Relationship RenewalJoshua 8:30-35 sermon transcript

4/23/17

Relationships are hard…complicated…betweens humans, sinners…very complicated. But when you imagine a relationship between a sinner and a holy God, things get a little bit more complicated. Even among human relationships, we need renewal in those relationships at times. Things get stale in our relationships; things get boring and flat for us, sometimes because of sin, but sometimes because of the normal routine of life. And we need renewal and refreshing; we need to charge that relationship in some way, by some experience oftentimes or some great event, maybe a vacation or, for a married couple the renewal of vows that takes place at times. Well, our relationship with God needs renewal as well at times, and we see renewal ceremonies in the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament, and we’re going to take a look at one of those this morning in Joshua chapter 8, what appears to be what we might call a covenant renewal ceremony, and we want to see what this ceremony has to do with. And so, to begin we’re actually going to start in the Book of Deuteronomy because there is some legislation that came through Moses for this moment that we’re going to look at in Joshua 8 primarily this morning.

So, if you open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 27, that’s where we’ll begin this morning. Deuteronomy is a collection of sermons, Moses preaching to the people of Israel right before they cross over the Jordan River. He’s basically bringing the Mosaic Law, recorded back in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, to bear on this new generation, to get them ready to go into the land and to live in the land under God’s Law. And so, he’s reminding them of many things, but he’s also adding some things as well, to apply directly to their scenario and their situation. And so, what we’re going to see in Deuteronomy 27 is going to set the stage for what we’re going to look at in just a bit in Joshua chapter 8. So, let’s look at Deuteronomy 27, verses 1-13 to begin.

Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole commandment that I command you today. And on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster. And you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over to enter the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised you. And when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you today, on Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster. And there you shall build an altar to Yahweh your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build an altar to Yahweh your God of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to Yahweh your God, and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God. And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.” Then Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, “Keep silence and hear, O Israel: this day you have become the people of Yahweh your God. You shall therefore obey the voice of Yahweh your God, keeping his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today.” That day Moses charged the people, saying, “When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon,

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Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

So, we have the arrangements made here, the instructions given for a ceremony that they are to have when they cross over the Jordan River. The way it’s set up, it sounds like he’s expecting they’ll do this immediately when they cross the Jordan River. But, we’ve been exploring the book of Joshua for a long time now; we’re in chapter 8, and we haven’t read anything about that yet, and so we will come to that this morning, and we’ll talk in just a minute about why the delay, and why are they only doing it at this very point? But the instruction is that they need to do this when they cross the river and get into the land. Notice the components of the ceremony. They are to set up a pillar, to build a pillar of stones, cover it with plaster, and in the plaster cover inscribe in it, verse 3 says, “all the words of this law.” Now, what is that? What are they to write, specifically? There’s lots of options. It could be a reference to the whole Torah, the whole Pentateuch, Genesis through Deuteronomy, or, since there’s an emphasis here on the blessings and the curses, it could be the list of blessings and curses that we would read about in the rest of Deuteronomy 27 and on into chapter 28. Or, it could be the entire Book of Deuteronomy, what we know of as the Book of Deuteronomy, the record of these sermons that Moses preached. My opinion is that is what they’re being instructed to write. This “instruction”—that’s what the Hebrew word torah means; we often translates it as “law” but it’s bigger than just the legislation—it’s the instruction of God, and here it’s this instruction that Moses has been giving them that’s been recorded in what we know of as the Book of Deuteronomy. I think that’s what’s going on; they’re going to write that on this monument.

And then they’re going to build an altar, in verse 5, “on Mount Ebal.” Notice the location there, specifically. On Mount Ebal—that’s where the pillar goes with the Law and that’s where the altar goes where they will sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. And then we see, at the end of this passage, in verses 12-13, they’re going to split up the people, divide them in half, half of the people are going to stand on or in front of Mount Gerizim, and the other half of them are going to stand on Mount Ebal. Mount Gerizim is the place where blessing is going to be pronounced. So, the tribes that are over there are going to pronounce the blessing on the people from Mount Gerizim. But the people who are standing over on Mount Ebal are going to pronounce a curse in the case of disobedience for the people. If you put the first slide on the screen, you can see a modern-day picture of the location of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.

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You can see Mount Gerizim on the left, from our vantage point, and Mount Ebal on the right, and in the middle is the city of Shechem. Now, Shechem’s not mentioned or in the Joshua passage we’re going to look at later, but it will become an important city, and it’s where all the activity actually happens. Everybody’s gathered in between the two mountains in Shechem, as it turns out. But, notice that if you look at Mount Gerizim it’s lush; there are trees; there are bushes; there’s life. It seems that God chose this pair of mountains to actually symbolize the blessing on the one hand—where there’s life and fertility and growth there—but then look at Mount Ebal; it’s barren; there are no trees; there are no bushes hardly; there are rocks on that mountain; it’s barren, a fitting picture of the curse itself. So, it seems that God has chosen this location to give them a visual presentation of what blessing looks like and what curse looks like. In addition to actually verbally pronouncing the blessing and the curse from these two locations, they get a visual reminder of what blessing under God looks like; it’s about life and fertility and productivity, and being under his curse is about death and barrenness and loss.1

