Worship and Sacrifice

[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, if you're new here, my name is Adam and one of the pastors here at Furge Free Church.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're so glad that you are joining with us this morning as we take time to worship God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And today's service is especially focused on worship, which you will see in a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: But first it's really good to be back with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I spent the last week at a pastor's gathering.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're part of the EFCA, the evangelical Free Church of America.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have over 1600 churches in the US, and I get to once a year meet with some of the pastors of that association, and we just get to encourage each other, talk about what God is doing in the churches around the country, and where we see him moving and working different ways, help each other out, give guidance, there's a lot of guys that have been in ministry for many decades, and it's great to get there wisdom and pick their brains about some things.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a really, really great trip, but it's great to be back with you as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I might pull back the curtain a little bit on some of the conversations that we had and just give you a little bit of a sneak peek at some of the things we talked about.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were a lot of things, but a few of them were that interestingly enough, most churches right now, at least the ones that were represented there.

[SPEAKER_01]: are either in the middle of about to start or just finished a capital campaign, like what we've been talking about, most of these churches have facilities that are a little outdated in some way, a couple of few decades old, and need to be updated.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're definitely not in the minority there, everybody's kind of thinking the same thing right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And actually what we're looking to do is weigh less expensive than what most of them are doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel pretty good about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Secondly, most churches are still dealing with some of the after-math of the pandemic that is still lingering around and impacting churches in a lot of different ways, so we had quite a lot of conversation around that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The third thing is that most of the churches are trying to figure out.

[SPEAKER_01]: how to train future church leaders in the church because the colleges and seminaries aren't exactly cutting it anymore and producing the kind of leaders that the churches need and so their churches are all trying to figure out how do we build residences and internship programs and of course we do both of that here but a lot of churches are trying to figure out how to do that right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: The fourth thing that I thought was interesting is several of the churches have recently started preschools and are seeing that as a really, really effective outreach and ministry in their church.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them highly recommended, in fact, several said while they were there that the only regret they have is they didn't do that sooner.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was pretty interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the fifth thing that I'll share with you is that pretty much all of the churches are trying to figure out the best ways to leverage AI without falling into any of the potential pitfalls of AI.

[SPEAKER_01]: So AI has been a big topic the last couple of years.

[SPEAKER_01]: at this gathering.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there were lots of other things that we covered, but I thought it would be interesting for you to hear what were the main things that we discussed over the week.

[SPEAKER_01]: But overall, I'm just thankful to be part of an association that invest in its pastors like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so encouraging, Andrew and I were just talking before the service about how great it is to get together with people that do the same thing and have the same challenges and issues and you don't even have to explain it all because you already get it.

[SPEAKER_01]: and so then you can really go deep with each other and we did.

[SPEAKER_01]: We went deep.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had some great great conversations.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, as most of you know, we're in the middle of a series called open doors on mission.

[SPEAKER_01]: For the last few years, we've had a church theme every year.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had the theme of back together.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had the theme of all in.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had the theme of on mission and that's actually going to be a multi-year focus for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: last year we did a lot of stuff to try to make sure that we as a church were on missions, especially again coming out of the pandemic trying to bring us back to a place of outreach and impact in lots of different ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: So last year was all about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: This year is too,

[SPEAKER_01]: But there is a special emphasis for us on making sure that our mission base is all that it needs to be because this is where we gather to worship God.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's where most of our outreach is based in some way.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do a lot of our ministry in the community and to other people through this property.

[SPEAKER_01]: This space that is right here and it takes hundreds of people working together to make all of this what it is, all the volunteers and staff and contractors and people.

[SPEAKER_01]: that help to keep this place running smoothly.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's the hub for a lot of what we do.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it turns out that we're not alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lots and lots of churches are really doing the same thing right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Talking about how do we make sure that our space where we gather to worship God is all that it needs to be and as effective as it can be.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as you know, we're in the middle of researching this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're currently in the schematic design phase, and so we've got a company that's putting together schematic designs that we can bring before church membership later this year to talk about how we want to move forward and just as a reminder what we're looking to do, which we've covered before is have a wonderful outdoor playground that.

[SPEAKER_01]: moves into there's an indoor playground area aspect.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a main entrance of the church with a big social gathering areas that we can all better connect together before and after services.

