Thursday, December
20, 2012, 6:29 a.m. – the Lord Jesus woke me this morning with the song “Living Sacrifices” playing in my mind.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Psalm 40 (quoting vv. 1-8 in the NIV 1984):
I waited patiently for
the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of
the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a
rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in
my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.
Blessed is the man
who makes the Lord his trust,
who does not look to
the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.
Many, O Lord my God,
are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned
for us
no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and
tell of them,
they would be too many to declare.
Sacrifice and offering
you did not desire,
but my ears you have pierced;
burnt offerings and
sin offerings
you did not require.
Then I said, “Here I
am, I have come—
it is written about me in the scroll.
I desire to do your
will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
Out of the Slimy Pit
Evidently the psalmist had committed some grievous act of
sin against God, and so he was suffering some type of physical illness as a
result of God’s heavy hand upon him, i.e. God’s discipline of him because of
his sin (see chapters 38-39). So, he prayed for God’s deliverance, and then he
waited patiently for God to lift him out of his illness, which appears to have
been life-threatening. God turned to him, heard his cry for mercy, and he
healed him. This is also a picture of our salvation.
We are all born into sin, i.e. we are born with sinful
natures, and we are predisposed to sin. Not one of us is righteous in his own
merit for we have all sinned, and we have all come up short of attaining God’s
glory in our lives. No matter how many good things we do, we cannot earn our
own salvation with God. So, that is why God the Father sent his Son Jesus
Christ to die on the cross for our sins, so that we could be set free from
bondage to sin and decay, and so we could be delivered from the pit of hell
(eternal damnation).
In this case, the “slimy pit,” and the “mud and mire,” would
represent our bondage (entrapment) to sin as well as the ultimate penalty of
sin in the pit of hell. Through Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross for
our sins, our sins were crucified, and through his resurrection from the dead,
our sins were conquered once and for all. They no longer have to have mastery
over us. Jesus came to set us free!
We receive this gift of grace and salvation by God’s grace
and through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. The necessary components of faith
described in scripture are repentance (turning from our sin) and obedience
(turning to follow Christ). Our faith, repentance and obedience are gifts from
God and are the working of the Holy Spirit of God in our hearts in
regeneration, i.e. in giving us new lives in Christ Jesus, but we must
cooperate with that work (see Luke 9:23-25; Eph. 4:17-24). We cannot be lifted
out of the slimy pit of sin and hell if we choose to continue to walk in
darkness and therefore deny the truth (see 1 John).
A New Song
When we come to faith in Jesus Christ by God’s grace, and
through repentance and obedience to Christ and to his commands, he lifts us up
out of our pit of bondage to sin, he sets our feet on a rock, and he gives us a
firm place to stand. We are no longer in this slimy pit of wallowing in the mud
of sin, but our lives are firmly planted on Jesus Christ (the Rock) and in his
will for our lives. This is a great picture of our salvation! And, this is what
it means to truly repent of our sins. We allow Jesus Christ to lift us up out
of our sin (turning from sin), and to give us new lives in Christ Jesus, free
from the control of sin and free to love, worship and obey God. There is just
nothing like this! And, this is why we can now sing a new song of praise and
rejoicing to our God in heaven!
The Things Planned
for Us
“Blessed is the man”
(women, too) “who makes the LORD his trust…”
When we put our trust in the Lord, it means that we believe
in Him and in what he did for us when he died for our sins, and when he rose
from the dead. And, it means we now have the hope of eternal life with God.
Yet, there is so much more meaning to this word “trust” than just what I have
mentioned here so far. To trust in Jesus Christ means that we have confidence
in him, we have the expectation that he will do what he said he would do, and
it means that we rely upon him, and have our dependency in him for all things
in this life. What this means is that our lives are no longer our own, and we
are no longer self-sufficient, but that we look to him to meet all our needs,
to satisfy the longings of our hearts, to heal our broken hearts and our
diseases, and to solve our issues and our problems. And, it means that we walk
in faithful obedience to him and to his commands.
“…who does not look to
the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.”
This is the other side of the word “trust,” which goes along
with the concept of repentance. When we truly understand what the scriptures
teach with regard to faith, trust and belief in Jesus Christ, we comprehend
that faith in Christ is not an emotional experience and/or an intellectual
assent to what Jesus did for us on the cross. It is not a one-time experience
that takes place at an altar when we pray a sinner’s prayer and then one day
when we die we go to heaven. Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ is a radical
transformation of heart, mind, belief, practice and lifestyle (see Luke
9:23-25; Eph. 4:17-24; 1 John; et al.).
