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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
A Sacrifice Offered God with the heart |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Genesis 4:3-5 |
Date |
2007-07-01 |
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Scripture Reading
Genesis 4:3-5
"So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell."
Introduction
Today's Scripture tells us that both Abel and Cain offered God their own sacrifices.
God joyfully accepted the sacrifice that Abel had offered, but He did not accept the sacrifice by Cain.
Cain offered God the sacrifice, but it was meaningless because it was not acceptable to God.
It is the same in our time.
The sacrifices in Old Testament times refer to the worship services that we offer God every week.
You have come here to worship God with the faith in Him.
All of you are attending the same worship service and listening to the same message, but some of you are acceptable in God's sight but some others are not.
Even if you have come to the sanctuary and attended the service, if it is not acceptable to God, it is in vain.
What kind of worship service does God accept? It is the service you offer God with the heart.
Through this message, I wish for you to examine what kind of worship services you have offered God and whether or not your worship services have been acceptable to God.
If there have been weak points in your services, please turn from those ways and begin to offer the worship services with all your heart so that the worship services can be pleasing to God.
I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that God may accept your worships and inspire you by the Holy Spirit and fill your life with His answers and blessings in spirit and flesh.
Body
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The worship service is, first of all, held in accordance with the will of God.
You must not worship God according to your own will.
You have to worship Him according to the will of God all the time and follow His ways.
Cain offered God the sacrifice from his viewpoint, but God did not accept it.
That was because the sacrifice was not in accordance with the will of God but came from his own thought in flesh.
Leviticus 17;11 says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement." Since the sin of Adam, mankind has needed atoning sacrifice to redeem them from their sins so that they may communicate with God.
When they slaughtered animals and gave God their lives, namely when the blood of the animals shed, God accepted the sacrifices.
Cain learned this fact from his father Adam but did not obey even though he clearly knew what to do.
He offered God the first fruit of the ground according to his own ways and thought as he wished.
Because he offered God the fleshly sacrifice that was against God's will, the sacrifice could not be acceptable to God.
This is applied to modern worship services. Even if you have attended the worship service, if the service is not in accordance with the will of God, He cannot receive it.
You have learned in detail what kinds of services are in accordance with God's will. But if you attend the service in fleshly manner, God cannot accept it joyfully.
You have to come to the sanctuary earlier than the beginning of the service and prepare for the service with a longing for the grace and through the repentance.
You should not give God offerings from the sense of duty or under compulsion. When you give offerings with the love for God and the faith in Him after you have prepared for them with sincerity, He is pleased.
Many of you know this is the very worship service that is pleasing to God's will, but fail to put their minds on it and instead attend the service according to your will and ways.
Some of you arrive at the sanctuary shortly before the service, and attend the service unprepared. Or some others are late for the service.
It is not because of the forcible reason but it happens on a regular basis because of the lack of sincerity.
In addition, you have already known you have to attend the service with godly heart. But some of you quarrel or hot-tempered against with your family in the morning on Sunday and attend the service with the broken heart. Some others enjoy worldly pleasures and entertainments just before the service. If you attended the service unprepared for the blessing, it is so far from those acceptable to God.
If you drowse or are in idle thoughts or gossiping with the person next to you during the service, it is not acceptable to God.
When you keep your clothes and sitting posture in neat and gracious order, God will accept the service more joyfully.
If you come to the service with proper heart, your appearances must be proper as well.
Of course I do not mean that God refuses newcomers and beginners when they attend the service in a little improper manner.
But if you really believe in the living and precious God, you have to do your best to attend the service in accordance with His will and with the fear of Him all the time.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Secondly, you have to attend the service in thanksgiving so that it is acceptable to God.
We mankind were sinners and doomed to falling into hell and being eternally tormented, but came to be saved through the blood of Jesus Christ and to enter the kingdom of heaven.
If you really believe this fact, how thankful you are just with a single fact!
And because our God of love protects you with His blazing eyes and gives you blessings,, so your thanksgiving abounds in your homes, works, finances and health.
If you really and unchangingly trust the God of love in any difficulties, you will look to the grace coming through those trials and give thanks regardless of the present situations.
