LEVITICUS 1-3 FREELY OFFER YOUR WORSHIP TO GOD2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Leviticus 1-3 Freely Offer Your Worship To God

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2015. So as we're reading through the book of Leviticus, we are reading some interesting things as we go through the Bible in three years. I think the book of Leviticus is interesting because, well, it is the...

The Resolution Killer, right? New Year's Resolution, you decide, I'm going to read the Bible. And you start in Genesis, and it goes pretty good in January. And then in February, you run into Exodus, and Exodus is going pretty good. Towards the end, though, it kind of gets rough, because you got the tabernacle and all those dimensions, and then it's duplicated. And so you hang in there, but then you get into March and April, and you're hitting now the book of Leviticus. And you're in the book of Leviticus,

And it's a lot of times this is where, you know, that resolution you made to read through the Bible, it's over once you hit Leviticus. Because you get down here and there's all this detail, all this stuff about stuff that

doesn't maybe make a lot of sense or maybe doesn't have a lot of application and you're wondering, why do I need to know all of this? As I was reading through these things, I was likening it in my head to reading a repair manual for a car that I don't own and don't want to buy. It's like,

reading, you know, all about the spark plugs of the 1972 Pinto or whatever. It's like, like, who cares? I don't want it. I don't want to work on it even if I got it. But here I am. I have to read this manual because it's in the Bible. And sometimes we can get frustrated about that.

But I think the book of Leviticus has a lot for us. Even though there's a lot of detail, there's a lot of minutia, there's a lot of things that maybe we don't relate to, there is a lot of meat, there's a lot of things that the Lord would use to speak to us if we will give him the opportunity. And so we want to do that this morning, just to give him some opportunity to speak to us about some of these sacrifices. Now, as we begin to consider the sacrifices that are here in Leviticus chapter 1, 2, and 3,

I would ask you to consider this quote with me. It struck me this week, and I wanted to share it with you. It's from a guy named Gordon Dahl. He wrote a book about worship a few years back, about 30 years ago, actually. But out of that, he says, most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.

And when I first heard it, I kind of like dismissed it a little bit, but it stuck in my head. And as I continued to think about it, I continued to think, you know, maybe there's some merit to considering what he's talking about here. He says, we tend to worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship.

And essentially what he's talking about is our priorities, that we overemphasize many times our work, that we, you know, involve ourselves to a greater degree and our life revolves around that. And then we work at our play. And so we devote ourselves also to our entertainment and to the things that we want to do. But then when it comes to worship,

It's often the case we can slip into this condition where we just kind of play at our worship. That it's kind of like a side hobby. You know, if we have time, if we can get to it, you know, if it's convenient, then, you know, then we will worship. And as we talk about worship, we're not just talking about, you know, singing the songs. And although that's definitely a part of worship, but

Our life and obedience to God and service to God and doing what God has called us to do is part of worship. And so it can happen in our lives where our priorities get out of whack and we worship our work instead of worshiping our God. We play at our worship, but we work at our play. You know, we focus on, we invest ourselves in the wrong things sometimes and

And I think as we consider the book of Leviticus and these offerings in chapters one through three, that God wants to challenge us in our worship to kind of step up and make sure that we have the right priority and that we are worshiping God and not other things, that we are investing appropriately into the worship that he has called us to.

And so the title of the message this morning is Freely Offer Your Worship to God. And we'll be looking at Leviticus chapters 1, 2, and 3 at these sacrifices that God gives us here in these chapters. Now, as we talk about sacrifices, I should start by just kind of explaining. You know, sacrifices are not really about what a lot of times we might think they are about.

Sometimes we get distracted by all of the blood. We get distracted by the many animals. We get distracted by a lot of the details. And I think sometimes we miss the point of the sacrificial system. Now, the sacrifices were instituted by God. And so they were God-given. They were supposed to be done. But it was always from the very beginning meant to be temporary, right?

It was meant to be a temporary thing until the ultimate sacrifice was offered. And that, of course, is Jesus dying upon the cross for us. He was our sacrifice. And that's what we're going to be reflecting on this coming Friday as we celebrate Good Friday. So the sacrifices were a temporary system. They were meaningful, but they were temporary. Now, they were meaningful because the author of Hebrews explains in Hebrews 10 that

that the tabernacle and all the things around the tabernacle were shadows of what actually exists in heaven. And so they are shadows of the reality. They were shadows, but they were not the real thing. And the sacrifices that went along with the earthly tabernacle, those were shadows of the reality of Christ being sacrificed for us. And the author of Hebrews points out, if sacrifices were really effective,

then they wouldn't need to be offered over and over and over again because they would have dealt with the sin once and for all if they were really effective. Now that's what the sacrifice of Christ has done. Once and for all, he's dealt with sin. That's the real sacrifice that was foreshadowed by the sacrificial system that God set up.