We no longer look to our own pride or the pride of others to
fulfill our desires. We no longer turn aside to “false gods” to fill the
longings of our hearts. “False gods” can be anything in our lives that gets top
billing, which consumes our time, energies, emotion and attention, and that
pulls us away from our pure devotion and commitments to Jesus Christ. “False
gods” can be our careers, Christian ministry, families, hobbies, personal
achievements, recreation, entertainment choices, technology (computers, I-Pads,
smart phones, video games, and the like), money, success, our own bodies,
and/or other people, etc.
If our hearts and minds, our resources, energies and time
are being spent in any of these areas to the exclusion, or to the minimizing,
or in complete contrast to, or in compromise of our relationship with Jesus
Christ, and if we are looking to these things or other people or ourselves to
satisfy us, and to solve our problems, instead of looking to God, then
potentially they have become false gods to us, and we must turn away from them.
Sacrifice and
Offerings
Without going into all the history of altar sacrifices
required by the law in the Old Covenant relationship between God and his
people, let me summarize what I believe this passage of scripture is saying to
us today.
The writer of Hebrews (chapter 10, vv. 5-7) quoted this
section of Psalm 40 in reference to this being the words of Jesus Christ when
he came into the world. Since many of the Psalms are prophetic with regard to
the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, it could be that this is what was intended
all along by the psalmist’s words here. So, in light of that possibility, I
would like to look at what this meant for Jesus Christ, and then what it means
for us.
Jesus Christ became our perfect sacrifice for sin, so by his
blood offering for our sin, animal sacrifices are no longer required to atone
for the sins of men. Jesus Christ died once for all sin. The kind of sacrifice
he, thus, exemplified is the sacrificial giving of one’s entire life in
submissive obedience to God the Father, as well as the sacrificial giving of
one’s life for mankind. Thus, following the Old Covenant requirements for sin
offerings is no longer required, but what is required is humble, submissive obedience
to Jesus Christ (see Luke 9:23-25; Eph. 4:17-24; Rom. 12:1-2; & 1 John, et
al).
Yet, for us who did not grow up having to make animal
sacrifices for sin, I believe there is another relevance to this that is supported
throughout scripture. We have a tendency, as humans, to want to hand-select for
ourselves what service or what commitments we will make to God. We think if we
sing in the choir (or praise team), teach a Sunday School Class (or lead a small
group), volunteer in the church nursery, play on the church’s softball team,
work with the youth, go on mission trips, etc. that we are serving God. We may
well be! Yet, we may not be!
God does not want what we can do for him or what we decide
to give to him. I believe that is the point of these verses here in Psalm
40:6-8. He wants us as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him, which is
our reasonable service of worship to him – no longer conformed to the ways of
this world, but transformed in heart and mind by the working and power of the
Holy Spirit in our lives (see Rom. 12:1-2). The sacrifices of God are a broken
and contrite heart, i.e. a humble and repentant heart (see Ps. 51:17). The
sacrifice that God wants of us is our submissive and obedient surrender to his
will for our lives, which is what Jesus Christ exemplified by his life and
death, and is what, I believe, this passage is talking about.
So, if you have not given your life completely over to Jesus
Christ, and you are just “doing” for God, in hopes that he will be pleased with
your sacrifices for him, I pray that today that you will surrender your will to
the will of the Father in heaven and give Christ your all!
Living Sacrifices
/ An Original Work / September 14, 2012
Based off Romans 12:1-2; 6:11-14 NIV
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you,
In view of God’s
mercy,
To give yourselves to
God in love
As living offerings,
Pleasing to God, holy
in love.
This is your true worship.
Do not conform to
worldly lives.
Let God transform you
today.
Then you’ll be able to
Test and approve of
what
God’s will is – His
pleasing
And perfect will.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Offer yourselves unto
God.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Do not be conceited.
Humble yourselves
before your God.
Do not be
self-righteous.
The strength you have
to live in love
Comes from your Lord
God, so
Live your new lives in
pow’r of God.
Be changed in heart,
mind and will.
Do this because of
what
Christ did for you
when
He died on the cross
to save
The world from sin.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Humble yourselves
before God.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Count yourselves dead
to sin,
But be alive to God in
Christ.
Do not let sin reign
in
Your earthly lives so
you
Obey its evil desires.
Offer yourselves unto
your God
As those who’ve been
born again.
For sin shall no
longer be
Your lord and master.
Give of yourselves to
God
For righteousness.
Oh, holy ones, I
counsel you –
Be alive to God in Christ.
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