Class Outline:

Wednesday December 15,2021

 

The believer is made by God to give God his all and his best. God will not help us in any other endeavor.

 

As His own, made priests for Christ’s perfect, righteous kingdom, we don’t owe Him as if we should try to pay Him back, rather, we have entered into a life that only loves righteousness, through the narrow gate on to the new and living road (HEB 10:19-20). We offer all because that is the way of our life in Him, and we love the joy of it.

 

HEB 10:5

“Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired,

But a body Thou hast prepared for Me;”

 

The Old Testament offerings were representative of the “Me” in HEB 10:5 (PSA 40:6-8). They were to know what the sacrifices represented. An animal was taking their place on the altar and their sins were being forgiven, or more accurately, covered. But it all gets back to reverence and love of God.

 

Love of God leads a believer to honor all that is of God and from God.

 

PSA 51:14-17

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,

Thou God of my salvation;

Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Thy righteousness.

15 O Lord, open my lips,

That my mouth may declare Thy praise.

16 For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;

Thou art not pleased with burnt offering.

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.

 

Forgiveness is not conditioned on feeling a certain way, but the believer who loves the Lord and therefore loves the Lord’s way experiences a brokenness when he violates that way.

 

God did take pleasure in the sacrificial ritual of His people. He instructed them in it and demanded it in His law. David’s lines reveal that God has no delight in hypocritical worship. It is inappropriate to show yourself worshipping God while having a heart set towards sin. It is clear that the condition of our inner man (heart, soul, spirit, and mind) is critical when we worship and serve God.

 

We need God’s help if we care to see our inner condition.

 

PSA 139:23-24

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.

 

Sin that is recognized should be confessed or acknowledged before God. But this again gets back to love of God. A lover of God desires to know the way of righteousness and also sin. Ignorance of the righteous way will also be an ignorance of sin. A love of the righteous way, sanctification, will continue to bring a believer into the knowledge of what sin is as well as a further hate of it.

 

God was not “pleased” (ratsah can mean “satisfied”) with burnt offering. He was pleased with a broken and contrite spirit/heart. His well-pleased with His Son and us when we are like Him.

 

HEB 10:4-7

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,

 

"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired,

But a body Thou hast prepared for Me;

6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast taken no pleasure.

7 "Then I said, 'Behold, I have come

(In the roll of the book it is written of Me)

To do Thy will, O God.'"

 

MAT 3:17

a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

 

MAT 17:5

a voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!"

 

Then we find that God is pleased with the believer who behaves like His Son, and obviously that is inwards (thankfulness and praise) and outwardly (doing good and sharing).

 

HEB 13:15-16

Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. 16 And do not neglect doing good and sharing; for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

 

COL 1:9-14

For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

 

We cannot please God while we are ruled and entangled by the affairs of life, which lead us into worry, anxiousness, fear, and slavery to details and circumstances.

 

2TI 2:3-4

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

 

A great disconnect exists between the Son of God who can please the Father and the fallen sinner. The cross is the bridge.

 

ISA 53:10

But the Lord was pleased

To crush Him, putting Him to grief;

If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,

He will see His offspring,