Preparing to Enter the Promised Land Pt 2

All right, well, welcome, everyone. We're halfway through the week. I hope everyone's had a good week so far. Why don't you join us for some praise and worship, and we'll sing to God and enjoy our time together. Start off with some songs.

Good evening.

That's a rowdy response. I appreciate that. Feeling raucous tonight. All right, open up, it's because we're in the book of Numbers, that's why. If you would open up to the book of Numbers, chapter 28, Numbers 28, we've been looking at the subject of preparing to enter the land. The children of Israel have survived the wilderness. Well, some of them survived the wilderness, a lot of them didn't.

All of the ones under the age of 20, when the wilderness wandering started, survived the wilderness. That was a different study. But as they are heading into the land, preparing to go into the land, there was a handful of things that they were going to need. We need to know, because this was a new generation. Last time that we were together, two weeks ago, we talked about the first two things

that were really important. The first thing was they needed to take another census. And so they counted the people again, and as they counted the people again, they discovered that the numbers really hadn't changed that much, might have lost a little bit. Some tribes gained a great amount of people, some tribes lost a great amount of people. But for the most part, the numbers stayed fairly static.

Really, their time in the wilderness was a very stagnant sort of time. For the nation of Israel. And so, not only did we see the census the last time that we were together, but we also saw that God chose a new leader for the nation of Israel. Moses had sinned in a way that caused God to say, you cannot take the people into the land. While you're still a wonderful leader that I love, you can't lead the people into the

land. And so Moses said, can you please choose someone else to take the people into the land? And so God chose Joshua. Joshua would be the one that would lead the people into the land. And so tonight, we come to the next subject of preparing to enter the land. And so we've seen the census, we've seen the leader, but now we're going to see the worship. Because it was important that this new generation understand that when they went into the land,

when they went into this promised land, that part of their purpose in entering this promised land was to still live a life of worship unto the Lord. And so we'll see God remind them both of the offerings and of the vows that they were to make to him. And so we'll see God remind them both of the offerings and of the vows that they were to make to him. And how all of those played into their life of worship as the nation of Israel.

And so we pick up in chapter 28, verse 1, and this is what it says. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Command the sons of Israel and say to them, you shall be careful to present my offering, my food for my offerings by fire of a soothing aroma to me at the appointed time. And so God begins to talk about his offerings. And I found those first couple of verses as he is addressing this new generation about the offerings and about the worship that they were to give to him.

I found these first couple of verses kind of interesting. The first little phrase that I took note of that I found kind of interesting was the phrase, be careful. So I looked up that word to see exactly what it meant. That word to be careful means to keep watch, to keep guard, or to preserve. That's the idea. That's the idea behind that word, to be careful.

In other words, this was something that they were supposed to pay a great deal of attention to. These were charges that they were supposed to keep watch over, that they were supposed to preserve. And so they had to make sure that they did this in the exact right way. And we're reminded of the fact that God is very specific in the way that he prescribes for us to worship him.

That we can't just go do whatever we want to in our worship of the Lord, because it's not about us, it's about him. And so they were to be very careful in the way that they worship. The Lord and the way that they brought their offerings to the Lord, and they were to only bring them in the way that God had commanded them to bring. Because God, while is interested in the heart, is also interested in the procedure.

Both must be right in the eyes of God. But the second thing that I took note of is how God personalized these offerings. Did you notice that? What it says in verse two, he says, you shall be careful to present my offering. And then he refers to it as my. Food for my offering. I don't know why, but for some reason, that word my really stuck out to me there. Because this was not just an offering to any God.

This was not just an offering to a God. It was an offering to him. And he didn't view these offerings as something that the people were just doing haphazardly or in a non-personal sort of way. These were specifically dedicated to the Lord. He says, these are my offerings and this is my food. And it reminded me. About how important worship is in our own lives.

Because worship is always to have God at the center of it. It is supposed to be for God. And it is supposed to be about God. I'm going to make this exact same point at the end, because I don't think it can be overstated enough. That oftentimes in our worship, we have a tendency to make it about ourselves. In the world that we live in today, in the world that we're living in in the church today,

we've become a very, very self-centered group of people, all of us. It's what's natural to us. But in the world that we live in today, we're told that that's okay. That's the way it should be. You should look out for what's best for you. And oftentimes we carry that same thought into our worship of the Lord. We think about the music that pleases us the most.

