1458 - "The New Testament Sacrifices" Romans 12:1-2; Hebrews 13:15-16; Philippians 4

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Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecy. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp. Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1458. Today we're going to look at the New Testament sacrifices. Yes, that's right, we don't think about that as followers of Jesus because we center in on, as we should, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as a substitute for our sins, propitiation. The payment for our sins when the wrath of God was kept from us through the grace of God that's in Christ Jesus. That's expitiation. Expiation. But there are New Testament sacrifices as well. Just like in the Old Testament, they are not to earn us any salvation. The Old Testament sacrifices could not save. Remember what Hebrews chapter ten says, that it is impossible. It's not possible that the blood of bulls and goats can ever take away sin. We must remember that. They were saved just like we are, just like Abraham was, by trusting God's promises, by trusting God's word, by committing his life to him completely. That's the way all people have been saved since Adam. That's the way all people will be saved until we are with Jesus in the new heaven and the new earth. And so in the book of Hebrews, which is the most Jewish of all the books, we have the second, third, and fourth, we have the whole ball of wax almost in one to two verses. And that's in Hebrews 13, verses 15 and 16. Now yesterday I just got into for a moment what would be the counterpart for the whole burnt offering in the New Testament. It's Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, and all that God's done for us, all that God has shown us, that Paul showed us in the book of Romans, chapters 1 through 11. I beseech you, I implore you, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies, the totality of your being, as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your logicas. It is your logical service. It's the most reasonable thing we can do. He gave his life for us, we give our life to him. We owe him everything. Why? Because we are bought with a price. That's what 1 Corinthians chapter 6 says. We do not belong to ourselves anymore. And he immediately says, so stop being pressed into the world's mode. This is an imperative that has the idea that it is something they're already involved in. There's something they're engaged in. So they were conforming themselves after they'd given themselves to the Lord, they were listening to the world instead of to the word of God. And so he says, stop being conformed, stop being pressed into the world's mold. But be metamorphosized, be changed by the renewing of your mind. That which happens to an old worm, a caterpillar, that crawls up into a concun, and then it transforms into a beautiful butterfly. This is exactly what God has done in us times 100. And so the whole burnt offering is the first offering in the Levitical offerings. It's in the first chapter and precedes all. That's the beginning of everything. Nothing that I'm about to tell you today will matter until you totally, as a follower of Jesus, come to a point to where you realize I don't belong to myself, the rest of my days are him. And so then you'll be concerned not with success and being a success, but making a significant difference in this life in the name of Jesus. So in the book of Hebrews, again, the most Jewish of all the books in the New Testament, it's been talking about how Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, our high priest, our Redeemer. He is everything, and He has by His own blood set us apart. And so He says, Therefore, on the basis of all that He's done for you, therefore, remember when you say a wherefore, therefore in the Scripture, stop and ask yourself the question, what is that wherefore or therefore, therefore? It's there to draw a conclusion. It's there to tell you a purpose. It's there to remind you to look back on the basis of all that he said. And he said, Therefore, on the basis of all that God has done for you, let us continually offer the listen to this, the sacrifice of praise. That's right. When you and I come to Jesus, we are bought by his blood, and he deserves the very best of our lives. That is, he gives us all that we do not have in Jesus. He gives to us so we owe him everything. So we praise him. And the Bible is filled, the Psalms are filled, and the other writings are filled with admonitions, commands to praise the Lord. And so this is what he wants us to do. He wants us to praise him. And it is a sweet smelling sacrifice to God by lifting up our hands, palms upward in total surrender to God. A universal sign of surrender anywhere, lifting up holy hands unto God. Your life is set apart. God, I come to you empty-handed. And then cupping your hands toward Him, with your hands looking you in the face, looking up into the face of God and saying, Abba, Father, I need you, I want you. God, please, please take me in your arms and help me and hold me. And that's where fear leaves, that's where peace comes. So it's a sacrifice of praise. And he says we do that by the fruit of our lips. Giving thanksgiving unto God. Thanksgiving and praise are two sacrifices that go hand in hand. We praise the Lord and we give him thanks because he's worthy for who he is. Yes, for who he is, first of all, and then for what he's done, for what he has done in others' lives, what he's done in our lives, what he does for us every day that we take for granted. So thanksgiving and praise ought to be at the top of our list every morning when we get up to thank God for the night's rest, thank God for the opportunity of another day, praise him for all that he is and all that he's done. If everything's not going right, he's still worthy of praise because he's the only one that can fix it. He's the great fixer. So we have the sacrifice, the whole burnt offering. We have the peace and grain offerings, these sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise and honor to him. And then we have the sacrifice of doing good. The word is to be kind. It is you poi. You poi e I. That's right. It's the only time in the New Testament that this word is used. And it's the word for more than just being good. It's the idea of not shutting your eyes to the people around you. It has involved in it the concept of sharing and fellowship, all of those things, of doing the right thing. You see, we so concentrate in the West on our rights. Well, I have a right to do this, I have a right to do that, and we teach our children that. Listen, listen. We need to teach our children to do the right thing, not so much about rights, but about responsibilities to God that are tied with those privileges and rights. God owes us nothing. No one owes us anything. We are what we are. We came into this world with nothing and we'll leave with nothing except what we have already transferred on ahead. That moth and rust cannot come in and corrupt, but it it's treasure in heaven. That's all that we're gonna have. You say, Well, you don't know what I have, you don't know who God is. Because God is an awesome God. And it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're the president of the United States and you think you're something, listen, God can take Donald Trump, Joe Biden, uh, Barack Obama, or anybody to come, he can take them and literally put them out to pasture. I'm not talking about the pastor, I'm talking about the pasture. Ask Nebuchadnezzar, who said, Look what all I've done, look what I've built, look what I've uh attributed to me. Donald Trump better be careful. I'm telling you, I support him, I love him, I pray for him continually. But he's full of himself and he needs to come down off his high horse and understand that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is the God of modern Israel today, and that we need to be careful how we treat them and we need to be careful what we say we can do because we can't do anything without God. From the breadth of his nostrils, we can be paralyzed for the rest of our lives, we can lose our minds. God's the one that gives us our minds, and he's the only one that can keep us in our right mind. Now don't start writing me, or if you want to write me, go ahead and and put your name on it so I'll know who you are and I'll know how to look at you in the future simply because the things I'm telling you is the word of God. I'm not tied to a political party to the point that I can't see the word of God. We need to walk in godly counsel, not ungodly counsel and be taken away with anyone. By the way, this is for Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians, doesn't matter who you are. Uh these things I'm telling you are true. We need to give praise and honor to God. And we need to humble ourselves before him. And that's from the king who sits on the throne to the lowest pauper on slave on earth, because without him we're nothing. I'm making no apologies for what I've just said, because it's true. It's true in my life, it's true in your life, it's true in the President of the United States, Vice President, all the cabinet secretaries, and everyone else in our government. And it's for pastors and and staff members right down the line. And so we need to understand that God wants us to give a whole burnt offering, our life to Him. Our lives need to be filled with thanksgiving and praise. These are acceptable sacrifices to God, and we need to learn to be kind. Whatever happened to being kind. We think somebody does something to us, we've got a right to go off on them. We don't. We need to be kind. You see, kindness is a fruit of the Spirit. It has to be produced by God. It's not in me to be kind. When people mistreat me, I want to mistreat them. When they mistreat others, I want to mistreat them. That's my natural flesh. And if you think you don't do that, well then you're just deceiving yourself. That's the sinful nature that's within us. And we have to train our hearts and minds to listen to the Spirit of God because we're not of this world. And so the sacrifices are giving our lives in total commitment to the Lord Jesus. It's uh filling our lives with praise and thanksgiving. Those are sacrifices that are well pleasing. Being kind and then giving. That's right, sharing, being generous. As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul in chapter four of the book of Philippians said, The gift you gave me is like a sweet smelling sacrifice. It's a sweet smelling aroma to the nostrils of God. When we give, God's pleased. You say, Well, you know, I don't have anything to give. Give your life, give your time, give your talent, because he's given it to you. He gives us every moment we have, he gives us every gift we have. But God also gives us a living. And uh He gives us most of the time more than we need. What we consider a necessity is not necessarily a necessity when all of life is said and done. And so we need to share, we need to give, we need to be generous, we need to tithe. Ten percent of our income needs to go it back in praise to God, and that's just the starting point for the believer. We need to give as much as we can, all that we can, every opportunity that we have, because God's pleased with giving. You see, you listen, you can give without being loving, but you cannot love without giving. For God so loved, God so loved that he gave. God so loved that he gave the best he had. He gave of himself, he gave his one of a kind son. You see, folks, we can't outgive God. So the sacrifices in the New Testament can be summed up in five categories, just like in the Levitical offerings. Yes, there are deviations from those that are good, but there are five main ones, and this is it. Your life, you owe it to God. Praise, thanksgiving, kindness, generosity. Those are the sacrifices that are well pleasing to God. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp. Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at Tony C R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.