The Cost of Worship
Download MP3I invite you to open your bibles to 2nd Samuel chapter 24. 2nd Samuel chapter 24. We'll be reading a good chunk of that. We take time to read here at Redeemer. I love our tradition where we say this is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:It's actually one of the earliest liturgical elements in church. It began around the 4th century just because scripture had such a place of prominence in public worship. Really most of what public worship was was the gathering together and the hearing of scripture and then people responding with amen. So we are thankful for his word. I'll begin reading in verse 15.
Joel Brooks:So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among his people, it is enough. Now stay your hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Arana the Jebusite.
Joel Brooks:Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people and said, behold, I have sinned and I have done wickedly. But these people, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. And Gad came that day and day to David and said to him, go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Arana, the Jebusite. So David went up at Gad's word as the lord commanded.
Joel Brooks:And when Arana looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. And Araunah said, why has my lord the king come to his servant? David said, to buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people. Then Araunah said to David, let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him.
Joel Brooks:Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. All this, oh king, Arana gives to the king. And Arana said to the king, may the Lord your God accept you. But the king said to Arana, no. But I will buy it from you for a price, and I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.
Joel Brooks:So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for the 50 shekels of silver. And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the lord responded to the plea for the land and the plague was averted from Israel. Pray with me. Our father, we want to hear from you in this moment.
Joel Brooks:We believe that your word through the power of your spirit changes us from the inside out. And Lord, we wanna be changed to look more like your son Jesus. Lord, my words are death. Your words are life. We need life here.
Joel Brooks:So I pray that you would be the sole focus of our attention. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. The time in church history that we now live and are part of is likely to be labeled, whether it's the modern worship movement, or the time of the worship event.
Joel Brooks:At some point in history, in recent history, worship became to a large degree an event. It has become something that you can go to, just go to. Something you can be anonymous at. Something that you're there just for your enjoyment. And there's been this swelling of worship events that have been happening all over, even in our city.
Joel Brooks:You could probably, if you want, go to a different worship event every single night of the week. But thinking of worship along those lines as an event is dangerous, Because it will become like other events, events that you go and you just are a spectator as you watch other people perform. And is that really worship? Is that really what our worship should look like? Some of the places have become so much like events, they have their promotions.
Joel Brooks:I looked up a number of these this afternoon. There were some churches that give out a free Xbox every single Sunday for an entire year just to try to pull people in. I read a church in England that tried giving candy out every Sunday, just a candy bar, and that really didn't work too well. But the American church is not daunted, learned from their mistakes. And so last Easter at a church in Dallas, they gave out $45,000 in gift baskets if you could just come.
Joel Brooks:They didn't stop there. They gave out like 10 or 12 Fender guitars. They gave out flat screen TVs, and then they gave away 15 new cars because they wanted to be the biggest service you could possibly have on an Easter Sunday. And, I I read a little thing about the pastor, why he did this. He said, I'm unashamed to say that it's an absolute bribe.
Joel Brooks:That's all it is. It's a bribe. Because people feel uncomfortable inviting other people to church, but if you can invite them for a chance to win a flat screen TV, Shoot, we could do that every single week. And then the awkwardness comes later when you start telling them that Jesus is the Son of God, and he died, and he rose again, and you know, you start calling them towards repentance. But at least it's not awkward in inviting those people to church and then trying to sham them into worship.
Joel Brooks:But worship, that doesn't shock us too much anymore, because we've grown used to it as this event kind of status. This text here goes completely against that notion, Shows us what our worship should look like. Last week, we we also looked at this story. We looked how We saw how David had sinned against the Lord because he decided to take a census. He wanted to count his fighting men.
Joel Brooks:He was beginning to trust in the size of his army, not in the Lord, and it was a grievous sin to the Lord. And so thankfully after he did that, he repented. His heart struck him. He was convicted, so he repented. And the Lord said, well, you could choose from 3 punishments.
