The Finger of God – Judgment

Another time we see directly the hand of God operating directly is found in the Book of Daniel. The grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar had ascended to the throne of Babylon and was hosting a party. He had ordered golden vessels stolen from the Temple to be brought so his guests could toast their gods and goddesses. In the middle of all the revelry a hand appeared.

Daniel 5:5 At that very moment, the fingers of a human hand emerged and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace opposite the lampstand, so that the king could see the back of the hand that was writing.

This passage does not say that it was the hand of God, but Belshazzar certainly reacted as if it was something terrifying. His legs gave out on him and he couldn’t stand.

Daniel was summoned and in his interpretation, he said that what Belshazzar saw was the hand of God.

Daniel 5:22-24 “But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this. (23) Instead you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You had the vessels of His House brought before you, and you and your nobles, your consorts and your concubines have been drinking wine in them. You have praised the gods made of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. Yet you did not honor the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways. (24) Therefore, the hand was sent from Him that wrote this inscription.

In this case the hand or finger of God was sent in judgment. We know that Belshazzar was killed that very night and his kingdom conquered by the Medes and Persians. This was an extraordinary display of God’s judgment. It is not seen very often but is devastating in its depth of destruction. If we look back at Exodus Chapter 8 when God sent lice to inflict Egypt, the Egyptian magicians marveled at the plague and acknowledged that it was the finger of God. It was something they could not create, augment or mitigate.

Some prognosticators and commentators are expressing the belief that this Coronavirus is some kind of judgment of mankind or it’s a sign of the end times. I don’t know if it is or not, but I believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a healing God who can protect His people from this virus.

To see a third time God’s finger in man’s affairs we have to go forward 500 years.

III. The Finger of God – His Mercy

John 8:2-11 At dawn, He came again into the Temple. All the people were coming to Him, and He sat down and began to teach them. (3) The Torah scholars and Pharisees bring in a woman who had been caught in adultery. After putting her in the middle, (4) they say to Yeshua, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of committing adultery. (5) In the Torah, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do You say?” (6) Now they were saying this to trap Him, so that they would have grounds to accuse Him. But Yeshua knelt down and started writing in the dirt with His finger. (7) When they kept asking Him, He stood up and said, “The sinless one among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (8) Then He knelt down again and continued writing on the ground. (9) Now when they heard, they began to leave, one by one, the oldest ones first, until Yeshua was left alone with the woman in the middle. (10) Straightening up, Yeshua said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” (11) “No one, Sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Yeshua said. “Go, and sin no more.”

A group of religious leaders opposed to the message and person of Yeshua attempted to set a theological trap for him. They brought to him a woman caught in the very act of adultery. They rightfully said that the penalty for adultery was death by stoning, but they didn’t get all of the elements of the trial correct. They didn’t bring the partner to her sin to Yeshua as was required by Torah. They didn’t hold a proper trial before the Beit Din. They wanted to see if Yeshua would say something that would contradict the law.

Instead, Yeshua, the Son of God bent down and with his finger started to write in the dust. We don’t know what he wrote. Was he writing out the law that addressed this situation, or as some have suggested, did he write the names of the woman’s accusers in one column and the sin of that accuser in another column? We can only speculate, but when Yeshua rose up he said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. The law required the accuser to throw the first stone. But Yeshua turned it around on his antagonists. How could any of them cast the first stone? They would have had to declare that they had never sinned and that would be blaspheme. Perhaps they saw their name in the dust and horrified and shamed before their colleagues who could now see their own sins. We don’t know.

But we saw here the hand of God through Yeshua create the framework for mercy.

In the three examples I’ve given you this morning we saw God’s hand instructing us. His word is there for all to see if we would just follow it. The choice is ours. We can meet the finger of God in judgment telling us to depart I never knew you. Or we can see the finger of God beckoning to us.

Matthew 11:28-30 Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (29) Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and ‘you will find rest for your souls.’ (30) For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Are you burdened this morning? Does it feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulder? God’s hand of mercy is extended to you. He is inviting you to give Him your hurts, your fears, your failures. He will give you rest.