Title: Living Offerings (Romans 12:1-3)
When you worship, you think of sermons. So, most believers think that going to worship means going to hear a sermon. Therefore, even if it is late, it is considered that he attended the worship service only after hearing the sermon. And if the sermon is moving, you feel like you were in worship; otherwise, you don't even feel like you were there. But this is a huge misunderstanding.
The believers of the early church risked their lives to worship. During the persecution, believers were informed that the police knew the place of worship and were undercover. However, they did not stop worship and showed up at the promised place.
Now, this worship service is the last in the world. They were preparing for martyrdom. This worship was truly in spirit and truth.
This is the meaning of worship. It means death soon. To meet God was to sacrifice one's life. Life had to end in the sight of God. All of sinful human beings stop there. And it all goes back to God. God takes the lives of those who worship him.
All that was originally given is taken from there.
This worship began in Genesis. Abel, the son of Adam, the ancestor of mankind, offered a sacrifice pleasing to God. He sacrificed a sheep and offered his blood. But soon his sacrifice was linked to death. Because his jealous brother Cain seduced him in the field and stoned him to death. But his blood was sacrificed and he cried out, and it came up to God and was accepted.
Even in pagan religions, worship was the most sacred. I always offered sacrifices when I was doing something. There must have been an offering. There was no sacrifice without sacrifice. The best sacrifice was a human. A beautiful virgin or bachelor was presented. They had to die. Their hearts were cut out with swords and offered to the gods. God blesses the worshipers as they receive their blood and are satisfied. Their deaths were considered the most noble.
However, God did not want humans to be sacrificed like this. God had nothing to receive from man. He didn't even want anything human.
He just wanted to receive the broken heart of man. He wanted man to turn from sin and seek God's help. But the punishment for sin had to be given. Here comes the difference from the world god.
God doesn't want anything from humans. No matter how good it is, human beings are only stained with sin. A virgin and a good man, he received nothing from God. It was basically just being tainted with a curse. The man had to die. It had to stop and be made again. So God kills the sacrifice.
God gave Abraham a son. To him who could not bear a son, he also gave a precious son when he was 100 years old. The son was to be the father of Israel, the people of God. However, his son was also a man of sin. As it is, God could not use it. Everyone, once born, must die for their own transgressions.
Abraham is commanded to kill his son and offer it as a sacrifice. Abraham had already lived enough to live. Now Abraham's life, along with his son, was to cease. In one night, Abraham was completely transformed into a man with death at the doorstep. Father and son went up the mountain together. The son obeyed his father. The father bound his son and put a knife to his neck. Now they were to die. And everything would come to a halt.
So Isaac became a dead man. With his death, all of him ceased. The evil and cunning dispositions of all human beings, both old and old, ceased. If there was a disease, the disease ceased; if there was a problem of sadness or pain, it was over. All human limitations stopped here. Isaac looked at the blue sky and believed that he had been offered to God.
At this point, God stopped them. "Stop! That's enough. That's all you need to do is to give yourself up in front of me." Then he gave himself a sacrifice. It was a nice sheep. Abraham and Isaac were watching themselves die as they cut the sheep's heads and shed their blood. As they burned her body, they felt themselves being burned and disappearing.
Only the son of Abraham came down alive after going up to the altar of God. They lived the rest of their lives as living sacrifices. They sometimes slaughtered sheep and worshiped the same ritual over and over again. These are the faces of all believers.
Believers share their experiences with them. We came here to die like Isaac. And all our old things die together.
As we see the death of Jesus Christ, we have the experience of killing Him together. He became a sacrifice in our place. He was the perfect sacrifice. Truly he bears all our sins and curses and is punished before God. His death is equated with our death. With death, all our curses die with it. Hate and bitterness and worry and worry and pain.
Those who identify themselves with the death of Christ, our sheep, also identify themselves with his resurrection. Christ, who was sacrificed for us, was raised to life in glory. Here we know by faith that this resurrection began in us. New life will spring up.
We believe so. Even if you feel nothing, you act that way.
Believers make all their worship their own in order to participate in this experience. We are now standing before God. The vision of God that Isaiah saw was terrifying. The temple was filled with holy smoke, and the hem of the Lord's robe covered the temple. The angels' hymns shook the threshold of the temple. The scene was too frightening to bear. He immediately became like the dead. After that, he rose anew as a man of God.
This is not simply a life-and-death experience. In this way, we begin to experience eternal death and resurrection. We die and live again. You have to die to live again. It's not about curing the character and curing the disease. Die about it and everything ceases. Now you have a whole new life. It is not about gradually becoming rich and turning into a prince. Already rich and king
This experience must be repeated. And the confession of faith as a living sacrifice must be repeated. Can a living sacrifice participate in lewd and unclean things? Can he deceive and lie? He is a living sacrifice raised for sin and for blessing. ?쏧 will bless you and make you great, and I will make you like the stars in the sky and like the sand on the seashore, and you will gain the gates of your enemies. Through you all peoples of the world will be blessed.??Now, even though we cannot see it with our eyes, we must know what is before God. Like Isaiah, when we come before God, we must arrange our minds and bodies. We must keep the time. Choose your clothes well and be solemn. All worship services should be treated as a matter of life and death. Worship is the first and most important thing for believers. Rejoice in worship
In doing so, we come back to life as new beings. And this training of death and resurrection must be repeated with all sincerity and will. God commands. ?쏧n every new moon and every Sabbath, all flesh and blood shall come and worship before Me??(Isaiah 66:23).