Note the value then of the sacrifices wasn't just that God craved blood or he wanted to see animals lose their lives or anything like that. Really the value of the sacrificial system was the representation. It was lessons that God was teaching his people to

through some practical things that they would go through. And so in these sacrifices, they would live out, they would do these things that God instructed them, and they had significance in that they were teaching his people about him, about the sacrifice to come, and about their responsibility to him. And so the sacrifices were a way for God's people to engage in worship and

It was a way for them to worship God and to obey God and to walk with God. And that was really what God wanted out of the sacrificial system, more than just the blood being shed. Now, as we talk about these sacrifices, I think it's very interesting as we begin the book of Leviticus, the first sacrifices that the Lord introduces are not the mandatory sacrifices.

you can read about five different sacrifices in Leviticus chapters one through five. And so each chapter is talking about a different sacrifice. Two of those sacrifices were mandatory.

And the other three were free will offerings. They were not required. They were not mandatory. The mandatory ones are in Leviticus chapters four and five. We're not looking at those today. Those were the sin offering and the trespass offering. Now the sin offering and the trespass offering were mandatory.

offered in result of sin that you had committed. And so then you would come and you would offer the appropriate sacrifice because you had sinned. They were required. When you sinned, you had to offer the appropriate sacrifice. But I think it's interesting that God doesn't start there. And I think maybe I would have rearranged a little bit and put those sacrifices at the front.

The sin offering, the trespass offering, those must be the most important. But I would suggest to you this morning that God put the first three offerings as these free will offerings because he wants to teach us something. He wants to show us what he really values, what's really important to him. And that is he loves it when his people freely, of their own choosing, volunteer to

To worship God in various ways. That's what he's looking for. The commentator Thomas Constable says, each of these offerings reveals what is essential for a relationship between a redeemed sinner and a holy God. These offerings reveal essential things for us in our walk with God. He goes on to say, it also reveals what results from our relationship with God.

that these are things that are response to what God has done for us. The mandatory sacrifice has already been fulfilled. Jesus died upon the cross for us. He paid the price for our sin. He paid for it completely from beginning to end. We never have to offer sacrifice for sin.

But there is some free will offerings that are definitely appropriate for us to consider. And that's here in Leviticus chapters 1 through 3. And we'll look at these three sacrifices and consider what they might mean for us. And so as we look at Leviticus chapter 1, we're looking at the burnt offering. And here I would encourage you to freely offer your life to God. Freely offer your life to

Here in Leviticus chapter 1, we begin talking about the burnt offering in verse 3. Here's what it says. And so as God gives this instruction about this first sacrifice, he talks about the burnt sacrifice or the burnt offering.

And it's to be offered of an animal of the herd, a male without blemish. But notice that it says there in verse 3, he shall offer it of his own free will. So this is meant to be your choice as a worshiper. You choose, you decide. You don't have a schedule that you have to offer this. You don't have certain times. You don't have to, you know, do it in certain circumstances. This is completely up to you.

There are some offerings that are commanded, and you follow that schedule. You do that time. You know, God gives all kinds of those instructions later on, but there is the opportunity. God makes an opportunity for His people at any time, whenever you want. You can offer this burnt offering at the tabernacle of the door of, sorry, at the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord. Now,

You don't have to get freaked out. I'm not going to get into all the blood or try to get graphic or anything like that, okay? What I'm going to do as we look at these different sacrifices is just pull out a couple highlights. There's a lot here. We could look at the symbolism. We could look at how these things are fulfilled in Jesus. But I'm going to set all that kind of stuff aside and just consider some of the key elements of the sacrifice so that we could understand some of the lesson that God wanted to teach his people

that we might learn how to worship God, that we might learn how to offer our life to God. And so the first thing I'd like to highlight from the burnt offering is that the animal represented the worshiper. Whenever someone would offer a burnt offering, the animal that they brought was a representation of themselves. Look at verse four. It says, "'Then he shall put his hand "'on the head of the burnt offering, "'and it will be accepted on his behalf

to make atonement for him. And so try to picture this in your mind a little bit. He's gonna put his hand on the head of the burnt offering. I'm gonna make a little bit of room here so I can walk around a bit. So if you're offering the sacrifice, you're taking your animal, and I set up my black table altar here. I wanted to put one together and build one, but I didn't have time. So here's my altar, okay? So you bring your animal here,

So understand, this is a very close, personal, intimate connection that is being exchanged here with this animal that is being offered as a sacrifice.

