We'll start out here in Hebrews
chapter 13. Our text this morning will be
verse 15. By Him, therefore, let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is, the fruit
of our lips giving thanks to His name. Now, the first two
words there are by Him. The Holy Spirit tells us here
that if we want to come to God, to thank Him for the blessings
that He's given us in Christ Jesus, we come to God thanking
Him for Christ, by Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father
but by Me. You desire to thank God that
He's provided us a Mediator? Then we have to come in the Mediator. Do we want to thank God for Christ
bearing our sin away? Then we have to come to God in
Christ our sin bearer. Do we want to thank God for Christ
interceding on our behalf? Then we have to come to God through
Christ our intercessor. In Colossians 3.17, it says,
Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. By Him. And then we read here,
it says, By Him therefore. Now when it says, therefore,
you know that something that just came before that is why
it's there. So what did we just see in verse
10? It says, we have an altar because
Christ is our altar on which our offerings are sanctified,
made holy, and accepted to God. We can come to God because verse
12 says, Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people
with his own blood suffered without the gate because Christ's suffering
for us without the gate has Perfected his people forever made them
holy Therefore we can come to God. That's what we read back
in Hebrews 1019 look back there with me Hebrews 1019 having therefore brethren boldness
to enter into the holiest to come to God the Father and Thank
him to come to him in prayer how? by the blood of Jesus by
the blood of Jesus therefore Now back in our text Hebrews
10 13 by him therefore Let us offer the sacrifice What is the
sacrifice? That's the title of this lesson.
Let us offer the sacrifice. Now we've been taught from the
beginning of Hebrews up to where we are now that the worship of
God is spiritual. That our service to God is spiritual. We've been told that involves
the heart and God's grace. not fleshly carnal services. We were taught that spiritual
worship involves coming to Christ, our altar, not an earthly altar. We were taught spiritual worship
involves Christ, our bread, our portion, feeding us, and us growing
spiritually by Him, through Him, and in Him, and not by the various
sacrifices, and the various ceremonies, and the various rituals that
men go through in this earth. So, since we don't look to an
earthly priest, and we don't offer physical sacrifices according
to the law, What can the believer offer? Anybody who's tasted of
God's grace and knows that in Christ our sin has been forever
put away, anybody who's been made to behold Christ and been
made to see that He ever lives, to intercede with God on our
behalf, that we have an advocate with the Father. Anyone that
sees the riches, the abounding riches that we have in Christ
Jesus, that person has a desire to thank God, to show forth his
thanksgiving to God. But how, what's he going to bring
to thank God? Well, the Scriptures tell us
that it's a spiritual sacrifice. That's what Peter said when he
wrote his first epistle. He said, ye also as lively stones. He was given the metaphor of
the temple. And he said, but you're the temple
and you're built up as lively stones, a spiritual house. All together, collectively, fitly
framed together, he said, you make up, as believers, you make
up the spiritual house of God. And in that temple, what was
offered? Sacrifices, right? But he says, instead of you coming
now with the blood of a bull or of a goat or some temporal
sacrifice, he says, You're built up a spiritual house, a holy
priesthood. You've been made priests unto
God to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. There's that
by Jesus Christ. So the sacrifice that we offer
here is the sacrifice of praise. Look there. Hebrews 10, 13, 15. By Him, by Christ Jesus, therefore,
because of what He's done for us and in us, let us offer the
sacrifice of praise to God. Look at this phrase here. That
is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. Hosea. Look there with me. Hosea chapter
14. Hosea chapter 14. Go back to the beginning of the
New Testament. You've got Matthew, Malachi, Zechariah, Micah. Keep going back and you'll come
to Hosea. Hosea 14. It says, It's speaking to a people who've
fallen in iniquity. Are you a sinner? Have you fallen in iniquity?
When we do that, we think we need to offer something to God
to make up for it. We need to read our Bible more.
We need to pray more. We need to go to church more.
We need to give more. We think of all these physical
things that we need to do to make up for that. Well, He says,
Thou hast fallen by Thine iniquity, and He says, verse 2, take with
you words and turn to the Lord. Say unto Him, take away all iniquity
and receive us graciously, freely, without any works done by us.
receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips."