And so they’re to go, and they’re to engage in this ceremony where they submit to the blessing and the curse, so to speak. They remind themselves of the promises of God for blessing, in the case of obedience, and the promises of God for curse, in the case of disobedience. Now, why are they to do this when they get into the land? What’s the emphasis there? It seems to be that this is to help them recognize that this is the Law of the land now. They have to pronounce this Law

1 This idea formed as I read the observations of David Jackman, Joshua: People of God’s Purpose (Preaching the Word series; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), pg. 96, who writes, “To the north, Mount Ebal was barren and rocky, which is where they found the uncut stones to build the altar and from where the covenant curses were to be proclaimed. To the south, Mount Gerizim was wooded and fruitful, and from here the blessings were to be recited. Even the natural characteristics of the landscape would serve to reinforce the spiritual message of the Law and would proclaim that there are only two ways to live, and they carry profoundly different consequences.” In addition, the Faithlife Study Bible (edited by John D. Barry et al; Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2012) comments, “The bases of the two mountains are only about 500 yards apart. The association of Gerizim with blessing and Ebal with cursing arises from geography. Israel reckons direction according to the physical orientation of a person standing with back to the Mediterranean and facing east. From that position, the left hand was north and the right hand was south. The right hand had positive connotations of wisdom, favor, and blessing (Psa 16:11), while the left hand had negative connotations of foolishness, disfavor, and cursing (Eccl 10:2).”

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and unfold this Law once they get into Canaan because this is the rule that they must follow under God in the land of Canaan. And so, once they’re in there, they, in a sense, put themselves under God’s rule yet again, or formally. This is going to be their home; this is going to be where they live in the presence of God, and they Law is to stipulate how they live with God throughout their time in the land. And so this could be an important moment that we’re looking at.

Well, turn over to Joshua 8, and we’ll see how this actually unfolds when they arrive at this location. Now, just to remind you of the last few chapters—well, of the whole book really—Joshua has led the people of Israel across the Jordan in chapters 3-4 of the Book of Joshua, and then chapter 6, they have their first conflict; they engage with the people of Jericho, and they slaughtered the people of Jericho, after God broke down the walls. And then you remember chapter 7, Achan, one of the men of Israel, had kept some of the things that were supposed to be devoted to the Lord for himself, hid them in his tent, and so there was sin in the camp. Well, the people of Israel largely didn’t seem to know that, and so they just went on to the next town, the city of Ai, didn’t consult the Lord about what they needed to do, and they engaged with the people of Ai, and they were beaten soundly. And then, if you remember, Joshua was in despair, not sure why that God had allowed them to be beaten, but then God revealed to them that there was sin in the camp that needed to be dealt with, and so they dealt with the sin in the camp—Achan and his family were executed—and at the end of Joshua 7 we read that the anger of Yahweh had turned away from the people. So, that’s good! And then, immediately, they go back to deal with the people of Ai, and in chapter 8 they defeat the people of Ai, and so they’re ready to move on.

Now, at this point, we’d expect that they’ll just go to the next city and engage in combat again. But, no, instead they travel to this location, which is 20 or 30 miles north of Ai. So, they’re going to cross uncharted territory, potentially with hostile cities living in that region, to go to these mountains to perform this ceremony. Why now? Why is it so crucial that they do this now? Well, it seems to me that it’s because of the sin of the people. Now, they dealt with Achan and his family, but I’d like you to flip back to Joshua 7 for just a moment. When Joshua falls down before God and complains about what’s happened, Yahweh speaks to him and treats him like, “You really ought to know what has happened. You’ve been beaten; that must mean that there’s sin in the camp.” And so, look at Joshua 7:11: Israel has sinned—Yahweh says to Joshua—Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant, that I commanded them. “They have rebelled against my covenant; they have broken the relationship that we have.” That has to still be dealt with.2 And so, I think there was a matter of expedience; they really had to deal with the people of Ai, now that they’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest, and so they deal with the people of Ai first in chapter 8, but then they go to these two mountains to renew their covenant with Yahweh, since it has been broken. So, that’s what we’re going to see here in Joshua chapter 8, verses 30-35.

The chapter breaks down into three units of two verses each, so let’s take them one at a time. Verse 30-31: At that time Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded the people of Israel, as it is

2 Cf. Jackman, Joshua, pg. 96, who writes, “The defeat at Ai had added to the time delay. But it had also served to alienate the Lord from his people, since as God said to Joshua, “Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them” (7:11). So before there can be any further forward movement, this relationship had to be renewed.”

