Sacrifice - Tom McDonnell

Kids are dismissed.

Let's pray again. Father again, so thankful for this opportunity that you've given us to gather into your house today. So thank you for yesterday. Amazing Freedom that we have to so freely come and praise you. So openly in. We just ask that you would continue to bless this time. Father that you would speak through your word to the word that you have given me to put on this paper and share with this wonderful group of people. You've brought into these cues in Montezuma, this morning, Father, we ask for Open Hearts and open minds to do with those sitting here today would receive if you have for them to receive that, you would be with me as well. Father, as I deliver this that you would be glorified and every word that is spoken. We just thank you again so much for this awesome opportunity to worship you and to glorify you and your word. Amen.

To the first several verses of Psalms chapter 5 read desc. David says, give ear to my words. Oh, Lord. Consider my groaning give attention to the sound of my cry. My king, and my God for to you. I pray.

So, the opening of this song is a flea. It is David begging, the Lord, to consider him, to pay attention, to him, to hear him and to respond. And it's tempting to read this and interpret it as a call for help. As a man begging, an absent God to move in his life until today in to deliver him from suffering.

But I do this more as a plea for the presence of God, a plea for the satisfaction of David's greatest needs.

We consider these words that are used here. David says, give attention to the sound of my cry. This word is not interpreted as some quiet soft little whimper, you do in the deepest darkest sections of your house with the lights turned off. This is a crying out. This is a shouting of desperation for God. And we see this even further when David says consider my groaning. The idea of running is to express, great, grief and distress.

So, I interpret these verses and David crying out to God. My Lord. I need you. So desperately. It hurts. My soul. In my mind in my body runs for you. It cries out for your presence. My soul, my need for you for your presence is so great. I am in complete and utter misery without it. There is an urgency in this world. Consider my drowning pay attention to my cry. Come quickly, to me to you. I pray because I know it is you that it is in you that I find all that I need.

This is a plea for communion with the Holy Father. A deep desire to be in a relationship with the one who can truly satisfy the deepest longings of the Soul. So this raises a few personal questions in our lives that I think we all need to answer. First, do we feel this way about. Do our souls grown for him. Do we cry out for him? Do we even recognize deep? Our need is and how desperately we need him?

And secondly. If we do recognize how badly we need God. Do we know how to experience? A real tangible fulfilling relationship with our Lord and savior? Do we know how to pursue a relationship with this supreme spiritual being that we can't see? We can't hear, we can't talk to the way. We would talk to somebody else.

So, regardless of how we answered either of these questions this morning. This is the sermon for you. Because I believe in the next verse of Psalm chapter 5, we are given a major detail. A giant step. We can take towards experiencing our heavenly father in our lives in a life-altering way. It's simple, and it's beautiful and it's going to be super hard.

It allows us to connect with our Lord in a way that he becomes realtor. That he become Central to the well-being and functionality and health of our Stone. David says in Psalm Chapter 5 Verse 3, just part of that verse he says in the morning. I prepare a sacrifice for you. Probably going to translate a little bit different in the few Bible will get to that. Damn it. This is the key, right? This is where we begin. How we get to that place in our souls were, we experienced? All our father is offering us? And to better understand this Bob. Phrase that David uses in Psalm chapter 5, we need to take a closer look at the practice of sacrifice in the lives of the Israelites. The role, it played, the importance and value at had in their lives. And just how we Central it was in their relationship with God. Do before we jump off a jump into this? I feel I am. Obligated to point out that this is coming from a guy who fixes cars for a living that I did look into this and I did study this but this is an incredibly complex and vast Topic in the Old Testament scriptures and the entire Bible for that matter. So we're just going to keep it real simple and we're going to look specifically and briefly at three types of offerings that were made three different sacrifices that were made. During the time of Moses. So, the first would be the sing opera. This is perhaps the one that we're going to be most familiar with. The idea is this a person since, right? They have broken the wall, the covenant made, between God, and his people, and is Romans chapter 6 tells us the wages of sin is death. No, they should not be understood as a punishment for sin. God saying, you break my laws, and I kill you. But rather it is the reality of the separation caused by state. Okay, so it's the reality of the separation of the God, who brings life, who is life?

So as a mercy to his people and has a picture of what was to come in Christ. God allows the shedding of specific clean animals blood as a substitute for the life of the offender. The idea again here being too again, it together. With the offender.

