Worship as Sacrifice O-71 rr-708 c-316 He was a rich man. He had one of the most profitable jobs and Jericho. He had a nice house, and fancy clothes. Not only had he done well in his profession, he had become the head of his profession in the city of Jericho. He was probably a self made man, driven to succeed, because of his problems. The first was that he had a job that made people hate him. That's always hard to put up with. The second problem was that he was, as we might put it today, we might say that he was vertically challenged. In a word Zacchaeus was short. Diminutive. If it hadn't been for his very self-important bearing and his beard, he could probably have easily passed for a boy. Which was a distinct disadvantage in a crowd. And that is exactly where he found himself on that fateful day. In a crowd feeling like a little boy. I can imagine him hopping up and down trying to see Jesus. Finally he throws his dignity to the wind, and following the call of the Holy Spirit, he scrambles up a tree, tunic flying. The excitement of the crowd is contagious. They have heard of the healings and other miracles. They hope to see more of that today. But Zacchaeus had a different motivation. The Spirit had shown him that not only was Jesus a prophet, but he was the Messiah. And the miracle that had grabbed the attention of Zacchaeus was not healing, or feeding thousands of people. The miracle that Zacchaeus craved was acceptance, love, and forgiveness. Zacchaeus is trembling with excitement as Jesus approached. His mouth was dry and his knuckles were white from gripping the branches of the tree. And then, he was passing under the tree and Zacchaeus was able to see him. His heart thrilled, then almost stopped as Jesus looked straight up at him. Reading his heart, Jesus said, Zacchaeus, come down, for I am going to have dinner at your house today. The little man slid, tumbled and flew down out of the tree and said Luke 19:8 "Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold." The righteous in the crowd murmured that Jesus was going to eat with a hated tax collector. Jesus, reading their hearts said: (v9) "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; 10 "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." Then he led Jesus to his house. There he had his servants prepare a sumptuous feast. At least we assume that happened. Now perhaps you are wondering what Zacchaeus and worship have to do with each other. They are connected through sacrifice. The earliest form of worship was sacrifice. Sacrifices began at the gate of the Garden of Eden to make a way for man to show his love to and obedience of God. Cain and Abel offered sacrifices, though one was accepted and one was not. Will talk about that more later. When the flood was over, Noah made sacrificial offerings. When Abraham worshipped, he built an altar, as did Isaac and Jacob. The altars were built for offering sacrifices. Obviously the first sacrifice that each of us should bring is our own lives. Paul speaks of a living sacrifice: 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. Actually, as we have mentioned before, until we give ourselves, there can be no true worship -- or in the context of today's message, no sacrifice. Today most of us do not know what sacrifice is. The dictionary tells us that it means: 1. An offering of animal or person to a deity. 2. Giving up or destroying one thing for another of higher value. Zacchaeus did both. He gave himself to Jesus, and he made a sacrificial promise. He gave half of his goods to the poor. Then restored 4x to anyone that he had defrauded. This could have well left him a poor man. Financially. But he was a rich man in spirit now. He had experienced the love and acceptance of his Savior. He responded by giving sacrificially. There is an O.T. story of sacrificial giving. We find it in 2 Sam 24. David sins by having a census taken of the Israelites. His particular interest was the army. The sin was because the victories that Israel had were supposed to be from God not by numbers of soldiers. In taking the census, David was showing a lack of faith as well as dependence on the human element. I don't know if you remember the story but God gave David the choice of 2 punishments. We find them in 2 Samuel 24:10 And David's heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, I pray, O LORD, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have done very foolishly." 11 Now when David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, 12 "Go and tell David, 'Thus says the LORD: "I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you."' " 13 So Gad came to David and told him; and he said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to Him who sent me." 14 And David said to Gad, "I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man." 15 So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men of the people died. 16 And when the angel stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, "It is enough; now restrain your hand." And the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17 Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, "Surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father's house." 