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written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.” And they offered on it burnt offerings to Yahweh and sacrificed peace offerings. So, they get to this mountain, to this pair of mountains—Mount Gerizim is not mentioned until later in this passage—but they go immediately to Mount Ebal. Now, you need to notice that because, remember, according to what we read in Deuteronomy, that is where the curse is to be pronounced, from Mount Ebal. So, he goes up on Mount Ebal and he builds an altar for sacrifice. I want you to see a note of grace there; on the very mountain that pronounces the curse for disobedience, God has instructed them to build an altar for sacrifice to deal with their disobedience, to deal with the reality that they live under the curse, so that they may offer sacrifices that can provide forgiveness for them and reconciliation.3 And so, even as God is announcing the curse from this very mountain, in the place of the curse he has provided the means of getting out from under the curse, the means of dealing with their rebellion and sin.4

So, he builds this altar and they offer two kinds of sacrifices, and it’s important for us to understand what these sacrifices are about. It will help us a lot in understanding what this ceremony means. They offer burnt offerings and peace offerings. So, you could go back to Leviticus chapter 1—we’re not going to go there now, but if you want to read about it later, that would be good—Leviticus chapter 1 gives us the legislation for the burnt offering. Now, our English Bibles often call it “the whole burnt offering.” And the reason for that is that it’s the only offering where you take the entire animal—a sinner will bring an animal to the altar, the sinner himself cuts the throat of the animal and kills the animal, and then the priest takes the blood, applies it to the altar, and then takes the entirety of the animal, and puts it on the altar, and then it is completely, wholly burned on the altar. It’s the only sacrifice where that is done, where the entire animal is consumed by fire. So, that’s why our English Bibles often use the term “whole burnt offering” for this one.

But the Hebrew name for this offering is a little bit different; it gives a different nuance to the meaning here. The Hebrew word is hola; that sounds a lot like the English word “whole,” but it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It comes from the Hebrew verb ala. So, hola…ala. Ala means “to go up” or “to ascend,” and so many students of Scripture refer to this offering as “an ascension offering.” Now, there are two pieces of symbolism that you need to understand about that. Why is it called “an ascension offering”? Well, first of all, when the animal is burned on the offering, smoke visibly, physically ascends to God. Now, whenever anything is burned on the altar, smoke goes up to God, but this one is unique because it’s the whole animal, and so it’s as though the entire animal is actually ascending to God in his death. And so here are the two pieces of the offering that you need to understand: the burnt offering is for the purpose of making atonement, that is the payment of a price to reconcile enemies. And so, the animal’s death is

3 Cf. Rhett P. Dodson, Every Promise of Your Word: The Gospel According to Joshua (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016), pg. 177, who writes, “At the very place where God’s people rehearsed the penalties inflicted on all those who break his law, at the place where the guilt and burden of sin would be felt intensely, there the Lord made provision for forgiveness and communion with him….On the mountain where the curses fell, God offered a lamb as the terms of peace.”

4 Cf. James Montgomery Boice, Joshua (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005), pg. 69, who writes, “It was as if God were thundering from Sinai, ‘Thou shalt not…’ but then immediately added, ‘But I know you will, and so here is the way to escape condemnation’…. Why was it constructed on Mount Ebal? The answer, which we find in Deuteronomy 27:12–13, is that Ebal was the mountain from which the curses were to be read, while Gerizim was the mountain from which the blessings on the upright were declared. In other words, the altar was for sinners. It was for those who acknowledged their sin and who came, not as the righteous, but as sinners to the place of sacrifice.”

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accepted in the place of the sinner because the sinner deserved to die. And so, the death of the animal is accepted in the place of the sinner, who deserves to die because of his or her sin.

But, there’s another piece to this particular one; the reason that it’s called “an ascension offering” is not only because the whole animal is consumed on the altar and the smoke rises to God, but in that, after the death, it’s a representative of the sinner himself being completely consecrated to God, so that he may enter the presence of God now.5 And so, the smoke that rises to God from the whole burnt offering is a representation of the sinner who can now enter the presence of God and fellowship with God. That’s what a burnt offering is for in the Old Testament. It makes atonement for sinners.

The second offering is offered here—you could read about it in Leviticus chapter 3—it’s a peace offering. Now, burnt offerings and peace offerings are always offered together and always in that order. Peace offerings are different from burnt offerings in that it’s not the entire animal that’s consumed on the altar; only part of it is, and a large part of the animal is kept back and then cooked, and then the priests and the sinners sit down to have a meal together in the tabernacle or the temple or in front of the altar. That is to symbolize that now they have peace with God; now they may enjoy fellowship with God. Sometimes the peace offering is referred to as a “fellowship offering.” And so, the sequence is important; a burnt offering must be offered first to deal with the people’s sin, but once sin has been dealt with, then we may have peace with God. We may enjoy fellowship with God, and so the eating of a meal after this is over symbolizes the enjoyment of fellowship, the enjoyment of a peaceful encounter with God.

So, that’s what Joshua is doing here. Why? Why these two offerings at this moment? Well, I believe that he is mimicking the original covenant ceremony, the covenant ratification. So, I’d like for you to turn back to Exodus for just a moment to see this. Exodus chapter 24 gives us the first ceremony like this, and it’s the initial ratification of the covenant. Exodus 19 is when the people of Israel arrive at Mount Sinai; God had brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery, and brought them to himself on eagles’ wings, Exodus 19 says. And then, Exodus 20, you might remember, has the Ten Commandments, and it’s where God begins to reveal to Moses the stipulations of this covenant. This is how life in relationship with God is going to be for this people, for this people of Israel. And so, Exodus 20 gives the Ten Commandments; chapters 21-23 then give a whole bunch of other rules and statutes that are to govern the way that they live under the rule of God. When we come to Exodus 24, we get a ceremony here with sacrifices that actually puts the covenant relationship in force. If Exodus 19 is God proposing a relationship, proposing marriage to the people of Israel, Exodus 24 is the marriage ceremony, and what we’re going to see here is the moment when the officiant, if you will, pronounces, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and so you are. And so, that’s what Exodus 24 is about; it’s about the actual relationship between God and his people beginning.

