Please rise for the reading of God's word. Our New Testament lesson comes from Philippians 4, verse 14. Philippians 4, 14. Nevertheless, you have done well that you shared in my distress. Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving, but you only. For even in Thessalonica, you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit. that abounds to your account. Indeed, I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the thing sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma. and acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever, amen. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We'll turn now in our Bibles to the Old Testament scriptures. And the first example of a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable offering called by that name, Genesis chapter eight. Genesis eight, verses 20 to 22. Pay careful attention to this means of grace, the direct, unfiltered reading of the word of God. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet smelling savor, a soothing aroma. And the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done while the earth remains. Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. The grass withers. The flower fades. The word of God stands forever. Amen. You may be seated. Why are you here? And I'm not asking about why you came to church today, but more broadly, why are you on the earth? Why do you exist? Why do you wake up each morning? Why do you live? What's this life all about? Well, congregation, we get a clue to these questions in our passage. As you read the story of Noah's flood, it might be tempting to jump from Genesis 8, 19 to Genesis 9, 1. Because if you read them together, it seems seamless. You have Noah leaping the ark after the water's been dissipating for 150 days. And then in chapter 9, verse 1, he labors in a new world. In chapter 8, Verses 17 to 19, God tells the creatures to be fruitful and multiply as they leave the ark. And then in chapter 9, verse 1, God tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply as they leave the ark. But it would be a mistake to skip verses 20 to 22, because it's here that we learn what it's all about. It's here that we learn why we're here. It's here that we learn why we wake up every morning. These verses are not an afterthought. They are not a footnote. They are actually, you could argue, the climax of the entire flood story. It's been working to this pitch, this moment, this mountain peak. In Genesis 8-1, the heart of the story, God remembered Noah, but in Genesis 8-20, Noah remembered God. Up until this point, we have no assurance that a worldwide flood won't happen again. Because what if Noah and his sons become wicked, and they devolve into violence and corruption like the earlier generations, and God just comes and wipes them all out again with another flood? We have no guarantee at this point that God is positively pleased with his people. But it's here in these verses that we learn of God's acceptance and of his promise that he will never again destroy the world with water. More than that, we discover the reason that we're here, the reason we get up in the morning, the reason we exist, what it's all about. Attempted to ask the Covenant children. I had the privilege of sitting in on their Sunday school class this morning. What was Sunday school about this morning? Someone shout it out. What was it about? What have you been learning about? I think you guys know. It's worship, right? It's worship. This is what this passage is about, and this is what life is all about. It's about Sabbath, worship this climactic Text reveals why God saved you why he made you and what the very rhythm of your life is all about It's Sabbath Worship. We move in this text from ark to altar, from warfare to worship, from salvation to Sabbath. We move to enthronement and entrance into the rest and peace of God. Before God talks about the family and the civil government in chapter nine, he talks about the church in chapter eight. Before he talks about the cultural mandate in chapter nine, he talks about the religious mandate in chapter eight. You've been delivered to dwell in God's presence. You've been given dominion for the sake of God's Sabbath. Congregation, if you get nothing else this morning, latch on to this truth that worship is the reason you are here. Worship is the reason you draw breath. Worship is the reason you exist. It's all about God's glory. We're gonna explore this theme using four questions. The who, the where, the what, and the how of worship. And these four questions map onto four key words. Priest, altar, sacrifice, and covenant. We're gonna see that worship is the golden thread that holds together these precious pearls. First question. who worships God? If worship is what life is all about, then who worships God? And the answer in this passage is the priest. Here, Noah is a kind of new Adam surrounded by animals. He is a priest-king who offers sacrifices to God. And as such, he prefigures a greater priest-king. According to the order of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ himself, Jesus, the last Adam, the greater than Noah, who offered himself for the life of the world. It's the priest who worships. And in the New Covenant, we learn that we are a kingdom of priests. The priesthood of all believers, you have gathered here today like a giant Levitical choir to sing praises to God. You are kings and priests washed in the blood of the lamb. That's who worships the priestly people. Second, where does Noah worship? Where does Noah worship? We find this pattern throughout the Bible. But God's people typically worship on a mountain, and they worship at an altar. We already know this is a mountain because the ark rested on the top of Mount Ararat. But we learn more about this in chapter eight, verse 20. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. We move from ark to altar, from salvation to Sabbath, from warfare, the prevailing of the floodwaters and the battle with the ark, to worship. That's where he worships. It's an altar. If the ark was a model of God's world with those heaven, earth, sea decks, then the altar was a model of God's mountain. That's what an altar is, by the way. It is a miniature mountain of God. We see this pretty clearly in the book of Exodus, where Moses goes atop Mount Sinai, and there is fire and smoke at the summit. But at the base of the mountain, there is a miniature mountain, a miniature model. There is an altar made of stones with four corners, and there is smoke and fire upon that altar. In Ezekiel 43, 15, the top of the altar is called the mountain of God. The four horns of the altar correspond to the four corners of the earth, the four winds of heaven, and the four elements of the ancient world, earth, water, air, and fire. Well, here we have a miniature mountain. an altar, and that is where he worships. Even today in the New Covenant, where do we worship? It's mountain worship. A writer of the Hebrew says, you have come to a heavenly Mount Zion. In the spirit, by faith, every Lord's Day, we ascend to the heavenly Mount Zion. And our prayers are brought to the altar of incense in the throne room of God. Who worships? It's the priest. Where does he worship? An altar on a mountain. Third, what did Noah offer to the Lord in worship? God's the creator. He made everything, he owns everything, the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine, the fullness of the creation belongs to the Lord. He deserves it. He owns it. And he demands the firstborn. He demands the first fruit. He demands the best because he owns it all. There must be sacrifice. There must be worship because God is imminently worthy. What did Noah offer to the Lord? He offered sacrifice. Look at verse 20. And Noah build an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on The altar. Notice what he offered. Though God could have justly struck down Noah. and his sons, including his firstborn, here, Noah offers animal substitutes in their place. Specifically, clean animals and birds. Now we discussed this earlier, but you'll remember that in addition to the two by two pattern of animals coming aboard the ark according to their kind, God also told Noah to take literally seven seven of every clean animal, a male and his. Female it could be either seven clean animals or seven pairs of clean animals, which would actually be 14 now if it was seven clean animals, then it would be three couples or that's six, plus an odd man out. Three symmetrical pairs plus a lone wolf, a seventh wheel. And if that's the case, then perhaps the isolated animal was sacrificed at this point. Or maybe the seventh pair of animals was sacrificed at this point. Either way, there's a seven-fold pattern of six plus one clean animals. There's more of them than the rest, and it's out of this surplus of clean animals that Noah makes sacrifice to God. That's what he offered, but what kind of offering did he give the Lord? The text specifies that it was burnt offerings, or more literally, ascension offerings, offerings that go up. That's what the word means, offerings that go up, that ascend. Now, in the Bible, we're gonna learn, especially in the book of Leviticus, there are five main types of sacrifices. There's the trespass offering. There's the sin or purification offering, the burnt or ascension offering, the grain or tribute offering, and then finally, the peace offering. And these sacrifices symbolize, respectively, conviction of sin, cleansing from sin, consecration, collection, and communion. They show a theology of worship from blood to fire to feast. And here, it's specifically the ascension offering. Now what happened in the Bible when you gave an ascension offering? We gotta get back into the mindset of an ancient Israelite. When he heard olah, when he heard burnt offering, ascension offering, what did he think in his head? What you would do is you'd lay the hand, and you would kill the beast, and you would sprinkle the blood, you'd cut the pieces, and you'd burn the flesh. That's what you do with an ascension offering. First, you would lay your hand on the animal. So Noah, on Mount Ararat, at this constructed miniature mountain altar, lays his hand upon the clean animal. And this was a picture of vicarious substitution. Noah deserved to die. But he here offers a substitute. There's representation. This animal is in my place. And it's also participation. What happens to this animal vicariously happens to me. He is identifying himself with this animal substitute. Second, he would kill it. He'd take a sharp knife, he'd slit its throat, and the blood would come out. He would kill it. A reminder, time and time again, that death is the penalty for sin. The wages of sin is death. And here it's substitution. Someone in my place takes the hit for me. It was also a picture of self-denial. Again, it's vicarious. A reminder that in worship we die to ourselves and our desires. This is the call of discipleship. And congregation, I just remind you, that the Christian life seems easy and seems pleasant until you're called to give up something that your heart is set on. It was easy as long as Isaac was in Abraham's house. It was when God said to test him, offer Isaac on the altar. You know, it is easy, it is so easy to stand at that location and to take the five membership vows. It is so easy to say, I pledge to participate in this church's worship and service, to submit in the Lord to its government, and to heed its