[SPEAKER_01]: Reimagined kid spaces and student spaces, a better adult classrooms, a better ministry activity space in a lot of different ways, recreational things outdoors.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's the kind of thing that we're researching right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as we look at the possibility of doing that, we don't want to just dive into it without looking and seeing what is the Bible say about all of this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any guidance that we can get from God's Word that would speak to this kind of a project of renovating this space where we come to worship and minister and learn and grow and have community together?

[SPEAKER_01]: And it turns out the Bible has a lot to say about it, and one of the best passages is in Second Chronicles 29.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've got your Bible, open it up to second Chronicles 29, that's where we are going to be today.

[SPEAKER_01]: You may remember when we started this series, we talked about King A has.

[SPEAKER_01]: And King A has was this evil king who allowed the temple and it's surrounding property to just fall into complete disrepair.

[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, he helped it along.

[SPEAKER_01]: He made it worse.

[SPEAKER_01]: He went and took all the valuable stuff inside and gave it away to the foreign pagan kings.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he smashed all of the utensils and the items, the tools that were used for worship in the temple, so they were all destroyed.

[SPEAKER_01]: He even boarded up the doors of the temple, so no one could go in.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a symbol for everyone to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't worship God here anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, his son, King Hezekiah, could not have been more different.

[SPEAKER_01]: He reversed course immediately.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he brought all the Levites and the priests together.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, we're going to purify all of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to purify the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to rebuild and renovate and restore all of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the people can once again worship God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we talked about in that first week.

[SPEAKER_01]: How if you skip ahead one chapter, you'll see that they am sending missionaries to even the surrounding countries to tell them, hey, come back and worship God with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: The temple is restored.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we're not at that point yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before they do that, before they get to this incredible outreach, which it's kind of funny, clean up leads to outreach.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they clean everything up and then say, okay, now we're gonna go invite people in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get to that point, they do something else.

[SPEAKER_01]: They stop and have an epic worship service.

[SPEAKER_01]: And actually we're going to talk about in this passage how they worship God in three different ways, three ways they worship God that we can learn from.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to dive right into this is going to be a bit of a shorter message today because following the pattern of this text,

[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to spend extra time in worship of God through music later on.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're actually going to have a longer worship set at the end of this message, and I'm going to preach a little bit shorter, and we're of course going to have communion today as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're just going to see three quick things that they did to worship God and talk about what we can learn from them.

[SPEAKER_01]: So start in verse 18 of 2 Chronicles 29.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have cleansed the entire temple of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table of the bread of the Presence with all its utensils.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have also recovered all the items discarded by King A has when he was unfaithful and closed the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are now in front of the altar of the Lord, purified and ready for use.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they had all these tools that they would use in worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tools like, well, and we'll call this the tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the first way that they worship God.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had tools of worship that they made sure we're ready to go.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had tools like sacrificial utensils.

[SPEAKER_01]: This would include large basins for carrying things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Large hooks to move the sacrifice around on top of the altar and position it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fire pans to carry holes where they needed them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Trays to carry all the different things that they would use in their sacrificial duties.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was also the furniture like the altar of offering and the table of showbred or of the presence.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was the golden lamp stand and the altar of incense.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were of course lamps everywhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they had all of these items of furniture that they used in their worship of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there were the musical instruments, like the cymbals and the hearts and the liars and the trumpets and all of these things that had been either destroyed or lost or given away needed to be repaired or replaced and brought back into order because of what King A has did because there was no respect given, no honor given for these tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now of course, we don't worship the tools.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't worship the items and that is not what they were doing here by purifying these items and bringing them into good order for use and worship of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were not exulting them to sacred status and saying that they were in any way worshipping these objects.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was a direct reflection

[SPEAKER_01]: on their respect for God, just as King A has showed his disrespect for the worship of God by smashing these items and giving them away.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it has a Kaya and the Levites.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're showing proper respect to God by bringing them back into order.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we have tools of worship today.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do not have big meat hooks for moving the altar, the sacrifice on the altar.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't do that anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of thankful about that, aren't you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, it wouldn't feel out, I guess, if it continued on from the old times.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not what God asks of us anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we have different tools that we use in worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are the tools that we use in worship?

[SPEAKER_01]: Can you think of any?

[SPEAKER_01]: Shout it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: The audio, the tech, all the technology that we use to make sure everybody can hear and make sure that we can broadcast so people can watch at home if they're sick.

[SPEAKER_01]: What else?