Look at verses 3-8; Exodus 24:3-8, and you’re going to see several connections to our passage in Joshua 8: Moses came and told the people all the words of Yahweh and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that Yahweh has spoken we

5 Cf. E. John Hamlin, Inheriting the Land: A Commentary on the Book of Joshua (International Theological Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), pg. 69, who writes, “The burnt offering (literally, that which goes up) was wholly consumed on the altar, a symbol of the total self-giving of the congregation (see v. 35) to God.”

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will do.” And Moses wrote down all the words of Yahweh. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to Yahweh. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words.” So, they offer burnt offerings and peace offerings here because the sin of this people needed to be dealt with in an initial way, and the burnt offerings make atonement the whole people of Israel. And then they sacrificed these peace offerings, and if we continued to read in Exodus 24, we would see the priests and the elders eating a meal after that out of the peace offerings to celebrate the peace that has been achieved between God and this new people.6 And so, that’s what we see happening in Joshua chapter 8; he is renewing this covenant. And so, just like when a married couple renews their vows, it’s often a ceremony kind of like their original marriage ceremony. They repeat their vows or make new vows to each other even, and it’s in public amongst family and friends, and so Joshua’s here mimicking that very ceremony to renew their relationship that the people of Israel have broken already. As soon as they cross over the Jordan River almost, they break the covenant relationship with God that they’ve had, and so it needs to be renewed here in the land. And so, here they are doing that very thing. They offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar there in Joshua 8.

When we continue through Joshua 8, in the next couple of verses, we’ll see him writing down God’s Law, just like Moses did in that ceremony in Exodus 24. Look at verses 32-33: And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of Yawheh had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel. So, he writes down on the stones, verse 32 says. Now, if you’re just reading through here, you might imagine that he’s writing on the stone altar that he just built. But, if he’s following the legislation of Deuteronomy 27 exactly, and I think we should assume that he is, then he has built a separate monument here, and the text just doesn’t specify that. These are different stones than we just read about,7 and he makes this monument, plasters it with plaster, and then inscribes in it probably the entire Book of Deuteronomy. Now, notice the emphasis here on the Law. It’s going to come up again in the next couple of verses, but this is an important moment. They’re inscribing the Law on the mountain of cursing, by the way, so that the Law stands as a kind of warning to remind them that there are consequences for disobeying this Law. There is a curse that stands over you if you break this

6 Cf. Bruce K. Waltke, “Joshua,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition (4th ed.; edited by Gordon J. Wenham et al; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994), pg. 246, who writes, “The burnt offerings symbolized Israel’s total consecration to God and served to ransom them. The fellowship offerings, which were eaten, celebrated their relationship with God. The same sacrifices were used in the ceremony at Mt Sinai when Israel initially ratified the covenant (Ex. 24:5).”

7 So most commentators agree.

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Law, and so the Law is written there on the mountain of cursing, but remember, so is the altar, where forgiveness can be had.8

And then, notice the arrangement in verse 33 of the people: And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born….So, remember that the people of Israel are truly a mixed multitude at this point. There were Egyptians who came out of Egypt and joined up with the people of Israel, and we might assume that those Egyptians had babies in the wilderness, just like the people of Israel did, and so this generation that actually goes into the land has some Egyptians among them. And then we can also remember Rahab and her family, Canaanites who have joined up with the people of Israel—they are sojourners, but they are full members of the covenant relationship with Yahweh. He is their God, and they are his people. So, from the beginning, the people of Israel was not just the ethnic descendants of Abraham; from the very beginning, they were a mixed multitude of Gentiles and Israelites. And so it shall be forever and ever and ever and ever. And so, there’s an emphasis on that reality; even the sojourners take part in this covenant ceremony; the sacrifices cover their sins just as well as the sacrifices cover the sins of Israel, of ethnic descendants of Abraham.

Look at verses 34-35; he’ll read God’s Word aloud, just like Moses did there in Exodus 24. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them. Note the emphasis on “all.” So, let me just paint the picture for you: if Joshua has inscribed what we know of as the Book of Deuteronomy on this monument, and if that is what he read aloud to the people, he would’ve been reading to them for somewhere between three and four hours. And they sat and listened well, we would assume. Actually, more likely, the stood and listened well for three to four hours. But I want you to get the point here: he read the whole thing. He didn’t give them a Cliff’s Notes version; he didn’t give them a summary. They needed all of the words that God had provided for them.9 And I want you to feel that for yourself; we need all of the words that God has provided for us. Sometimes we talk about the church and Christians as “New Testament Christians.” No, we are “whole Bible Christians.” We need every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and that’s what we have in this Book, not just the New Testament, not just the Gospels, not just Paul’s Letters, all of it, every bit of it, every word that comes from the mouth of God! And so here, he didn’t leave anything out; he gave them the full measure, the whole counsel of God, we might say. And that’s what you and I need as well. For our relationship with God to be healthy, we need to listen to everything that he has to say.10 We don’t need to camp out in our favorite places and just listen

