Episode 15- Relationship Over Ritual

This week we are talking about sacrifice- the role it played in the Old Testament and what it means for us today! Our readings will be from 1 Samuel chapters 8 & 15 as well as Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:1-3, Psalm 50:9-13, Psalm 51:16-17, Hosea 6:6, and Micah 6:6-8. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Full Armor of God podcast. My name is Taylor. I'll be your host. Thank you for coming back for another week of the Lord's Wisdom. I am so excited to dive into episode 15 today. We are going to be talking about sacrifices in the Bible because it's another one of those topics that can arouse some confusion or animosity, and it's just worth diving into. Why is it here? What does it mean? How do we live this out? We're going to dive into all of that today. Our main story is going to come from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is fulfilled in the new, and many things from the Old Testament are either foreshadowing or providing a practice or preparation for the real thing, for the fulfillment to come. So today we're talking about sacrifices, and our main story is going to come from again the book of 1 Samuel, who we've been reading about the last two weeks. This is Samuel towards the end of his life as an adult prophet, priest, and we see his role in convicting this king, King Saul, in regards to disobeying the Lord's command. And it has to do with sacrifice. But we're going to dive into 1 Samuel chapters 8 and 15. Our other verses that we'll be flipping through today will come from Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, Romans chapter 6, verse 23. And then we're going to read from Psalm 50, Psalm 51, Hosea chapter 6, and Micah chapter 6. So before we dive into our story from 1 Samuel, let's talk about what sacrifice is, how it came about. So we, as you know, we've talked about this before, live in a broken world where we want peace and justice and harmony, but evil has this way of creeping in. So it begs the question: if God is so good, why can't He just rid the world of evil? Why would evil even be in the world? God did not create the world to be evil. God created the world to be good and everything in it to be good. But his creation has free will, free will to choose him or not to choose him. And sin enters the world way back in the garden. In the beginning of creation, sin entered the world. And since then, we have been living in a broken, fallen world. And the evil that we see in others, in some regard, in some fraction, is also within us. All humans are born sinners because of the nature of this world. Paul explains this in Ephesians chapter two. We're going to read the first few verses here. Paul explains, as for you, you are dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world, and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we are by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in our transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved. Paul is explaining that the nature of this fallen world is that everyone born into it, everyone who lives here, is broken by nature. And it is by grace that we have been saved and reconciled to Christ. So back to that question of why can't the Lord rid the world of evil? God can do all things. How does he cleanse the world of evil without destroying humanity who is born broken? This is where symbolic sacrifice comes in. In Romans chapter 6, verse 23, it says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The wages of sin is death. So sin equals a need for something to die, a need for sacrifice. If I am evil by nature and God needs to cleanse the world of evil, then I should be eradicated. But God is allowing the life of an innocent animal to symbolically take my place. And the word for this is atonement. It means to cover one's death, it means making things right, restoring and reconciling the relationship between man and God. So sacrifice pays the price of sin. Way back in Leviticus in chapter 17, verse 11, God says, For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. God is saying, The life is in the blood. That is life for your life. And through that atonement, that covering of sin, we become at one with God. That looks better on paper, but at one together is atone. But the sacrifice was never for God. It's always been for us. We're gonna circle back to that. Let's dive into our story in the book of 1 Samuel. Our guy, Samuel, that priest, that prophet, we've been following along with him. In chapter eight of the book of 1 Samuel, Samuel grows old and Israel comes to him asking for a king. Now this makes Samuel upset because God is supposed to be their king. He's supposed to be their guide and their leader, and he has been. But the people are looking at the other nations around them, saying, Well, they have a king who leads them into battle. They have a king who defends their borders, they have a king who protects them and provides for them. We want a king like that. So in chapter 8, verse 7, say no praise to the Lord, it says, And the Lord told him, Listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king, as they have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them, but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. The Lord has been leading them, the Lord has been providing for them, the Lord has been protecting and defending them better than any king could, but they have turned away. That's so heartbreaking when God says it's not you they have rejected, but it's me. So God tells Samuel to anoint a king, but to let Israel know he is going to take things from you as well. He's going to take taxes, he's going to enslave people. There are going to be costs to having a king. So Samuel goes to all the people and he tells them exactly what the Lord told him, and he warns them of all the things that the king is actually going to take from them in verse 19. But the people refused to listen to Samuel. No, they said, We want a king over us, then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles. What Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, Listen to them and give them a king. The story continues, and in chapters 9 and 10, we see Saul anointed by Samuel to be king. Saul starts out following the Lord and fighting for Israel well, but he is caught up with the vanity of how others see him. He wants to look like a king to others, to play the part the people want him to, rather than walk in the way the Lord calls him. In 1 Samuel chapter 15, God instructs Saul to go to battle against the Amalekites, this group of people, and completely wiped them out, even their livestock. Quick side note here that the Amalekites for centuries had attacked and slaughtered groups of Israelites, and they partook in child sacrifice as a means of worshiping a demon. This was God's judgment on them. Not only that, this was preserving the messianic line. Had the Amalekites remained, their southern border threatened Judah and Bethlehem, which was the prophesied birthplace of the coming Messiah. So Saul was given very specific instructions. But we see Saul disobey God's command and spare their king, and he keeps the best of their livestock. We're going to read from 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 8. It says, He took Agog, king of the Amalekites, alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with a sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag, the king, and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves, the lamb, everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak, they totally destroyed. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. This is not the first time that Saul has disobeyed the instruction and gone against God's commands. So God sends Samuel to Saul to convict him. In verse 13, it says, When Samuel reached him, Saul cried, The Lord bless you, I carried out the Lord's instructions. But Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of sheep in my ears, this buying of sheep? What is the lowing of cattle that I hear? Saul answered, The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites. They spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord our God. But we've totally destroyed the rest. Enough, Samuel said to Saul. Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night. Tell me, Saul replied. Samuel said, Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel, saying, Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites, wage war against them until you have wiped them out. Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord? But I did obey the Lord, Saul said. I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag, their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal, this place of worship. But Samuel replied, Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king. So Saul thinks that he completed the mission, and even better, he swiped up the best of their cattle, he's got the king under his foot, and they're going to sacrifice the cattle as a celebration sacrifice to the Lord their God. But that's not what God commanded him to do. Samuel points out God desires obedience over sacrifice. This brings up a quick pause that we can stop and ask ourselves is how often does God command us to do one thing? And we tell him, Well, I don't want to do that. Here's this other Christian thing that I can do instead. I don't feel super comfortable with this that you're calling me to do, but I know that you like these other things that I've done in the past. So maybe I'll try and offer that to you instead. Samuel's pointing out that partial disobedience is disobedience. God desires obedience and a heart aligned with his will more than any offerings we could give. That atonement, that becoming one with God, that connection to him is what he desires more than any sacrifice. He isn't after the animal at all. That's not what he desires. In Psalm 50, verses 9 through 13, God says, I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens. For every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains and the insects in the fields are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? God doesn't desire the animal itself. He doesn't need the animal itself. And of course, we don't do animal sacrifice. Today that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the one and true perfect sacrifice. We are gonna get into that next week. It is so good. We're gonna unpack that. But what if we inserted the word money instead of animal? God doesn't desire our money, he doesn't need it to do the work he's already ordained. Tithing is for our benefit, so that he comes first in our hearts, not money, so that we rely on him to provide, on him to save, not our money or our striving. That's just one example, but the Lord is saying in Psalm 50, everything in the earth, on the earth, it is actually mine. And he has no need for the blood of goats or bulls, he has no need for the material things, he desires a relationship and a connection to us. The prophet Hosea was talking about this exact thing. These are the Lord's words in Hosea chapter 6, verse 6. He says, For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, an acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. He desires a deep personal relationship over any ritual, ceremony, or religious box being checked. David knew this. In Psalm 51, verses 16 and 17, David's pouring out his heart to the Lord. He says, You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. David knew that offering his true and raw heart to the Lord was more valuable than any other physical or material thing he could bring. The animal offering was never the solution to sin, but merely a placeholder for the real thing. But it does highlight that there is life in the blood and the wages of sin is death. Sin has a penalty, sin has a consequence, but God is not superficial. He doesn't need the animal. It's us who are in need of a way out, and he cares more about our heart over the sacrifice itself. In the book of Micah, chapter six, this prophet is highlighting that the Israelites have been willing and misled to adopt these extravagant displays and works to try and buy God's favor instead of obeying his commands. In Micah 6, verses 6 through 8, it says, With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? And then in verse eight, Micah's saying, No, he's shown you. Verse 8, he says, He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah is pointing out that you don't have to do all this striving. You don't have to do all of these acts. This is not an act-based faith. It is by grace that we have been saved. God's not after your to-do list, he's not after your tasks, he's not after your money, he's not after any of that. He's just after you. And as a result, that closeness to him, that relationship with him, there's more things that just start flowing out of that. It can be a desire to lead a small group, it can be an inspiration to encourage friends in the faith, it can be a conviction to tithe and submit every area of our lives to him. But it's from a place of love, it's from a place of relationship, it's the relationship before all of that other stuff. Also, Micah points out that the Israelites in that day and age were being misled to do all of these works to earn God's favor. But one of the works that they were being misled to do was, shall I burn my firstborn? Like, how am I gonna serve the God of the universe? I guess I have to give him everything. God doesn't want everything, he doesn't want all the things, he just wants us. And God never commands for the burning of children, he never commands for the sacrifice of humans in general. We're talking about sacrifices of animals, he never commands for the sacrifice of humans, never, ever, ever. Micah is pointing out the same thing that David pointed out, the same thing that Hosea pointed out. He desires mercy, not sacrifice. David said, I bring you my whole heart, God. This heart is something more valuable to you than anything else I could bring. No amount of outward offering, animal or not, can take the place of genuine devotion and obedience to our Lord. He calls us to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with him. That authentic devotion with justice, mercy, and humility. That is God's desire far more than any sacrifice we could give. Not only that, the sacrifices that were made from the Old Testament ultimately point to the need for a perfect and complete sacrifice. More on this next week. But I hope that this maybe helped you view sacrifices in a new light and just learn more about God's loving and good, good heart. He just is after our hearts. He loves you so much, and he desires that closeness, that relationship with you over everything else. Friends, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I'll be praying for you, and I look forward to seeing you back here next week for more of the Lord's wisdom. God bless.