Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH

the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit. We come to worship the King. We come into the presence of the King to give him worship and praise. We do this to give him what is his rightfully by his creation of the world and also by his redemption of us his saints. There is no higher duty nor any higher privilege than to come into the presence of God to give him worship and praise. Our Savior said we must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Our desire again today as we go through another portion of the worship service of the church as indicated by the scriptures is to increase and mature in our understanding of what it means to worship in spirit and in truth. My goal today is to help you to understand why I think it is appropriate activity in the context of the worship of the church for every person here to come to the front at the altar call as it were after the preaching of the word during the offertory altar call. What’s he talking about an altar call? We typically think of people becoming Christians in the context of the preaching service of the church. That’s not what I mean. But if you understand how we’ve talked about the sacrificial form of worship, you understand that the altar call is that in response to God’s word cleaving us apart and then assembling us on the whole burnt offering as a whole burnt offering to the Lord as it were.

We come forward and present all that we have, all that we do, and our work before the Savior at the altar as it were in response to his preached word. My goal is to help you to understand why I think that every Lord’s day we should respond to the word of God at least in our minds, but I think appropriately with our bodies by coming forward and consecrating ourselves anew to the service of the Lord God in obedience to this text from Romans 12, verses 1 and 2.

We want to be a reformed church always reforming and that includes our worship. Another reason why we preach through the worship service of the church besides informing us as to our highest duty and privilege is to conform our worship and to mature it according to what God’s word tells us. Let me give you an example of that. One of the matters that I am praying about in the context of the worship of our church is the placement of baptisms.

Elder Wilson and I will be talking and praying about this. Where should the baptismal service be held in the context of the worship service? We put it in the context of the other sign or seal of the covenant—communion. And there’s reason to believe those signs and seals should be brought together. But if we understand this movement of the three gifts of God, beginning with personhood, it seems like baptism, the rite of inclusion into the visible household of God, the assurance that our sins are forgiven through the work of the Savior, that perhaps this should be placed in the first portion of the worship service as the congregation is being convocated together and receiving that assurance that God has given us renewed glory through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and affecting our forgiveness.

So we do this to continue to meditate on what the scriptures say about worship that we might be a reformed church always reforming in terms of our worship. And we do this to remind ourselves of the pattern for all that we do and say in the context of our world and hopefully by the end of today’s sermon you’ll be reinvigorated. You will have new challenges put to you to see your work and labor in the context of the six days that follow this day, the first day of the week, as seeing these as consecrated totally to the purposes of Christ in his kingdom.

So that’s my goal—to help you understand why I think it’s good for you to walk the aisle every Lord’s day so that we might meditate upon how God’s worship in spirit and truth should be conducted by taking a whole Bible approach. And third, to get you to understand the nature, the consecration of all your lives to the service of King Jesus in a little bit fuller way. We’re talking today about the second of the three amens of God’s people. That’s another way to think about work, covenant, renewal, worship. We come here and give three amens to the three gifts of God.

God assures us of our forgiveness and of our renewed glory and personhood in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we say amen to that by praising his holy name. God brings us wisdom and knowledge at the altar of the whole burnt offering, so to speak. He brings us wisdom and knowledge—the preaching of the word—and our amen to that gift of God of a renewed mind is the consecration of all that we have to the service of King Jesus. And in a minute, in a little while, we’ll move to the third gift of God—the gift of life—in the context of the communion service. And our saying amen to the gift of God of that life is to do something, to take and to eat and to drink and to be filled with the grace of God for the empowerment of doing the task that he’s called us to do.

So we say amen to these three gifts of God. And today we’re going to talk about the offertory—the second amen, the amen to God’s gift of his word and wisdom and knowledge to us in the context of the worship service. We all want to be somebody. We all want to know neat stuff and we all want to have spirit-filled, prosperous, abundant lives. We all try to do that in the Adamic flesh wrongly. God says, “Come to worship and I will give you these three gifts that will fill the very need and desire of your soul.”

Okay? And in terms of the offertory, we’re going to look again today at Romans 12:1 and 2. It begins with the word “therefore.” Therefore, you remember I’ve talked about this concept of credenda and agenda—not the magazine, but what that magazine is named after. In the epistles, you normally have a body of doctrine presented—credenda—what we’re to believe. And then you have what people call the practical application in the second half of the epistle—the agenda, what are we supposed to do? Well, Romans is no different.