And that's exactly what we want to worship by. And as a matter of fact, if the music is not pleasing to us, then I can't worship to that because that's not the style that I like. Then you're not worshiping God. You're worshiping music and you're worshiping you because it's all about you. Well, I can't make these kinds of sacrifices in my worship to the Lord,

because after all, that's going to be really hard. Well, then you're not worshiping God. You're worshiping you. It can't be about the style. It can't be about the amount. It can't be about whether the worship is fast or slow. It can't be about any of those things. It has to be about one thing and one thing only. And that one thing that it's supposed to be about is God.

And that brings me to another really interesting point about the fact that all of our worship is for the Lord. Because oftentimes in our culture today, we have dumbed worship down to being one thing and one thing only. The 30 minutes that we spend before the word is taught. Forgetting that worship is more than just the songs that we sing. As a matter of fact, that particular part is called praise.

And it's only one portion of our worship unto the Lord. All of our lives are to be worship unto the Lord. Do you know that the job that you work is how you worship the Lord? Which would probably beg a really good question. How well did you worship today? Do you know that the way that husbands, you serve your wife, is your worship unto the Lord? Do you know, ladies, that the way that you respect your husband,

do you know that that's worship unto the Lord? The way that I am training my kids, is my worship unto the Lord. The way that I study the word is the way that I worship the Lord. The way that I give of myself in service is the way that I worship the Lord. And it's to be all about him, not about myself. It can't be about what's convenient or easy for me or even what necessarily pleases me.

Because once I've made it about what pleases me, I've stopped worshiping the Lord. So he says, God has always got to be at the center of our worship. Well, he goes on from there to talk about a lot of individual offerings. And we won't spend a great deal of time on all of these, but I do want to read through them and make a handful of comments. And so we pick up in verse 3.

It says, You shall say to them, This is the offering by fire which you shall offer to the Lord. Two male lambs, one year old, without defect, as a continual burnt offering every day. You shall offer the one lamb in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. Also a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering mixed with a fourth of a hen of beaten oil.

It is a continual burnt offering which was ordained in Mount Sinai as a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to the Lord. Then the drink offering with it shall be a fourth of a hen for each lamb. Then the drink offering with it shall be a fourth of a hen for each lamb. In the place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the Lord. The other lamb you shall offer at twilight

as the grain offering of the morning and as its drink offering you shall offer it an offering by fire, a soothing aroma to the Lord. Now the first type of offering that he talks to us about is what we would call the daily offerings. I can't remember if I had ever put that up there or not. The daily offerings. And these daily offerings were to be offered, exactly as it says, daily.

Matter of fact, there's two things that you should take note of in that little section that we just read. One is the word every day, or the phrase every day in verse three, at the end of verse three. The other is verse six where it says it is a continual. In other words, there was a consistency in this burnt offering. The idea is this. Every day when you started off your morning,

there was to be a burnt offering at the tabernacle unto the Lord. And every day as you, ended your day, there was to be a burnt offering sacrificed unto the Lord. With those went a grain offering and a drink offering. The entire thing spoke of both consecration to the Lord, as well as fellowship with him. The idea is this. The nation of Israel was to start off every day,

fully consecrated to the Lord and in fellowship with him. And they were to end every night, fully consecrated to the Lord and in fellowship with him. It's an interesting thought, isn't it? What if every one of our days started that exact same way? What if every one of my days I started off by saying, Lord, today I consecrate everything of who I am to you and to do so,

I'm going to spend some time in fellowship with you. Now there are a lot of people who say you need to choose a time of the day to spend time with the Lord. I'm one of them. I think you should choose a time of the day to have a devotional time with the Lord. This sort of makes me think, this makes me wonder if maybe you should choose two times a day. I typically like to choose my time to be in the morning because I find that if I

don't spend my time with the Lord first thing in the morning, oftentimes the rest of my day gets in the way. And I also find that my day doesn't go quite as smoothly if I don't spend time first thing in the morning with the Lord, that time in fellowship with him, that time of communion with the Lord. But you know what I found to be interesting and what really the Lord has been resonating in my heart, not only today, but really over this past year is what if I ended my day the exact same way that I started my day? What if I ended my day the exact same way?

