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Life
Lessons From Leviticus?
(Part 2)
A Sermon
by Jim Hammond from Leviticus 1
For
More In This Series
Where are you not yourself?
Research psychologists
suggest that we are not ourselves in the lobby of a fancy hotel.
[i]
We tend to put on airs. Do
you hide your emotions trying to bamboozle the salesman when you enter
the new-car showroom? Are you yourself when you enter and take a seat in church?
Or are you still trying to fake somebody out?
Many are actually trying to fake out the Almighty telling God
that we've really been good all week.
But Leviticus tells us this approach doesn’t work.
So if you feel really uncomfortable in church, and you really
feel like you are out of your element here, relax.
It’s okay. A lot
of people feel that way at first but have come to learn this is a place
where you can be honest with yourself and with God.
Today you are going to learn how you can come to God honestly.
You don’t have to pretend.
Last week we began a series
that deals with very uncomfortable subjects.
It’s not beautiful, its brutal, ugly, and bloody.
We sometimes wonder why God commanded such bloody stuff with the
sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament for worship.
Is it really true that religion has just gone through an
evolutionary process and man’s primitive forms of worship have merely
been abandoned for more sophisticated forms of worship?
No. I don’t believe so. In
fact I believe there were amazing and specific reason for the Old
Testament worship practices. This
is what we have begun to study, but with a specific purpose.
To unveil the life lessons from these ancient practices that are
still applicable to us, and also to discover which practices God has
told us to abandon, and why we are to abandon them.
So get ready to get
uncomfortable again as we look at some uncomfortable worship practices.
By the way if you are really comfortable watch out.
It’s my job to comfort those who are afflicted and afflict
those who are too comfortable. If
I afflict you this morning, I’ll try to be nice about it.
Focus: In the Old Covenant God gave very specific
instructions on how to remove the defilement that separates us from a
Holy God. These Old
Covenant instructions anticipated the New Covenant realities that were
fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Life Lessons from Leviticus 1:
A Review:
Lesson
# 1:
We
hear God speak from his chosen tabernacle (1:1)
The tabernacle/ or Temple is where God’s presence
is made manifest. The Bible
had three temple systems, 1) the OT temple/tabernacle, 2) Jesus, God
incarnate, and 3) The Body of Christ, the church.
We are now God’s Temple where he manifests his life and message
to others.
Lesson
# 2: God is Perfect and We
are not. (1:2)
Everyone is born with a sense of should and should
not. And everyone fails to
live up to their own sense of should and should not, with the exception
of Jesus. Offerings were
the Old Testament way of allowing for a relationship when there was a
shortfall between an unholy people before a perfect and holy God.
Lesson
# 3: God decides and directs
how we are to come to Him (1:3)
I joked on several of the commands that were so
specific, that we think, “Picky, picky, picky.”
God isn’t just being picky he has always been specific and
specific for a reason.
Lesson
# 4: An Acceptable sacrifice is Costly,
but available to each
of us (1:2-3, 14)
God determines what is acceptable and what is not.
And God wants the offering to be costly but available even to the
poorest of poor.
Lesson # 5:
A Relationship with God requires the Sacrifice of Atonement
. . . (1:4)
Leviticus 1:4 (NIV) 4He is
to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be
accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.
What is Atonement?
Atonement achieves reconciliation with God.
It has built within the concept two ideas, 1) a ransom paid, and
2) so that sins can be erased, washed, or covered.
When atonement is made, the result is AT-One-Ment with
God, in one word reconciliation is possible.
In the Old Testament,
atonement refers to the process God established whereby humans could
make an offering to God to restore fellowship with God.
An atoning sacrifice is a sacrifice that makes a covering for
sin. Think of a covering of
protection, like the killing of the first animal to cover Adam and
Eve’s shame with skin. Blood
is the covering, covering the altar.
The sacrifice becomes the covering of protection.
The punishment goes to the sacrifice while it covers and protects
us from the punishment. Atoning
sacrifices were required to remove the bad effects of human sin.
Though they did not know it at the time, these offerings worked
because of what they represented in picture form.
Hebrews 10:1-12 (NIV) 1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are
coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by
the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect
those who draw near to worship. 2If
it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers
would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt
guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to
take away sins.
5Therefore,
when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6
with burnt
offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7
Then I said,
‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, O God.’”
8First
he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law
required them to be made). 9Then he said, “Here I am, I
have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the
second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through
the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11Day
after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again
and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12But when this priest had
offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right
hand of God.
THE SHADOW ILLUSTRATION:
We will now dim the lights, black out the screen
and use a flashlight to illustrate the shadow versus the reality
(Hebrews 10:1). You can
tell a lot from just the shadow., ooops!