What we have here in Romans 12:1 and 2 is the transition point from credenda to agenda, from what we’re supposed to believe that Paul has sketched out for us in the first 11 chapters to now what we’re supposed to do as a result of this understanding of God’s word. Calvin put it this way: “After having handled those things necessary for the erection of the kingdom of God—that is, that righteousness is to be sought from God alone, that salvation is to come to us alone from his mercy, that all of our blessings are laid up and daily offered to us in Christ only—Paul now passes on according to the best order to show how this life is to be formed.”

So we move in Romans 12:1 and 2, and we move in the offertory, to a consecration of action, our agenda for the rest of our week in response to credenda, what God has called us to believe on the basis of the preaching of his word. Sermon and offertory—credenda and agenda linked together—Romans 12:1 and 2, the doorway from the doctrinal section of the book to the practical section of the book. Okay, let’s look at the text then and look at it in some more detail now to get a sense of this particular passage: Romans 12:1 and 2.

If we see that this correlates to the offertory, the agenda matching the credenda, then if we get a sense of Romans 12:1 and 2, it’ll provide us with a sense of what the offertory is all about in the context of the worship of the church. What I’ve done here is I’ve given you a series of four statements that are mine as a kind of summation of what this passage of scripture teaches us.

We read in the first half of verse one: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.” Beseech, not command. Brethren, not enemy. Not by the commands of the king, but in response to the mercies of God. You see the three-fold pattern there, the emphasis on this entreaty by the apostle Paul. So I summarize this first half of the verse in this way: This is an entreating and imploring of brothers to respond properly to God’s grace as revealed in his word.

Look at all the great mercies that God has given you through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that I’ve articulated, Paul says, for 11 chapters. And if you come to understand the first part of the worship service that without the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity in hell and damnation. And with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ applied to your life in the providence and sovereignty of God, not only will you be saved from that, but you’ll be moved out of that world and authority of Satan into the blessed kingdom of the Son.

You’ll have relationships with not just God reconciled, but with each other. You’ll have the righteousness of Christ imputed to you. Not only that, you’ll grow in that righteousness. And your life will start to become Christlike. And you’ll have wonderful blessings and peace in the context of your life. You’ll have troubles and trials, but the answer to every one of them is the spirit indwelling you. You understand all of these tremendous mercies? I think that’s what is meant by “the mercies of God.” This means all the blessings that occur to us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you’ve understood all of that, then how can you help but want to consecrate all who you are to this great king? I mean, there’s two paths. Walk away from the king and you walk into oblivion, darkness, a sense of disorder, death, problems. And the other path is the path of blessing and peace and righteousness. Well, is there any question? This is your reasonable or logical course of action—to respond to these mercies of God, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, by consecrating our lives to him. This portion of the verse addresses our motivation for the offertory. Why do you come forward? This pastor says so because it’s the liturgy. It’s the habit. It’s the duty. No, Paul says it is a response of love to an understanding of the mercies of Christ.

Calvin put it this way: “This exhortation teaches us that until men really apprehend how much they owe to the mercy of God, they will never with a right feeling worship him, nor be effectually stimulated to fear and obey.” You see, it goes the other way. The only way to do this correctly is by grasping hold of the mercies of Christ. And if you don’t have that, you’ll never, no matter how often you come to church, be able to worship him in spirit and in truth. It’s enough, Calvin writes. “For the papists, for the Roman Catholics, if they can exert by terror some sort of forced obedience, I know not what, but Paul, that he might bind us to God, not by servile fear, but by the voluntary and cheerful love of righteousness, allures us by the sweetness of that favor by which our salvation is effected.”

At the same time, he reproaches us with ingratitude—except we, after having found a father so kind and found a father so bountiful, do strive in our turn to dedicate ourselves wholly to him. Paul tells us, as Calvin reiterates, that it is the height of ingratitude to consider the mercies of God in Christ and then not to come forward and consecrate yourselves anew to the purposes of the Savior in response to his gift of knowledge.

So this sense of this verse, and the sense of the offertory, is first of all: It’s an entreating of brothers to respond properly to God’s grace as revealed in his word. Secondly, the verse goes on to say that you might present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. So we’re entreated, we are entreated as brothers, to respond properly to God’s grace as revealed in his word—as revealed in his word. By the way, these mercies are explained in chapters 1 through 11. It’s a response to the word, just as the offering is a response to God’s word preached.