This isn't like, you know, you see it on the list at Amazon, you click it, you hit the button, and then it gets sent to the tabernacle and gets offered on your behalf. You know, this isn't, you know, you get a piece of paper, an animal is offered on your behalf, you know, of this size and weight. No, no. This is something you personally, as the worshiper, would be involved. And you would be connected. You would take your hand and you would put it on the head of the animal that you're offering. Right?

And so you're face to face, you're eye to eye, you're looking at this animal that is about to be offered on this altar. There's a real personal intimacy there. There's a real personal connection. And the laying of the hand upon the head was a recognition of, I'm identifying with this animal. This animal is taking my place. I'm the one who deserves to die.

But God has offered this substitute. And so the hand is laid upon the head. You're identifying with the animal. You're saying this animal represents me and is going to be offered up to God. And so the animal represented the worshiper. Not only that, but then you go on to the next point. And this is a little bit tough for us to think about. The worshiper killed the animal. Look at verse 5.

He, that's talking about the worshiper, shall kill the bull before the Lord, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood all around on the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of meeting. So the person who brings the animal to be sacrificed is the one who puts the animal to death. So again, it's not something like you just bring it, you hand it off to the priest, he goes behind the curtain, takes care of it, you don't really have to see it or be part of it.

No, you're personally involved. And so you bring your animal, you bring the knife. Don't worry, I got the dullest knife I could find, okay? I'm not going to hurt myself. But you bring the knife, you lay your hand on the head of the animal, you're looking the animal in the eye, and then you're the one who slices the throat. And so it's a very personal involvement. It's a very close connection. It's a very real representation of you, animal, are taking my place. I deserve to die, right?

It's not this like distant idea. It's not, you know, like, you know, theoretically or, you know, I read about in a book one time, but the children of Israel would know very closely, very clearly. They would see it face to face every time they offered up an offering. That there was a need in them that required someone else to die. Something else had to die for their sake. Back in verse 4.

It says when he puts a hand on the head of the burnt offering, God says it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. The burnt offering was not a sin offering. It wasn't something that you had to offer every time you sinned. But acknowledging that I am sinful, whenever I would offer a burnt offering, it would also be for atonement. And maybe not for some specific sin, but just for my general sinfulness, the fact that I'm a sinner.

And God says, when you do that, when you go through this process, you make this real connection. You put your hand on the head. God says, that animal will be accepted on your behalf and will make atonement for you. Now, this is a little bit hard for us. Maybe not for all of you, but for some of us, it's a little bit harder than for others. Because in our society, in our culture, we don't see a whole lot of...

the killing of animals. We enjoy the fruits of the killing of the animals, but we just drive through, get the burger, and we're on our way. So we don't have to go through the process. I don't know if you've ever seen an animal butchered. I remember many years ago when I was young, I was up north in the Modesto area, and I actually got to see a cow be butchered.

And it was pretty interesting. I'm glad I only saw it that one time. I don't think I would want to see that every day. I look at Facebook on...

People I used to know, like we grew up together around here, and they've, you know, since grown up and moved on to Montana and, you know, all these other different places. And then you see pictures that they're posting, you know, oh, I got my first deer. Now, this is a girl that used to be in the youth group I used to hang out with, and she got her first deer, and she's like holding up the head by the antlers, you know, and I'm like,

What in the world? It's just so hard for me to picture. I've never done that. I've never held up a deer. You know, it's just the head. That's all that's left. And I'm holding it. I've never done that. I've never sliced the throat of an animal. I've never tried to skin it or clean it. I don't even clean fish. So I'm really disconnected from the whole process of preparation to when it becomes the meat on my buns. You know, the hamburger buns. It's like, I'm really disconnected. I don't get to see that. And maybe that's how you are too. The children of Israel weren't like that.

they grew up in that society where that was normal. And if we grew up in a society where that was normal, we wouldn't have such a problem with it as we do. And so sometimes we get distracted by the details of the sacrifices because it's so different from what we've known. But here's what you got to understand. Even though they recognized what it was like and it wasn't weird for them to put an animal to death so that they could eat it, that was normal practice for them.

There was something special about the burnt offering. It wasn't just any other time that they killed an animal and ate it. It wasn't just any other time that they put an animal to death. There was something very symbolic. There was something very special where they put the hand on the head of the animal. They connected with the animal. They recognized the animal is my representative and is being put to death in my place, on my behalf.

And then once this burnt offering was killed by the worshiper, then the animal would be cut up and divided in different pieces. Parts of it would be washed. He describes that in the next couple of verses. But then in verse 9, we see the third aspect of the burnt offering that I want to point out. And that is that the whole animal is burned on the altar.