Joel Brooks:And David, he chose the last option because, this was the one that put him completely in the hands of the Lord. He said, okay, let pestilence come for 3 days. I want to trust in men, but I will trust in the mercy of the Lord. And so for 3 days you had this pestilence coming, this angel was going across the land of Israel and striking people with pestilence. 70,000 people had already died, and now this angel is up on top of Mount Moriah at the threshing floor of Arana with an outstretched arm ready to strike Jerusalem.
Joel Brooks:And here the Lord relents, it says he's grieved, he relents of what's happening. And he has mercy. David, at this point, had offered himself as a sacrifice. He said, God, don't kill any more people. Strike the shepherd that the sheep may live.
Joel Brooks:They haven't done anything, so may your judgment fall on me. And God listened to David. He said, oh okay, you're offering yourself as a substitute. You wanna make sacrifice. I'll listen to that, but but you will not be the sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:Build an altar at the threshing floor of Arana and sacrifice an animal. And so that's what David does, and that's what I want us to look at. David climbs up this mountain to where Araunah is. Araunah's had a unusual day. For starters, there's an angel with with his outstretched arm with a sword there, so he's terrified.
Joel Brooks:1st Chronicles says that he's hiding. And then his king comes up for a chat. That just doesn't normally happen. And so the king comes up before David and and he's scared and he's overwhelmed and he sees David coming up, and so he just prostrates himself before David. David says I need to make a sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:And he goes, great, make a sacrifice. I will I will provide you with the animals for it. A matter of fact, I'll provide you with the firewood for it. I'll you you wanna make a grain offering? First Chronicles said he even offered the grain that was on the threshing floor.
Joel Brooks:Said I will give you everything you need. And David, that's a pretty good deal. I mean, he gets up there and the sacrifice is already laid out, The wood's already there. The grain's given. All David has to do is light a match.
Joel Brooks:Maybe say a prayer, he could he think he could get back to the game or whatever his favorite TV show is. He he hardly has to miss anything, just it's it's very quick and convenient and this worship thing can be over with. And what you're seeing here I think is a great picture, an accurate picture of much of the modern worship movement and much of the contemporary church in which we become a place where we can worship without sacrifice. Think about it. This notion, this idea of worship has never been easier.
Joel Brooks:You can literally walk in a church. A lot of times, the church is huge. There's 1,000, and so you can just sit anonymously in a pew or theater chair, whatever it is, and do nothing, not see anybody, not talk to anybody, and then leave thinking you have somehow worshiped. You walk into a setting where everything is prepared. You know the seats, you know, here they're already lined up.
Joel Brooks:You know the bands, they've already practiced. The preacher, he's ready to preach. Everything's ready for worship. There's nothing really for you to do except for, you know, to sit, occasionally stand, maybe have that awkward conversation when the pastor says, you know, stand up, greet those around you, and you know you just gotta endure about a minute of that. Sit down and then you're fine.
Joel Brooks:How did we get to this point? Now I was in college ministry for about 10 years, and one of the things that grieved me was to see how fraternities or sororities could demand more from their members than churches did, and how the students willingly gave themselves to that. Not saying anything about fraternities or sororities. It's just that the expectations for being a member of a church were nothing. Yet so much time and so much money was given to something else.
Joel Brooks:How did we get here? To a place where we provide the place, Verse 24, David says this, no, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the lord, my god, that cost me nothing. And David understands here that it's not worship if there is not cost. He can't somehow borrow worship from other people.
Joel Brooks:I love how the story's read in 1st Chronicles, which David says, I cannot or I will not offer up to the Lord what is yours. That's yours offer to the Lord, but it's not mine. You can't worship by proxy. You can't just worship, borrow worship from the person next to you. And think because they're singing, because they're giving, because they're doing all these things, and you happen to be in the same room as them that you've worshiped.
Joel Brooks:Worship has to be your own, your own cost. It can't be borrowed. And worship at this point in David's life has already cost him many things. When David worshiped before the ark, do you remember that as it was coming into Jerusalem? Well, worship cost him his dignity.