And to go on to explain the second section: by consecrating all that they are to God’s service, as the height of sweet reasonableness. It is the height of sweet reason. It is our reasonable service to consecrate all that we are to God’s service in response to these mercies of his. Again quoting Calvin: “He brings to us at the same time no common consolation. For he teaches us that our work is pleasing and acceptable to God when we devote ourselves to purity and holiness. This is acceptable to God. This presentation of our bodies at the offertory as living sacrifices, as holy, set apart to him, is acceptable to God.”

He assures us that as we come forward, God receives us in Christ and he will accept our labors for his grace and his kingdom. As one commentator put it, Paul says, “Take your body, take all the tasks that you have to do every day. Take your body and present it a living sacrifice.” It’s one reason why at this church we don’t pass the plate. I mean, it’s not wrong to pass the plate. You don’t have to move your body in order to consecrate your body. But it’s useful to our children. It’s useful to us as adults to remind ourselves that this is not some Greek, Platonic notion of Christianity that just involves our mind and spirit, but not our bodies.

See, this statement of Paul’s was an offense to Greeks who were parading as Christians because they didn’t like the body. So it’s useful to bring our bodies forward. It’s useful to raise our hands to worship God the way they did in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah and way David talks about in the Psalms—to remind us that our whole body is involved in the worship of God. It’s useful to come forward with the effects of our labor, with our tithes and offerings, to present all to him, presenting all of who we are.

Paul says, “Take your body. Take all the tasks that you have to do every day. Take the ordinary work of the shop, the factory, the shipyard, the mine. Offer all that as an act of worship to God. That’s our responsibility. That’s what this text tells us to do—to walk the aisle rather, respond to the altar call of God. And if we don’t do that, then we act miserably and unthankfully, and it’s the height of ingratitude to fail to consecrate all that we are in response to the mercies of God.

Third portion: the first half of verse two—”Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Related to the offertory is this relationship of conformation versus transformation. So reading these three sentences so far together: This offering in Romans 12:1 and 2 is an entreating of brothers to respond properly to God’s grace as revealed in his word by consecrating all that they are to God’s service as the height of sweet reasonableness to the end that they may be a peculiar people continually being transformed by God’s word.

Cultural conflict, cultural warfare is brought into this discussion by Paul. There is the world in its standards—not the world in the created sense, but the world system that’s opposed to God. And to be conformed to that world system is what happens to us apart from the transformation of the spirit of God. And so this cultural conflict is what we’re committing ourselves to here. And God says that as we consecrate all that we have to him, we will be transformed so that we don’t become conformed to the spirit of the age.

You see, now there’s two words here. I talked about this briefly last week. In our language, “conform” and “transform” both have the same common root, but not so these two words. The word for “be conformed”—”not be conformed to this world”—is “schema.” It’s the root word for “schematics,” referring to an external diagram. The schema is the clothes you wear, the way you sort of look, your external appearance. As opposed to the word that is the basis for “metamorphosis”—that is the Greek word that’s the basis for “transformation.”

That word refers to who we are in total, in our whole personhood. See, your schema, your exterior appearance, may change from day to day, and if you don’t have Christ transforming you, your appearance may change and it will change as you become conformed to the spirit of the age and its ideas of fashion and what you should do with your body. But as opposed to that, the transformation that God effects in the context of the offertory is in the interior and affects all of whom we are, and including the exterior of course.

So there’s two different words used—a cookie cutter image as opposed to a transformation at the innermost parts of our being. Now the form of these verbs is also kind of interesting. First of all, the form of the verb is in the present tense. It’s not a once-for-all act. In other words, be continually not conformed to this world, but be continually transformed by the spirit of God. And so when you come together every week, when I say “altar call,” I don’t mean a one-time thing. I mean that as Christians, every Lord’s day, the Lord moves us continually not to be conformed to the world, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

So it’s a present tense verb, which means that it’s not one time but an ongoing process—progressive sanctification in the life of the believer. The verbs are also passive in form, which seems to imply that the change in view is not something we do or even that we can do for ourselves. It’s something done to us by God. The end result of our consecration is that he transforms us instead of conforming us to the spirit of the age. Transformation can only be accomplished by God and God alone. These verbs are passive.

