You have a Bible that invites you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13. We are nearing the end of a two-year study through this book. Thank you for your patience and I'm proud of your perseverance and hope we have worn you out. We are at Hebrews 13 verses 15 to 16 with just a few more weeks to go throughout the book of course we've seen well Old Testament promises and prophecies fulfilled and the writer uses so much of the Old Testament language to explain to us the person and the work of Christ, our great High Priest, the one true sacrifice, the true temple where man and God meet and things of that nature.
In fact we just saw last week in verse 10 that we have an altar he says but he doesn't mean a place to build a fire and offer animal sacrifices. He actually calls our altar the cross. That's what we have in Jesus. And now in verses 15 and 16 he uses again the Old Testament language of sacrifice.
It's a temple language and in light of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done as the perfect sacrifice to take away sin, how should we then respond? How should we then live? Well the writer will say we too should sacrifice. So let's consider what he says from Hebrews 13 verses 15 and 16 this is the word of God.
Through him that is through Jesus then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Amen this is God's word.
We cut our hearts with it. Let's look to him in prayer. Our Father we ask that you would open our eyes to hold wonderful things in your word that you would mold us and shape us after the likeness of Christ that you would transform us by the renewing of our minds. We ask that you would lift Jesus before our eyes and draw our hearts to him by the work of the Spirit which only you can do.
Make it so Lord in Jesus name. Amen. Well we're going to come right to the chase. I want you to think about three things this evening.
First the writer speaks of the sacrifice of our lips verse 15 the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips. Then he speaks of the sacrifice of our lives verse 16 doing good and sharing what we have. But first let me say we should take them together before we take them in turn. And so let's do that.
First because of Jesus Christians offer sacrifices of both lip and life verses 15 and 16. That is that our sacrifices are of lip and life of worship and work of singing and sharing of doxology and doing good works. That's the response of a believing heart that Jesus creates. There's an interesting and by Eric Lutzer if that's how you pronounce it.
He passed her to pass their book. He tells the story of a James Mitchner writing in his book The Source where he tells the story of a man named Erbil who was a farmer living about 2200 BC. He worshiped two gods, one of God of death and one of God of fertility. One day the temple priests tell Erbil to bring his own son to the temple for sacrifice.
If he wants good crops. And Erbil obeys. And on the other day he drags his wife and his boy to the scene of the boy's religious execution by fire to the God of death. And after the sacrifice of Erbil and several other boys the priests announce that one of the fathers will spend next week in the temple with a new temple prostitute.
And Erbil's wife is stunned as she notices the desire written more intensely across his face than she had ever seen. And she's overwhelmed to see him eagerly lunge forward when his name is called. When the ceremony is over she walks out of the temple with her head swimming concluding that well if he had had different gods he would have been a different man. You hear a bitches lesson in the story.
You become like what you worship. If he had a different God he would have been a different man. Worship a God of death and you say yes when your priest says kill the child for good drops. Worship a God of fertility and you eagerly unite with a temple prostitute.
So what happens then when your God is Jesus. The writer says your lips speak his prose and your life reflects his generosity. Praise what happens when you admire him. Sharing what you have is what happens when you've received his generosity.
So we should ask ourselves towards the end of a long study in this book. Have we beheld the beauty of the Lord Jesus? And have we benefited by him? That's what the whole book is about.
Well let me remind you. I mean it's the end. Let's just remember the whole. He's better than the angels chapter one.
They are his creatures. He is their creator and he sent the angels to serve those he saves. The angels serve for our good. Here's my half.
Chapter two because God's children are flesh and blood. That's what we are. And because of the fallen to sin we're subject to death and the devil and the wrath of God. Therefore God took our flesh.
That through death he might destroy the devil. Deliver us from death and divert from us the wrath of God. When we saw in chapter three that Jesus is better than Moses. Was faithful in God's house as a servant.
Jesus is faithful over God's house as the son. In chapter four we saw that Jesus is a better Joshua. As Joshua of old led God's people into an earthly promised land. Jesus leads us into the true heavenly promised rest.
And he's better than Aaron and the Levites. That's chapter five and following. Those Old Testament priests were weak, frail, fallible men. Where Jesus is the great high priest who is holy, innocent, unstained, continues forever and always lives to intercede for us.
He doesn't sleep. He doesn't slumber. He doesn't get weak. He never forgets.
And he doesn't retire from the ministry so the next chunk can take his place. He's a better sacrifice. Chapter seven through ten. Those Old Testament priests offered sacrifices that had to constantly be repeated because the blood of a bull to go can never take away sin.
But by his single offering, offering up of himself, he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So Jesus is a better priest. He offers a better sacrifice.
He's the better temple of God where God and man meet. And so through him we have what? In light of his generosity we have the forgiveness of our trespasses. Through him we have access into the presence of God to come boldly and say, I need you and help me.
