First Peter, chapter 2, we're going to read verse 4 and 5, and then for clarity's sake, jump over to verse 9 and 10. So, First Peter, chapter 2, reading first 4 and 5, and then 9 and 10. We're looking at especially what it says about sacrifices and us. So, it's First Peter 2, reading first verses 4 and 5. As you come to Him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ." Verse 4 was about Jesus being a stone, that's what verses 6-8 are. Verse 5 was about us offering sacrifices, so we pick up at verse 9 with ourselves. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received Mercy. I've been talking about this half a dozen concepts or so that we need to understand so that we can sing the Psalms with understanding. And the importance of this was brought home to me recently. Suddenly, I heard out of the blue from a friend I hadn't heard from in a while. And he said, you know, I'm still struggling with church music. I hate the instruments. You got me sold on acapella. But when I sing just the Psalms, I feel like I'm singing the sacrifices, singing old stuff, the things that are made obsolete in Jesus. He's using language from Hebrews. The things that are obsolete, that are getting ready to disappear. I said, well, you know, you could be an acapella hymn singer. But he's not in that part of Christianity. He's in the Reformed world, where you don't have acapella hymn singers. There is such a thing, but not where he wants to be. He has no new objection. 1,700 years ago, a Christian evidently wrote to Athanasius with the same objection. How do we sing this ancient Jewish stuff? And if it was ancient Jewish stuff in 350 AD, it is all the more ancient now. So let's talk about the sacrifices in particular tonight. Until 70 AD, the main meaning of sacrifice among God's people was you would bring an animal to the temple or to the tabernacle. You would lay your hand on the head of the animal. You'd pray over it. Then you or the priest would kill this animal and pour out the blood. You'd have a fire going and you would put the animal and cook the animal on the fire. And depending on the precise type of sacrifice, you or the priest or both or neither would eat of the meat of this animal that you'd offered in sacrifice. That there is the meaning of sacrifice, the primary meaning. And of course we are not to do that as Christians, as the book of Hebrews makes abundantly clear. All of that pointed forward to Jesus Christ. He is our great high priest who has once and for all offered himself as the final sacrifice. We are not to continue doing such things. That's part of why we don't even talk of the Lord's Supper as being a sacrifice. So strong is the point in Hebrews that this was once and for all, and that he has made purification for sins, and he has sat down at the right hand of God, signifying the completion of his work. So how then do we sing the Psalms where sacrifices pop up rather frequently? Well, here's a small point. Already in Psalm 141, which we're getting to know rather well since it's around, already in Psalm 141, we have sacrifice likened to prayers. Verse 2, let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands, let that be counted as the evening sacrifice. So already in the psalm, you're starting to get a connection being made. Let my prayer count as a sacrifice. And so we have this rhetorical linkage. So as we sing about sacrifice, we can be thinking of our prayers. Let my prayers rise to you as the sacrifices, as the smell of them rose to you in the past. That's a small point. The larger point is that Jesus is the final sacrifice. So whenever you sing about sacrifice, you have Jesus in mind. So you sing Psalm 50. Let my people be assembled, says God, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And you think, wait, is that me? Yes, it is. You have made a covenant with God by sacrifice. You don't remember doing that because He did. Jesus made the new covenant in His blood. Alright, so that talks about us. We have made a covenant with God by sacrifice. Or we sing Psalm 40. And we ought to realize that Jesus here is singing. That's what Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 10. It describes, it quotes Psalm 40 and says this is Jesus talking here. And that part of the psalm talks about the sacrifices being inadequate. But Jesus has come with the body that God gave him. And so we sing there of the lesser sacrifice giving way to the greater. And so when you sing that psalm, you sing it with Jesus. It's a good New Covenant thing to do. Sing of the lesser sacrifice giving way to the greater. As I thought about this, I thought, actually, in some ways, the psalms would have been harder to sing back then than they are now. Because in Psalm 51, when David is the most overcome with his guilt, he sings this, you will not delight in sacrifice, or I will give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. Well, that would have been pretty hard to sing back when that was what you offered. If you will not be satisfied with this when I'm crushed with guilt, I have a problem. He goes on in the psalm to talk about what God does want. But now, of course, we can sing of the inadequacy of the sacrifice and understand, ah, yes, we are singing of how this had to give way to Jesus Christ. So how do we sing about the sacrifices? Well, as speakers of prayer, and as singing about Jesus, and reminding us about Jesus, driving us to Jesus. And now to come to 1 Peter, we notice something quite interesting here. 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 5. are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We have here another way of talking about sacrifice. This is not animal sacrifice anymore. It specified a spiritual sacrifice, so as to say not the literal, physical animal sacrifice. This is something different, but it is what we are to offer. Notice, it is the point. You are being built up to offer spiritual sacrifices, to be a holy priesthood. And so this becomes something very basic here. This is part of what we do as Christians, is we offer these spiritual sacrifices. And that's not a quirk to Peter. In the book of Romans, chapter 12, he says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. So, we Christians are to offer sacrifices. We're to offer our bodies, we're to offer spiritual sacrifices. Now let's look at the New Testament, what it tells us about these Christian sacrifices. Let's look at the Psalms and see if we can't see if they fit together. As we look through the New Testament, we see we are to