"The Principle of Worship"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the Word of God. Hey, good morning everybody. How are you?

Thanks so much for being here today. Hey, Philippians chapter 4. We're in a short series entitled Handling Money, God's Way. Remember the deal? I made you a deal when we started this.

The deal was we're going to talk about money for a couple of weeks, but I'm not going to ask you for a cent. And that deal still goes because the purpose of this series is not to raise money from a claimed Bible church. The purpose of this series is to educate you and me as to the principles in the Bible for handling money in a way that honors God and that brings maximum blessing to our lives.

And so all we're trying to do is educate ourselves here. We're working out of Philippians chapter 4. Remember Paul was in jail in Rome. The Philippians sent him an offering.

In response, he writes him back a thank you letter. We call it today the book of Philippians. And in chapter 4, he gives us all the principles we need to build a biblical system of resource management. There are four principles here. Number one, the principle of contentment. We've already covered that.

Principle number two, the principle of investment. We've already covered that. Today we're going to cover the principle of worship, and then next week we finish it up and we're done.

Okay, so let's dig in. Verse 18, Philippians chapter 4. I have received everything in full and have an abundance, Paul writes. I am amply supplied having received from Epaphroditus the gifts that you sent.

Now, Epaphroditus is a man. He's the individual who carried this offering from the Philippians to Rome and gave it to Paul. And Paul says he's given me your generous offering.

And because of that, I am amply supplied. But I want you to see how Paul goes on and describes this offering of the Philippians. He says in the end of the verse, they that is the monetary gifts you sent me are a fragrant offering and acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. Now, this is kind of a strange way to describe an offering that it is a fragrant offering and acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. He said, Why does Paul use language like that? Well, it's because he's using the imagery of the Old Testament sacrificial system. These are terms that come out of the Old Testament describing in the Old Testament when a worshiper would bring an offering to the temple in Jerusalem. They would take the animal, kill the animal, burn its meat as a sacrifice to the Lord.

And as that aroma drifted up into the heavens, the Old Testament referred to it as a fragrant aroma, a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. Now, all this reminds me of the Chinese food restaurant right near the gym where I go to see I love Chinese food. And the reason I love Chinese food is because I'm Jewish. You laugh. Asian people do not keep Chinese food restaurants in business. Jewish people do.

And if you don't believe that's true, you walk into P.F. Chang's any day at lunch and just yell mazel tov and 30 people will yell back. Thank you very much.

You watch. In fact, over in Bethesda, in the most kosher neighborhood anywhere in Washington, there is right in the middle of this neighborhood a Chinese restaurant, a kosher Chinese restaurant, and the name of the restaurant is Moisture Dragon. No, I'm not kidding you. I'm serious.

Moisture Dragon. And it's good food. You go over there and eat sometime. Anyway, this Chinese restaurant right near my gym, I'm walking across the parking lot and I mean, I don't know what they're cooking, but sometimes I have literally stopped in my tracks and said, unbelievable, that is the best thing I've ever smelled in my whole life.

Now, haven't you ever been walking somewhere by a restaurant and you smelled some aroma coming out and it just stopped you dead in your tracks and you went, wow, that is awesome. And what the Bible is telling us is that this is exactly how Almighty God felt about these sacrifices in the Old Testament as the aroma went up into heaven. And the apostle Paul tells us here in Philippians four that when we as followers of Christ give to the work of God here on earth, the way the Philippians had done, our giving is a fragrant offering, a pleasing aroma, just like these Old Testament sacrifices were that brings enormous joy to the heart of God. No sacrifices for sin are needed any longer. The reason you and I as followers of Christ today don't get on airplanes and fly to Jerusalem and have goats and bulls and lambs in the cargo section with us that were taken over there to sacrifice. Why we don't do that anymore is because our sin, our offenses have been paid for in full by what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.

Period, period and period. We don't need to do this anymore. That's why God refers to Jesus in the Bible as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world because of what he did on the cross. If you're here today and you've never trusted Christ as your real and personal savior, let me just say to you that not only are animal sacrifices no longer needed for our offenses to be forgiven before God, but animal sacrifices won't even work anymore. Ever since the Lord Jesus, the ultimate lamb of God, shed his blood on the cross to pay for our offenses, that's the only price God accepts anymore. So if you're trying to reach a situation where your offenses are forgiven by God and the breach between you and God is repaired, nothing would make God happier than for you to get there.

But friends, you've got to offer him the payment that works. Religious works don't work. Being a good person, that's not the payment God accepts. Animal sacrifices in Jerusalem, that's not the payment God accepts anymore.

It is Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross and our willingness to trust and embrace that as our own. Now there's another kind of animal sacrifice that was practiced in the Old Testament and these were worship sacrifices. This is when a person wanted to thank God, praise God, tell God how much they loved him and how devoted they were to him. They would also bring an animal to the temple. But the priest, when he killed this animal, instead of taking its blood and putting it on the altar, he didn't do that. Instead, he took the meat of this animal and he burned it and the fragrant aroma for the filet mignon, you know cooking, drafted on up into heaven and this was a worship offering that the Bible says would be a fragrant aroma in the nostrils of Almighty God. That brought real joy, was well pleasing to God. Now today in New Testament times, these worship sacrifices are still around. It's just that they've changed form.

They've changed format. Peter says, 1 Peter 2 5, today we are to offer up to God spiritual sacrifices of worship. We don't offer literal sacrifices anymore, physical sacrifices.

We don't take animals to Jerusalem and kill them anymore. We now offer spiritual sacrifices and here in Philippians 4, the Apostle Paul tells us that one of these spiritual sacrifices of worship that we can offer God today is financial giving to God and to the work of God. You say, Lon, why is giving to God an act of worship?

Well, I don't understand. Well, because friends, when we as followers of Christ give money to the Lord, when we give it freely, voluntarily, cheerfully, gladly, we're worshiping because we're telling God that He's number one in our life, that He's more important to us than money itself. And this is what worship is all about. Worship is just about telling somebody or something that they're number one in your life. We find this truth throughout the Bible, that giving to God is a form of spiritual worship. For example, Matthew Chapter 2. Remember the story of the three wise men coming to see baby Jesus?

Well, what does it say? It says, And when they saw the child with his mother Mary, they bowed down and they worshiped him. Now, how did they do this? Did they sing, Oh, little town of Bethlehem?

No. Look what they did. They opened their treasures and presented Jesus with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

They gave him the most valuable items they had with them. And what does the Bible call this? Calls it worship.

Hey, how about Mark 14? While Jesus was in Bethany, a woman came with an alabaster box of very expensive perfume made from pure nard, and she broke the jar and poured the perfume on the Lord's head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another. Why this waste of perfume?

It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor. And they rebuked the woman harshly. And Jesus said, Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her?

For she has done a beautiful thing for me. You say, Okay, Lon, I think I got it. I got it. The point today is whenever I give financially to the Lord, that God sees that is worship, right? That's the point. Well, almost almost is one little caveat we have to add. And to do that, I want to show you one other passage of Scripture. Mark 12 says, Verse 41, Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watch the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. You get the picture here, right?