8 Cf. Paul A. Barker, “The Theology of Deuteronomy 27,” Tyndale Bulletin 49:2 (1998): pg. 297, who writes, “The inscribed stones of law on the mountain of curse expose Israel’s sinfulness and indicate that Israel stands under a sentence of curse. Yet, at the very place of curse, Yahweh provides a means of avoiding such a sentence. The altar and the instruction for burnt offerings are a gracious provision of a means of atonement to a sinful people. Only when sin is atoned can the sacrifices of well-being be made. They are a tangible demonstration of the effectiveness of the burnt offering and the subsequent restored relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Eating the meal reenacted the bond of relationship established between Yahweh and Israel. The meal would remind Israel that eth covenant relationship was based on grace and was sustained by the gracious provision of sacrifices.”

9 Cf. Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., Joshua (The NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), pg. 259, who writes, “A ‘Moses for Dummies’ will not do; Israel needs to hear every word.”

10 Cf. Dodson, Every Promise, pg. 182, who writes, “Covenant renewal involves all of God’s word for all of God’s people.”

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to the things that he says that we like or that we approve of. We need to listen to everything that he has to say. And so did they need that as well.

Now, as we come to the end of this short passage, how does it have relevance for us. I’d like to suggest to you that, as I mentioned at the beginning of our time, we need a renewal of our relationship with the Lord as well. I mean, if you think about it, we continue to sin, so it makes sense that we would need some kind of renewal in our relationship with the Lord. And I’d like to suggest to you that this gathering right here on Sunday mornings, every week, Sunday in and Sunday out, is an opportunity for you to have your relationship with the Lord renewed and refreshed. The worship service, the gathering of the community of believers, is an opportunity for relationship renewal to happen. I’d like to challenge you to think about what you do when you come here under that heading. I’d like for you to think about, raise the question for yourself, “Why do you to come?” And I’d like for you to think about, “Maybe I should be coming because my relationship with the Lord needs to be refreshed and renewed with all of these other people.”11 And what I want to share with you this morning is that I think all of the elements that we see in these covenant renewal ceremonies in the Old Testament—the one we just looked at in Joshua, but there are maybe six others that we could have looked at in the Old Testament—all of the major elements should be a part of our corporate gatherings on Sunday morning.12

Another byproduct of thinking about us as “New Testament Christians” only is sometimes, when we think about what we do as the church, we think the Old Testament has no relevance for that. We think the Old Testament system of worship has nothing to teach us about what we do here on Sunday mornings, but I’d like to suggest to you that that is not true, that we again—this is Kilgore Bible Church; this is not Kilgore New Testament Church; this is Kilgore Bible Church, and what we do together needs to be informed by all of what God has to say about worship. Certainly, what Jesus has done on the cross and in his resurrection has transformed what worship looks like for us, but all of the elements remain. And so, just to pick out the major pieces from the covenant renewal ceremony that we have, I’d like to focus on sacrifice and God’s Word this morning, those two elements, sacrifice and God’s Word.

But, let me just define covenant renewal for you. I’m going to quote from a pastor named Rhett Dodson, just so we’re on the same page perhaps. What is covenant renewal? What does it mean to renew our relationship with God for Christians? “Covenant renewal is an intentional return to the fundamentals of our relationship with God, so that we might remember his commitment to us in Christ, and so that we might reaffirm our commitment to him.”13 That’s pretty simple, really. But, what is involved in that renewal are the major things that we do on a Sunday morning here.

11 Cf. Peter J. Leithart, “Transforming Worship,” Foundations 38 (Spring 1997): pg. 31, who writes, “In a broad sense, all of the Christian life is worship, a self-offering to God, but the worship of the Lord's Day is a specific kind of act, an act of the church by which God renews his covenant with her. The church is the people of God, bound to him by the bond of friendship and love which the Bible calls covenant. But the church is a covenant people full of sinners. Every week individually and corporately we fall short of the kind of people we are supposed to be, and so, once a week in a public, formal, visible way, God gathers us to renew covenant with us.”

12 Cf. Michael A. Farley, “What is ‘Biblical’ Worship? Biblical Hermeneutics and Evangelical Theologies of Worship,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 51:3 (Sep. 2008): pg. 608, who writes, “Indeed, all the major elements of corporate worship (the word of God, responses of prayer and offering of gifts, and sacramental meals) receive a sacrificial description and interpretation in the NT.”

13 Dodson, Every Promise, pg. 174.

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And so, whether we knew it or not, we’re actually running in line with all that the Bible has to say about worship for us.