What if every night when I laid down to bed, I decided I'm going to consecrate myself to the Lord and I'm going to fellowship with him. Now I have this really good habit in my own life, right? I say that very tongue in cheek. The really good habit that I have is this. I like to turn myself a show on at night and I like to sit down and I like to eat some form of ice cream because I feel like that's the right thing to do is to eat a

little bit of ice cream at night. And once I've eaten my ice cream and I've set my bowl to the side and I gently lay my head back and enjoy whatever show I'm watching before I know it, I'm staring at the back of my eyelids and I'm gently snoring. My wife is looking at me and she's saying, Hey Ryan, why don't you just go to bed? And I'm like, it's a good idea.

What if, what if instead of enjoying my bowl of ice cream, while I watched a show and fell asleep, because let's face it, fellas, that's almost every single one of us in the room. Is it not? Let's not lie. It's most of us. What if instead I said, I'm going to spend some time fellowshipping with Jesus right before I go to bed. I wonder how much more sweet my sleep would be.

And I wonder how much more God would work on my mind even overnight. I was listening to David Jeremiah and he was talking about how there are people called legal pad people. I've never heard this before. He said, some of you are yellow legal pad people and at night what you do is you sit down and you make your list for the next day. He said, you know what happens to yellow legal pad people.

They work on that list all night and their sleep. And his point was this instead of being a yellow legal pad person, be a fellowship with God person because if it works for the yellow legal pad, maybe it works for fellowship with God as well. And so there was this time that the nation of Israel is supposed to consecrate daily where in the morning and the evening they consecrated themselves, themselves to the Lord and they fellowship with the Lord through these burnt offerings. Well then we go on from there to the next, the weekly offering.

This is what it says in a verse nine. Then on the Sabbath day, two male lambs, one year old without defect and two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering and it's drink offering. This is the burnt offering of every Sabbath in addition to the continual burnt offering. And it's drink offering. This is the burnt offering of every Sabbath in addition to the continual burnt offering and it's drink offering.

So not only do you have the daily offerings, you have a weekly offering every Sabbath day there was to be another burnt offering and this is on top of all of the other offerings that they were to offer every Sabbath day there was to be again a time of consecration and fellowship unto the Lord. We do that only we do don't do it on the Sabbath day. We do it on the first day of the week. Hopefully when we gather as a congregation and we as a congregation consecrate ourselves to the Lord and fellowship with the Lord together, right?

Same kind of a thing that they did at that point in time. Well, then verse 11, they have the monthly offerings. Then at the beginning of each of your months, you shall present a burnt offering to the Lord, two bulls and one ram, seven male lambs, lambs, one year old without defect, and three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering for each bowl, and two-tenths of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering for the one ram, and a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering for each lamb, for a burnt offering of a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to the Lord. Their drink offering shall be half a hen of wine before, or for a bowl, and a third of a hen for the ram,

and a fourth of a hen for a lamb. This is the burnt offering of each month throughout the month's year. And one male goat for a sin offering to the Lord, it shall be offered with its drink offering in addition to the continual burnt offering. There was also to be what seemed to be a very sizable monthly offering that was offered to the Lord. Now I was thinking about

this in our own local church context of what we do here at Calvary Chapel, and in a way we kind of do this same thing, because we take that first Sunday of the month and we celebrate communion together as a time of consecrating ourselves to the Lord and remembering the sacrifice that he made to us. They were to do a similar thing as the nation of Israel. So you've got your daily offering, your weekly offering, and your monthly offering. Those are the things that were to be continual on a rotating basis for the nation of Israel.

But now we move on to the second Sunday of the month. The feasts that they were supposed to keep. And in verse 16, it says this, then on the 14th day of the first month shall be the Lord's Passover. Nothing additional given there. We just know that they were also on the 14th day of the first month supposed to celebrate the Passover. You can go back and read in Exodus about that if you need a little more clarification.