Look at verse 9. It says, but he shall wash its entrails and its legs with water. That was the end of the different parts that they would deal with. And the priest shall burn all on the altar as a burnt sacrifice. An offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord. And so the burnt offering was specific in that

different sacrifices, the meat was divided up, the animal was divided up, and different portions went to accomplish different things. But in the burnt sacrifice, the entire animal was placed upon the altar. Every part of it. It was put to death, it was divided up, it was washed, but then it was placed on the altar.

And that's why it's called a burnt offering because it was placed on the altar. And then don't think about it like a burnt offering as if, you know, your meat is well done as opposed to like medium or rare. You know, it's not like a burnt offering like that. Like it was just extra crispy. It was burnt down to ashes. It was on the altar until there was nothing left until it had been completely consumed. And all that was left was the ashes. Okay.

That's what a burnt offering was all about. The whole animal being burned, being consumed so that nothing was left. And so these are the things that they would go through to offer this burnt offering. But there was some meaning, there was some significance to it.

So that as they laid their hand on the animal's head and put the animal to death and said, you're my representative, what the worshiper was saying is, I'm giving my life, I'm placing my life completely on the altar for God. It was a sacrifice that was representative of a heart of surrender, a heart that desired to be fully surrendered to God.

A heart that desired to be completely given over to the things of God. It was a way to worship God and express, God, I want to be completely given to you. I want to be totally sold out for you. I want to burn completely for you. As we consider these things for us today as believers, we can look at the animal that represented the worshiper and realize, well, Jesus was our sacrifice.

And as Jesus represented me on the cross, well, I can also see it was the worshiper who put him to death. That he didn't go to the cross for his own sake or for his own sins or for anything else. He was perfect. He was flawless. But he went to the cross for my sake. He died so that I wouldn't have to. He represented me. He took my place.

And so when it comes to us worshiping the Lord, we can recognize our part in what took place in that sacrifice. And like there was this real close connection between the worshiper and the animal, there can be this real close connection between me and Jesus where I look and I say, he took my place. He died for my sin, for my sinfulness.

And then as I recognize that, as I meditate on what Jesus has done for me, well, the next part of the burnt offering where the whole animal is burned on the altar, that's my response. That's your response to what Christ has done for us. That we would recognize as he has loved us so great to give himself completely for us, the only reasonable thing to do is to give ourselves completely to God.

Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 12, verse 1. And I bet many of you anticipated that I was going to go there, right? Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Paul says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Paul says, I beg you, I beseech you,

Here's what you should do, he says, by God's mercy, present your body a living sacrifice. As he talks about presenting yourself as a living sacrifice, I think he has in mind here this burnt offering. He's saying, put yourself completely on the altar of God. Not that you'll physically, literally be put to death or burned, but that you would devote yourself to God in that same manner.

You would give yourself completely to God. It's often been said the problem with the living sacrifice is that it keeps getting off the altar. And you and I know what that's like. We've come to those times in our lives where the Lord stirred our hearts. We've recognized what he's done for us. We've recognized his sacrifice on our behalf and our need for a savior. And then our response is, Lord, I want to give myself to you completely. I want to give my life to you.

And so in our minds, we're putting ourselves on the altar. We come to that place of surrender. But then what happens? A lot of times we don't stay there. We put ourselves on the altar. We put ourselves in complete surrender. And then there's temptation all around us to take things back into our own hands. And so there's the plans of the future. There's the provision that needs to be made. And you can try to do those things on your own. And so you kind of get off the altar and

Because, you know, over here, well, there's these ideas that I have and there's these goals that I have. And so I'm going to try to try to accomplish this and try to get that without hearing from God, without having God give you instruction. Or there's a situation where you get upset and you know how it is when you're upset, right? A lot of times, you know how God wants you to respond, but you have the choice to make. And so there's the temptation to

All to Jesus I surrender. And then I can't believe that guy just cut me off like that. And now we have this choice. Am I really going to be surrendered and do what the scriptures instruct me to do? Or am I going to get off the altar, take matters into my own hand, and do what I want to do? Because, well, it might feel good for a moment. I might enjoy it. I'm going to have a good time with it. I might regret it later, but that's how I'm going to respond. That's how I choose to respond.

Or maybe you're on the altar, all to Jesus, I surrender. And that involves some things, some commitments that you make. But then you realize, oh no, that conflicts with the championship game. And so you get off the altar and you're like, no, no, I got to watch my team. I mean, they're my team. I got to be involved with that. Or I got to get involved with this other thing. And we get off the altar. Originally we surrendered. We came to that place. But then we take things back into our own hands.

