OUR RESPONSE TO GOD AS GIVER
OUR RESPONSE TO GOD AS GIVER
Hebrews 8: 1-3; Romans 12: 1-2; Hebrews 13: 15, 16
I am sure that we all appreciate in some measure the character of God as Giver, and join with the apostle in his word, “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!” The apostle does not tell us what the gift is, for it is characteristic: there are no words to describe the giving of God; it is beyond the power of speech, it is unspeakable! Take the position creatorially — think what God gives! It is said, “That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good,” Psalm 104: 28. That Psalm indicates that the birds, the fish, the beasts, as well as man — “these wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season,” Psalm 104: 27. So the apostle preaching at Athens says, “God giveth to all life, and breath, and all things,” (Acts 17: 25). Men, in their folly, would like to find the origin of life, and hope some day to manufacture it in their laboratories; but to discover the origin of life you must go to God, for He gives life not only to men, but to everything that lives, every plant, every insect, every fish. No one but God could give life and breath to all things.
When we come to the spiritual sphere, how freely has God given! What wealth of supply there is with God! He keeps mercy for thousands! What a store of mercy God has, myriads have drawn upon it, for He is indeed “rich in mercy.” God has such a supply of mercy, that He has been administering it to thousands upon thousands all down the ages. He has given His beloved Son, and the apostle says, will He not “with him also, freely give us all things?” He has given us the Holy Spirit; as the Lord said, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask?” So that I am sure we must to some extent appreciate the wonderful character of God as Giver.
Now there is a sense in which what the apostle says is true, that God does not need anything — He is not worshipped “as though he needed any thing,” Acts 17: 25. For God alone is sufficient in Himself. Every creature is dependent; the very angels are dependent upon God for their support; but it says of Him, that He does not need anything. Nevertheless, God is prepared to receive — He desires to receive; He longs for us to come to Him with an offering. It is of this I desire to speak now: that God desires to receive. It is wonderful to think of God being prepared to receive an offering from us.
If this country proposed to give his majesty king George a present, they could offer it, but it would depend upon the king whether it would be received. An entreaty would be sent with the present, appealing to the king to receive the gift, for his greatness would be recognised. But if this is necessary for an earthly potentate — how much more so as to God, who is so infinitely greater! who is indeed the “blessed and only Potentate; the King of kings, and Lord of lords... dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see; to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen!” (1 Timothy 6: 15)
God says in the beginning of Leviticus, that if anyone desires to bring Him an offering, He is prepared and willing to receive of our hands. What can we give to One so great as God? What kind of an offering could we bring Him that He would be prepared to accept? The elders in Revelation tell us that everything was made to minister to God: “for thy pleasure they are, and were created.” That is how things will be in eternity; for in the new heavens and new earth, everything will minister to God. Every part of the universe will contribute something to God.
Now I want to indicate in a few simple words what God is prepared to receive, for the service of Christ as Priest can only relate to what is acceptable to God. The passage in Hebrews 8, says that He must have somewhat to offer if He is a Priest. The priest’s service is to offer — to present to God that which is the responsive fruit of His own work in the hearts of His people. He also blesses men; but His first service is to offer to God; and it says of the Lord “it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.”
It is well for us to think of the greatness of what Christ offered when on earth; He “offered himself without spot to God”; that must ever indicate the character of every offering that is acceptable to God. We shall discover little by little throughout eternity, what is wrapped up in that offering, but we shall never measure it fully — yet we can say that what He offered was blessedly acceptable to God. No offering could be compared with that one offering, when He “by the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God.” What a sacrifice! and at what cost to the Offerer. David would not offer to God that which cost him nothing; he felt instinctively that it would not be suitable — and at what cost did the Lord Jesus offer Himself! How acceptable was that offering!
