THE LAW OF SACRIFICE
PHILIPPIANS 2:17-18
03/22/95
I wish to begin today’s sermon by telling you the story of a man by the name of Abraham Bininger. Born in Switzerland in the 17 hundreds he and his parents left their homeland and bordered a ship for America. During the journey both his father and mother died and were buried at sea. While just a boy he found himself in a strange land were he knew absolutely no one. However he never let his misfortunes hold him back. As a young man he professed Christ as his saviour. After hearing of the great misery and poverty among the blacks on the St. Thomas he sought to travel there to preach the gospel.
Upon his arrival he discovered the it was against the law for any person but a slave to preach to the slaves. It was the policy of the plantation owners to keep the blacks in ignorance and superstition.
Shortly after this the governor received a letter from the Bininger. In the letter Bininger pleaded with the governor to allow himself to be made a slave for the rest for his life. Bininger promised that he would serve as a slave faithfully, providing he could give his leisure tine to preaching to his fellow slaves.
The governor in turn sent the letter to the King of Denmark who was so touched by the willingness of Bininger to sacrifice his freedom for the gospel that he sent an order the allowed Abraham Bininger to preach the gospel whenever and where ever he choose, to black or white, to slave of freeman.
I use the story of Abraham Bininger to illustrate for us the sacrifice that some will make in order to see the gospel of Jesus Christ goes out to those who have never heard it. Here was man willing to give up his very freedom for the true freedom of preaching the gospel. Yet we live in society of where we have great freedom in preaching the gospel of Christ, yet we rarely exercise that freedom.
All Christian need to realize that the Christian faith is a faith of sacrifice. Christianity as we know has it’s roots in the Old Testament. A book full of laws and commands that deal with sacrifices. In the New Testament we see the fulfillment of those sacrifices, and the call of the people of God to make sacrifices not of animals but of themselves.
Let us look at our passage for today, as we continue our series in the book of Philippians. Our passage today in Philippians chapter 2 verses 17-18, which is page 1017 in your pew Bibles;
"Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me."
Here Paul mentions his willingness to be "poured out as drink offering" on the sacrifice of the Philippian people. Paul is referring to his willingness to be martyred for the cause of Christ. He is willing to sacrifice his life along with the sacrifice of these people.
Paul here is looking to the Old Testament sacrifices. Looking at a couple passage in Numbers chapter 15 we can see what Paul is alluding to;
Numbers 15:5-7 "and one-fourth of a HIN of wine as a drink offering you shall prepare with the burnt offering or the sacrifice, for each lamb. Or for a ram you shall prepare as a grain offering two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with one-third of a HIN of oil; and as a drink offering you shall offer one-third of a HIN of wine as a sweet aroma to the LORD."
In the Old Testament we see that at times a drink offering was to be made along with the offering of a lame, ram, or bull. So what Paul is saying is that he is willing to be that drink offering to go along with the sacrifice of service of faith, which the Philippian people were offering up.
That sacrifice of the Philippian people is mentioned in the previous verses. Their sacrifice of working out their own salvation, the sacrifice of allowing God to work in them, sacrificing self-control live for a spirit controlled life. They sacrifice of shining as stars into a dark world, their sacrifice of holding fast to the word of life. There are the sacrifices that Paul’s life were as the scripture states "prepared with".
And they are all prepared with joy and rejoicing. And there is the law of sacrifice. That sacrifices need to and should produce joy and rejoicing. Giving something unto the Lord should cause our hearts to be filled with joy to the point that we rejoice in our sacrifices. The point of Paul’s word here are just that, sacrifice equals joy.
In order to gain the joy in sacrifices that we should have we first need to understand what type of sacrifice we ought to be giving. Sacrificing something just for the sake of giving it up, or sacrificing something so others can see how holy we are will not produce the joy which Paul speaks of here.
We need to realize that we ourselves are to be that sacrifice. Let us look at Romans chapter 12 verse 1 as we look at what type of Sacrifice we ought to be. That would be page 983 in your pew Bibles, let’s look at the fist verse in that passage;
Romans 12:1 "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."