And now we're frustrated and we're stressed and we're trying and we're, you know, pursuing all these things. And that's one thing I like about the burnt offering. The burnt offering was not a once and for all kind of offering. It was a free will offering. You could offer it as many times as you want. And so I want to encourage you this morning. I'm sure probably every believer's experienced this. You've offered the burnt offering. You've come to that place of surrender. And then you found yourself off the altar. You can also...

Offer a new burnt offering and you can put yourself back on the altar and come back to that place of surrender. Come back to that place where you give your life to God. Worship God. I like what Thomas Constable says about this. He says, giving one's life to God is not an act of great sacrifice. We might think of it like an act of great sacrifice, but he says it's not an act of great sacrifice. It's simply giving back to God what already belongs to him.

That's the right understanding of this. When we give our life to God, sometimes we think of it as like we're doing God such a great, incredible favor. But no, it's what's best for us. And it's rightfully his. I think it's also important to note that the burnt offering was a free will offering. It was never to be offered as part of a vow. There's other offerings, other sacrifices that God allowed. Hey, if you want to offer this as part of a vow, you can't.

But sometimes we try to attach this idea to a vow. In other words, God, if you get me out of this, I promise I'm going to live my life for you. I'm going to give everything I have and we attach it to this vow. I promise, I vow, I'm going to make sure. But the burnt offering was not attached to a vow. It was just meant to be offered whenever you want. In response to God, in response to his word, in response to who he is and what he's done, you could come and surrender your life to God.

And so this is what the Lord was teaching his people through this sacrifice. Surrender. The animal representing them. The price that had to be paid on their behalf because of their sinful condition and being completely given over to the things of God. We need to come to that place. It's the right response to what Christ has done for us. Freely offer your life to God. Well, secondly, as we go on into Leviticus chapter 2,

Here we get to see the grain offering. And here I would encourage you to freely offer your thanks to God. Give thanks to God. In Leviticus chapter 2 verse 1 it says, Now as we look at the grain offering,

This is an interesting offering in that it's unique from the other offerings because it's not an animal sacrifice. Most of the offerings were animal sacrifices. Variety of different kinds of animals, different kinds of conditions, you know, demanded different things. But the grain offering was not an animal sacrifice. It was an offering of grain, the produce of the field.

And so this offering was a little bit different. He says it shall be a fine flour. And that's the first thing to note here in the grain offering. It's an offering of fine flour. Look at verse two. He shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests, one of whom shall take from it its handful of fine flour with oil and oil with the frankincense. And the priest shall burn it as a memorial on the altar, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord."

And so you could bring this offering of fine flour. Now in the chapter, he goes on to describe in verse four, five, and seven, you could bring the fine flour in a variety of different methods. So you could bring a basket of flour. And so you have your basket of

You've harvested your grain. You've ground it down. Now you have this fine flour. You've sifted out all the lumps and you have this solid product, this fine flour. And you could bring a portion of that as an offering to the Lord. But you also, if you wanted to, could cook the fine flour. And that's what he describes in verse 4. He talks about the grain offering that's baked in the oven.

And so you could fill up your basket with bread instead of just flour. And so you could bring an offering of bread to the Lord. And then in verse 5, he talks about if you cook it in a pan. Now, I don't know what the difference is between baking it in the oven and cooking it in a pan. Maybe Harvey could tell you after the service. In verse 7...

He talks about tortillas. That's nice. Okay, I like that. So you bring your basket of tortillas. Okay, nice. And then verse 7, he talks about baked in a covered pan. And so I'm going to call that one donuts. You could bring your basket of donuts, deep fried, you know, and bring that to the Lord. So you could prepare it in a variety of ways, but it was this fine flour, either raw or prepared, and you would bring that to the Lord for this grain offering. Okay.

Now, once you brought it, well, the second thing to highlight from this grain offering is that a handful represented all of it. Look at verse 9. It says, So the handful represented all of it. So if you would come with your basket and

they would take a handful of the flour and put that on the altar. So they wouldn't put the whole basket on the altar, just a portion, the handful would come out. That would be placed on the altar and that would represent the whole basket. Or if it was a baked product, you cooked it, they would break off a piece, that would go on the altar and it would represent the whole package, the whole offering. What would happen with the rest? So the handful goes on the altar, where does the basket go? He goes on in verse 10 to tell us,

So the remainder, what's left in the basket, is given to the priests.