In the burnt offering, Leviticus 1, the Spirit of God distinguishes between the different parts the blood, the head, the fat, the inwards and the legs, all are put on the altar, and the whole goes up in sweet fragrance to God. All that is suggested here might be said to be included in the word “Himself.” When we think of the head, we think of the dignity of Christ. What profound dignity there was in that One who offered Himself to God! All that was dignified marked Him as devoted to God, and how acceptable it was to God. The fat speaks of the intrinsic excellence of Christ. What positive moral worth, what true excellence marked Him, and all was offered to God. The inwards — all those inward movements and feelings of which scripture speaks, and of which the offerer takes account. Scripture speaks of the Lord sighing, and of His groaning deeply; these were inward feelings; and it speaks of Him weeping, and again of His rejoicing: “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth!” (Matthew 11: 25). How much there is to take account of as to what is inward, and it was One with those perfect inward feelings, who was laid on the altar, acceptable to God.
Then the legs; the Spirit of God through Solomon says that the legs of the Beloved were as pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold. Those pillars of marble would describe the stability of His movements through this world — how stable, how firm. Think of His movements as He went down, that more excellent way, to death! never deviating to the right hand or the left — going straight on. All the movements of Christ combine to portray to us the kind of offering that went up to God, when He offered Himself without spot to Him: all was devoted to God — all was acceptable. What perfect stability marked Him as He “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” — to go to death in the accomplishment of the will of God.
The feelings that entered into that offering may be understood as we discern the import of the scripture in Hebrews 5. It speaks of the Lord as anticipating death thus, “who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared,” Hebrews 5: 7. Think of the fragrance of those prayers offered up to God; they went up as a cloud of incense. We are not told much about the Lord’s prayers except that they were offered. In Luke 3 we are told that at His baptism He was praying, and in another place that He continued all night in prayer. On the Mount of Transfiguration the fashion of His countenance became glorious as He prayed.
What holy fragrance ascended to God in those prayers, and especially in those tears; those cryings in view of death have their own peculiar value and bring before us the inward feelings of the Lord as He was about to offer Himself. How acceptable to God was every thought and feeling in the Man Christ Jesus; so that in Him we see the divine standard. Everything that is of Christ is acceptable to God. The offerings of the Old Testament, speak of some appreciative apprehension of Christ in the soul of the offerer. Whatever view is presented, all speak of some enjoyment of Christ which the offerer brings to God; and God accepts that, and accepts the offerer in the fragrance of it. The one who brings it is accepted in the fragrance of what he brings.
I would like now to speak of what we may offer, and the first thing I think, is that we may offer our bodies. It is wonderful that we have this word in Romans 12, for in the beginning of the epistle we see how the members of the body had become instruments of unrighteousness. A man’s throat like an open sepulchre, the poison of asps under the lips, the feet swift to shed blood, no fear of God before the eyes, the whole body corrupted; yet the apostle reaches a point when he says to the saints, “I beseech you... by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” God is prepared to accept our bodies, He made them for Himself. When God said, “Let us make man in our image,” He had in view that as bearing His image, man should be rendered as tribute to Him. “Whose is this image and superscription?”
the Lord says in reference to the penny; and they answer “Caesar’s.” If it bears Caesar’s image give it to Caesar, it is his tribute, but give “unto God, the things that are God’s.”
Think of fifteen hundred millions of human beings now on the earth, think of the effect if all were yielding themselves tribute to God! The apostle says, “I beseech you... to present your bodies a living sacrifice.” It will cost something on our side to be a sacrifice “holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” I would like to challenge all, What are you doing with your bodies? We can never come into the understanding of the truth in Corinthians and Ephesians, save as first understanding Romans. The great question is first, What about my body? This is what the young people need to face: what about the body, for what am I holding it? If we have not faced that question and found a solution to it, we cannot go further. God wants our bodies, and when it speaks of the body, it means the whole vessel complete. Some may think they have given their tongues, or their minds, but God wants the body, that is the complete vessel. We may say we will give our ear, eye, tongue, but God wants all; the tendency with us is to reserve part for ourselves. He wants the body, and every member of it to be held for Him. The apostle says, “I beseech you.”
There are many exercises I cannot touch upon now, between Romans 7 to 12, but one enjoys the thought of God being prepared to accept the offering of our bodies — that it is acceptable to Him. In the seventh chapter the writer says, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” — he was learning what the flesh is, and that the body is the instrument of it. God gives the Holy Spirit; and in 1 Corinthians the apostle says, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” and in the power of that, the body is held for God. We cannot proceed in the service of God, unless the body is held in the power of the Holy Spirit for God, and presented to Him. It entails sacrifice on our part on the line of the refusal of the flesh, and the putting to death of the deeds of the body by the Spirit, but the point is that God, the great and blessed Giver, desires us to offer our bodies to Him.