discipline, even in case I should be found delinquent in doctrine or life. It's so easy to do it. And I have seen over the years, people who stand there or other churches take those vows and then when the session says, according to the word of God, this is true, and you don't like the teaching of God's word, all of a sudden it doesn't seem so easy anymore. It's easy to say, I'm gonna follow Christ And I'll make sacrifices. But the real test is when it's not easy. The real test is when you don't like it. The real test of submission is when you don't want to submit. The real test is when the elders say, we want to meet with you. And you say, no, I don't feel like it. That's the test. I'm not saying this to be heavy-handed. I'm just sharing with you that sacrifice and worship and the call of discipleship, they meet the testing point when you don't want to do it. Lay the hand, kill the beast, sprinkle the blood. Sprinkle the blood. This is a picture of cleansing from sin and the appeasement of God's wrath against sin. It's a picture of atonement that we need to be covered by blood. We need to be covered by blood. Fourth, cut the pieces. The priest would have used a knife or a sharp sword to cut the animal in pieces. And then to rearrange those pieces on the altar, it was a picture of a reordered, a restructured life accomplished by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And then fifth, burn the flesh. Burn the flesh. The ascension offering is called a burnt offering because the entire animal, minus the hide, was totally consumed by fire. A picture of complete consecration, of total dedication to the Lord, nothing withheld. Everything given, unconditional surrender. And again, this is where the rubber meets the road. It's easy to say I'm gonna follow Christ. The question is, is there something in your life that is untouchable? Is there an idol in your heart that you are not willing to let go? And you say, I'll do anything and everything, but not this. This is untouchable. You can't go there. You can't talk about it. You can't challenge it. You can't address it, because this is my God. And the burnt offering is a reminder that God demands, he wants, he deserves it all. In principle, we have to be willing to give up anything and everything to God for the animal to be totally consumed by fire, by the presence of the Lord. Nothing withheld. Everything given. And it's not only fire, it's also smoke. Again, more literally, this is not a, literally, it's not a burnt offering, but it's an ascension offering. It's an ascension offering where the sacrifice and thus the worshiper symbolically ascended in the smoke to God in heaven. They went up in the smoke. In congregation, that's what worship is. Worship is an ascent in the spirit, by faith, Into heaven, it's reflected in the ancient exhortation, lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord. That's what worship is. I was telling my kids this week, tomorrow, guess where we're gonna go? And they said, we're gonna go to church. I said, well, that's right. But guess what else we're gonna do? We're gonna go to heaven. And they said, what? Well, in the spirit, by faith, you get a taste of heaven in worship as you ascend. We have the who, the priest, the where, the altar, the what, the sacrifice. There's a final question, a final key word, and that is how did God respond to Noah's offering? He laid the hand, he killed the beast, he sprinkled the blood, he burned the flesh. Cut it in pieces. But the big question is, is God gonna be satisfied? Or will we just have flood after flood after flood and judgment after judgment? Is God gonna be pleased by this sacrifice? And we find in response that God declared his covenant. Priest, altar, sacrifice, covenant. Here we find three covenant realities. First, we find acceptance. Look at verse 21, and the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. If you go back to Genesis 6, verse 6, and the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. Well, in chapter 8, Verse 21 and the Lord smelled a soothing aroma than the Lord said in his heart. It's a reversal of chapter 6 in verse 8 a soothing a pleasing aroma It's actually a play on Noah's name in Hebrew. His name means relief or rest. And finally there's rest. Finally there is relief. This is pleasing. This is appeasing. This is mission accomplished. This is warfare ended. This is sacrifice accepted. This is atonement. This is atonement. This is reconciliation. This is covering. This is acceptance. God is no longer angry. He's pleased. And so he gives him a promise. Look at verse 21. The Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. Remember, the curse was announced upon the ground in Genesis 3, 17 to 19. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. With thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the herb in the field. And in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken. And dust you are. And to dust you shall return. And then the next chapter, Cain, slays his brother Abel, and the blood falls upon the ground, and the ground is defiled, and the ground cries out for vengeance. Every time the blood of the innocent falls to the ground, it calls up the avenger of blood, which should be a sober reality for a country that murders millions of unborn children, that when the blood hits the ground, it calls up the avenger of blood. Ground is cursed, but then we get to chapter five. God gives us hope. Chapter 5, 29, and he called his name Noah, saying, this one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord has cursed. Here there's a promise. a pledge in Lamech's naming of Noah. The ground's been cursed, it's been defiled, but this one is gonna bring relief. This one is gonna bring rest. And