[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't tell what that was.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lights, yes, the lights, thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, it's kind of nice to be able to see all of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully you enjoy being able to see up on the stage.

[SPEAKER_01]: What else?

[SPEAKER_01]: Instruments, yes, the instruments, was that Kim, the instruments that we have musical instruments that we take care of.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think someone might have said the screens.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what else?

[SPEAKER_01]: Our voices, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: What else?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I heard, I don't know who said it, communion elements.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does somebody say communion elements?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is that what I heard?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I did, okay, I was wondering how long it would take because they're right here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tools of worship, right here in front of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I watched earlier today as Kim was setting these up and she stepped back in between the cues and looked to make sure that they were symmetrical and that's showing the proper amount of thank you, Kim.

[SPEAKER_01]: The proper respect for the tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do we worship the tools of worship?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, but are they a part of our worship?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the respect that we show to these items reflects the respect that we have for our God.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one of our tools of worship are the physical copies of God's word that we carry around.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's a digital copy like this or some of you have a print Bible that you carry around.

[SPEAKER_01]: This week we had an elder gathering and we had some prayer over some individuals and one of those individuals left their Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I saw it afterwards and took it with me and let them know that I had it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I'll get it to you on Sunday and they said, that's not soon enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: I needed it earlier, can I get it from you today?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we worked it out so they could get it that day because that tool of worship for them was so important that they didn't want them to go another day without it, they needed it for the next couple of days even before Sunday.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that just reminds me of the proper respect we have for the tools of worship in our lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever invited somebody over for dinner and then thought, I'm just gonna leave the place and mess, they won't mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Rude on there.

[SPEAKER_01]: These, uh, here's some chocolates out there because that just is so unthinkable for us that you would invite them over for dinner, especially if this is not just like a close family member or something like that, but, you know, someone that's really special and you invite them over and you're probably going to take the laundry off the dining room table.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're probably gonna clean up the dishes and maybe you even have some clean silver for them to use.

[SPEAKER_01]: You might tidy up a little bit, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe vacuum or something like move the shoes, just at least arrange the shoes, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna do something, why?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the amount of effort you put into having a presentable place to invite someone in, well, it reflects on the honor and respect that you show for that person.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is our house of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's house is in our hearts, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The temple now is in all of us who've trusted in Jesus, but we still have a house where we come and worship God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the amount of care that we put into this place and the tools of worship, well, it reflects not only on the care and value we show to our guests, who may be joining us for the first time, but it also reflects on God.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it communicates to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: the amount of respect that we show to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: King A has showed no respect to God, and of course has a chia reverse that and showed lots of respect to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think about the people that get here early every Sunday to make you coffee.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're in the building before I'm in the building.

[SPEAKER_01]: Brew in that coffee and getting it ready and setting up so nicely on the stations in the back and upstairs so that you can have coffee and you can have some flavor in it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can have all the

[SPEAKER_01]: for some more than others.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's be honest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you really did benefit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your worship was so much more pure because of that caffeine.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got, I had my coffee this morning too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you don't need it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess.

[SPEAKER_01]: But coffee can be a tool of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so you've got people that are showing this care for even the tool of having refreshments ready for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's also water and tea for all of you boring people.

[SPEAKER_01]: But.

[SPEAKER_01]: that care that's shown into the tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: It reflects on her care for God where I walked in this morning and Margie was there making the coffee and she just had a wonderful attitude about us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being here, making the coffee and she said, I love to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love this.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's so wonderful.

[SPEAKER_01]: it's just great.

[SPEAKER_01]: So don't neglect the tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I think my staff would appreciate that I mentioned, we have a spring work day coming up.

[SPEAKER_01]: On April 18th, you can register on our website for it and you can help take care of this place in lots of different ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a way of worshiping God, taking care of the tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's next?

[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse 20.

[SPEAKER_01]: Early the next morning, King has a kayak gathered the city officials and went to the temple of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven male lambs as burnt offering, together with seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom for the temple and for Judah.

[SPEAKER_01]: The king commanded the priests who were descendants of Aaron to sacrifice the animals on the altar of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they killed the bulls and the priests took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Next they killed the Rams and sprinkled their blood on the altar and finally they did the same with the male lambs.