And then in verse 17, it says, and on the 15th day of this month shall be a feast of unleavened bread. Eat and for seven days on the first day shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work. You shall present an offering by fire, a burnt offering to the Lord, two bulls, one ram and seven male lambs, one year old, having them without defect for their grain offering. You

shall offer fine flour with mixed oil, three tenths of an ephah for a bull, two tenths for the ram and a tenth of an ephah. You shall offer for each of the seven lambs, one male goat for a offering. Make atonement for you. You shall present these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a continual burnt offering. After this manner, you shall present daily for seven days the food of the

offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. It shall be presented with its drink offering in addition to the continual burnt offering. On the seventh day, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work. And so next, of course, is that feast of, I just lost my train of thought, of unleavened bread that was to take place after that. And that, of course, was seven days. And it started right after

Passover. Have you noticed just how many offerings they're having to make here? Can you imagine the job of the priests and how worn out these guys were? I don't know about you, but in my mind, I can oftentimes think of these in very separate, oh, that only happens once a year sort of a thing. Without adding into it, because do you notice how many times it kept saying,

in addition to all of your regular burnt offerings? These guys' arms had to have been jacked by the time they were done with this, right? Like their forearms had to have just been ridiculous. Like Popeye had nothing on these fellas. Well, then we go on from there because there's another feast. It says, let's see if I can pick up on my verse here. Oh, yes. Verse 26.

On the day of firstfruits, when you present a new grain offering to the Lord in your feast of weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work. You shall offer a burnt offering for a soothing aroma to the Lord. Two young bulls, one ram, seven male lambs, one year old, and their grain offering. Fine flour mixed with oil, three-tenths of an ephah for each bull,

two-tenths for the one ram. For each bull, two, or a tenth for each of the seven lambs. Also one male goat to make atonement for you. Here we go again. Besides the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, you shall present them with their drink offerings. They shall be without defect. That of course is what's known as the feast of weeks. In the New Testament, we call it the feast of Pentecost, and it would

happen 50 days after the end of unleavened bread. Well, now those are what we would call the spring feasts. Now we move into the fall feasts. 29 verse 1 says this. In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets. That had to have been the happiest day.

You shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to the Lord. One bull and a ram, seven male lambs, one year old without defect. Also their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil, three-tenths of an ephah for each bull, two-tenths of an ephah for each bull, and their grain offering. Two-tenths for the ram, one-tenth for each of the seven lambs. Offer one male goat for a sin

offering to make atonement for you. Whoa, did I overshoot my landing here? Nope, still good. Offer one male goat for sin offering for you to make atonement for you besides the burnt offering of the new moon and its grain offering and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering and their drink offerings according to their ordinance for a soothing aroma and offering by fire to the Lord.

Feast of trumpets. Now, can you imagine the amount of time that goes through? You're doing your daily sacrifices. The first month of the year, you have Passover, and then you have unleavened bread, and then you have Pentecost. All those happen pretty close together. And then there's a really, really long stretch of time that takes place, and there's really not much that goes

on feast-wise. You just have your daily offerings, the weekly offerings, and then the monthly offering. But then you come to the seventh month, the fall. And once the fall starts, the seventh month is full of all kinds of activity. Isn't it kind of interesting that there was a long lapse of time where nothing went on, and then all of a sudden a bunch of activity happens again in one month? It's almost kind of

like that church age that we're living in right now, where it seemed like there's a long stretch of time where you're like, what are we waiting for? And then everything will happen all at once. Well, anyway, the first thing that happens is this feast of trumpets, which has all of the offerings that go along with it, along with all of the daily offerings. But then comes the 10th day of the seventh month. Look at

verse 7. On the 10th day of the seventh month, you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall humble yourselves. You shall not do any work. You shall present a burnt offering to the Lord as a soothing aroma, one bull, one ram, seven male lambs, one year old, having them without defect, offering of fine flour mixed with oil, three tenths of an ephah for a bull, two tenths for the one ram, a tenth for each of the seven lambs, one male goat for a sin offering besides the sin offering of atonement of the continual burnt offering and its grain offerings and their drink offerings. This is what's known as the day of atonement. The biggest thing that's different