then we get to Genesis 8, 21, and it's the fulfillment of Lamech's naming of Noah. Never again will I curse the ground for man's sake. Now why is that? Well the Bible says although or for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. This could mean I won't do it again because otherwise it would just be one flood after another because man is wicked. Or God in his common grace will not allow sin to reach full maturity to the point where he would destroy it with a worldwide flood. Instead, it will be cut off. It will be cut short in its infancy before it develops into a monster so wicked that it requires a worldwide judgment. Remember, the first use of the law is to curb sin in society. And in chapter 9, he's going to raise up the civil magistrate to help be a God-given curb on evil, so it doesn't get this out of hand again. Either way, no longer curse the ground. Now, you might say, are you saying the curse is no longer in effect? Because that doesn't match my experience. I look out at the world and it's full of brokenness. It's full of sadness. It's full of marriages that are falling apart. It's full of societies that are threadbare. It's full of children who dishonor their parents. It's full of parents who sin against their children. It is a mess. It's an absolute catastrophe. The ground is still infested with thorns and thistles, and nature is red in tooth and claw, and people die, and people suffer, and even in the church, bad things happen. Well, if that's how you feel, take heart. Paul also says in Romans 8 that the creation groans under the curse in his own day. It sure seems like the curse is still in effect. Well, not to get too technical, but actually there's a different word for curse in Genesis 3 and Genesis 8. It's a different term. And that's an indicator that the curse is still operational in some sense. The ground still groans. More than that, I think the Lord explains precisely what he means when he says, I'll no longer curse the ground again. He says, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. Namely, through a worldwide flood, which he spells out in chapter 9, verse 11. There's still going to be death. There's still going to be decay. There's still going to be sadness. There's still going to be misery. Local and regional floods still happen. We saw that in Neon, Kentucky recently. There's going to be a universal judgment by fire at the last day, but no more worldwide floods. God's going to preserve the present order, the world that now is, until the judgment of Christ. The world that now is will be preserved from water judgment and reserved for fire judgment. That's the covenant promise. And he actually puts this promise into a poem in verse 22. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. This poem speaks to God's covenant regularity in nature, his providential Reservation of creation expressed in pairs. Seed time, harvest, cold, heat, winter, summer, day and night. Congregation, this is why we can do science. This is why we can study nature, because there's predictability and patterns, not impersonal forces, but the natural law of God, what some have called God's divine habits, His way of operating. Every time you see the harvest of wheat, a snowflake fall, water droplets evaporate, the equinoxes and the solstices, the sunrise and the sunset. This is God upholding His covenant promise to Noah. The prophet tells us this is a covenant in Jeremiah 31 and 33. Jeremiah 31, thus says the Lord who gives the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea and its waves roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before me forever. Jeremiah 33, thus says the Lord, if my covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will cast away the descendants of Jacob and David, my servant. God has made a covenant with Noah, a covenant that involves all of creation in which these patterns will remain until the end of the age. Isaiah 54, verse nine, for this is like the waters of Noah to me. For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you. God's response to Noah's act of worship is covenants. It's acceptance, it's promise, it's poem. I swear I won't do this again. It's possible we could end right there, and it would have a certain integrity to it. The congregation, this text is not only the climax of the flood story, it prefigures the climax of redemptive history. This pattern played out time and time again in the Old Testament. Let's think about it. What was the first sacrifice for sin? God slew animals and covered our first parents in those skins, a picture of blood and righteousness atop Mount Eden. And then Abel offered a lamb in the shadow of Mount Eden. And here Noah offered burnt offerings on Mount Ararat. And then Abraham took his son, his only son, whom he loved, and he offered him, was willing to offer him, atop Mount Moriah when God said through the angel, take instead the ram. Moses offered sacrifices on Mount Sinai, and when a plague came, Aaron and David offered sacrifices to stop the plague. David did so on a threshing floor located on a mountain, which later we realize, owned by the Jebusite Ornan, was Mount Zion, the location where Solomon would later offer burnt offerings, ascension offerings, to dedicate the temple of God. Over and over again, God saves his people through the water to the mountain for worship at an altar with animal substitutes. The congregation from Abel through Noah to Solomon, there was a gnawing sense that animal substitution, though commanded by God, was never intended to be sufficient. never meant to be enough, and that's clear because the priests never stopped offering sacrifices. It was repeated over and over again, continually, every morning, every evening, even throughout