[SPEAKER_01]: The male goats for the sin offering were then brought before the king and the assembly of the people who laid their hands on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: The priest, verse 24, then killed the goats as a sin offering and sprinkled their blood on the altar to make atonement for the sins of all Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: The king had specifically commanded that this burnt offering and sin offering should be made for all Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I am very thankful that we no longer have to have animal sacrifices that that's not a part of what we do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine if we had to have an altar up on stage and it was like you had to bring your goat with you when you came on Sunday.

[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure that you all offer your sin offering.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are actually a lot more connections to their practice in the text than we might immediately think.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking here about sacrificial worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's number two.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number one was tools of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number two is sacrificial worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: In order for a sacrifice to be acceptable, it actually had to be a sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: It had to be something of value.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you think about bringing a bull or a goat, they all had to be spotless.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had to be perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you're bringing the best of the best.

[SPEAKER_01]: The best of your herd.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is essentially, this is your retirement plan.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is like a big chunk of your 401k that you're bringing to sacrifice an altar.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a real sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just the leftovers.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just something that you have as a remainder.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that you care about.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that hurts a little to lose it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I asked Addy to come up and join me on stage to illustrate this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine that Addy is sitting here, coloring away.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's really nice, by the way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Very nice drawing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's good, that's really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she's got markers, she's got some broken cramps here because we have thousands of these in our house for some reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's got sheets of paper, some of them are nice, new sheets of paper, some of them are used and have unidentifiable drawings on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Addy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine that another kid just walked over sat in this chair and said, could I color with you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, they need you to give them something to color with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you've got your nice new markers and you've got nice sheets of paper, but you've also got some used sheets of paper here and some broken cramps.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think you should give them to color with?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I have a choice.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have a choice to give them broken crayons, use the papers, and that doesn't really show that I care.

[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't really show that I put effort into what I am doing or like praising God, like,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm using stuff, and then I'm giving new stuff to them, so then they can draw instead I'm giving them broken crayons and stuff that doesn't really show at birth and care.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't show care.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't show value in that person.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does it?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you could give them the used up stuff in the broken down stuff, but what really shows that you care about them is if you give them the good stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: is if you give them the stuff that you actually want to use like the nice sheets of paper well then you have less paper to color on right and your nice markers in fact what would really be nice is if you said hey these are my favorite markers why don't you use these for a little while and then they're using up some of those markers aren't they and that would be way nicer it shows a lot more care and a lot more value in that person thank you so much for being a part of this illustration I really appreciate it

[SPEAKER_01]: takes a lot of courage to come up here and be a part of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You did great.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's the same way in how we sacrificially give to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of us we give based on what's left over.

[SPEAKER_01]: We give based on the remainder.

[SPEAKER_01]: We give token amounts to say, yep, I checked the box.

[SPEAKER_01]: I gave something.

[SPEAKER_01]: I put a little money in the offering at church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, that's not what God actually asks for.

[SPEAKER_01]: He asks for sacrificial worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: He asks for something that we're gonna miss if we lose it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And some of us were kind of given the used up sheets of paper in the broken crans to God instead of giving what the Bible calls first fruits.

[SPEAKER_01]: The first fruits are the best of the best, the cream of the crop, the best of the herd.

[SPEAKER_01]: For me, here's how I apply that in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: In my life,

[SPEAKER_01]: When I'm giving, I don't give to the church based on my take home pay.

[SPEAKER_01]: I give based on the total salary.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't think it's right for me to give the government the first fruit to not God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's right for me to pay the government first and then say, okay, now after the government takes its cut, now I'm going to give a percentage based on what's left.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I give based on the bigger amount.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to puff myself up with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's just a practical example.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know a lot of you do the same thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why I say, okay, here's the tie that I'm going to give and it's going to be based on the bigger number because that's a sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of you are the same way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like the amount that you give to God is a legitimate sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a significant amount.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's what God calls us to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there are lots of different ways that we sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And thankfully, we don't have to do it through the animals anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we sacrifice, of course, in substance, which would be the financial and material things, possessions that we may give to God either to his church or other ministries or other people, things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's that sacrifice of substance.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's also a sacrifice of service.

[SPEAKER_01]: or you could say sacrifice of time and energy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because when we serve God, we're giving of our time and time is really the most valuable thing that we have.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so all of the time that you spend serving in our kids' ministry or with our students or men's or women's ministries or outreachers or the facilities here, all those things that we do in service, that is all a sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when done with the right heart, that's an act of sacrificial worship to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's also the sacrifice of relationships.

