Praise the Lord! Father from the depths of our hearts, we register and declare our gratitude unto You; Father we are grateful for all that You have done for us, Lord we are grateful; the year is moving so fast, from January to date You have kept us and Lord without any doubt we know the good work You have started in our lives You will complete, accept our thanks in the name of Jesus.
Thank You Father for victories over seen and unseen battles; we thank You for journey mercies to and fro; thank You for awesome provisions, thank You for protection and thank You for defending and supporting us all the way; thank You Father for thus far You have brought us and thank You because You will see us through, accept our thanks Father in Jesus name.
Lord Almighty, we have come to do one thing today and that is simply to praise You, Lord we pray that You accept us today, You accept the praise and the worship that we bring to You in Jesus name. Father we ask of You Lord Almighty that even as we offer our offerings unto You, You will bless us much more in Jesus name.
We at this point pray for all Your children who have been faithful in the payments of their tithes and the giving of the offerings, Lord Almighty God that You will bless them in Jesus name; unto them oh God Almighty there shall be the fulfillment of Your promise in their lives in Jesus name. Lord You will rebuke devourer for their sake in the mighty name of Jesus.
And for all Your children that are saying ‘amen’ both physically present and those who are watching us virtually, Lord Almighty let them have continuous encounter with Your divine favor in Jesus name, and let Your favor continually pave way for them.
Thank You Father because You have answered; as we continue with this service, Lord please continue with us in Jesus name, let this month be our best month ever in the mighty name of Jesus, let Your glory cover our lives and let Your favor surround us like a shield; thank You glorious Father, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Good morning daddies and mommies, good morning brothers and sisters, happy new month to every one of you!
[Birthday Celebration]
God bless you! Favor will cover you for the rest of your life in the mighty name of Jesus. Like I said, our declaration for the month of June is our month of divine favor and of course the scripture is taken from Psalm 30: 5; I want you to key into it and by the grace of God you will testify in Jesus name.
Tomorrow by His grace, we’ll be having our weekly prayer chain by 6:30, and the topic for tomorrow is The Glory of Favor; text from the same scripture, Psalm 30: 5-7, I look forward to seeing every one of you, the Lord will bless you for me in Jesus name.
Hebrews 13: 15 – 19, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 16But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. 17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. 18Pray with us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly. 19But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner”.
By the special grace of God today we are here to celebrate the goodness of God upon our lives as usual; none of us can deny the value of His grace and mercy upon our lives; seeing this day can only be by His grace and mercy. The Book of Lamentations, that popular book, Lamentations 2: 22 & 23 say it is by His mercies that we are not consumed, because of His compassion that fadeth not; so today we want to very quickly serve you with the first course from Hebrew 13 that we have just read before our father in the Lord, Pastor E.A Adeboye comes up to serve the main meal, so I’ll be talking to us very briefly this morning, as long as time permits because we’ll stop this exaltation wherever our father in the Lord comes on stage, I will be talking to us briefly on what we call “The Authentic Sacrificial Offerings”.
The Book of Hebrews 13 is an interesting one, even when you read from verse one it was said with exaltation on the need for brotherly love to continue, and it goes on and on like that until verses 11 to 14, the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gates. 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 14For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
In this scripture we find out that the author discussed what I call the symbolism of Jesus suffering and death in relation to the Old Testament sacrificial system; it highlights that just as animal sacrifices were burned outside the camp, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, and the passage also encourages believers to identify with Jesus and bear the reproach that He endured as they are not seeking a permanent earthly city but the heavenly one.
We must have it at the back of our mind that we are not going to live on the surface of the earth forever, and what this simply means is that our lives must reflect the temporary nature of our sojourn here on earth, but when you go to verses 15 – 19 that we read, by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 16But also to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. 17Obey them that have rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. 18Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly; and that’s why I captured it as the authentic sacrificial offerings.
So it’s not talking about the fruits of the lips alone, but it’s also talking about the need for us to communicate good to our neighbors, it talks about the need for us to surrender to the leadership of Christ and it talks about the need for us to live a life of good conscience and of course the life of praying for the leadership, and when you talk about leadership there’s no way you can exonerate yourself, every one of us is called to be a leader in our various settings, in our various community, even in your family you are a leader, so when you talk about leadership don’t look at it as if oh they are talking about something so strange, but they are talking about something that has to do with you, that involves you and that also involves me.
Verse 15 says that we should offer praise to God, share our lives and possession with each other, and obey the leadership that God has given unto us and with that obedience also come the responsibility of prayers; so we’ll take them one after the other and after which we pray and we join our father.
Number one, it says firstly we’re encouraged to offer praise to God; we are encouraged to through Him, through Christ, continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips that acknowledges His name. Praise to God must be a continuous thing, praise to God must not be a Sunday – Sunday affairs, praise to God must not be a monthly affairs; when the scripture says something has to be continuous it means that it has to be done from time to time,
Instead of sacrificing or offering rams as sacrifices to God, we should offer the sacrifice of praise; this sacrifice offered up through Jesus empowered by not our own strength and so even our lifestyle ought to be one of praise continually offered to God in spirit and in truth. John 4:24 says God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth; you cannot worship God in deception; somebody said in Africa and especially in Nigeria, we start every meeting with prayers, even political meetings we start with prayer, business meetings we start with prayers, but we lie all through the meetings and at the end of the meeting we also resort to prayer, that is not acceptable, God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
It’s an offering, truth is an offering, is part of the authentic offerings that God expects from all believers. The sacrifice of praise to God is described as the fruit of lips that acknowledges His name; my prayer for every one of us today is that God will accept the sacrifice of the fruit of our lips in Jesus name.