There are three things mentioned here that tells us what kind of sacrifices we need to be.
The first thing mentioned is that fact that we are to be "living sacrifices". Within the Scripture we see two examples of "living Sacrifices" The first is found in Genesis chapter 22 in the story of Isaac. Isaac willing put himself on the alter and would have been willing to die as a sacrifice to the Lord. He was willing to be obedient to God’s will. But we can see in the story that God sent a ram to take his place. But Isaac did dies in the sense that he died to his own will. He yielded himself to the will of God. When Isaac stepped down from that alter he was a "living sacrifice".
The second example of a "living sacrifice" is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the perfect example of a "living Sacrifice". He died as a Sacrifice for our sins, in obedience to His Father’s will, but He rose again. And today as Jesus reigns in heaven He reigns as a "living sacrifice."
So from these two example we can see what it is to be a "living sacrifice". That is we need to but to death the desire to do our own will and do the will of the Father. We must put to death the flesh nature that dwells in each of us.
Romans 8:13 "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
So let us put to death the deeds of the body, that deeds of our flesh nature, let us cease doing those things that are contrary to the will of God, that we may indeed become living sacrifices.
The second thing mentioned in Romans 12:1 which tells what kind of sacrifice we ought to be is that we ought to be Holy Sacrifices. The word here means "sacred, pure or blameless". Know we learned a couple of weeks ago what it means to be blameless, but what is it to be sacred. God has high standards, as to be sacred is to be set apart. God wants us to present ourselves without spot or fault. Now we cannot hope to do this with our regenerating work of the Holy Spirit which occurs through our faith in Jesus Christ.
We are to consecrated ourselves or set ourselves apart for the work of God. We are to be instruments of God.
In the Scripture God is said to "HOLY HOLY HOLY" which is to say He is set apart for all creation, He is the essence of that which is sacred, that which pure and blameless. Because He is holy He calls us, who are His children, to be Holy.
1 Peter 1:15-16 "but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."
So a Holy sacrifice is one that is blameless, one that set apart to do the will of God.
Now that third thing which Romans 12:1 mentions as what kind of Sacrifice we need be is that we are to be an acceptable sacrifice. The word denotes that which is "well pleasing" the best. In other words God does not want our leftovers He wants our best. God does not want second place in our lives, He wants, in fact He demands that He be first. We has living sacrifices to the Lord need to be give God our best in all areas of our life.
Our sacrifices need to be just that sacrifices. to offer God something that cost us nothing is not an acceptable sacrifice, that is not the best we have to offer.
I can think of two illustrations from scripture that speak of acceptable sacrifices. One is the passage that I read during children’s circle. Though the widow’s sacrifice was small it was acceptable. The size of or sacrifice, is not what is important, it is what it cost us, is it our best.
Another example I can think of is that found in the book 2 Samual chapter. In this story David had sinned against the Lord and he is told to go to the threshing floor of a man by the name of Arau-nah, and built an offering there and sacrifice there. Arau-uah tells David just to take whatever he needs free of cost, listen to David’s answer,
2 Samuel 24:24 Then the king said to Arau-nah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver."
David wanted his sacrifice to be acceptable to the Lord. And he knew that if cost him nothing, that it would not be acceptable. If it cost him nothing it would not be sacrifice.
Many times we make sacrifices that cost us nothing. Sometimes in the form of money, we say well I guess I can give a little extra to the church this week, I have some left over. Sometimes in the way of service, well I’ve got nothing better to do, I guess I can stop by the church and do whatever.
Our sacrifices must cost us something to be acceptable. Our sacrifices need to be just that sacrifices.
So we see what type of sacrifices are to be. This is the type of sacrifices that the Philippian people were. Because they were this type of sacrifice, living, Holy, and acceptable that Law of Sacrifice was fulfilled, in that it brought Joy, and it will bring joy to us as well when we become this type of sacrifice to the Lord.