18 And Gad came that day to David and said to him, "Go up, erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite." 19 So David, according to the word of Gad, went up as the LORD commanded. David asks for the threshing floor to make an altar. Aranuah says that he will give it to David for worship. But David insists on paying for it. What did David know about worship and sacrifice that we find here? 2 Samuel 24:24 Then the king said to Araunah, "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. 25 And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel. The principle of sacrifice is that is has to cost us something. Cain could have offered a sacrifice of a lamb. But it would have cost him something to buy or barter for one. He brought an offering that didn't really cost him anything. Besides the fact that it was not the kind of offering that God said to bring. Why did David refuse to offer to God something that cost him nothing? He knew that he could not pay his vows by proxy. He would not pretend to worship using someone else's sacrifice. He wanted the gift to be a product of his labors. Malachi 1:6 "A son honors his father, And a servant his master. If then I am the Father, Where is My honor? And if I am a Master, Where is My reverence? Says the LORD of hosts To you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, 'In what way have we despised Your name?' 7 "You offer defiled food on My altar. But say, 'In what way have we defiled You?' By saying, 'The table of the LORD is contemptible.' 8 And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?" Says the LORD of hosts. 9 "But now entreat God's favor, That He may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands, Will He accept you favorably?" Says the LORD of hosts. 10 "Who is there even among you who would shut the doors, So that you would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you," Says the LORD of hosts, "Nor will I accept an offering from your hands. 11 For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; In every place incense shall be offered to My name, And a pure offering; For My name shall be great among the nations," Says the LORD of hosts. In this passage the last O.T. prophet goes after Israel on their worship practice. They were bring their trash to offer to God as a sacrifice. In today's terms, they brought the canned food that they would not eat, the clothes that they would not wear, the time that they did not use for anything better, as sacrifices to God. And the offerings that went to support their particular outlooks, and not those of God. Stated differently we bring something truly valuable as a sacrifice, but try to use that to accomplish some purpose that we intend, rather than offering it to God without reservation. What if God had done the same for us? What if the Gospels were about God paying a huge fortune to get an angel to come and die for us? Even the angel Gabriel? Would that have touched human hearts? NO! When God gave he literally gave until it hurts. Note the sacrificial tone in these passages. Hebrews 10:12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Heb 9:26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. In the typical evangelical church in the United States, and the figures are probably not much different for Seventh-day Adventists, 20% of the people give 80% of the money. 30% give the other 20%, and 50% give nothing. And we do this while claiming to worship. And young people, I want to ask, Are you waiting to get old or to pass some imaginary mark in your life before you begin to give to your God? Furthermore of the 50% who do not give, very few attend services regularly, which means that in a typical church half of the members are rarely or never seen in church and would not be missed after a few weeks. The texts we just read show how Jesus died for our salvation. He's promised us an escape from sin. He had bought our eternal life with his death. He is planning a new heavens and a new earth without all of the troubles that we experience here. And up to half of church members show their affection and appreciation to him by doing nothing! David understood sacrifice. He did not give it in this case to appease an angry God. He did it because of his gratitude for God's actions. And God recognized the sacrifice and healed the land. Zaccheous offered the New Testament sacrifice of himself, and all that he had. And his name was one of a relative few to be mentioned in the hall of the faithful in the gospels. 2 Chronicles 7:4 "if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. This is just the sacrifice that God is looking for today. And is costs something. It may cost a cherished idea. It may cost a bad habit. It may mean shaking off our pride. But it definitely means casting ourselves at the feet of Jesus, accepting his way, not ours. His wisdom, not ours. His plans, not ours. His attitudes, not ours. His offering, not ours. This is the sacrifice of worship. Or the worship of sacrifice. As we close, I want you to ask yourself, am I offering the Lord the offering of sacrifice, or am I trying to buy his favor with trinkets? If you were truly living sacrificially, how would that look in your lifestyle? Do not look at anyone else. You are not a mediator between anyone and God. Look at your own life. And worship Him in a manor worthy of His Majesty.