sacrifice ourselves, our goods, and we're to sacrifice with our lips. Sacrifice ourselves. As I already said, I appeal to you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. As we turn to the Psalms, I noticed something this week. Psalm 4, present a righteous sacrifice and make the Lord your trust. Psalm 4, verse 5. Present a righteous sacrifice. How do you present a righteous sacrifice? Well, the previous verse in Psalm 4 is the, uh, in your anger do not sin verse. I thought it was really interesting. Okay? So, in your anger do not sin, present a righteous sacrifice. I thought about Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, talking about anger. And if you are there at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift and go and be reconciled to your brother. And then come back and offer your gift." Notice the connection, the same movement from anger and dealing with anger without sin into sacrifice. You have it in Psalm 4, and then you have it in the Sermon on the Mount. When we think of a righteous sacrifice, we are to think of Jesus, by whom we are righteous. We are to think of the reconciliation that He requires, that He commands, that He encourages, as when he said, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And you notice, again in Psalm 4, present a righteous sacrifice and make the Lord your trust. Or Psalm 51, the next verse, beyond what I already quoted, the sacrifices of God are not a bull, a goat, and a lamb. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." You see, already in the Psalms, there is a discussion of what sacrifice God really wants, and it's us. Ourselves, our hearts, a broken and a contrite heart. So, as we sing of sacrifices, we say, we need to offer spiritual sacrifices. That is, ourselves, a broken heart, a contrite spirit, that we are to bring, renouncing our anger, giving up our resentments. Here's a different way the New Testament speaks of sacrifice. Philippians 4.18, which is the world's greatest thank you letter. It's a great thank you note. So we come to the thank you part at the end of chapter 4. Paul says to the church that had sent him a support, I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice, acceptable and pleasing to God. Now, they had sent him support, missionary support, to support the missionary all the more that he was in jail. The Romans didn't make a practice of feeding their prisoners, so he all the more needed support to eat in jail. And so they send him support, and he calls that a sacrifice. And we have that. That's today's use of the term sacrifice, not the original literal sense. But if we say we sacrifice to do something, we mean that we spent money on it. We're not doing this because we spent money on that. We sacrificed. We tightened our belts. We made sure that we did what we needed to. So when we sing Psalms, say Psalm 66, I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals. With the smoke of the sacrifice of rams, I will make an offering of bulls and goats. We can reflect not so much on the animals, but on the fact that for them, the animals were their wealth. How did they know how rich they were? They didn't look at their 1040. They didn't look at their W2. They went out and they counted animals. That's how rich they were. And so when they made a sacrifice of their animals to God, you see how they're bringing of their own goods into God's house. And so we can think now, not of bringing animals into church, but of bringing our wealth to God for the work of His church. What we often see in the New Testament is that we are to sacrifice to God with our lips, at the end of Hebrews. Through Jesus, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. And we're to be continually sacrificing praise to God, that is, praising Him with our lips. And we have that a lot in the Psalms. Psalm 69, I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. Already in the Psalms, praise is held out as better than sacrifice. So what are we to do when we sing about sacrifice? We are to think of this kind of Christian sacrifice, that we are to praise God. Or Psalm 50 goes on to say, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. and perform your vows to the Most High, and call on Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." So the Psalms tell us how to offer this spiritual sacrifice. When it talks about sacrifice with thanksgiving, sacrifice with praise, sacrifice with your vows, sacrifice with calling on God in trouble, these are the spiritual sacrifices that we are to offer. Psalm 54, with a free will offering, I will sacrifice to you. I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. You see, we sacrifice with our goods and with our lips. And Psalm 107, let them offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and tell of his deeds in songs of joy. Already in the song, we have the language of sacrifice being applied not to an animal, but to praise in God with our songs. So, in New Testament terms, we are to offer sacrifice. Notice that again in chapter 2, verse 5. You are being built up as a spiritual house. I've long been comfortable with that language. I got used to that. To be a holy priesthood. I don't know if we've done quite so much with that. To offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. This is what we are called to do. part of our identity as Christians, our reason to be Christians, is to offer these spiritual sacrifices. This is bringing ourselves with contrite hearts in praise to God. When we sing of sacrifices then, we can have Jesus in mind as His suffering on our behalf. We can also have this praise, this thanksgiving, this humility, this giving up of our resentments. These are the sacrifices. Sacrifice of our lips and with our goods. The spiritual sacrifices that we are to offer. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would give us first understanding as you speak now in one way of sacrifice and then another way here and there. Help us, Lord, to have a good understanding of what your word says. And help us then, secondly, Lord, to listen to you and to respond with the right sacrifice, the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving sacrifice of giving, and of presenting ourselves to you for service. Lord, we thank you that in our Lord Jesus Christ we have the once and for all sacrifice for sin. So help us, Lord, to understand that these sacrifices that we bring are the sacrifice of response and thanksgiving. For you, O Lord, have saved us. We pray this in Jesus' name.