about the day of atonement is you may have noticed that it says in verse 7, you shall humble yourselves, and you shall do no, you shall not do any work. This is the one feast of the year that they were to fast for. That was the idea of humbling themselves. Because on the day of atonement, not only was the sacrifice made to make atonement for their sins, but this was the time when, as the nation, they would confess their sins and put them on the head of the scapegoat, and the scapegoat would carry them outside the camp. That's why it was important that they

humble themselves on this day of atonement. This was to be a feast that was not to have celebration along with it. This was a feast that was to have brokenness with it, because they were to confess their sins before the Lord and make sure that their hearts were right before the Lord. And isn't it interesting that there come points in time in our life where the celebration isn't what's needed. Instead, what's needed is the brokenness. Instead, what's needed is the humility

of the understanding of how deeply our sin has hurt the Father. Because without that confession, there can be no joy. Without that humbling of ourselves, there can be no healing. And that was what was to take place on this day of atonement. And then after the day of atonement, again, still within the seventh month, on the 15th day of the seventh month, you shall have a holy

convocation. You shall do no laborious work. You shall have a holy convocation. You shall have a a feast to the Lord for seven days. You shall present a burnt offering by fire as a soothing aroma to the Lord. Thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs, one year old, which are without defect, and their grain offering. Fine flour mixed with oil, three tenths of an ephah for

each of the thirteen bulls, two tenths for each of the two rams, and a tenth for each of the fourteen lambs. One male goat for his sin offering, and a tenth for each of the fourteen lambs. Besides the continual burnt offering, it's grain offering and it's drink offering. Then on the second day, that was just day one. Then on the second day, twelve bulls, two rams, fourteen male

lambs, one year old, without defect, and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bull, for the rams, and for the lambs, by their number according to the ordinance. One male lamb goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, it's grain offering and their drink offerings. I'm going to save us the time and tell you this continues. Until the eighth, until the, through the seventh day. Jump down to verse 35. And then on the eighth

day, you shall have a solemn assembly. You shall do no laborious work, but you shall present a burnt offering, an offering by fire as a soothing aroma to the Lord. One bull, one ram, seven male lambs, one year old without defect, their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bull, for the ram, and for the lambs, by their number according to their ordinance. And one male goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, and its grain offering, and its drink offering.

You shall present these to the Lord at your appointed times, because you, besides your votive offerings and your free will offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your grain offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings. And Moses spoke to the sons of Israel in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded Moses. And of course, that last one's known as the Feast of Tabernacles. And it was very celebratory of their time that they had, spent wandering in the wilderness. And this was also the time when they would dwell in what they

called booths or tents. They would set up a little tent because it was a remembrance of the time that was spent in the wilderness and a celebration of how God provided for them the entire time that they were in the wilderness. Now, Ryan, why do I care about any of that? And quite frankly, why did God take all that time to explain it again? That seemed like a lot for God to repeat.

Considering we could go back to both the book of Exodus and Leviticus and find literally all these exact same things. God always repeats himself for a purpose. And so as I thought about this, I thought really what these are is they're lessons about worship. And so from this, I have pulled three lessons about worship that I think that we need to pay attention to. The first

one I've already made, but it needs to be made again. Worship is all about the Lord. Worship is all about looking at God. Worship is all about looking at God. Worship is all about looking at him and seeing him high and lifted up. I think one of my more favorite scenes from scripture is in the book of Isaiah when Isaiah is called into ministry and it says, I saw the Lord high and

lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple with glory. You see, he was in a proper place to be able to worship the Lord because his eyes were focused on the right thing. And brothers of God, I think sometimes the reason why worship can lack power in the church that we have in the United States of America today is because we have stopped looking at the Lord. We have stopped worshiping God. And oftentimes we have started worshiping the celebrity of the pastor, the

celebrity of the worship leader, the celebrity of the song, you name it. We have started worshiping the wrong things. As a matter of fact, I think one of the best ways that we can prepare ourselves for worship is to get into God's word and see what it has to say. And then worship in response to everything of who God is, because that is exactly what worship is.