Joel Brooks:Worship cost him the respect of his wife. It cost him a family in that moment. When David worshiped the Lord by loving his enemies, by loving Saul who was trying to kill him, Well, it cost him a lot of things. It nearly cost him his life. It cost him his home.
Joel Brooks:It cost him sleep. Cost him his family, so he could not be with his wife. When David brought in Saul's grandson Mephibosheth and spared his life and invited him into the palace every day, that was a cost. Because he's inviting in someone who could be the heir to the throne. And so it it it cost him the stability and the power that he longed.
Joel Brooks:So worship up to this point in David's life has cost him a whole lot. And it's one of the reasons that the author of 2nd Samuel wants to end the story of the life of David here, is because this demonstrates a pattern with David. He has never sacrificed to the Lord what cost him nothing. Can I can I get really boring on y'all? Can I can I do that for a moment?
Joel Brooks:I just some of you are looking at me like that's a shock, like you haven't been so far. I mean really boring. Not just my normal boring. Book of Leviticus kinda boring. I, in preparation for the sermon I read this book, Meditations on Levitical Offerings.
Joel Brooks:The publisher didn't even pick up this. This is just self printed by a pastor in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It's actually more dull than the cover would demonstrate. My sacrifice was reading this and and coming and preparing. Your sacrifice will be listening to this.
Joel Brooks:But but it did walk through the different Levitical offerings which shed some light on this text. There's 2 types of sacrifices that David makes here, and I wanna walk through those. 2 different types. Look in verse 25. Said and David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.
Joel Brooks:Burnt offerings and peace offerings. So let me tell you about those 2 types of offerings. A burnt offering is an offering of thanksgiving in which one has recognized that their sins have been atoned for. It's linked with the atonement. And so when you realize that God has made atonement for your sins, you make this burnt offering.
Joel Brooks:It signifies that you are accepted before God. And what you do in this offering is you get an animal, you slaughter it, and you burn up the entire thing. Nothing is to be left from a burnt offering. It's all to be burnt up to the Lord. Now a peace offering was given as an act of thanksgiving and praise, and it was always attached to the burnt offering.
Joel Brooks:It always came on the heels. You never had a peace offering unless you at first had a burnt offering. They went together. Because once one was accepted by God, one was atoned for by God, then the peace offering said it recognized that peace, and it was an act of praise and thanksgiving for now being accepted. Praise and thanksgiving for the fellowship that you have with God, that He has brought peace in those relationship.
Joel Brooks:And this sacrifice here, there's 5 different types of sacrifices in Leviticus, this type here is different than all of the others. Because here you you have God getting part of the animal that's sacrificed. So they sacrifice part of the animals completely burned up. Then you get a priest getting part of it. And so they just kind of cook the animal, and they give some of the meat to the priest.
Joel Brooks:And then for the 3rd that's remaining they cook, and the offerer and his family get it. And so you have some is given to God, you have some is given for those who are serving in the temple, and you have some given to yourself and to your family. This is utterly unique. You don't have this in any of the other offerings. What God was saying is, alright, we're gonna have a feast now with all of us.
Joel Brooks:We're all gonna sit down and eat. The priest, the God, God, the people, we all come together and we have peace, we have communion, so there's this joint meal with all of us. Bread was a part of this offering and get the bread and you would just wave it, and then you would break bread with the priest and with your family and you would eat. Alright. I know you're riveted, absolutely riveted, and you probably want me to go on and on about all of the offerings, but I'll stop.
Joel Brooks:And let me just explain why that's important, especially looking at this text. Is because you need to know, I think a lot of you need to know, that God has set up worship in such a way that He's not the only beneficiary of worship, if you will, and you're just not the only beneficiary of worship, but there's a whole gathering of people who are a beneficiary of worship. It's not just about you, It's not just about God, but it's about His people gathering together. Those serving the Lord will get a good meal. Your family would get a good meal.