So this was done by killing the animal and by sprinkling the blood on specific areas, in the Tabernacle, at the foot of the veiled, separated the holy of holies the presence of God, from everything else. On the horns of the Altar and the rest of it would be sprinkled on the foot of the altar that they use for sacrifice. It's important to note that only the priest was allowed to do this. The offender was not allowed to touch the Flesh of the animal and this was to show the separation. The unworthiness of the offender to be in communion with God. Being, of course caused by their sin. So send existed man, the wages of sin is death. God provides atonement or a way to make amends for that sin by by the suffering of an appointed victim.

So the next offering look at is the burnt offering. So this followed, the sin offering you could not do the burnt offering without doing the sin offering. You had to be made right with God. Worthy to be in his presence before you can perform this sacrifice. So, the animal would be burnt on the altar. The whole victim being offered up on the Altar, and this was a declaration of the people of being wholly, devoted to God. Body and Soul, the death of the animal signifying, the completeness of this devotion.

This was their way of saying, God made my result right with you. I'm sorry for my transgressions. I want to devote myself my whole life to your purposes. And then comes the meat offering. The third offering will be looking at the paper sacrifice. This would also be known as a peace offering or a thanks offering. And this was done after the send-off ringing, after the burnt offering. So you had to have the atonement and you had to have the devotion before you get to this point. And this had two purposes first. It was thinking it was Thanksgiving, right? I give the best that I have to God, because I'm so thankful for his provision and for his Mercy in my life. But secondly, is a part of this offering the meat that was offered in the offering. It would be, it would be cooked, right? It would do you cook all the fat off of it and then you eat it, right. So this is the only offering that was actually consumed by the one offering the sacrifice. And this is, of course, symbolizing the enjoyment in the richness of communion with God. So, the order of these sacrifices are very important, right? You had to send off rent, which is the atonement. You had the burnt offering with the service and devotion and then you have meat offering switches and the joy in the enjoyment of communion with God. So you can't have the communion with god without being devoted to him and he can't be devoted to him without being right with him. In our relationship with God. We see this exact reality. Right? I mean, we first must be washed. We must be made right lens. So that we may be worthy to approach God to commune with God, and then there is the service. The Declaration of Our Lives to his purposes. Putting God before ourselves. We reading Romans chapter 12, the very first verse Poirier, Jesus by the mercies of God, to present our bodies as living. And holy sacrifice is acceptable to God, which is a part of your spirit of your service of worship.

and that ultimately,

because of all of this. There is a realization of and the Joy from experiencing the Lord. In this way. They David Longs for in the first part of this song. This is partaking in ingesting and enjoying the presence of God in a real tangible. Experiential light.

So we return to solve Chapter 5 Verse 3. We start to apply this all to our lives. This is what we come up with. If we are to truly realize the awesome amazing, miraculous life-altering, Focus shifting Joy, bringing relationship with our father. We first must be made, right?

That's the sin offering, right? This is a type or a picture of Christ Jesus Christ. He was the appointed victim, the one who willingly gave up his life. Whose blood was poured out that there might be a tone meant for the sins of all people. The difference between the sin offering and Christ is where the sin offering an animal was put to death, which doesn't truly satisfy the debt of sin for a person but again, was just used as a picture of Christ. Christ's Blood. On the other hand, is the only blood that still pure, so clean. So perfect that it does satisfy that. and not just, For the sins of one person. But for the sins of all mankind. All throughout history to the end of time. All we need to do to accept this gift. As acknowledged our sin, our need for forgiveness, acknowledge the supremacy of God by proclaiming our belief in this. And we're safe. We have new life by the mercies of God.

Scripture and throughout our lives at the promises of God. They don't stop there. That's just the start. He wants a relationship with us. He wants to give us gifts to bless us, to speak to us. He wants us to know him and to enjoy him. To be so connected with him. That nothing else in this life. Good or bad compared with what we experience with him. His motivations, his desires have always been the same throughout time from creation to Noah, to Moses, to David through the prophet, through Christ, the Apostle throughout the ages. Now, until the end of time. She never changes. So his plan had never changed. He wants us to know him to experience him to fall in love with him. We see this throughout scripture throughout the practices, the Traditions, the laws, the covenants, throughout the sacrifices. It's all about and it always has been about restoring and maintaining a relationship with those that He Loves.