And finally, these verbs are in the imperative. They’re commands, which means that we do have a responsibility of desiring this change and consenting to it as it were, seeking it, wanting it, and desiring it in the context of our lives. Cranfield reads it this way: “Resist this process of being continually molded and fashioned according to the pattern of this present age with its conventions and its standards of value. Instead, in Cranfield’s translation, goes on to say, ‘Continue to let yourselves be transformed.’ So resist the spirit of the age. Seek the transformation of God.”

Don’t let yourselves be shaped by what everybody else does. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. That’s the Phillips translation. Refuse to be conformed to the image of the world and instead accept the transformation of your character that God effects in the context of your life. And how is this accomplished? By the renewing of your mind. Your mind is renewed by the word of God. And as a result, you are transformed and go from glory to glory.

So the sense of this text goes on to conclude in the last half of verse two: “that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Okay. So my summary of the sense of this text: This is an entreating of brothers to respond properly to God’s grace as revealed in his word, and we’re to respond properly by consecrating all that we are to God’s service, the height of sweet reasonableness, to the end that we might be a peculiar people continually being transformed by God’s word.

And then concluding with this fourth statement on your outline: discerning accurately his will for our lives as revealed in that word. The touchstone, the norm by which all other norms must be normed. The sense of this last phrase is that we are to discern what—”prove” means test, evaluate, discern—what the will of God is. What’s the will of God for your lives? Well, here’s how you’re going to find the will of God for your lives. If you understand the nature of God’s gift of knowledge to you and you say amen to that gift of God’s knowledge and offer yourselves in all that you are to him in the context of the offertory, God says the end result of that is that he transforms you.

And in that continual, ongoing transformation, you now are able to discern the will of God for your lives. You can take the options that present themselves to you tomorrow, the next day in your family, at work, in your recreations, and discern the will of God because that word is transforming you. And being immersed in that word, the spirit of God moves you to discern and understand what the will of God is in the context of your life.

Now, Paul immediately after saying this begins a series of commands in verse 3 through chapter 15:13. He proceeds to give several chapters of moral instruction telling us in detail what the will of God consists of. You see, when we say “How do we discern the will of God?” we tend to think in mystical, emotional ways of evaluating God’s will. But to Paul, he says that you’ll know what the will of God is. And here it is. The next three chapters—the practical applications, a bunch of stuff. It’s the will of God that you submit to the magistrate no matter what you feel about it. You see, the will of God that you don’t take your own vengeance, no matter what you feel about it.

So this will of God is a discerning of what? His word by the spirit who transforms us and causes us to grow in grace. So we bring into this offertory what God is going to do in the context of his gift to you is to cause you to discern by way of his word what his will is. We’re to prove, discern, understand, distinguish—is what it means. Mafet translation says, “Instead of being molded to this world, have your minds renewed and so be transformed in nature, able to make out what the will of God is.”

Now, this will is stated for us here to be good and acceptable and perfect. And that list of qualifiers or adjectives—describers—that is, these point us to the law of God. Romans 7, earlier in this epistle, Paul had said that the commandment is “holy and righteous and good.” You see, there’s really nothing—there’s no, you do not want to put up a wall of division between this discerning of the will of God and God’s law.

In other words, you’ll be able to discern the will of God. Figure it out because the spirit will bring the law of God into that discerning process. John Murray says this: “The will of God is the law of God. The will of God is the law of God. The law is holy and just and good. We may never fear that the standard God has prescribed for us is only relatively good or acceptable or perfect, that it is an accommodated norm adapted to our present condition and not measuring up to the standard of God’s perfection. The will of God is the transcript of God’s perfection and is the perfect reflection of his holiness, justice and goodness.”

So the end result of this process and this gift of God of knowledge and wisdom is the word becoming now at the center of our being and used by the spirit of God to help us to discern the application of that word in the context of our lives. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, is the verse we like to talk about—that we’re being transformed and going from glory to glory. And that applies in the context of the offertory. But let’s read it in context.

Verse 15 of 2 Corinthians 3 says this: “Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now, the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled faces, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the spirit of the Lord.”

What’s he saying? When they hear the word of God, the law of Moses, they have a veil and they’re not transformed. They’re conformed to the world. We don’t have the veil. And so what is it that Paul implies here is leading to this transformation of going from glory to glory? It’s the veil being taken away that exists between the carnal man and the word of God being read to him. You see, that word of God is the vehicle by which God transforms us.