Joel Brooks:One of the reasons you, you know, you couldn't offer a sacrifice that was diseased or had a blemish, because, you know, would you want to go to McDonald's or someplace and they say, hey, we're serving diseased cattle? You know, you don't want that. You're not gonna eat that. You want to give your best, your best to offer. Because it's gonna be a meal you partake in it, your friends partake in, the priests partake in.
Joel Brooks:So other than for your personal enjoyment about the sacrifices, I hope you see how this communicates over to our worship. And how it's not just about you, it's not just about the Lord, but it's for all of us. You know we use this phrase in worship all the time. God, we offer up to you a sacrifice of praise. How many of y'all have heard that?
Joel Brooks:Raise of hands. We're sacrifice. Alright everybody. Alright, sacrifice of praise. Alright, you'll find the word sacrifice at least a couple of 100 times in the Bible.
Joel Brooks:You'll find the word praise even more times in the Bible. Do you know how many times you find the phrase sacrifice of praise in the bible? Once. Only once. A sacrifice of praise.
Joel Brooks:Yes, in almost every other song. We find it in Hebrews 13 and I want you to turn there if It's also in your worship guide. We'll begin reading verse 10. We have an altar for which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought us into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
Joel Brooks:So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Real quick, stop right there. He's talking about a type of burnt offering here.
Joel Brooks:The offering's completely consumed, it's done for atonement, and that points us towards Jesus. Then he moves on. Through Him 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.
Joel Brooks:And so we have the first sacrifice there, which is a type of burnt offering, and the the second sacrifice here is the peace offering. Now that we've been atoned for, now that we have peace through the blood of Jesus, we can make that peace offering, but of course we're no longer gonna sacrifice animals, we're gonna sacrifice a praise. And this is what a sacrifice of praise entails. First he says it's the fruit of your lips. This is verbal praise, this is coming together and singing, testifying, sharing, shouting amen, telling what the Lord has done in your life, how he's changed you, Confessing your sin to one another.
Joel Brooks:This is the verbal, of your lips praise. And then this praise entails doing good and sharing what we have. That's why you have right after this, and do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices or pleasing to God. Remember the peace offering isn't just about God, isn't just about you, but it's also about others. It's it's It's celebrating the unity and the peace that we all have.
Joel Brooks:Everybody benefits from a peace offering. And that's what the sacrifice of praise is. And so when we we we share with our lips and we praise, it's not just for God, it's not just for us, but it's so that the person next to us as they hear us confess, as they hear us sing, they benefit from it. So you can't have church alone in a car listening to a podcast and singing praise music. That that's not a peace offering.
Joel Brooks:You have to be gathered together with God's people in order for this to happen, in order for us to do one another good. And so this is what a sacrifice of praise is. It is verbally expressing praise to God while sharing your time, your money, your gifts with the community that God has given you. That's what a sacrifice of praise is. And although we talk a lot about a sacrifice of praise during worship events, that cannot happen in worship events.
Joel Brooks:That happens in the context of a local church and a community that's based on the Lord Jesus. This is how the early church used to celebrate this, used to give their peace offerings. They would come together daily to eat together for the sacrifice of peace, sacrifice of praise. And so you had poor people, you had rich people, but everybody brought something and they put it on the table. During communion, everybody brought their own bread, everybody brought their own wine.
Joel Brooks:And you might have some outstanding wine, you might have a lot of really good bread, or you might have hardly anything, but you all brought it and you put it on the table together to share so it was for the benefit of the body. And they would do this every day. On Sundays, they would have to gather before work. You know, we have Sundays off work. They would work on Sundays, and so they would get there even earlier before the crack of dawn to to to have a large meal, their agape feast, and to break bread together in communion.
Joel Brooks:It was their sacrifice of praise. And then they would begin to, after they had eaten, begin to testify as to what the Lord had done in their lives. They would publicly proclaim His lordship overall. Then they would sing and they would sing loudly, not because God is hard of hearing, but because some of us are. And because sometimes our faith is a little weak and we need the person next to us to sing strong.