Not for himself, but for us not because of some ego or some need for God to be Central in his creation. But because our good is him glorified. Because the best thing that could can and will ever happen to us, it's Christ. Is rain in our lives. Is our ultimate good. He is the source of all that is good. He wants us to realize that to experience that he wants us. He wants to fulfill Us in ways that we didn't even know. We need to be

Our Lord's desire is that if we come to this, that we come to the place where we crave his attention. Where we hunger for him above all else in our lives, where our thirst for him is so great that we grown that our souls cry out at the top of their lungs for his presence.

And as we experienced this fulfillment, as we taste and see that the Lord is good. That all he is offering is beyond anything we could have ever imagined. The more we will desire. The more we will crave that sweet. Satisfying presence of God.

But to get to this place, we need to give up a few things.

So, the concept of sacrifice is just, as important as it was back then in the Old Testament for us today. Not because of the external reasoning following the law being made, right? With God because of Christ, the actions of the sacrifice that changed, right? We are saved. We are born again. Our soul is secure in Christ. We Are Forever, wash with the blood of Christ. We no longer have a need to take the life of an animal to attempt to atone for our sins.

Or to put an animal to death on the altar to show our Legions to our King. All of this was a cheap entirely and perfectly through the actions of Christ.

At its core, although the action of sacrifices changed, it remains relevant, and essential in our lives. If we are to recognize and experienced this Limitless relationship with our Father in heaven with our savior, there must be sacrifices made in our lives.

So when we look into the first three of Psalm 5, I came across some interesting variance and translation in the different translations of the Bible. Right to the King. James version says, in the at Daybreak. I direct my prayers to you. Dhcs pieces Tech in the morning. I plead my case to you. In the nasb. It says that I order my prayers to you and Nees V which I was using. It says that in the morning. I prepare a sacrifice. For you.

but perhaps the one that brought this all together in a way that was just really clarifying for me and really meaningful for me and actually kind of shocking that I got it out of this translation. What's the message? The message reads this for song Chapter 5 Verse 3. It says every morning you hear me at it again. Every morning. I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar.

Sacrifice in our lives. Today is the acknowledgement of the supremacy of God in our lives.

Prayers are directed. Prayers are ordered sacrifices are prepared.

Sacrifice is about examining our self identifying and putting to death, those things in our lives that we love more than we love God. Mainly ourselves.

If we are to know Christ to the magnitude, he wants us to. If we must put to death the attitude that we all. that part of us that I know and, you know, we all have The love we have for ourselves.

The part of us that seeks our own pleasure, our own fulfillment, our own security, satisfaction and safety. In anything that we can find on this Earth, that we can put our hands on that. Of course,. This is something that there's no way it can deliver.

We need to kill that part of ourselves. I would need to be fulfilled at the true source and Christ. This is what sacrifice is. It's not about setting that part of us, a side kind of storing it in the closet of our heart, just in case. This God thing doesn't quite work out.

Or giving the parts of us that we can kind of do without. It's about putting our self to death by our own hand. The parts of us that we love more than we love. Our God. We need to sacrifice our belief in self. Need to surrender. We need to offer up our pride. We need to offer up ourselves to the will of our father.

He wants all of us, not just the parts that we are willing to give up or that we can do without. And this is what Jesus says about sacrifice and Luke chapter 9 verses 23 through 24. Jesus says to them with anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life, for my sake will find it. So if we wish to follow Christ to be with him, to live with him to have him Central in our lives, we must deny ourselves. We must take up our cross and put to death the parts of us that want to live life our own way. And we see this all over the New Testament. I'm going to read a list of passages for you. Don't worry about the references. I can give them to you later. They're all really good versus. I just want you to pay attention to the words of these verses read Ephesians chapter 4. Put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and its corrupt through deceitful, desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. So, take off the old, put on the new. Colossians chapter 3 put to death. Therefore. What is Earthly view? Sexual immorality in Purity, passion, evil desires and covetousness, which is idolatry put to death, the things you love more than Christ. Romans chapter 6. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. Jesus. Let not send their for rain in your mortal bodies to make you obey. Their passions, do not resent your members to send as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourself to God, as those who have been brought from Death to life, in your members to God as instruments for righteous person will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law, but under grace,

That not sound like Romans chapter 12. Galatians chapter 5. And those who belong to Christ Jesus, to crucify, the flesh with his passions and desires.

