Altar’d: Sacrifice of Praise

We are continuing in our series called Altar’d - and as a working definition, we define an altar as a place where people encounter God. While there are various types of sacrifices offered on an altar, ultimately, the altar is a place of surrender. It is where we come before the Lord, in humility lay down our sacrifice, trust that He is Lord, and vow to obey His will. It is the place of transformation.

In the Old Testament, the altar was typically made of stone and brick. Today, due to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, our altar is our heart. It is where we surrender when we give our heart to the Lord and it is where transformation happens.

The sacrifice we will examine today is the Peace Offering, also called the Fellowship Offering.

Now if I asked you “what is a peace offering?” - you may answer that is a gift given in order to placate or pacify someone who is angry with you. A husband does something really dumb, and his wife is really upset, and the prospects of sleeping on the couch are really high. So he goes and buys a dozen roses for her, hoping the conciliatory gift will have the desired effect.

At least, that’s what I’ve seen on TV, I’ve never personally upset my wife.

That is not what is meant by a peace offering in the Bible. The Israelites were not offering a gift to God hoping to placate him. This was an offering of praise and thanksgiving. In the Bible, we read several instances of a peace offering being made for various reasons:

As a freewill offering - a way of saying thank you to God for his mercy and his generous provision.

There are instances when a peace offering was given alongside the fulfillment of a vow. A way of saying “I gladly fulfill this vow to you Lord.”

A third reason was to give thanks for God’s mighty deliverance in an hour of need. “You delivered me from my enemy Lord, and so I give you praise.”

In each of these situations, this offering actually brought peace to the worshipper making the sacrifice.

When you received your bulletin today, I had all of you fill out a slip of paper which simply says “Thank you Lord for….” fill in the blank. Let’s call this a peace offering. Our offering to God of thanksgiving and praise. I want you to listen to a few of things that we are thankful for as a congregation. (read a few)

We truly give thanks for these gifts. As you thought about what to write and you came up with your response - I would imagine it caused a sense of peace or happiness in that moment since your mind was focused on something that you recognize is a gift from God.

How often do we take the time to pause, reflect and give thanks and praise to God for his tender mercies and blessings?

How often do forget to do so?

We have the habit of saying grace before meals in our household - usually a very short prayer of blessing. “Lord thank you for this food, may it bless and strengthen us. Amen.” There are times though, especially when I am really hungry, when I will be half way through devouring my plate before I remember “we didn’t say grace!” We stop everything and give thanks. I always feel guilty when I forget - when my stomach overrides my gratitude. Why? Because I do not want to be ungrateful and forget all that the Lord has done for me - which is easy to do.

We see this in a passage found in Luke where Jesus gave beautiful gift to a group of people in great need, an expression of God’s love and care for them, and only one offered praise in return.

Luke 17:11–19 ESV

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

All ten of the lepers went from being diseased outcast, unclean and unwanted, to being fully restored, healed, welcomed back into the life of their community. Imagine their excitement. The reunion of families, the release from pain, the joy of being seen and being heard and receiving human touch. Yet only one, upon realizing this change had happened, rushed back to give the Healer praise and thanksgiving. Only one.

It sounds incredulous - but how often do we pause, reflect and give thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for all he has done?

Susan Kent, author of our devotional Altar’d, tells us….

God does not require praise, but He desires it. This was the purpose of the peace offering which God gave the Israelites. In Leviticus 3:1 we read: “If your offering is a fellowship [or peace] offering . . .” The word for this offering is selemim and it means a voluntary sacrifice of praise. These are the only offering instructions which begin with “if” and it is the only offering which is optional.

The peace offering was an optional sacrifice - but it would have to be, wouldn’t it? Compulsory thanksgiving and praise is neither. It is just manipulation. Thanksgiving and praise has to be a voluntary response.

Again, the peace offering, also known as the fellowship offering, provided the Israelites with the opportunity to thank God for all He had done and celebrate their relationship with Him.

God does not require praise, but he desires it. And when we give it, we receive his peace.

In the passage out if Joshua, we witness this exchange of praise and thanksgiving and the receiving of peace.

After the death of Moses, the mantle of leadership had been placed on Joshua’s shoulders. The first paragraph of the book of Joshua prepares the reader for the victories that Joshua would experience and it is a passage of great encouragement to any person of faith who sense God calling them to step out in faith and engage in the Lord’s work.

Joshua 1:1–9 ESV

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua trusted, obeyed, and led God’s people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. The land was not vacant. There were hostile tribes deeply entrenched. At times, the Israelites experienced setbacks as some among them did what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord, but Joshua listened to God and dealt with those who brought hardship on Israel. After a series of wins, including the city of Jericho and the city of Ai, Joshua does something unexpected.

Strategically speaking, one would expect him to keep momentum going, springboard one victory to another, but instead, Joshua takes a pause.

As Susan Kent notes:

He turned away from his success and he turned his face toward God. He built an altar just as Moses had instructed them to do once they entered the promised land of Canaan: “Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses—an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings” (Joshua 8:30–31).

For Joshua, there were two reasons to stop: (1) to acknowledge the past sin from their community, and (2) to recognize that their success came from the Lord rather than their own abilities.

When was the last time you stopped for no other purpose than to give thanks to the Lord? Where have you experienced His blessings and heard His voice? How has God enabled you to use the gifts and talents He has given you to accomplish your goals? We encounter the grace and peace of God when we give our praise.

I found a beautiful example this week of a person giving a peace offering to the Lord in response to all that the Lord had done for him.

I stumbled across an artist this week who has an amazing voice - if you’re on Facebook, you may have seen the video of one of his songs I posted. His name is Stephen McWhirter and I’d like to share another one of his songs this morning - and listen to what he says about this one:

“This is not just a song but my story. My life is proof of just what Jesus can do with a life that seems lost. I was a meth addict who hated Jesus but then I gave my life to Jesus and have never looked back.”

Let’s listen to “My Life Is Proof”…

That is what I would call a peace offering. Pausing, reflecting and giving thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for all he has done.

I’d love to get him to come here and put on a concert - if anyone wants to work with me on that idea, see me afterwards.

In closing, I hope this week you will make it a habit to pause, reflect and giving thanks and praise to the Lord for all he has done. Be like the one leper who returned to the Lord, fell on his face, and with a loud voice sung his praise. I know when you do so, you will receive His peace. Amen.