It is a response to the character and the nature of God. Oftentimes the reason why we fail to pour out our hearts in worship is because we've stopped paying attention to that character and the nature of God. I think one of the best things that you can do, and I know everybody has a different feeling about what happens when they worship the Lord, whether it be in song or personally in their devotional time, or even in the church. I think one of the best things that you can do, and I know especially when you're worshiping God in song, is just to simply close your eyes and really focus on what those words are saying about who God is. And then just pour out everything of who you are

to him. Not because we feel like it, but because he deserves it. Because of who he is. Because worship is all about getting our hearts and minds focused back on him. Number two, I found it to be interesting that worship should be the center of our life. Worship should be the center of our life. Did you notice how often this worshiping of the Lord for the children of Israel through these offerings was to take place? It was first of all to take

place on a daily basis, because first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening, there was worship that was to take place unto the Lord. And then in addition, it was to take place on a weekly basis, so that we could worship the Lord. And then in addition, it was to take place on a weekly basis, so every day, and then extra on one day of the week. And then not only was it daily, not only was it weekly, but there was monthly occasions where they came together to worship. And if that wasn't

enough, there were special occasions throughout the entire year where the nation of Israel was to come together and to worship for all of the different feasts. Some in the springtime, some in the fall. It's almost as if God was saying, if there's one thing that you're going to do on a daily, continual, consistent basis, it's going to be worship. And if you're going to do it on a It's to come to me in worship in every aspect of your life. And I think that us, as believers in

Jesus Christ, should live a life that looks no different than that. I think that us, as believers in Jesus Christ, should live a life that is continually centered on the worship of God. After all, what was at the very heart of the nation of Israel, materially speaking, at the very heart of the nation of Israel, was the tabernacle, which was the presence of God. Therefore, if God put himself in the midst of the nation of Israel and prescribed days throughout the year, days in the month, one day of the week, and twice a day the entire year, then how much was God to be at the very center of everything that they did? And the worship of God to be at the very center of what

they did. And so I do suppose it begs the question, what is your life centered on right now? Is your life centered on the worship of God, or is the worship of God what takes place for you on a Sunday morning, and apparently on a Wednesday night, for those of you that are here tonight? Or is the worship of God something that encapsulates every aspect of your life, because that's really what God wants for us to do? That's why we're told in Scripture to pray

without ceasing. The idea is not that I'm constantly on my knees before the Lord, because that's not the real world. I have to eventually get up and do things, right? And for me, that means if I was constantly on my knees before the Lord, it'd just be one long continual nap, because that's what I tend to do when I spend time on my knees before the Lord. I tend to doze off in prayer. It's not what it means. What it means is to live a lifestyle where

I am continually in fellowship with the Lord, to where I'm continually worshiping Him. After all, that's the best way that you can rejoice in everything, is to have a heart that is continually focused on the Lord. And that's what I tend to do when I spend time on my knees on those things of the Lord, that is continuing to worship the Lord in every situation possible. Well, the third thing that I took note of was this. Worship means sacrifice.

Now, I'm not smart enough to come up with this myself, and I certainly don't have the attention span for it, but David Guzik did, okay? And so I want to read you the numbers of all of the things that they were supposed to sacrifice to the Lord, of the things that were mentioned here. The sacrifices or the offerings to the Lord were, first of all, 1,086 lambs, 113 bulls, 32 rams, one ton of flour, and over a thousand bottles of wine and oil. That's a bunch of stuff.

Like, that is an incredible amount, of wealth, especially at that point in time, sacrificed unto the Lord. Not only was an incredible amount of wealth at that point in time, but where are they living right now? In the wilderness. What is there not a whole lot of in the wilderness? Anything, right? And so, so this was a sacrifice unto the Lord. And where are they getting ready to move into? They're

getting ready to move into the promised land. And it's not like once they get into the promised land, they're going to be like, oh, look, we have all this extra stuff now. No, it meant that their lives of worship unto the Lord were a sacrifice. I'll bring that up because I don't know about you, but sometimes I don't like to sacrifice things. You know why? Because it's a,

wait for it, it's a sacrifice, right? I do really good with sacrifice until it hurts, and until it costs me something, right? I'm really good at sacrificing the things that don't cost me anything, but quite frankly, if it doesn't cost us anything, is it really a, is it really a sacrifice? It's a sacrifice. Remember when, remember when David sinned in the way of taking the census of