So, let’s look at the way sacrifice has been a bit transformed. You see, when we think about sacrifice in an Old Testament setting, we think about the killing of animals primarily, and we don’t do that anymore. And, sacrifice doesn’t have anything to do with atonement anymore, because the final ultimate sacrifice has been offered. Jesus offered himself as a guilt offering and a sin offering on the cross, and he has provided ultimate atonement, forgiveness for all of our sins, so that no other sacrifice must be or may be offered to cover or deal with our sins.14 So, why does the New Testament still talk about sacrifice? Because it does! The fulfillment of the sacrificial system in Jesus does not negate the ongoing significance of sacrifice for us as believers. We still continue to bring sacrifices to God; they just look a lot different. Let me show you a couple of texts. First of all, Romans 12:1, a familiar text: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Now, Paul is obviously not talking about what we do when we gather on Sunday mornings. He’s actually talking about your identity; he’s talking about all of life. But guess what? That encompasses what you do on Sunday morning when you gather together with us. It is under this category of “spiritual worship.” But look at the way he describes it: you are to “present your bodies,” your whole self “as a living sacrifice.” In the sacrifices in the Old Testament, you kill the animal and lay its dead carcass on the altar, but here we ourselves are to lay down our lives on the altar, but then we get up and live. We live out our lives under the whole rubric of sacrifice. But the way Paul says this—“present your bodies,” your whole self as a living sacrifice—picks up the imagery of the burnt offering, the ascension offering.15 This is about total consecration of your life over to God, every moment of every day. You see, you don’t come to worship God when you come to this place. You are worshiping God outside the building, when you were in the parking lot, on your way to here, when you were in your house, you were worshiping. You don’t come to this place primarily to worship God like you weren’t doing that ten minutes ago. You get to do it together with this body, but it’s not as though you weren’t living your life as a living sacrifice before you got into this room. You don’t come into the presence of God when you come into this building. If you’re a Christian, you live in the presence of God 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and 366 on Leap Years. You are always in the presence of God! Nothing changes when you come into this building; you’re still in the presence of God. But you didn’t enter his presence when you came into this room today. He was with you in your car; he was with you at your house; and he’s here with you now! So, think about it a little bit differently perhaps.

So, that’s the broader life picture. What about particular elements of corporate worship? Even within the Old Testament, we see the connection between sacrifice and other things that aren’t killing animals. And so, let me just mention three elements that we see in the New Testament specifically connected to sacrifice: praying, singing, and giving, things that we do when we come together here, praying singing, and giving. But with praying and singing, we have to link them together, and I’ll show you why, but it starts in the Old Testament already. Look at Psalm

14 Cf. Dodson, Every Promise, pg. 177, who writes in connection with Joshua 8, “The fact that this ceremony began at an altar points us unmistakably to the fact that for Christians renewal begins at the cross.”

15 So suggests Hamlin, Inheriting the Land, pg. 69, where he writes, “Paul expressed the inner meaning of the burnt offering when he appealed to Christians to ‘present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship’ (Rom. 12:1).”

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107:21-22: Let them thank Yahweh for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy! Now, when you’re reading that, you might say, “Well, that’s three different things. There are sacrifices; there’s the giving of thanksgiving; there’s telling of his deeds; and there’s singing.” Okay, four things. And so you might be right. But look and see how intimately they’re wed together and they’re interconnected.

Let me mention another connection. This verse won’t be on the screen, but you can look it up if you want to later: 1 Chronicles 16:37, kind of an obscure reference maybe. But it’s when David gets Asaph and his family and installs them as the leaders of the musical aspect of worship at the tabernacle and then later at the temple. There’s a connection made in that verse between the offering of sacrifices and the singing that these Asaph people, Asaphites, if you will, are supposed to be doing. Let me quote a Presbyterian fellow named Peter Leithart, who has helped me think through some of these things really well. I think he’s right on this point. He says, “According to 1 Chronicles 16:37, Asaph and his brothers sang before the ark in Jerusalem ‘continually, as every day’s work required,’ and both ‘continually’ and ‘every day’s work’ are Levitical terms. ‘Continually’ [translates the Hebrew term] tamid, a technical term for the morning and evening offerings at the…tabernacle. Exodus 29:41-42 prescribes an ascension offering [a whole burnt offering] of a lamb every evening and morning, as a ‘continual (tamid) ascension [burnt offering] throughout your generations at the doorway of the tent of meeting before Yahweh’….When tamid is applied to the musical ministry at the tabernacle…, the idea is not that the Levites sang around the clock, but that they sang while the tamid ascensions were being offered.”16 So, even with the establishment of the tabernacle and the sacrificial worship that went on there, music was embedded into the system. And so, when Jesus comes and offers the final offering that ends all animal sacrifices, the singing remains. The singing comes along to celebrate that offering that has provided atonement for our sins. The singing remains and continues on, but it’s still a sacrifice. It’s a part of the sacrificial element that goes on when we gather together.

Let’s pick up another New Testament verse, Hebrews 13:15: Through him (through Jesus) then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God— what’s that?—that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. The product of your mouth—that’s praying; that’s proclaiming; that’s confessing; that’s singing—the stuff that comes out of your mouth is a sacrifice of praise. No more animals need to be killed; atonement for sins has been settled. But we still offer sacrifices to God with what we say about him when we gather together and what we sing about him when we gather together and what we pray to him when we gather together.