And it's what the priests would be able to consume. They'd be able to eat. If it was raw flour, they'd be able to make their own bread and tortillas and such. If it was already cooked and prepared already, they'd be able to enjoy that. It was part of the way that God provided for the priests while giving his people an opportunity to worship him. Now, notice what it says there in verse 10. He says, "'What's left of the grain offering "'shall be Aaron's and his son's. "'It is most holy of the offerings to the Lord made by fire.'"

I think this is really interesting. God highlights the grain offering and says, this is the most holy offering. Now, I would have thought maybe the sin offering or the trespass offering was the most holy offering. But God says, no, the most holy offering is the grain offering. And I think part of the reason why is because this also was a free will offering. This wasn't a requirement. And it was just a demonstration of gratitude.

Where you're at home and you're looking at the harvest, you're looking at the grain, you're looking at the flower that you have and you say, you know what? God's blessed us so much. I just want to give some back to him. So let's go give him some flower. And so you pack it up and you take it and you give it to the Lord. A handful gets placed on the altar. The rest goes to support the servants at the tabernacle, the priests and the Levites.

And so this goes to them. They get to partake. You get to bless them. But it's your expression of gratitude. It wasn't on a schedule. Every Sunday, you have to present your fine flour.

Now, I can imagine, I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I can imagine someone saying, you know, I make the best tortillas anybody's ever tasted. And I can't wait for those priests to taste my tortillas. So I just want to thank God, and I'm going to put some tortillas together, and they're going to have a great time enjoying my tortillas, and I'm going to offer that to the Lord.

It was an expression of gratitude, but they also recognize, hey, we're taking care of the Lord's servants. And so we're ministering to them, offering thanks to God. The handful that's on the altar represents God gives me credit for the whole thing, even though the whole thing doesn't go on the altar. But the whole thing is me saying thanks to the Lord. Now, the last thing to highlight is that this offering is distinct from the firstfruits.

In verse 12, he says, So there's a couple different things that you could think about when it comes to grain offerings. There was the first fruits. Now the first fruits was when you would have the harvest and you gathered the first little bit from the field,

Sometimes they would even do it when it just like first began to bud and first began to produce fruit. Then they would take a portion of that. It wasn't a large portion, a small portion. And they would bring it and they would offer that to the Lord. That was in faith of what was to come. Trusting that God, we're offering this to you and you're going to provide for our harvest that is to come. But then you could also consider the tithe. The tithe was once they harvested all the grain, right?

They would see how much they had. They'd be able to take 10th of that. That's what a tithe is, a 10th of that. And they would take that and they would bring that to the Lord. Now, the tithe was used also for the priests and would provide for the work of the house of the Lord in that way. And so there was the firstfruits, there was the tithe. Those were mandatory. Those weren't optional. In fact, they had God established the feast of firstfruits.

that they practiced every year. And so at harvest time, as it began, people would bring their first fruits as part of the feast of first fruits. And then after the feast, they would go back home and then they would harvest the field and all the wheat that had grown there. But now this grain offering is separate from those two things. This is just...

Because you want to say thanks to God. This isn't a required thing. It's different than those other offerings. It's different than those other things. Instead, this is just, you know, God's been good to us. He's provided for us. And so we want to say thanks. We want to express our gratitude. And God gave them that opportunity with this grain offering. And for us, as we consider this today, again, I would encourage you to freely offer your thanks to God.

Now for them, they could prepare different cakes, you know, different ways, cook it different ways, bring the raw flour. They could bring it different ways to offer it to the Lord, to express their gratitude. And I think there's several ways that we can express our gratitude to God as well. The first I would suggest is you can express gratitude with your voice. The author of Hebrews in Hebrews 13, 15 says, therefore by him,

let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. And so one way to practice this or participate in this is to use our voice, the fruit of our lips, to out loud say, thanks God, to out loud express our gratitude. I think that is taking place as we gather together and sing and worship together in

Many times, part of that is our expression of gratitude, that out loud, we're singing together and rejoicing and thanking God for what he has done. But also, that carries into, you know, even when you're at work and God blesses you, God does a work, and you let that be known, that you express it out loud. You say, thank you, Lord, for what he has done. And so, one way to offer this sacrifice of thanksgiving is with your voice.

Another way, of course, that we could consider based on the way that this offering would work is you could offer your funds. They would work and the wages would be what they harvested from the field. You also work and then your wages as you bring them in can be given to the Lord as an expression of gratitude.

The commentator Thomas Constable says, by offering this sacrifice, the offerer was saying that he viewed all the work that he did as an offering to the Lord. And so you can, you know, take a portion of what you've earned and say, Lord, this represents all that I do. And I want all that I do to be for you. Kind of like what Paul said in Colossians 3, 17, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That you offer it as a representation and you say, God, I want everything to be done for you. I'm just so grateful. I'm so thankful for what you've done. As you consider that these flower offerings required work, I think there's another aspect of this that we can consider for ourselves as well.