Joel Brooks:So that I can hear that person expressing praise to the Lord loudly, unashamedly, and that can encourage me in my faith. That's what the early church used to do. They understood what a sacrifice of praise was. How it's a celebration of the peace that God has brought. And it's praise to God, it encourages one another, and it encourages themselves.
Joel Brooks:The songs that we sing, the testimonies we give, the public prayers that we do are all for those purposes. And this is going to cost you something, something. To truly come and to truly give is always gonna cost you something, whether it costs you your time, whether it costs you your money, whether it costs you your pride. But I want you to think of those things not as sacrifices, but investments. We do that all the time in which we sacrifice knowing for future reward.
Joel Brooks:When we come together, and you know, you come in early from the lake so you can hear a pastor open up a book on meditations of Levitical sacrifices, okay? When you do that, you're making an investment that will have a future reward, and you are building something beautiful with that investment. And you can see that so clearly in this text. You know, when David is making that altar and he buys it and he makes the altar and he makes the sacrifices, he is literally laying the foundation of the temple. David's worship literally lays down the foundation of the temple because that is where the temple is going to be built, right there at the threshing floor of Arana.
Joel Brooks:That that that is symbolic. The new temple of God, which is His church, is also built up through our praise, through our peace offerings. When we come together and we allow the spirit of God to breathe in our midst and we praise him and we share and we confess, we sacrificially give, the temple of God is built up and God receives glory. Now a question that might be lingering in the back of your mind as you hear this. You might be thinking back to a sermon a few weeks ago about when God made a covenant with David.
Joel Brooks:David approaches God and says, hey, I wanna build you a house. Remember that? And God says, uh-uh, nobody builds me a house. Nobody gives to me. I am always the giver in this relationship.
Joel Brooks:Alright? No one gives to me, I always give to you. I'll build you a house, you don't build me a house. Well, how's what David doing here not giving? And you hear that phrase all the time, we gotta give back to God, we gotta give to God.
Joel Brooks:How how is this not giving? Because David is not here giving. I would say David is not giving to God, he is demonstrating God in this moment. He's not giving to God, he is demonstrating to God. And that is what sacrificial worship does.
Joel Brooks:It demonstrates to others who God is. He's a God who sacrificially gives. David knows he can't add anything to God. He knows that God owns the cattle on a 1000 hill. God owns the 2 cattle that are up there that he's gonna slaughter.
Joel Brooks:He knows he's not adding anything to him, But what he is is he's demonstrating him that we have a God who sacrificially loves us, a God who sacrificially gives to us that we might have peace. And so he demonstrates the gospel. God has sacrificed for our benefit. So a true sacrifice of praise will demonstrate that to everyone. So so what does this mean for us?
Joel Brooks:How are we supposed to bring a sacrifice of praise? How can you offer to the Lord worship with cost? I'd say, you know, for 1, you sing. You sing, you sing to God, you sing for the person next to you to hear. We have times at our church where we we, you know, open up a mic and we let people confess or we let people share.
Joel Brooks:It's not about you. It's about those around who can hear you testifying to the Lord, and yes, your faith is gonna be built up through that. But you'll be such an encouragement to the body of Christ and this will honor God. So it lifts up the body, and it lifts up the name of the Lord. That's a way you can sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:You can sacrifice your time, whether it's whether it's, time in prayer and preparation before the service, or whether it's just time invested in the lives here throughout the week, and discipling, and praying, and mentoring. There there are so many ways that we can come as a body and make a sacrifice of praise, rather than just making worship an event. And I pray that as we do that we would demonstrate more and more the gospel. If y'all would pray with me. God your word is powerful.
Joel Brooks:If we would just take time to examine it and to be shaped by it, and I pray that would happen through your Spirit. God, where there needs to be conviction, convict us. Where there needs to be healing, heal us. Lord, have your way in us. Lord, there's people here who have been spectators far too long.
Joel Brooks:They've been borrowing other people's worship. I think worship is either just all about you or all about them and not about what you're building as your temple, the living temple of God. And really what a sacrifice of praise is. So I pray that the way we worship you Lord would demonstrate the gospel. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