When you attend the service you have to consider all these conditions of thanksgiving and rejoice and take delight in the sight of God, and then worship and praise Him.
Since the time when I accepted the Lord, I have enjoyed giving God the offerings of thanksgiving at each service and given special offerings at each feast with more sincerity.
Thus, our Father God has added to greater blessings each time and let me give more thanks to Him.
If your heart is full of grumbling and complaining because of the present difficult circumstances or if you attend the service with a broken and mourning heart because of disbelief in God, how could God accept it joyfully?
Psalm 50:23 says, "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God."
When you offer God the aroma of thanksgiving, our God will receive it joyfully and rejoice and then give you salvation, blessings and answers as you have believed.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Thirdly, you have to attend the service with all your heart so that it can be acceptable to God.
John 4:24 says, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
God is Spirit, so He not only sees your deeds of attending the service but also receives the spiritual aroma from your heart.
In addition, when you give God offerings and serve the church as volunteers, He receives the fragrance that comes from the heart.
When you worship God in spirit and in truth during the service, you can concentrate on the word fo God preached like sponge sucking water.
Then, you cannot only hear the messages with your ears and store them in your brain as knowledge, but also each word touches your heart, so you can feel like the word of God is as sweet as honey.
Likewise, when you attend the service with all your heart and sincerity, God accepts the fragrance of your heart and pours down the grace and strength on you.
Through the messages, God helps you grow your faith, discover and cast away evils and untruths.
On the contrary, if you attend the service habitually and hear the messages but pass the word from one ear through the other ear, you cannot be influenced by the Holy Spirit nor can you discover yourself.
This service cannot become acceptable fragrance to God.
While you are attending the service, if you drowse, just wait for the end of the service, follow idle thoughts, and gossips with friends, the service cannot be acceptable to God.
Still less, if you judge and condemn the messages because they are not agreeable with your thoughts and knowledge, it is not proper at all.
I wish for none of you to have this attitude.
I urge you to long for the grace at each service and give God the fragrance with all your heart.
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
If you worship God in spirit and truth and offer God the beautiful aroma of heart, God will meet you and give you answers and blessings through the service.
In order for you to offer God this beautiful aroma, above all, you have to accomplish the sanctification of heart.
Even if you have not accomplished the complete sanctification, if you do your best to worship God, the God who sees our hearts will give you the blessing by which you can go into spirit more quickly.
After this first half of the service, we will have the Holy Communion and share the cup and bread. The Holy Communion embeds amazing mystery of salvation.
The bread refers to the flesh of the Son of Man, namely Jesus, and the cup to His blood.
John 6:53 says, "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.'"
Our God has let us have the Holy Communion and share the bread and the cup so that we can remember that only when we eat and drink the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, can we have the eternal life.
How then shall we have to eat ands drink the flesh and the blood of the Son of Man?
First of all, "eating the flesh of the Son of Man" refers to "making bread of the word of God."
John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and Verse 14 says that the Word became flesh and came to the earth, and He is Jesus.
So, eating Jesus' flesh means "making spiritual bread of the word of God."
To make spiritual bread of the word of God, you are not only to learn the word of the Bible and bear it in mind but also to change your heart by the word. You have to change it into the heart of truth, goodness, and love.
To make spiritual bread of the word of God, you have to drink the blood of the Son of Man.
Drinking His blood does not only mean learning the word of God but also showing the deed fo obedience to the word of God.
Only when you practice the word of truth, can the word of God become life and strength to you, untruths be thrown away and truth fill your heart.
It is just the same that when we drink water along with nutrients, can wastes come out of body and new nutrients fill it.
1 John 1:7 confirms the fact that you can have life only when you drink the blood of the Son of Man.
It says, "if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin."
Our Lord Jesus shed His blood to forgive us of our sins. In order to gain life through His blood, you have to dwell in the light and walk in the truth.
I ask you to bear this spiritual meaning in mind all the time and to attend every service including the Holy Communion with a beautiful heart that is pleasing to God.
I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that each of you may be filled with, influenced by and be in the Holy Spirit all the time and meet and experience God more deeply every day. |
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