It required work. You would harvest the grain. You would grind it down. You would make the flour. You would sift it so you would have fine flour. Then if you wanted to, you would go above and beyond that. You would cook it and prepare it, and then you would bring it. It required some effort. It required some investment on your part. And I think that speaks of us serving in our gratitude for God, giving of ourselves, giving of our time, giving of our efforts.

to God, to do things that God calls us to do, to do things that God sets before us, opportunities that he gives us so that we can serve him, freely giving our things to God and saying, this is because I'm thankful, God. And so I'm at home, I'm baking the bread, I'm making the tortillas, I'm doing this because I thank you for what you have done. Well, the final sacrifice for us to consider, Leviticus chapter three now, is to do

is the peace offering. And here I would encourage you to freely offer your time to God. Freely offer your time. In verse 1 of chapter 3, it says, So now it's the peace offering.

Now we're back to looking at an animal sacrifice. And so the animal sacrifices had similar things in common with each other. There was the laying the hand on the head, the worshiper identifying with the animal, also the worshiper being the one who kills the animal. And so that's involved in this peace offering. This also is to be of the herd. And so it's one of their own animals.

But what makes the peace offering unique and distinct is, well, the different portions of the peace offering that went to different places or different people. And so there was a portion that was offered to God from the peace offering. In verse 3, it says, He shall offer from the sacrifice of the peace offering, an offering made by fire to the Lord, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails.

So you get the picture, right? You lay your hand on the animal. You put the animal to death. The animal is then split open, butchered essentially, and

All of these different portions, the fat of these different places, the kidney and such, all of that is removed and that's placed upon the altar. And that's the burnt offering to the Lord of the peace offering. That's given to the Lord. This is God's portion of the offering. But then in addition to that, there was still different pieces remaining of the animal. And so another portion would be given to the priest, right?

In Leviticus chapter 7, it tells us that the breast of the animal and the thigh, specifically the right thigh of the animal, was given to the priests. And so the priest that was helping you offer the sacrifice would benefit. They would get to take some carne asada home for their family, and they would get to eat of this sacrifice that you were offering.

And so part of it would go on the altar that would just be burned and consumed. Part of it would go to the priest and it would provide a meal for the priest and his family. And then the rest of the animal would be a portion that was eaten by the worshipers. And so this offering was, well, it was something that you would do kind of like as a feast. You would sacrifice this animal. Part would be given to the Lord. Part would be given to the priest.

but you and your friends and family could enjoy the rest. And so you would have a barbecue and you would eat together of this peace offering that was sacrificed. Now, throughout Israel's history, the peace offering was often practiced and they would have these huge feasts. For example, when Solomon dedicated the temple,

It tells us he offered 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep. These are peace offerings. It's a huge barbecue. It was an all-you-can-eat fest for several days. You know, they're feasting, they're celebrating together at what God has done in the dedication of the temple.

Hezekiah also gave a feast where 2,000 bulls and 17,000 sheep were offered as feasts or as peace offerings in 2 Chronicles chapter 30. And so this is something that they would do like on a large scale as a big feast and

but they would also do individually where they would offer a single animal on the altar would go the fat and all the parts to God. The priest would get his share and then the friends and family would come and celebrate and partake of the rest of the animal. God gives a little bit of instruction in Leviticus chapter seven that this offering, the peace offering could be given as a manner of saying thanks. It was a Thanksgiving offering and

Or it could be a vow. So we talked about the vow before, right? The burnt offering wasn't connected to a vow, but a peace offering could. So you could have fellowship in connection to this vow that you're making to the Lord. Or it could be just a voluntary offering that you just want to have some fellowship. And that's really what the peace offering is about. It wasn't an offering to get peace. Those were the sin sacrifices, right?

the sin offering, the trespass offering, those offerings brought you back into peace with God as you obeyed what God instructed when you had sinned. This was an offering to get peace. This was an offering for the enjoyment of peace, for the celebration of, hey, we have peace with God and we have peace with one another. It was about the fellowship, about the spending of time together.

The Jewish people highly valued eating a meal together. It was something that was really important to them. And they took it to mean much more than just, you know, we both put food in our bellies at the same time. You know, like it was more than that. One commentator said that people who ate a ritual meal together were committing themselves to one another in a strong bond of loyalty. To eat a meal together was to commit yourself to one another.

Again, it's the enjoyment of that peace, that commitment. We're going to stick together. We're going to walk together. We're going to be united in this. And so there was this unity. There was this fellowship. And so we get to participate in this offering as well. And that's why I made the point, freely offer your time to God.