What happens then when you see and gaze at such superiority and such self-giving? The writer says you adore and you share. And he invites us to do both. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus we sacrifice ourselves.
Our sacrifices follow his. We don't offer a sacrifice that atones for our sin or that brings us forgiveness. Jesus did that. But because he did that, the writer says, you who trust in him, you who belong to him, well you're living your life should go together.
It shouldn't be all words and no works and it shouldn't be all works and no words. It's not one with the other. Now of course as we say that, I think we all as Christians, we all feel that we don't measure up. We don't live up to what we're called to do.
And nobody among us does so perfectly until we reach the glory that is to come. We never live up to the ideal that we profess. We long for the holiness of heaven when our hearts and our lives will be appropriate to the Savior we have. But the Lord knows when our hearts are genuine, he knows when our hearts are sincere.
And our offerings to God such as they are weak as they are are acceptable to God in him and through him. So consider then your lips more particularly. Notice verse 15, through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
He's thinking of us as ourselves being priests, the priesthood of all believers. Ourselves being priests who bring an offering, again not of a tournament but admiration, not for purification but for praise. Why? Remember verses 11 and 12 from last week you can see them in your text for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin.
Well what happens to them? They're burned outside the camp. So Jesus he says verse 12 also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. So that in the sin offerings the blood was brought into the tent to show that the judgment of death due to sinners had taken place in the sacrifice of a substitute.
And then the other parts of that animal were taken outside the camp, outside the camp was the place of execution. It was the place of estrangement and Jesus suffered outside the camp and he went outside that we could come in and he was punished so that we could be pardoned. He becomes unclean so that we could be holy. He was excluded so that we could be included.
Don't you find him admirable? Then let your heart sing praise. He says we offer praise as the fruit of lips which confess his name and we would offer a sacrifice of praise continually he says. And so well we had a tremendous reminder and rightly so that we gather together every Lord's day with the body of Christ.
We're called by God and we encourage one another to worship him and we worship him together in this body and we need that. But the writer is reminding us that praise isn't only for Sunday. It's day by day, week by week. And one of the evidences that we're a genuine Christian is that we're not just a pew sitter and we're not only just a Sunday singer but we offer a sacrifice of praise continually.
So what do you confess Monday through Saturday? Do you call on the Lord? Do you confess Him? Remember again it's through Him that any of this reaches the Lord's ears.
He's our great priest and we come to God through Him. That is to say there are days you wake up and it's like there's a sheet of ice over your heart and you have very little discernible interest in walking with the Lord that day, in praising the Lord. And you get out of bed and then ten things go wrong and suddenly everything is diverted and you're focused entirely on yourself and your circumstances and your troubles and your pains and your anxieties about the future. And you say how can I offer anything to the Lord in this condition?
And what the writer is reminding us of reminding us of is that we don't offer the Lord out of our own condition and are acceptable in our own condition. We offer to the Lord because of the condition of Christ, because of the qualifications of Christ and the acceptability of Christ and we are in Him and He makes all our prayers and all our praises better than we offer them. He brings them perfect to the throne. And so you can bring all your weakness and failure and coldness and call upon His name.
One of the most helpful things you can do is simply be honest with the Lord. When you find that you're weak instead of trying to drum up, strength, acknowledge your weakness, rest in Jesus. And then you don't have to conjure up your own strength because in your weakness He becomes your strength. You can be honest about your sin.
Your struggle. I mean we just sang Lord with glowing heart I praise the for the bliss I love bestows. For the pardoning grace that saves me and the peace that from it flows, help O God my weak endeavor. This dull soul to rapture raise.
Thou must like the flame or never can my love be warned to praise. Would you love that honesty? And so let me say another word about praising. And this is at length from C.S.
Lewis. But I think these words are really helpful as you consider praising the Lord. He says the most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything strangely escaped me, I thought of it in terms of compliment or approval or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless sometimes even if shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought into check.
The check it. He says the world rings with praise. Readers praising their favorite poet. Walkers praising the countryside.
Players praising their favorite game. Praise of weather. Wines dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical percentages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humble is and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds praised most while the cranks and the misfits and the malcontents praised least.
I had not noticed either says Lewis that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it. Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that's magnificent?
The psalmist in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. And so says Lewis my whole more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards to the supremely valuable what we delight to do, what we indeed can't help doing about everything else we value. I think says Lewis we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is, it's appointed consummation.
So if you esteem Jesus and if you enjoy what he's done for you there will be an overflow of praise. So you don't have to study hard to praise. You don't have to study praise hard to figure out what to do. You just need to study Jesus and become enamored with him and by his help we can do so.
Now you might be saying yeah but I'm not a Christian. I don't worship. Or you might be saying I know a lot of people who aren't Christians they don't worship. And then I would say to you well no that's not true.
You worship, they worship everybody worships someone or something because everyone values something and so they command something. Why because we're made to worship? It's in our nature. So it's interesting isn't it that cultural anthropologists have identified that in every culture in place and time they study there's some form of worship.