Now another thing which our passage in Philippians alludes to is the sacrifice is derived from our faith. It comes in proportion to it. The greater our faith the more we sacrifice to God, and the more we sacrifice to God, the greater our faith becomes. Paul speaks of the "sacrifice" of the Philippians faith.
Understand that without faith, sacrifice is meaningless. We need to have faith in the one that we are making our sacrifices to.
So what is this faith which brings about sacrifice. We need to understand some things about faith so that it will produce a desire to be living, holy, and acceptable sacrifices.
First we need to have faith in the right thing, which is Jesus Christ. There is no salvation other then the salvation which is found in Jesus Christ;
Acts 4:12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
So to have faith in anything other then Christ leaves one with no hope of being a living, holy acceptable sacrifice to God. We will by nature make sacrifices to that which we have placed our trust and faith. We see this in pagan religions who have make rocks and trees their gods. They offer sacrifices to those gods.
So when we place our trust in Jesus Christ we by nature should desire to make sacrifice for Him.
Now faith which brings about sacrifice is faith which removes doubt. Many Christians are doubters. The doubt God will bless them for their service and sacrifice. They doubt God will remain true to His promises. But faith is optimistic.
Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Faith takes God as His word. Faith assures us that there will be joy with sacrifice. That will bless those who give their best to Him.
Faith will also dispel fear. To repeat the words of Jesus in Mark 5:36, "As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not be afraid; only believe."
Jesus is telling us the same thing. Don’t be afraid at having to give up something you really like. Don’t fear giving your time or talents. I think many of us are not the living sacrifices we should be because of fear. Fear of failing, fear of embarrassment, fear that God will not bless us, fear that we may have to go without something we really want. But if our faith is what is should those fears will be dispelled.
So let us now take this information and see what we have learned from this passage. First we have learned of the law of sacrifice. That is that true sacrifice will produce joy in us. Joy which comes for the Father above. Giving back to God from what He has given us, be it our lives, our time, our talent, our money, our service, giving of all these things in a sacrificial manner will produce joy.
We saw that we ourselves are to be sacrifices. Living Sacrifices, putting to death our own will and living the will of God. We are to be holy sacrifices, set aside for the work of the Heavenly Father. We are to be acceptable sacrifices, giving to God our best, placing Him and His will first in our lives.
And realize that our sacrifice is derived from our faith. As one increase so will the other. Proper faith will remove doubt and fear and allow us to be the sacrifices and make the sacrifice which the Lord desires from us. That faith must begin in Jesus Christ.
Now perhaps all this sacrifice stuff is foreign to you. Perhaps you are thinking that all sacrifice means is giving more money, and that is what I am talking about. Well might I say that is certainly not the truth. And perhaps the reason you are thinking that is because you do not have the proper faith which I have talked about to today, faith in Jesus Christ. For any of this sermon to make sense you must have a proper relationship with Jesus.
Now when I say faith in Jesus I do not mean that you believe that He lived so many years ago and that He came and taught many wonderful things, what I mean is that you need to trust in Him as your personal Lord and Saviour.
You see we each need to realize that we are sinners and in need of saviour. There is not one person in this room or for that matter in this world who can make it to heaven on their own. We all need Jesus. Jesus alone can give us eternal life, He alone can forgive sin, for He alone died for our sin. As I stated earlier He is the greatest example of a living sacrifice. And as a living Sacrifice He paid the price for our sin.
So I ask each person here today to examine yourself. Have you placed your trust and faith in Jesus. Are you counting on Him and Him alone for eternal life. If you do not know the Lord Jesus as your personal saviour, if you do not have a personal relationship with I would love the opportunity to show you from the Bible how this is possible, and what you need to do to be saved. Please speak with me after the service, or give me a call so we can arrange a time were we can get together so that I show how you can enter into the Kingdom of God, and begin to be the living, holy, and acceptable sacrifice you need to be.
SHALL WE PRAY