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul says in Romans 15 that all of the people that we reach with the good news about Jesus and introduced to him are a part of an offering to God that we have.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a sacrificial offering, but you know when you do that, when you invest time in that person who is far from God and try to help them understand him better, you're sacrificing other relationships.

[SPEAKER_01]: Other people that you may rather spend that time with, you're having to take some of that time away and say, no, I'm gonna go be intentional about reaching someone who maybe I wouldn't choose to hang out with right now, but I know they need Jesus in their life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's a sacrifice of relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's also the sacrifice of self.

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul said in Romans 12 that this is really the best way to worship him is to give your whole body or your whole life is what that means as a living sacrifice to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there are lots of ways that we sacrifice and worship God through sacrifice, but these are four of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Substance, service relationships, and self.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we worship with the tools that we use to worship God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We worship with sacrifice in many different ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the third one.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second Chronicles 2925.

[SPEAKER_01]: King has a chia then stationed the Levites at the Temple of the Lord with symbols, liars, and harps.

[SPEAKER_01]: He obeyed all the commands that the Lord had given to King David through God, the King's Seer and the Prophet Nathan.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Levites then took their possessions, positions around the temple with the instruments of David and the priest took their positions with the trumpets.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then, as the Kaya ordered, that the burn offering be placed on the altar as the burn offering was presented songs of praise to the Lord who began, accompanied by the trumpets and other instruments of David the former King of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: The entire assembly worshiped the Lord as the singers sang in the trumpets blew until all the burn offerings were finished, then the King and everyone with him bowed down in worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: King Hezekiah, and the officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the Psalms written by David and by ASAP the Seer.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they offer joyous praise and bow down in worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is number three, musical worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of times when we think of worship, that's what first comes to mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there are other ways to worship God too.

[SPEAKER_01]: We worship with our lives and our time and our our serving and our relationships and our whole self.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we also worship through music.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now I counted five different instruments in this text.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were the symbols, the liars, the harps, the trumpets, and our voices that were used.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of those were instruments used to bring praise to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: The music was accompanied by instruments.

[SPEAKER_01]: The singing was accompanied by the instruments.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my guess is that this was not a chaotic free for all, where they just sort of played whatever they felt like in the moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's why there seems to be order and structure to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had positions that they had to take up, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The Levites had their positions with all of their instruments.

[SPEAKER_01]: And evidently, the priests made up the trumpet section.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they had their positions that they were supposed to go to.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it says that the order on what to sing was given through King Hezekiah and his officials.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there was some delegation and distribution of communication.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was their version of Planning Center, if you're part of our worship team.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or they're like, OK, guys, here is the set list for today.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they had songbooks, the Psalms of David, and the Psalms of Asaf.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was an orderly structure to this, but it was all designed around, let's all work together and sing praises to our God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And with a temple restored, and look in beautiful again.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the tools of worship ready to enter service in worship of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the people gathered, they're not all the people, that would happen later, but as many were there in Jerusalem, gathered there together, they had an epic worship service.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what we want to do today, for the rest of our time together.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are going to

[SPEAKER_01]: take communion together, and then we're going to have a worship set with three more songs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just a time for us with all of this kind of in our hearts and our minds, looking at this passage seen what the people did to say we're going to do the same thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: they sacrificed and they worshipped.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we want to give you an opportunity to sacrifice too.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what that sacrifice looks like is different than what it looked like to them, and it may be different for every one of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's why when you walked in today, you got a little card.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully you did.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you didn't, you can raise your hand, and someone will bring one to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you don't have a card, you can raise your hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: But here's the idea for this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't ask you to bring a goat in today, and we're not gonna ask you to bring a goat in, or a lamb or a bull or any of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you probably have some way that you are thinking in your heart right now, I need to sacrifice this to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's something you need to continue to do or to do more of or to do better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's something that you've been feeling for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really need to give that over to God, but I haven't done that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It could be financial, it could be material, it could be of relationships, it could be time, it could be energy, it could be serving in some way.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there are lots of ways that you through your life can sacrifice to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we want to give you a chance to actually respond and do that today to do it in a meaningful way.