Because we don't practice this and God's not telling us, hey, in order to really have fellowship, you know, you got to sacrifice. You got to put an animal to death yourself. You hold the knife. No, that's not what God's saying. These things were representative to point us to some important lessons. And here's what God's saying to us. God says, I'm opening the way. This is a free will offering. Whenever you'd like, come spend time with me. Let's enjoy a meal together.

Let's enjoy a feast. Let's enjoy some time with one another. And while you're at it, why don't you enjoy some time with your family? And why don't you enjoy some time with the rest of the community? Let's gather together and enjoy one another's presence. God loves our presence. He loves fellowship with us. He does. It's really the whole point. Why did he create us in the beginning?

Why did he make a way for us to have fellowship with him instead of writing us all off and saying, forget you guys. I'm not going to redeem you guys. I'll create some new people to hang out with. That'll be better than you guys. No, God loves us so much. He desires fellowship with us. But this isn't a mandatory sacrifice. You have to spend time with me. He says, come on. Door's open. I want to spend time with you. And it's really good for you to spend time with other believers as well.

for you guys to share in that commitment to the Lord together with one another, to enjoy and to celebrate the goodness of God and what he's done. Oh, it's really good for you. And so let me give you this instruction for the peace offering, God says. For us, freely offer your time. Spend time with God. Spend time with God on your own, but also spend time with God with one another.

That's part of what we do as we gather together as believers on Sundays or Wednesdays or as we have this opportunity. It's also part of what we do and I want to encourage you now as we wrap up our service this morning. It's part of what we do when we do things like the flashlight fellowship today. Richard's over there. He's getting ready. He's got the lamb just waiting for you. Here's the knife.

Go put it to death. We're going to, no, it's already been taken care of. That process is already done. So we just put the patties on the grill and we cook up hamburgers. And we're going to put a dog to death and have some hot dogs. Or you can bring whatever you want. But let's fellowship together. Let's have a peace offering. Let's just commit some time to the Lord and say, Lord, you know, we just want to enjoy your presence. We want to enjoy the presence of one another and just enjoy this peace that you've given to us. It's part of the way that we worship God.

It's part of the way that we give ourselves to God and respond to what he has done for us. And so we can freely offer our life to God in the burnt offering, where we put ourselves on the altar and say, I'm yours, Lord. It's absolute surrender. Yes, we're going to get off the altar. That's to be anticipated. I mean, we're not perfect. We're not in eternity yet. You're going to get off the altar. And so God invites you back. Come on back.

Offer another burnt sacrifice. Put yourself back on the altar. Bring yourself back to that point of surrender. That's okay. Keep on doing that as many times as you need to. Just bring yourself back and offer yourself to God. Give your life to God and freely offer your thanks to God. I would encourage you to think of some practical ways, just as they would be home, you know, making the fine flour and making the bread and just bringing it to say thanks to God. Think of some practical things that you can do.

Think of some ways that you can just show your gratitude, maybe by giving to someone who is in need. And for you, that's just you saying to God, God, I just want to do something to say thanks. You've provided, you've been good to us, and so I want to do this for you. Maybe it's serving in some capacity. Maybe it's doing, you know, something practical like fixing somebody's car. Who knows? But whatever it is, think of ways that you can just

Show your gratitude and your thankfulness, practical things that you can do and say, God, this is for you. This is because you're good to me. I want to say thank you. And then freely offer your time to God. At the beginning, I read that quote, we worship our work, we work at our play, and we play at our worship. It's easy to get out of balance, get our priorities out of line. And so we don't have time for God. We don't have time for his people. We don't even have time for our own families sometimes.

because our priorities get out of whack. Let's bring things back in line. Make sure you give God some time. Make sure you give time, not just for you and God, but to be with God and his people. It's a way to offer to God in response to what he's done for you. It's a way to respond. He's fulfilled the mandatory offerings. The sacrifices for sin, Jesus accomplished at the cross. These are voluntary offerings.

You can walk out of here and say, yeah, no thanks, God. It's not the right response. It's not the response that we should have. But God doesn't force you to love him. He doesn't force you. He gives you the opportunity. And I would encourage you to take that opportunity. Freely offer your life to God. Freely offer your thanks to God and freely offer your time to God. Let's pray.

Lord, as we consider these things, I pray that you would stir up within us the right response. Lord, as we consider who you are, as we consider your great love towards us and what you do and have done for us, Lord, your word tells us that we love you because you first loved us. And so, Lord, help us to love you back and to freely give of ourselves to worship you, to honor you, to recognize you for who you are. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.