Instead of a calf that we offer up their blood, we'll come and
offer up praise from our lips. And he says here, the kings of
this world won't save us. The mighty horses that we rode
on won't save us. We won't look to the work of
our hands anymore and say, ye are our gods, for in thee the
fatherless findeth mercy. God says, come to me as an orphan. Come to me as one who realizes
in your heart that you don't have God for your father. Come to me as fatherless, as
an orphan seeking mercy. And he said, and I'll give you
mercy. Nobody that's ever wanted mercy
has ever been turned down to receive mercy. Anybody that's
ever come to Christ seeking Him to forgive iniquity graciously
has always found God to forgive iniquity graciously. That's how
God desires for us to come to Him. empty-handed, with no sacrifice
at all, simply coming to Him in the name of His Son, praying
for mercy and for forgiveness, for grace, for our sins to be
forgiven. And you know what God says? God
says, that's praise to Me. That's praise to Me. He said, I love those more than
anything else you could offer. Listen to Psalm 6930 it says
I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify
him with Thanksgiving This also shall please the Lord better
than an ox or a bullet that hath horns and hoofs It says praise the name of God
magnify him you know what this world is set on this world is
sitting set on magnifying men praising men. God says come to
me praising me and magnifying my name. He said I'm the Lord
and that is my name. I won't give my praise to graven
images. I won't share my glory with another.
God's a jealous God. He won't share his glory with
you or me. We're gonna come to him. We got
to come to him empty-handed in his Son alone. And our Lord said
this, when you pray, He said, pray this way, our Father which
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. His name is holy. His name is hallowed. His name
is sacred. His holy and reverent is His
name. And the psalmist tells us to
praise His goodness and His wonderful works towards us. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children
of men. And let them sacrifice the sacrifices
of thanksgiving and declare His works with rejoicing. We like to declare our works.
We like to brag on what we've done. We like to talk about us.
But God's not pleased when we talk about us, when we praise
one another. He's pleased when we glorify
and magnify His name and His goodness and His works. It's
the only goodness and the only works worth missing. In fact,
when He creates life in a person and gives them a heart for Christ
and it says that we become zealous for good works, The good works
we're zealous for are the works that Christ our Lord has performed. It's His finished work of redemption,
of sanctification, of righteousness. And we're zealous to conduct
ourselves in a manner that will glorify His name and glorify
those works that He performed. But he says to us here, give
thanks unto the Lord. I'll give you some homework.
I'll give you some homework. Go home tonight and read Psalm
136. Just read the whole Psalm. Psalm
136. It starts like this. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for He is good. His mercy endureth forever. It
talks about Him being the God of gods and the Lord of lords. It speaks of His wisdom in creating
the heavens and the earth. It speaks of how He delivered
Israel through the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh and his army
and all their enemies and how He led them through the wilderness
and how He fed them. It speaks of how He remembered
us in our lowest state and redeemed us from our enemies and He giveth
food to all flesh. Why? Because His mercy endureth
forever. There's something to praise Him
for, that His mercy endureth forever. He doesn't give us what
we deserve forever, ever, because His mercy endureth. He's righteous in all His ways,
holy in all His works. Isaiah said, he couldn't say
it enough, he said, God is my salvation. I will trust and not
be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength, He's my song,
He's become all my salvation. You know, it's strange that we can understand what it means
to empty our hands of something. If you right now had, you've
got books and things in your hands right now. If you emptied
your hand, they're empty, aren't they? You understand that. That's
simple enough. But when it comes to God, when
it comes to God, the smartest, most intellectual, most studied
theologian there is cannot get into his heart what it is to
come to Christ empty-handed. Just can't do it. God has to
show us that Christ is all salvation. That all the works that God is
looking upon are the works of Christ His Son. That all that
pleases God is His Son. And He views every person, every
single person, either as in Adam, who died spiritually and plunged
us into spiritual death, or He views them in Christ. He only
looks at two people, Adam or Christ. And if we're going to
come in Christ, we just come saying, Lord, He's all my salvation. Your Son is all my salvation. God, You are all my salvation. And leave off everything else.