the people? And when David sinned with that census, God said, choose your punishment. He chose his punishment. And finally he said, Lord, please show mercy on me. And so God held back the rest of the punishment and showed mercy. But he told David what he needed to do, that he needed to offer a sacrifice unto him. And so David wanted to find a place to sacrifice unto the Lord. And so

he found some guys that owned a field. He said, I'd like to buy the field. And so he found some guys that owned a field. And they said, you're the king. We'll just give you the field. And David said, no, I will not offer anything to God that has cost me nothing. You know why? Because David understood that worship of the Lord is sacrifice. But can I just say something about our church

here at Calvary Chapel of Ark City? I am blessed by the sacrifice that I see the people in this church make. I hesitate to go too far in saying things like this, but I watched the way people served over the past couple of weeks to make what happened last week happen. And in order for that to take place, a lot of people made a lot of sacrifices. And I got to tell you, it was pretty awesome for

me to see, but I can't imagine how much it blessed the heart of the Lord. Because whether they realized it or not, when people came and brought meals for the workers or decorated the church or spent time hanging out with tiny people or were the ones delivering bottles of water to the ones working outside with the games or were the ones doing sound or were the ones doing video or taking registration or whatever it was, it was a sacrifice. And it was actually worshiping the Lord. And God looked at that and said, what a pleasing aroma that is to me.

Because that was worship. Because it was sacrifice. I just love seeing that. And I love what I'm seeing in the heart here at Calvary Chapel of Ark City because it's such a blessing to see in the hearts of everybody. We just kept commenting over and over again. I felt like Moses or the priests when they were building the tabernacle and Moses said, hey, this is what we need. And people started bringing stuff. And the priests

that were doing the building were like, tell them to stop. We have enough stuff. That was kind of how it felt. It was like, tell them to stop. There's enough people now. It's just amazing. Worship means sacrifice. Why? Because it's about God and not about me. Well, we've dealt with the offerings and now it's time to deal with the vows. Then Moses, chapter 30, verse 1, spoke to the heads of the tribes of the sons of Israel saying,

this is the word which the Lord has commanded. If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. And so what we have here first is we have this principle of what it looks like to make a vow. If you make some sort of a vow unto the Lord, a promise unto the Lord, you're to keep that promise.

God expects us to do what we say we're going to do. Now, a lot of people say, well, don't make vows because remember what Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Well, that doesn't mean that you can't take a vow, right? Over 18 years ago, I stood in front of a pastor with the woman that I would marry and I made a vow to her that I would be true only to her, that I would stick with her in sickness and in health and every other way. That's a very godly thing to do because

that's taking a vow. If I go to a court of law, I had to testify one time in a lawsuit. When I did so, I had to take an oath to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I don't think I had to say, so help me God, because we're pagan enough that we don't do that anymore. But I did that. I took an oath to say that I would tell the truth. Jesus did the same thing when he stood trial. He took

an oath. There are times where a vow or an oath is a really important thing to do. The key is be a man or woman of integrity who doesn't have to swear by everything to get people to believe you, right? Don't be somebody who every time they tell a story, we all know that person, right? That when they tell a story, you're like, and they have to say, I swear to God, this is true, right? Because

they've told you enough lies over the years. Their fish started off this big and pretty soon it was this big. I swear to God, that's how big it was, right? No, don't be that person. If you make a vow, you keep a vow. But we'll notice that God holds men in much greater, to a much higher accountability than he does to the ladies here. Notice what it says. A man makes a vow to the Lord. Then it's a binding vow. Now there are some exceptions to this,

but notice what it says in verse three. If a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by an obligation in her father's house in her youth, and her father hears her vow and her obligation by which she has bound herself and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father should forbid her day, he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will forgive her because her father had forbidden her. There are cases where

for a woman, her father could be her covering and say, no, you're not going to do that. I'm setting you free from the vow that you've made in protection of you. Therefore, you don't have to keep the vow. Then there's another way that it can take place. If she should marry, verse six, while under her vows, or the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself and her husband hears of it