Take up your cross daily and follow. Titus Chapter 2. Refrained to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions into live self-control of right and godly lives in this present. And finally 1st Peter chapter 4 since there for Christ suffered In the Flesh arm yourselves, with the same way of thinking. For whoever has suffered In the Flesh has ceased from sin.

So as to live for the rest of their time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.

So what we're being told to do. Put to death our belief in ourselves.

Sacrifice the security to control. And this is going to be tough. This is quite possibly, the hardest thing we will ever be asked to do in this life. But it's something that we're going to have to do intentionally every day. We're going to have to suffer every day.

And we see this is Psalm chapter 5 in the morning. I prepare my sacrifice. Not I prepared My Sacrifice for you last week. But in the morning, every morning. Recall. The message. The message says every morning. You hear me at it again. Every morning. You hear me at it again.

Jesus in Luke chapter 9, right. We just read this. He says You must daily pick up your cross. Daily put to death, our own desires. This is something that happens during a long. Of time. That is a lifelong Pursuit.

At least it feels like it's a really long time from our perspective.

But we should take hope in our suffering, right? James tells us that. But we are not being called to Simply put to death our belief in self and just leave this empty void in our lives cuz that would end badly. We are being told to put gas in our self. So that it can be replaced with our belief in Christ.

To every day when we start out our day or as we go through it. And every situation we have to remain diligent and aware of an expected opportunities to put our lives in the hands of God, instead of Our Own. We take advantage of our fathers training, right? He's been preparing us for this. He's been teaching us and directing us and giving us tastes of himself.

Right. So that when we are faced with a decision.

Do I do what I want to do? What Tom would do in this situation or do I do? What I know God is telling me to do, what he is taught me to do. 2 in the morning, for example, do I lay in bed a bit longer at the alarm goes off. Do I decide to sleep in? Regardless of what time? I went to bed the night before. Or do I get out of bed? Do I raise up? Do I prepare my sacrifice? Do I come before God so he can hear me at it again? Do I spend time in worship and prayer? Preparing my heart to hear the voice of God? As I meditate in scriptures.

I fight with this every morning and I do most of you do as well. And if you don't, you should

So every day is filled with opportunities, to live, like Christ, to deny ourselves to pick up that cross and put to death power cell.

I'm going to read it Jan 1st, Peter, chapter, 4, verses 1 and 2. Peter says, therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh arm yourselves. Also with the same mind for he who has suffered In the Flesh has ceased from sin that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. Suffer in the flesh so we can cease from sin. So we no longer lives for our will but for the will of God. And if you recall Couple of minutes ago, we talked about the motivations of God, the desires of God, to connect with us, and to develop that intimate personal relationship with him. That Fellowship. John was talking about during communion.

Luke chapter 9 verse 24. We just read this as well. For whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life, for my sake will find it. If we are willing to lose our life of self, our belief and self and Believe In Christ, we're going to find something truly spectacular waiting for us.

We are not just being called to remove ourselves. We are being called to replace ourselves with something for me.

So like we are losing an insignificant in comparison to what we're going to be gaming. And Paul makes that very clear in Philippians chapter 3 where he says, indeed I count everything is lost because the passing of knowing Christ Jesus Bible. For his sake. I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.

Scripture tells us tonight choose to believe it. That sacrifice is worth it. It takes faith. It takes trust that Christ is going to be able to fulfill all the compromises to do. But he is worth so much more than these worldly things. We hold. So tightly to ourselves. Our Lord promises us that what we gained in place of these things is infinitely. More valuable and far, superior to what that thing that we can gain is Christ. Right, we gain a life where we will see and hear and feel him to be real in ways. That would have been impossible. Otherwise We will be filled to overflowing with the loving presence of our heavenly father. We just simply need to make room for him. The less of me and me, the more of Christ it's going to step. And John chapter 3, John, the Baptist dates. This simply and directly and perfectly. In just a few words. He says he must increase but I'm decrease. So we're going to close by having you dwell on the last verse of Psalm 5, as we closed in Worship in the last two songs. David, 5 by Staind for you bless the righteous. Oh Lord, you cover them with your favor as with a shield. You cover the righteous with your favor as with a shield. Amen.