And so Romans 12:1 and 2, the offertory—it’s there after the preached word. God says, “Consecrate yourselves in response to this and my spirit will transform you by means of that word.” You know, Joanna got back from camp this last week. Praise God. We’re so happy to have her back. She’s telling us about these various choruses that they would sing. And I don’t want to pick on this camp or anything, but you know, one of the things they sang, I think in the worship service, I don’t know, is the words say, “I want to know you. I want to hear your voice. I want to know your—I want to know you more. I want to touch you. I want to see you. I want to know you more.”

So this is fairly typical kind of idea that we want to see God’s face. We want to hear his voice speaking to us audibly. This is what we cry out for. We want to see God direct, unmediated. And God says, “No, no. You want to know me? Know my word. Respond to my word in the power of the spirit and be transformed by my word. You want to hear my voice? I tell you that my voice—the scriptures. You feel the wind. The scriptures are God-breathed. They’re his voice to us.”

I talked last week about David’s prayer, the psalmist prayer in Psalm 119, verse 18. I read a bunch of these scriptures. Now, they are throughout the Bible and certainly in the context of Psalm 119, they just predominate—these different prayers for illumination. Psalm 119, verse 18 says, “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”

What the psalmist prays for over and over is not “I want to see your face. I want to hear your voice. I want to feel closer to you. I want to somehow mystically feel connected to you.” I’m not trying to make fun of it, but I’m saying that we’ve got to be careful because that’s what we tend to slip into. What the psalmist prayed for over and over and over was to know this. You see, to know this—the word of God.

Somehow we have removed this from the work of the spirit or from the work of our relationship to God. And God says that is just plain wrong—that you’re transformed by that word. You go from glory to glory because the veil between you and this has been removed through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ applied to you by the spirit. Luke 16:30 and 31—the story of Lazarus and Dives. And Lazarus says, “You know, I’ve got relatives who are going to burn up in hell like me. God, if you don’t go and send them somebody to tell them the problems that they’re having.”

And you know what’s the response? “You know, if they don’t hear the word of God, if they don’t read the Bible and believe it, they have Moses and the prophets. If they don’t believe this, if I did show up to them and whisper in their ear truth, they won’t hear it.” We know clearer scripture that the word of God is clear to us and it is the word that God desires to reveal himself through. And when we seek spirituality or sanctification or the Christian life in some sort of mystical removal from this word, you see, we’ve moved away from the very source that God has said is the means whereby he will transform us and cause us to go from glory to glory.

Noah’s arc and aliens. You know, people say, “Well, we just had proof. We can find Noah’s arc. Then the people in the culture will all see and they’ll know that the Bible is true.” And R.J. Rushdoony, he was at a barber shop, I think, years ago, and you know, one of them got talking, “Oh, I think they found Noah’s arc.” “Yeah. Well, I’ll bet you some aliens put it up there.”

I mean, it’s not going to do any good to give demonstrable proof if people will not hear the word of God and believe it. See, now I’m all for evidence and using evidences and apologetics, but ultimately men suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness in suppression of this word. This word is what we need. Jesus in John chapter 5 says, “You search the scriptures, you think in them they have life, but they testify of me.”

And I’ve heard preachers use that verse to say, “See, forget reading the Bible and studying the Bible. Just get in touch with Jesus. Jesus, you’re like one of those Pharisees trying to read that Bible.” But Jesus said, “Their problem wasn’t that they searched the scriptures. The problem was their rejection of him as revealed in these scriptures. These speak of me. This is the witness of me. And if you didn’t receive the witness of me in the scriptures when you read them, then you’re not going to receive my witness now in my words.” That’s what Jesus is saying.

The word of God must be seen as central to our understanding of how we grow in grace. Okay, that’s an overview of Romans chapter 12. Let’s talk a little bit now about something specific in Romans 12 that is interesting. And that is these sacrificial terms that are used in Romans chapter 12.

What he says here is that we’re to present our bodies—present or offer. This is a word that’s actually used and was used at the time. It can be used different ways, but it’s used in terms of a sacrificer bringing his animal to the temple to have it offered. It’s that kind of term that’s being used here—to present. Same word is used in some of the Greek temples where a guy would present his ritual sacrifice to the gods.

So that word about presenting is a sacrificial term. “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Well, the word sacrifice is sacrifice. It means the things again that were given at these various altars as sacrifices. And then this sacrifice is a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” And that word for service is the root word of liturgy. And it’s got an interesting history in the Greek. But originally, it was the word that you would work for somebody and they would give you money.