the day, as the writer to the Hebrews said, it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. However glorious Noah atop Mount Ararat is shockingly incomplete. It's not sufficient. It's not enough. It would never be enough. Though he offered 10 million lambs upon that altar and five billion bullocks upon that altar, it would never be enough. It would never do justice to the worth of God. It would never do justice to his holiness and his righteousness. It would never be enough. The congregation thanks be to God that in the fullness of time, Jesus came. Jesus came. The perfect priest, the spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He came as a priest, and he came as a sacrifice to offer himself to God. I want to encourage you, when you find it difficult to follow the Lord and you find it difficult to submit to his ordained government, when you find it difficult to heed his discipline, when you find it difficult to obey, when you find it difficult to follow Christ, remember that Jesus, the darling of heaven, the prince of peace, came to this earth, the God-man, to endure all the miseries of this life. And He submitted to His heavenly Father. He was obedient unto death. He gave it all. He withheld nothing. He kept nothing back. He stayed up all night praying for us. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He went to the altar of the cross, atop Mount Calvary, and there it was, lay the hand, kill the man, Sprinkle the bloods. Consume him with the fire of God's wrath. Nothing withheld. Everything given. The only perfect sacrifice. And I tell you, the father was pleased when Jesus died. It pleased Jehovah to crush him. And his death was a sweet smelling savor before heaven. An aroma of death unto death, an aroma of life unto life, as the Puritan Thomas Goodwin said, that God should never be more angry with his son than when he was most pleased with him. For so it was when Christ hung upon the cross, that altar, God did not, God did find a sweet-smelling savor of rest and satisfaction, even when he cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? never more angry than when he was most pleased. Jesus is the ultimate priest. His death, the ultimate sacrifice. His cross, the ultimate altar. His blood, the ultimate ratification of the covenant. His work, the ultimate act of worship. Behold the man upon the cross, crying, look to me. and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. Look to Jesus and live. Look to Jesus and live. Receive him and rest upon him. And he will not only pardon you from every stain, every guilt, but he will give you the ability by his Spirit to live a life that is pleasing to God. If you have any doubt that God was pleased with Jesus' sacrifice, remember what happened after he died on the altar of his cross. He descended to hell, and the third day, he rose again from the dead. The father was so pleased, he declared him to be his son. with glory by his resurrection from the dead. And then after 40 days, I love this, Jesus capped it all off with the perfect conclusion to his earthly ministry. How did Jesus conclude his time on earth? He ascended into heaven. This completes the picture. He ascended into heaven like the lamb going up in the smoke as a sweet smelling savor. Jesus went up in glory and he lifted up his hands and he blessed his disciples who failed him time and time again, but he blessed them with his peace and his presence and his glory and he went up into the clouds and he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high And now, on the other side of the cross, and the empty tomb, and the ascension, and the session where Jesus still is praying for us and ruling over us, on the other side of that, we have not merely moved from ark to altar, we have moved from altar to table. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. We have an altar in heaven, and therefore we have a table on earth, a table at which we break bread, and we pour out the wine in remembrance of Him. God remembered Noah. Noah remembered God. We remember Christ and we call Him to remember us, to visit us. It's impossible to re-sacrifice Christ. It was once for all and so now, what do we do? As those who've been purchased, as those who've been bought, as those who've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, we offer ourselves a living sacrifice. We offer the sacrifice of our lips, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the sacrifice of praise on the altar of our hearts, and we declare his death until he comes. And on that day, he will make all things new. On that day, a greater than Noah will come, who is named Jesus, and he will make all things new far as the curse is found. Not just a partial and temporary relief in certain respects, but a total and final relief. Every tear dried. Every wound bound up and healed. Every contention and discord in the church resolved. No more slander, no more backbiting, no more bitterness, no more anger, no more frustration, no more sadness, no more divorce, no more disease, no more thorns, no more thistles. Far as the curse is found, a final harvest, everlasting summer, eternal Sabbath, no tabernacle, no temple, no sun or moon. The lamb will be the light. On that day, the only thing in one sense that will remain from Genesis 8, 20 to 22 is worship. Worship will remain. No more bloody sacrifices. no more death, no more sprinkling of blood, but worship will remain. Worship is the reason God made you. Worship is the reason God saved you. It is the rhythm of your life. It is the reason you exist. It is the meaning of your life. to give glory to the one who sits upon the throne, and to the lamb who loves you forever and ever. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.