Leave off everything else. And he tells us here, verse 15,
Isaiah 13, 15, It says, by Him, therefore, let
us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. You see, we don't just decide
one day, we get all sentimental and we decide, well, I'm going
to give my heart to Jesus today. And we do that and then we go
on and live like the devil the rest of our lives. Say, well,
I got that taken care of. Now I'm going to go on with what's
really important to me. When the heart's really been
made new, and really thirsts after righteousness, and pants
after the Lord Jesus Christ like the deer panteth after the water
books, when He really does, that man's going to want to be where
God's words preach. He's going to be where the songs
that are being sung are magnifying His holy name. where it's his
name and his wonderful works that are being spoken of. And
not only does he praise God when he's meeting to worship God in
public worship, but he's thanking God continually. He's walking
continually in a continual thanksgiving to God for his redeemer. Continually. You remember the
Lord said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. He said, above your food, above
your clothing, above your homes, above riches of this world, above
anything and everything, seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness. Are you doing that? It means,
First, continually, always, all the time, be in the continual
act of seeking His righteousness. A glimpse of Christ Jesus, the
Lord, our righteousness. Be always looking for Him. Be
always praising Him. Be always thanking God for Him. It's called being spiritually
alive, is what it's called. It's called walking in newness
of life. being made one with God, being at peace with God,
where the fields begin to speak to you like they never spoke
before, where the trials in your life become so have their end
in bringing you to the feet of Christ so that you rather than
pray for the trial to be removed or the thing to be removed, you
actually pray, Lord, show me Christ in this. Bring me to your
feet. Shed your grace upon me. Pour
out your Spirit upon me. Lord, continually, continually
living upon Him. Whether you're sick, or whether
you're in health, or whether you have poverty, or whether
you have wealth, whether your job's going well or your job's
not going well, or everything that you want in life is coming
to you, or you can't seem to get any of the things you'd like
to have, whatever the case. It says, by Him let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually. If His praising
His name and magnifying His name and His wonderful works and His
goodness and all that God is in the fullness of Christ Jesus
the Lord, if He calls that praise, then praising Him continually
is seeking to know more of Him continually. and thanking him
continually. In 1871, there was a big fire
in Chicago, and a man named Horatio Spafford had to send his family
to Europe. His wife and his four daughters,
he sent them to Europe, and he planned then after they got there,
he would go over there and meet them there. Well, on the way
across the Atlantic, A ship struck the ship that his wife and his
four daughters were in. And his wife watched as their
four daughters fell into the Atlantic Ocean and drifted away
into the darkness and she didn't see them again. And she was knocked
unconscious and held on to a piece of wood that was drifting until
she came to. and was saved. And when she got
to where she was going, she sent a cable, a telegram to her husband
back in Chicago. And all it said was, is saved
alone. And so Mr. Spafford got his things
in order and he got on a ship and he started going there to
meet his wife. His four daughters have died.
His wife almost perished. And on the way there, when he
gets to the place, about the place where the ship went down,
that had his wife and his four children in it, the Lord gave
him a song. And this is what he wrote. When
peace, like a river, attendeth my way, And when sorrows like sea billows
roll, like mighty waves, whatever my lot, whether it's peace or
whether it's sorrow, thou has taught me to say, it is well,
it is well with my soul. How could somebody praise God
like that, knowing they had lost their daughters right there in
that place? knowing that the sovereign hand
of God that rules everything is the God he worships. How could
he be so content and so thankful? Because in Christ Jesus the Lord,
he had everything, everything, everything, so that no matter
what came along his way, He could say, it's well with my soul. If you know that, you can continually
thank God, by Christ Jesus the Lord, that it's well with your
soul. Well, one more thing. It says,
by Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God
continually. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to His name. Turn with me to Isaiah 57. Isaiah
57. I want you to see this. You know
how he said that this is the fruit or the calves of the lips
that he's talking about? Well, if He brings you to this
place where you can thank Him, by Christ, for Christ, and truly
say, Lord, I live in the continual realization that it is well with
my soul. That after you thanked Him for
Christ, by Christ, then thank Him for giving you a heart to
thank Him. Because here's what He said.
Chapter 57, verse 19. I create the fruit of the lips. I create the fruit of the lips. Are you thankful? Are you offering
up the calves of your lips? He said, I created that. So after
you've come by Him and thank God for Him, then thank God that
He gave you a heart to thank Him. Peace, peace to him that
is far off and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will
heal him. I will heal him.