[SPEAKER_01]: So during our communion time, I encourage you to think and pray about what might God have you commit to sacrifice for Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, it's not a sacrifice if it's not missed.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a sacrifice if it's the leftovers.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's gotta be the first fruit.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's gotta be something where we say, ooh, that kind of hurts to give that up.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to do it because God matters more than that thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is my first priority.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now when you do that, after communion during our time of worship, at any time in those songs, you can come forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'll take one brave person to lead the way, but you can come forward and drop your card of sacrifice in one of these baskets, or there's some up in the balcony as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to look at those.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are not for us to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are just for you to have some kind of meaningful expression to show before God.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is you and God.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, I'm giving this to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving this up to you because I believe I need to sacrifice and show that you are number one in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then while you're doing that, we're also going to be praising him with our musical worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we've got tools of worship that we've taken great care of today and lots of different ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: and we've got an opportunity for sacrificial worship, and then we've got musical worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the rest of our time together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray and ask God to bless it, and then we'll take communion Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: You gave the ultimate sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you died on the cross for us, you didn't have to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't have to come here and live a perfect life.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have very painful and public death on a cross, but you did because you love us, because you wanted us to be part of your family.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now you have through your sacrifice made it possible for our debt to be paid.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we don't have to do animal sacrifices.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because that was always just a shadow of the ultimate sacrifice which is you.

[SPEAKER_01]: The animal sacrifices were assembled, but they didn't technically remove the sin only you could do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so God, we're so thankful for your sacrifice for us and now, as you've told us to do, we remember what you did for us, God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We remember your body broke and your blood poured out so that we could be forgiven and healed and a whole and be called your children.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Jesus, and your name we pray, man.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you are new with us for the first time, I just want to run through how we do this here because it may be different for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to pass these trays, tools of worship, through the rows, and you're going to take a stack of cups.

[SPEAKER_01]: The bottom one has the bread, the top one has the juice.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you need a gluten-free wafer, it is available in the middle of the tray.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth reminding us why we do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's because Jesus before He died on the cross and rose again, told His disciples after following this practice, as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do this to remember the sacrifice of Jesus, the fact that He, though being God,

[SPEAKER_01]: did not hold on to his godly status, but allowed himself to take on the human nature and add a human nature to his divine nature and come and live as one of us and live a perfect sinless life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he allowed himself to be killed on the cross and very public display witnessed by hundreds of people.

[SPEAKER_01]: than he rose again from the dead and hundreds people saw that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they testified about it and they shared it in word spread and people wrote it down.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it made its way all the way down 2,000 years to us today so that we are here today can know based on that testimony that Jesus really did this for us and the Bible says.

[SPEAKER_01]: that if you believe in Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection, if you believe that He is the only way to be saved from your sin, God makes you his child, He forgives you, not only that, He actually gives you the righteousness of Jesus, and so your account gets wiped clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like you have a bank account, you're in the negative, and Jesus paid that debt for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now you're at his era, but then better than that, He gives you a billion dollars.

[SPEAKER_01]: because His righteousness gets applied to your account.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a beautiful thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing what God does for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we do this today.

[SPEAKER_01]: To remember what Jesus did for us and His sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now is a time as we pass out these elements for you to confess in the God, to pray and thank God, to praise Him for what He's done for you and to spend some time thinking about what you might wanna put on that card of sacrifice as we continue to worship Him in a different way.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's such a joy to get to do this together.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so great that all of you are here today, this is a special thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do it on a regular basis, so it may not feel like that and they feel like routine, but I mean, this is something, think about it, Jesus himself started this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He did the very first one, and that said, keep doing it to remember me.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we get to do right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's so great.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to start by reading Mark chapter 14 and we're going to take the bread together as they were eating.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus took some bread and blessed it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples saying take it.

[SPEAKER_01]: For this is my body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take the bread together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now for the cup.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He gave it to them and they all drank from it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he said to them, this is my blood which confirms the covenant between God and his people.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is poured out as a sacrifice for many.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take the cup.

[SPEAKER_01]: after the singing is done.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you need prayer for anything in your life right now, maybe it's something that came to mind during the communion time.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have people up here who would love to pray with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Find any of us standing up here with a land you're done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And please don't leave here without having someone pray for you today if there's something going on in your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you got a chance to write something down on those cards, as we have our time of worship together, at any point, whenever you feel ready, just come on up here during any of the three songs and drop it in there, say a prayer to God about it, make your sacrificial commitment to Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's worship God together.