Remember what I’ve said before about Revelation 2 and 3. Commercial transactions are what and how Jesus describes the worship service. You come in your liturgy and Jesus pays you with these three gifts. Now, he doesn’t—you don’t deserve it. It’s not why he’s giving it to you, but he’s saying you come as an evidence of faith, and this is where I’m going to give you them. You can get this stuff, buy it from me at no cost. You see?

Well, here this very word that in the New Testament is only used in terms of worship or service to God, never to man. This particular Greek term, the root for our word liturgy—this word originally in Greek was this commercial transaction idea. Then it got to be used for somebody who lived their lives such that their vocation was living their life. It was total—you know, their total dedication to their job. This is what would describe them—a person that enters into this sort of service.

So it has this idea of total consecration and dedication. It has this idea of transaction behind it. And then all that ushers into the New Testament understanding where it’s service or worship of God, service to God, worship of God. And it is what we talk about when we talk about liturgy. So there are these sacrificial terms that are used here, and this word was used in a sacrificial sense, this liturgy, in terms of what was going on at the temple.

So there are these sacrificial terms that are used here, and really what we can see here is that what Paul is saying is you enter into this sacrificial activity in the context of a proper response to God’s word. What we enter into as a sacrificial activity—1 Peter 2:5 says that we are “living stones. We’re building up to a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” Now, the sacrifices had to be holy. That’s talked about in Romans 12. They were acceptable to God like the sweet-smelling saber that were acceptable offerings to God. Our offering in the offertory is acceptable to God.

All sacrificial language is being used here. And one thing tells us is that when we read in 1 Peter 2 that we’re all priests, you know, the priesthood of believers is commonly used to say we’re all autonomous. We can all decide what we want to about the Bible. But what is it applied to here? If you understand the priesthood of yourself as a believer, the very heart of who you are as a priest is to do what Paul commands you to do in Romans 12:1 and 2, or entreats you to do in Romans 12:1 and 2. And that is to offer up yourselves as living sacrifices to God.

So we have this sacrificial language telling us who we are. And now let’s relate the sacrificial activity of the offering to the tribute offering of the Old Testament. This won’t take too long. First an overview. We talked about this. Keep these outlines if you get confused. Remind yourselves of the offering system of the Old Testament.

What we have in the offerings described in the Old Testament is a revealed order of the liturgy of how we’re to worship God. See, we don’t have to make it up. We can say God has revealed a particular order because this is the way it always worked. They always would have a purification offering called sin offering in the King James version. Then they would have an ascension offering. On top of the ascension offering would be placed the tribute offering. And then the third offering was the peace offering.

So you’d have this animal killed as a purification offering and they’d be burnt up. And in that particular offering, in the description in Leviticus and other places of scripture, the thing that’s stressed in the purification offering is blood. Death. Blood is a demonstration of death. Now, all the offerings were killed, but what’s stressed in the language of the purification offering is death and blood. The Day of Atonement is a purification offering. What’s talked about there? That offering is a purification offering for all the sins of Israel.

See, it’s blood and its death. And what that corresponds to, of course, is our confession of sin at the beginning of our worship service and God assuring us of our forgiveness through the blood of the shed blood of Christ. After you did the purification offering, then you would do the whole burnt offering. The word in the Hebrew means “to go up.” It doesn’t mean “burn.” It’s called “whole burnt” because nearly all the animal is burned up except for the skin.

So it’s not whole, and the word doesn’t mean “burned up.” But in any event, the idea is that the animal you—it’s dead. You’ve killed you—got to kill it first, of course. But what’s stressed with the whole burnt offering is that it is chopped into a bunch of pieces. All those pieces are then put together on that fiery altar, and the thing then actually, then after you put those pieces up there, it ascends up to God in smoke. And while that’s going on, you put your tribute offering on there.

The ascension offering—what’s not emphasized is not the death of the animal. It’s it’s restructuring by being cut up, put on the altar, and transformed into smoke and going into God’s presence. It’s ascension. It’s transformation. And that corresponds to the preaching of the word, which is a sharp two-edged sword, cuts you up, and you come up with all your pieces in hand, give your offering to God, and he puts you back together and causes you to be transformed by his spirit.

Now, on that ascension offering was laid the tribute offering. This was grain, this was oil, this was frankincense. And later there was wine with it as well. Grain, oil, and frankincense. And you would take that. This was the product of your hands. You had picked stuff. You had extracted the olive oil. You had got the frankincense distilled from whatever gum of the tree it came from. That represents your labor, and it’s placed on top of the word.