Now let me press on this singing point for just a couple of minutes. Ephesians 5:19. Ephesians 5:18 gives us the command, “Be filled with the Spirit,” and then the next couple of verses flesh that out and say, “What does it look like when you’re filled with the Spirit? Or how does it happen? What’s the outworking of being filled with the Spirit?” And so, given that command at the end of verse 18, verse 19 carries the weight of command, and I want you to feel the weight here. So, Ephesians 5:19: [You should be] addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Note the bi-

16 Peter J. Leithart, “Sacrifice and Worship,” First Things (11/14/2004), https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2004/11/sacrifice-and-worship.

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directional mention here; when he talks about singing, addressing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody with your heart to God, to the Lord, it’s both all at once, but notice his emphasis is actually on the “one another” piece. Let me be direct and challenge you, some of you perhaps. I’ve heard some people say, “I don’t really like to sing.” Or, “I don’t really feel like I’m worshiping God when I sing. I just don’t worship that way very well.” Let me challenge you on two points about that. First of all, we’re commanded to sing. God wants us to sing, and so be obedient to the Lord and sing. But the second point, and the more important one that Paul is raising here: your singing is not to benefit you. It doesn’t really matter how you feel; your neighbor needs to hear you sing. I need to hear you sing. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve sat in this room feeling lousy and not wanting to sing, and all I did was watch and listen to the people around me. And before the first song is over, I’m in; I’m engaged; I’m drawn in because I see you celebrating what God has done. I hear you loving God; I hear you expressing your devotion to God. That’s what Paul is talking about, I think. You need to be mindful of the people around you when you come to this place. We make a mistake, I think, when we say, “When I come to church, I’m worshipping God and that’s my only concern. The focus on the worship service should just be on God.” No. It’s not like that in the Old Testament; it’s not like that in the New Testament; it’s definitely not like that in this passage. Yes, you should be directing your attention to God, but at the same time you need to be mindful of your neighbor. You’re here not for your own benefit, not to build you up, and not to give God something. He doesn’t have any needs. You don’t provide anything for God that he needs. He commands you to sing for the benefit of your neighbor, and also to praise him because he’s worth it. It doesn’t matter if you can’t carry a tune; it doesn’t matter if you sing the wrong words. What matters is that you sing and you engage.

I don’t sing all that well, in my opinion, and it took me years to get to the point—and my best friend Nathan Didlake helped me by driving around Longview in his jeep and belting out Jars of Clay songs—it taught me to sing from the depth of my core. And now I do it all the time in this play, and you need to hear me sing; you need to see me sing, and I need to see you sing; I need to hear you sing. When you come into this place, worship is private; it’s not you and God. The renewal of your relationship with God is a public thing, much like the renewal of vows in a marriage ceremony. Covenants are public relationships; they are! That doesn’t mean every element of the relationship is public, but, nevertheless, at the core, your relationship with God is public. It’s connected to this body and the life of this body. We need to hear each other sing and to pray and to praise.

Well, the final element that we could talk about is giving. Giving is referred to a couple of times in the New Testament with sacrificial language. I’ve picked out one text, Philippians 4:18. You know, we don’t draw attention to it very much here in this body. We don’t pass a plate, and we don’t ever mention it really, but there’s a box in the back that says “Offering” on it where you can put your gifts in, and that very much is a private thing. I don’t ever see anybody put anything in there, but somehow the budget always fills up. And some folks do it at home online. But what you need to recognize is, whether you do it at home online, or you write a check, or you put cash in the box, however you do it, there is an element of sacrifice, sacrificial worship that should be going on. And it’s not for any of our benefit…except that it kind of is. You’re not giving money to God; you’re giving money to benefit the body ultimately. We use those resources to expand the body and to function as a body. And so, giving is very much an act of sacrifice, but it doesn’t

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atone for your sins; it doesn’t improve your status before God. Nothing you do does any of that! But it is very much a sacrifice. Philippians 4:18 gives us some of the verbiage; Paul’s actually writing here about—again, he benefited from this. He said, I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. Again, the gifts came to him; they benefited him; he received them. But it was a sacrifice to God to give it. And so it is when we share our resources.

Well, let’s press on into God’s Word, thinking about God’s Word and its place in the corporate worship gathering. We could look at lots of texts, but we’re actually not leaving the realm of sacrifice here. This is a new thought to me, but Hebrews 4:12 is a verse that you’re probably very familiar with. But, I’d like to consider with you the possibility of reading it through the lense of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Think about this. So, Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. That word translated “sword” is not the sword you would take into battle to kill enemies; it’s a dagger or a knife or even a scalpel in the surgeon’s hand, and that’s the way I’ve always looked at this verse, that God’s Word does surgery on me; it opens me up like a scalpel. But, it could be the priest’s knife.17 So, you could think about it like this: if Romans 12:1 commands us, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice,” how do you do that? Hebrews 4:12 might be suggesting, “God’s Word cuts you open and lays you out on the altar and equips you for living as a living sacrifice.” I don’t know. Consider that thought. I’ve been mulling it over in my head this week, and it makes some sense.