and says nothing to her on the day he hears it, then her vow shall stand and her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if on the day that her husband hears of it, he forbids her, then he shall annul her vow, which she is under and the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself and the Lord will forgive her. So again, a husband can be a covering for a wife and say, I'm going to protect you from this vow. You don't have to keep it. But verse nine,

the vow of a widow or a divorced woman, everything by which she has bound herself shall stand against her. However, if she vowed in her husband's house or bound herself by an obligation with an oath and her husband heard it, but said nothing to her and did not forbid her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband indeed annuls them, then on the day he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or the obligation of herself shall not stand. Her husband has annulled them and the Lord will forgive her. Every vow and every binding oath

to humble herself, her husband may confirm it or annul it. But if her husband indeed says nothing to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all her obligations, which are on her. He has confirmed them because he said to her on the day he heard them. But if he indeed annuls them after he has heard them, then he will not forgive her. So if her husband indeed annuls them, then he

shall bear her guilt. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses as between a man and his wife and as between a man or a father and his daughter while she is in her youth in her father's house. Again, we find ourselves going, why do I care about that? Right? Why do I care about these vows? Well, I think there's two things that God's calling us to be right now. First of

all, I think that God is calling us to be people of integrity. People who do what they say they're going to do. One of the things that I have noticed in the world today, and I will hear some people say, it's all these kids, and I will tell you, it's not just all the kids. Right? People have a hard time keeping their commitments in the world that we live in today. It's really easy to say, this is

what I'm going to do, but then not following through with it. So God wants us to be people of integrity, people of our word, people who do what we say we're going to do. That's what God's calling us to be. After all, that's one of the greatest witnesses to the world that we can be. I know, I see the fruit of their life because when they say they're going to do it, they're going to do it. When they say

they'll be there, they'll be there. When they make a vow to their wife or their husband, they keep the vow to their wife or their husband. Quite frankly, I think one of the greatest witnesses that the church can have in the world today is husbands and wives who are truly committed to each other. And keep their vows to each other. We'll deal with it more on Sunday when we talk about divorce

because obviously there's times where God would not hold you accountable in instances of abuse and things along those lines. Committed marriages are one of the best witnesses to the world around us of the love of Jesus Christ. Those vows being kept are kept in response to God's vow to us. Have you ever looked at promises that way? That we keep promises in our lives in reflection

to the promises that God has kept in ours? And so God is calling us to be men and women of integrity. But I think there's a second thing that we take note of here. How many of you, you don't have to raise your hands, I just want you to think about this. How many of you have ever made a promise to God? I will never do this. Again. And then failed. I will always do this. Then failed. Right? I always like to do the,

hey, we're six months into the year. How is your spiritual goal going for the year? Sort of a thing. Right? And so the best thing I've ever come up with was I made a physical goal one year that I was going to get in better shape. And so I remember about three or four months in, I took kind of like a, hey, I'm about a quarter of the way through the year right now,

sort of an assessment. And all I could think was, okay, I'm working out all the time, but I'm also still eating brownies. I'm gaining muscle, still putting on fat. I think that's actually multitasking. I'm calling it a win. I'm putting this one in the win column. Right? But sometimes we make these promises to God and then we fail on those promises to God. And may I say at that point in time, we, as the bride of Christ,

have Christ as our covering. We have Christ as the one who is no longer holding us accountable to that vow because he said, I've already kept it for you. I've already given you all of the righteousness that you need. I'll be your covering in that failure of that vow because that's who he is to us. He is our covering in those ways. And so a couple of chapters on worshiping of the Lord,

worshiping the Lord through our offering. Worshiping of the Lord through our integrity, but all of it preparing us for this promised land that the children of Israel are about to enter. And so the next time that we're together, we'll see the Midianites dealt with. Remember? Remember what happened with the Midianites? We'll see them dealt with and then we'll see the land start to be allotted.

But as for now, let's close in prayer. Father, we come before you and I thank you for the time that we've had in your word. And Lord, I pray that you would give each of us a heart to worship you, a heart to follow you completely, and Lord, a heart to be people of integrity. And so Lord, as we take time to fellowship together, would you continue to not only knit our hearts together with you, but knit our hearts together as a family.

And we just thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.