So the offering is a response to the preached word, which makes us an ascension offering. And the tribute offering directly corresponds to the offering that Paul is talking about, I think, in Romans 12:1 and 2 and what we do in the worship service. The third offering was the peace offering, which we get to at communion. We’ll discuss that in the next few weeks.

And what’s stressed though just by way of you know what’s stressed in purification is death and blood. What’s stressed in ascension and tribute is reconsecration, transformation of state. And what’s stressed at the peace offering is you get to eat a meal with God and each other. Those are the stresses. And that’s the way the worship of the church tracks.

And so we’re in this middle section relating the offering to the tribute offering. And I list this stuff for you here: Aaron’s rod, the law, and manna being in the Holy of Holies, and then being in the Holy Place. You have the lampstand, the golden altar of incense, the table of showbread. All that stuff correlates. We don’t want to spend time on it now, but there are three levels here that describe these same three gifts.

Aaron’s rod becomes a lampstand as you move into the Holy Place. And that becomes these two big pillars, Jachin and Boaz—glorious persons as we’re forgiven of our sins. The law of God contained in the Holy of Holies is correlated to the altar of incense and then the altar of—burn the altar in which sacrifices are burned, the bronze altar outside. Why? Inside the Holy of Holies, there’s the mercy seat of God.

Inside the mercy seat, the only thing that’s in there is the law of God. The pot of manna and Aaron’s rod are leaning up against it. In there, see, you got the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, an altar described as an altar. Inside, it’s the word of God. Correlating to that, you have the altar of incense in the Holy Place. And out in the courtyard, you got the altar where the animal sacrifices are burned up.

See, as you track that with the ascension and tribute offering, they all track together with the preached word and the tribute of incense, the prayers of God’s people, which we’ll talk about next week, and then the altar where this whole sacrifice occurs. Here’s the point: The word of God is associated in this architecture and in the building with the altar. It is only at the altar that we can properly understand the word of God. It’s only as we bring ourselves in consecration to the King at the altar of Christ that we can truly know the word of God.

And that’s all set up for us in the Old Testament. And it’s set up for us here. Every Lord’s day, you hear the word preached and then there’s an altar call. You don’t come up to be saved. You come up to bring yourself cut up by God’s word to be renewed, to be together, bound together again, and transformed in state, and to consecrate all that you have to the purposes of the King.

As I said, this tribute offering is grain and it’s oil and it’s frankincense. And on your outline there, I’ve got some notes from Peter Leithart. Actually, again, the word tribute offering translates what you have in the King James as cereal offering. The Hebrew word has nothing to do with cereal or grain. It means a gift given to a king. It means tribute, fealty, obedience. That’s what it’s all about.

So when you come forward with your offerings, you are engaging in a tribute offering to the King of Kings in response to his preached word. Now, on your outline, I’ve got some, as I said, some notes from Mr. Leithart under “Bringing the World into Worship—the Labor of the One Who Offers.” Quoting from him now: “Tribute offerings were not in a natural but a transformed state. Flour, bread, roasted grain not raw grain, oil not olives, wine—later the wine was added as a libation offering—not grapes, and frankincense not the raw gum of the trees. You see, and what it represents is that we are bringing the world into the worship of God.

We worship that we might work in that transformed state. And we work in that transformed state so that what we do might be part of the offerings we bring into the temple of God, the gathering of God’s people in the context of corporate worship. We offer him the world is what we offer to him as we bring our tribute offering to him. And as Mr. Leithart points out here in these notes: It really builds on a biblical theology of work.

Work is a necessary outflow of the self-offering of faith. Faith without works is dead. The Adamic commission is to transform, transfigure, glorify the created order. All work is pleasing to God, even the most menial. Remember that—Chariots of Fire, chariots of God, whatever it was, movie—you know, you can peel a spud to the glory of God. You see? And the labor from peeling that spud and the reward you get in the workplace is brought and consecrated to God’s purpose because you’re bringing all your labor and all the world into the worship of God.

Work is directed toward worship. Worship equips us for work. So when we read Romans 12:1 and 2 and it talks in this language which would have been obviously correlated to the sacrificial system of the men who got the first epistle, we must see it in relationship to the offering system of the Old Testament which informs our worship and tells us that it’s not just coming up and saying “I’m going to live for Jesus this week.”

There’s a wonderful picture.