How do we handle God’s Word when we come together? Well, there are two pieces: we read it aloud, like Joshua did, and we proclaim it or we preach it or we explain it. We could go to another covenant renewal ceremony and see that in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter 8, where Ezra the priest stands up and he read the Word aloud, but also “gave the sense”; he explained the meaning, and so Paul in his letters to Timothy talks about both of these elements. Now, when you read 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, you always need to remember that Paul is writing to Timothy with reference to the church in Ephesus. He’s sending Timothy to do business with the church in Ephesus, so in 1 Timothy 4:13, when he writes, Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching, he means, “Timothy, get into the church of Ephesus, stand up before them, read God’s Word aloud, and then exhort and teach the people.” Now, we typically do that in a sermon, right? I’ve read several passages of Scripture to you this morning, and I have exhorted you to live a certain way in light of these texts, and I have taught you, tried to explain what the meaning of these texts is, and so all of that can be lumped into a sermon. But there sure is some benefit to just reading the Word separately, without any explanation and just letting it ring out. That seems to be what Joshua did in Joshua chapter 8, and so there is some benefit, and we might try to start incorporating that more often in our gathered time.

17 Cf. Farley, “What is ‘Biblical’ Worship?” pgs. 608-609, who writes, “First, the NT repeatedly refers to the ministry of the word of God using the image of a sword (e.g. Eph 6:17; Rev 1:16; 2:12) that splits the ‘joints and marrow’ of believers’ hearts as they submit to its active and searching scrutiny (Heb 4:12) just as sacrificial animals underwent a similar cutting of a knife.” Farley then footnotes a reference to one of Peter J. Leithart’s works, where he demonstrates difficulties with the typical alternative understandings of this imagery in Heb. 4:12.

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How does this help your renewal of your relationship? This reminds you of what God has done for you; it reminds you of who God is, what he’s done for you; it reminds you of who you are also, and of what the world is like. We need those reminders, because we all forget regularly. And we need to be renewed by listening again, whether we’ve read a passage 100 times, studied it 100 times, we need to hear it again,18 and there’s a beautiful benefit for all of us listening to the same Word at the same time being preached the same way because then you’ve got an opportunity to expand the impact, if you go home and you talk to your spouse, or you talk to your neighbor who heard the same sermon, and you’ll actually talk about what was said. You might actually learn something that you didn’t learn while you were sitting here. And so, there’s extra benefit that can be had by doing it together.

We preach the Word, as he commanded in 2 Timothy 4:1-2: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom (wow!): preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. And so, we ought to be doing that in our body, and we do it here. We proclaim the Word of God to you. And you need to hear it to be reminded of God’s Word, so that your relationship with him remains fresh. I mean, think about it: if you’re in a relationship with a person, and you don’t listen to what they have to say, your relationship’s going to get pretty stale pretty quick, and so it is with our relationship with God.

Finally, I want to mention one more element: communion. And we’re not celebrating communion this morning, but we need to pick up the peace offering of Joshua’s ceremony here. We still enjoy the fulfillment of the peace offering when we come together in this body and we celebrate communion.19 The word means fellowship, and we do it by taking the Lord’s Supper. 1 Corinthians 10:16-18 makes the connection with sacrifice a little bit here, so let me read that quickly: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation—(the Greek word is koinonia, a fellowship)—in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation (a fellowship) in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants (fellowshippers) in the altar? And he’s picking up on the imagery of the peace offering, where they got to eat the meal and represent peaceful encounter, fellowship with God. And so it is now that we as Christians fellowship with God; we get to come to his table and eat together and enjoy that fellowship in that particular way.20

Let me quote Peter Leithart and we’ll be done, give him the last word this morning: “The fundamental claim here is that sacrificial worship did not cease with the coming of the New Covenant, but was transformed into a “spiritual sacrifice” and “sacrifice of praise.” We now do different things than ancient Israelites did, but those actions have the same meaning as the

18 Cf. Dodson, Every Promise, pg. 183, who writes, “Covenant renewal takes place as God’s people gather around God’s word.”

19 Cf. Leithart, “Transforming Worship,” pg. 32, who writes, “The common meal is the seal of the covenant because it shows that former enemies have become friends, partners at the table, sharing the same bread. If worship is covenant renewal, then there is no reason not to celebrate the covenant meal every time we gather for worship.”

20 Cf. Farley, “What is ‘Biblical’ Worship?” pg. 609, who writes, “And just as the OT liturgy of sacrifices culminated in a sacred meal at God’s table, the Lord’s Supper functions in the same way. The apostle Paul draws a direct parallel between the Lord’s Supper and the peace offerings that Israel ate at God’s altar (1 Cor 10:16–18).”

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actions in the Levitical ceremonies.” And I would add: with the exception of the atonement for sin, because Jesus has accomplished that fully. “We no longer slaughter bulls and goats for blood purification, but we do confess our sins so as to be cleansed (1 John 1:8–9). We no longer dismember animals before the Lord’s table, but instead the Word cuts us into pieces so that we may be offered as sacrifices (Heb 4:11–12). We no longer keep Passover but we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, which fulfills Passover (among other things) and may be described as a Christian Passover. This same “transposition” from an Old to a New Covenant key can be applied to other rituals of the Levitical system. We understand what we are doing in worship through the categories of the sacrificial system, under the metaphor of sacrifice.”21

21 Peter J. Leithart, From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution (Moscow, ID: Canon, 2003), pgs. 108-109, quoted in Farley, “What is ‘Biblical’ Worship?” pg. 610.

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