Worship is a demonstration of the image of God in man though it's distorted and we worship in that distortion the creatures rather than the creator but everybody worships. And when God saves you he makes you a worshiper of the true and living God who saves you. And so praise God for his excellencies which is what we were made for. We adore him.
And so what's on your lips? And more importantly what's in your heart that shows up on your lips? And now the final thing he says is consider your life verse 16. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
That is the sincerity of your love for God will be shown by a practical concern for the needs of others. And an effort to help with the resources you've been given. Share what you have he says. He doesn't say share what you don't have.
I mean how good you are if you stole it from somebody don't do that. But I wonder for us are we the kind of people who are always saying to ourselves well when I have more then I'll give. Or when I get a raise then I'll give. And I would say to you that's very unlikely.
That is to say if you're not already giving now why would you think that you'll begin to give when you get more. When you're already demonstrating what's in your heart or we might say what's not in your heart. We're proving if we're not giving what's in our heart. Having more is only going to make us want to hold on to more.
If we aren't learning to give it away now. And sharing the writer says sharing what you have is a sacrifice produced by the gospel because he who freely received freely gives. And so look I'm not mentioning these things to try to drum up money around here. I'm not mentioning these things because if you don't give we're not going to thrive.
I say that because the Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And the truth is if you don't give and look if you're visiting them this isn't even at all but you know members of redeeming. Look if you don't give the Lord will raise up others for the privilege and then the enjoyment of giving. I'm not here to raise money for buildings or staffing or missions or future church planting although all of those things are in interest of our church and our session.
What I'm interested in is your heart. And the best indicator of your heart as we already said is on the one hand your mouth. What does it speak? But on the other hand the writer says your pocketbook or your possessions.
If we aren't generous could it be we don't think God has been generous with us. I wonder if you've ever heard of one person here who went to this university, the Latterno University in Texas. Actually I know two people went to our church one and taught there and one who went there is listening. But Argy Latterno and his wife Evelyn chose to give away 90% of their wealth.
Let's see a story with a seventh grade education. He taught himself engineering and eventually built a manufacturing empire. His earth moving machines helped win World War II and construct the highway infrastructure of modern America. By the end of his life he held more than 300 patents.
And somewhere along the way the decision to give away 90% of his personal income and the company was the result of a previous decision made when he was 30 years old and deeply in debt to make God his business partner. Now listen to this. Chastised by his missionary sister to get serious about serving God Latterno was confused. He mistakenly believed that sincere dedication to God required that he become a preacher or an evangelist or a missionary.
So he attended a revival meeting at church and gave in thinking he was at the mission field. He sought guidance from the pastor and after praying together and talking I'm sure the pastor said you know Brother Latterno, God needs businessmen as well as preachers and missionaries. And Latterno responded, all right then if that's what God wants me to be, I'll try to be his businessman. And he often said this, the question is not how much of my money I give to God, but rather how much of God's money I keep for myself.
Now you may never be able to live on 10% and give away 90. He became extremely wealthy man where that was a possibility. And I'm not saying the Bible commands you to do that, right? The Lord is super generous with his people and he gives us many things for our enjoyment and for usefulness, our usefulness and service to him.
But why not have an ambition that at some point we could or even now begin to move in the direction at least that Latterno began to move. That is to think how much of the Lord's money can I use for the Lord's glory in the Lord's things for the blessing of others. Now it's not just about the money you give, but sometimes it's about the money you give up. Corey Tenden, tells a story about the example set by her father, a poor but godly shopkeeper and one morning their family had gathered for prayer asking God to send them a customer to buy a watch so that they could pay bills that had come due.
A customer did come, picked up a quite expensive watch, casually remarking as he paid for it that another merchant had sold him a defective watch. In Casker, Corey's father asked to examine that defective watch and pointed out that only a minor repair was needed and assuring the man that he had been sold a fine quality watched by the other merchant. Corey's father refunded the money as the man returned the watch he had intended to buy. And little Corey said, Bob, why did you do that?
Aren't you worried about the bills that you have to? And her father replied, there is blessed and unblest money adding that God would not be honored if he allowed another man's, the other watch seller. If he allowed another man's reputation to be wrongly harmed especially since the other merchant was also a believer. And so he assured his little daughter that God would provide and just a few days later a man came and bought the most expensive watch that they had.
The sale of what's not only paid their bills but also paid for two years of Corey's education. What a watch. What a God. Who watches.
Who sees. Who knows. Who cares for the needs of his people. And who's open handed and generous.
Remember earlier in chapter three, keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have for. He has said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. You can't out give God.
Share then with others as he has shared with you. Isn't he admirable than speak his price? Isn't he generous than share what you have? Let's pray.
Father, thank you that you love the world this way, that you gave. Your only son that ever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Grant that we would become more like you in generosity and from our admiration of you, sing your praise. In your name we ask you, amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and sing his praise.