Now referring to Hebrews 13, we are told of two other sacrifices that we can offer to God, “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.” The apostle enjoins upon us that there should be this sacrifice of praise maintained continually, for God inhabits the praises of His people. One would encourage brethren in this connection, not to deprive God of His offerings. He said of old, “bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it,” Malachi 3: 10.
I know it will cost us something, for it says the sacrifice of praise — not mere words — but that the heart should be free to flow out in praise to God, every idol having been displaced. You cannot have an idol and offer the sacrifice of praise, but when everything that displaces God is judged and put away, the heart can be free to flow out to God, as the Psalmist says, to “God, my exceeding joy!” The apostle Paul says, “Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God”: as he thought about God, he was in an ecstasy of joy. Peter went up to the housetop to pray, and as he was there, above the earth and its surroundings, his soul became in an ecstasy; he was thinking about God. That was acceptable to God, for He loves the praises and the outflowings of the hearts of His people. He can and does accept them.
The Lord Jesus is the chief Musician, the chief Singer, and He gathers up these praises from the hearts of the saints, so the exhortation is “by him therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips.” That is worthy of observation: “the fruit of our lips.” God wants it expressed. God would say, Let me hear thy voice, He wants to hear words as well as what is in the heart; and the praise goes up as a sacrifice well pleasing to Him.
Then it says, “To do good and to communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” It is well to recall what the apostle said of the Philippians, that in their deep poverty, they had given to the interests of God, and he says it was an odour of a sweet smell. It is not that God needs it, but it is an odour of a sweet smell, acceptable and well pleasing to Him. The expression in a practical way of the response of our hearts to God, and to His saints, in doing good and communicating, is acceptable to God. How much room there is on every hand to do good!
You ask, What is it to do good? Well, everything that is expressive of the character of God is good, “none is good save one, that is God.” Ten thousand opportunities exist for every brother and sister to do good. Do not hold what you have selfishly; God has communicated — the Lord Jesus has communicated — “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” So the apostle says that to do good and to communicate is well pleasing to God. It is an offering to Him, an odour of a sweet smell.
One loves to think of the sacrifices never seen by men, those that go up to God from the saints. The Lord when here, sat over against the treasury, He was taking account of the sacrifices — the offerings, and there came one poor woman who had two mites, and she cast them into the treasury. The Lord called the disciples’ attention to it — it was something acceptable to heaven. Luke presents this as a sort of climax to his gospel. She is the result of the great physician’s activities.
In the beginning, when sin came in, the woman though surrounded by everything that was pleasing to the eyes and good for food, was not satisfied — she stretched out the hand of lust, of covetousness, to take what God had forbidden. She thought God might have given more, and all the misery of mankind has come from that. Then comes in the blessed Physician of whom Luke loves to write, and through His healing hand, and His activities here, the Lord brings to light another woman. She is wonderfully recovered. She has tasted death, for she is a widow, and she has but two mites which make a farthing. As this widow approaches the treasury of God, she says God is so great to my heart,
I would not hold back anything from Him. Her delight in God was such that all she had, all her living was devoted to Him. The Lord called attention to this, and He calls us to take notice of it. It was an odour of a sweet smell, an offering and a sacrifice well pleasing to God, as springing from a heart that loved God.
God is accepting these things from men for they speak to Him of Christ, and one would desire to encourage all our hearts to offer them; while appreciating increasingly the boundless giving of God, let us remember there is the other side; God is not demanding — He does not say you must give Him the tenth, but if it is in the heart of any to offer, He tells us that He can accept; reckoning that every heart that loves Him will take steps to have and to bring something.
May God help us to so come under the influence of that blessed One who offered Himself to God, that we may be here as those who offer their bodies, as cleansed and by the power of the Holy Spirit held for God. May we be found offering the sacrifice of praise — doing good and communicating, “for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased,” and we shall surely say with David: “Of thine own do we give thee!”