Number two, we are encouraged to share our lives and possessions with each other. Hebrew 13:16 says but to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased; what the Bible is saying in effect here is that don’t neglect to do good, share what you have with others, it says for such sacrifices are pleasing unto God.
Rather than viewing our time and possessions as existing solely for our benefit, we should view them as possessions that can help others and do what I call good deeds; this simply means that whatever we hold or whatever we are given, we hold it in trust for the people. The money that God has given to you, the possessions that God has given to you, God has given them to you in trust for other people and in appropriating those resources, you must make efforts to consider others, there is nothing a man has that is not given to him, there is nothing you can have that was not given to you, as a matter of fact in the first instance, so is a sacrifice to God when you carry others along, and thank God for those who have kept into that and you see their lives always shining, and I pray to God that God Almighty will continue to breathe on every giver more and more in the name of Jesus.
Let me tell you something, they said flowing river is always clean, the hallmark of every flowing river is cleanness, it does not retain dirt, but when you see a stagnant river you see all manner of things, so whatever it is that you have you must give to others, is part of the authentic offerings that God expects from believers.
Instead of offering animals as sacrifices to please God, we offer up good deeds and our possession to help others out, seeing these are sacrifices offered to God. In place of ram you can give money, and if you have ram why don’t you slaughter it and give it to people to eat; I remember when I was still at work, every sallah we had one of our clients then who happened to be a a director of an organization that has to do with us, one of our service providers, every sallah they will bring me my own ram, is as big as this, you will think that I’m an Alhaji, and I said Alhaji why are you doing this to me, he said meat is meant to be eaten, and of course we gave the thing out, people will go and slaughter it and they will share it and they eat, it’s not the sacrifice that matters, it’s the people we should be more considerate, praise the Lord!
I remember there was a time my father was coming to Lagos when he was alive, so he was in Ijebu-ode, he stayed with somebody there, a close relative, and when I got there, that was a long time ago, the 80’s, and the old woman told me ah, before you take Baba we are to do some saara and that I should wait; she told me that can you help me? I said mama, be careful, if you have money why can’t you give to people to eat, you want to do saara, you are not going to use ram, you are not going to use correct goats – big one, you want to do saara you went to buy a sheep, so why will you go and make use of sheep, because in the first place I can’t even eat your sheep, so stop wasting your life in doing sacrifice.
And I found out that those who are given to sacrifices, their life is always very complex and they live a vicious cycle, so if you are one of the people that offer sacrifices, stop it, it will not help you, you live in perpetual bondage because it will be from one ritual to the other, but when you offer sacrifice of praise to God one at a time, it gives you hope, it gives you joy, it boosts your confidence and at any point in time you can stand because you have a God that you respect and because you respect God, you honor that God, God defends you.
We used to sing one song those days [music], sorry I will not be able to interpret that, just accept it, praise the Lord!
Thirdly, we are called to be leaders; verse 17 says obey your leaders and submit to them: for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. (It says) let them do this with joy and not with grief, for that will be unprofitable, in other words it will be of no benefit. This sounds hard and scary, particularly in our day of caution about authority especially when that had been abused, but God places the eldership over us to care for us, guiding over our souls and of course to shepherd us, so when we submit to them we make the job easier and of course that helps them also to do it with joy as against with grief and sadness.
So since they are called to watch over our souls, prayer is an important way we can obey and submit and also to support them. The author himself unarguably, Apostle Paul, as a leader asked them to pray for us for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things; my prayer for every one of us today is that God will give us that heart to submit in right things, to right guidance, so that we can live a life of peace and joy and have good conscience before God and of course before men.
We have our timely encouragement to keep leadership of the church in prayers, we must make it a regular thing; Apostle Paul told Timothy, first and foremost, let prayer be made for those who are in authority, and the need for us to pray for our leaders whether spiritual or secular cannot be overemphasized because if you pray for them the rule you will benefit, and if it’s the other way round you know the challenges, so we must, is part of our offering that we can give to God, give to leadership and of course give to the church of God, my prayer is that as we continue in this heavenly journey the Lord will give us the grace to devote our lives to God and to each other as a sacrificial offering, and best of all we can be sure that God will find our fibless offerings pleasing and acceptable, because Jesus sacrifice has brought us peace with God.
And this (Jesus) sacrifice is what I define or call ‘a priceless cause of our redemption’, so the question today is are you in that number that is saved by grace?
As I round up, I want to quickly run us through that God is counting on us, first for the fruit of our lips; secondly, to do good and forget not; number three, to obey; number four, to pray for our leaders; number five, to have good conscience before God and man.
Shall we rise on your feet, [music], if your answer is not straight and direct, all you need to do is for you to invite Him into your life today, when you invite Him into your life, you confess your sins and pray for forgiveness, the Lord forgives, in fact what God counts most is your heart, the genuineness of your heart, your willingness to let go, He knows you cannot help yourself and that’s where His grace is available.
So as we close our eyes this morning and bow our head, I will take that song again, if you cannot readily answer that you are in the number, I want you to just pray to God, Father please [inaudible] of Yourself today, I acknowledge my sin and I want You to forgive me and write my name in the Book of life today…
[Altar call]
[Music]
Authority in heaven, once again we want to say thank You; thank You for this Your children You have brought to You, flesh and blood would not have brought them except by Your Spirit, Lord please receive them unto Yourself today, save them by Your grace, enlist them among the numbers, and Lord Almighty God from today let them walk in the newness of Your salvation and redemption in Jesus name. Thank You Father because You have answered, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Thank you for your time, shall we be seated as we hook up to listen to our father in the Lord, God bless you!