(Suck in my stomach as the
shadow profile reveals my shape.) But
can you tell whether I’m short or tall from the shadow alone? Or can you see the lovely color of my hair?
(Gray). Can you see
my face, whether I’m stern, angry, or happy, and loving?
With only a shadow to go from you can't decide whether my face is a
beautiful mug, or ugly. Now with the lights back on some of you
are still trying to figure that out! The shadow reveals
quite a bit, but nothing like the reality.
So also, the Levitical laws about sacrifice reveals quite a bit,
but nothing like the reality does.
The burnt offering was a shadow, compared to the reality of
Christ’s sacrifice.
Furthermore, shadows don’t save, the reality
does. Hebrews 10:4 reads,
4because
it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
The reason David, Moses, and all the faithful Old
Covenant followers were saved is they placed their faith in God’s
promises that connected the shadow to the reality.
In Peter Pan, the shadow can get separated from the reality, but
God will not have it. The
reason the Old Testament sacrifices work is that they were connected
with the Reality of the sacrifice that could take away sins, the
sacrifice of Christ.
Christ cast a Shadow in two directions.
The Old Testament sacrifices were foreshadowing of the reality to
come, but now we also by faith have connected to Christ as we live in
the shadow of the Cross. Here’s what I mean. Let
me ask you, does the water of baptism have within it the power to save?
No, the power comes from the savior himself, from the saving act
of shedding his blood. The
power of atonement is in the reality of the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ. Baptism
is God’s specific instruction about how we are to connect with the
death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
This New Covenant ceremony is connected to the cross, as the Old
Testament ceremonies of atonement were.
Let me ask you another question.
Does our faith save us? Faith
by itself has no power to save. It
only has the power to connect to the saving power, which is Jesus
himself, when he made atonement for us.
Do you see how we live in the shadow of the cross, even as did
the Old Covenant people? We
connect to the reality through the way God describes and directs in the
New Covenant, faith and obedience to baptism connects us to the reality.
The Old Covenant people connected through the God directed ways
as described in the Old Covenant laws, like these in Leviticus.
Lesson # 6: A
Relationship with God requires A Priest as Mediator (1:7)
I want you to notice something about these priests.
Their jobs were bloody. They
were constantly dealing with the sin of the people.
Imagine the sights, bloody animal parts, pools of blood, bowls of
blood, blood on the hands, imagine the smells of live animals, then
burning flesh, even bone—not roasted, not toasted, but burnt first to
a crisp, until there is nothing but ashes remaining.
Imagine the sites, sounds, smells.
Animals were brought in to worship.
It was noisy. Imagine the noise the animal makes until silence.
After that silence what’s on your hands?
Blood. There was no let up. The
priest’s job was relentless, and monotonous.
Priests were kind of a combination pastor, doctor, and butcher!
The sacrifices were constant.
I want to ask you, who are familiar with all the furniture in the
tabernacle, was there a chair the priest could sit in to rest?
No. There is no place to sit, and no time to sit.
In view of this fact the New Testament words are stark.
Hebrews
10:11-12 (NIV) 11Day
after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again
and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice
for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
Where did Jesus sit?
There is actually one chair in the Tabernacle/Temple.
That one chair is called the mercy seat.
It is also referred to as God’s throne.
It was above the ark of the covenant in the most holy place.
So when you understand the scene of the priest you understand,
Christ seated himself at the right hand of God, on God’s throne, on
the mercy seat. There are
not two seats but one. One
seat for God. Jesus Christ sits down after his priestly work is done.
It is not the like the ongoing continuous work of the Old
Covenant priests, but a finished work!
Lesson # 7: We must
personally lean on the Lamb (1:4)
4He
is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be
accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.
We started off this morning with the question
“Where are you not yourself?” It
is understandable since God is Perfect and we are not, we feel a little
like pretending we are something we are not.
But God insists that we are honest.
If we learn from God’s standards instead of our own, we will
become more honest and confess instead of pretend.
Confessing is simply telling it like it is, agreeing with God’s
honest assessment. Once you
see God’s assessment, it is BAD news until you realize God made a
provision for where we fall short.
That provision is the Lamb.
Once you realize the truth you want to lean on the lamb.
You certainly don’t want to lean on your own merits.
The Good news is that we don’t have to pretend about how we
have fallen short. In fact
the first and necessary step to coming to God is being honest that we do
fall short. Once we recognize that is what God wants we will want to
learn how to lean on the lamb.
Last week we looked at the Old Testament theme of
the lamb. Today, let’s
look briefly at the NEW TESTAMENT LAMB THEME.
John 1:29
(NIV) 29The
next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb
of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Acts
8:32 (NIV) 32The
eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: [quoting from Isaiah] “He
was led like a sheep to
the slaughter, and as a lamb
before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
1
Corinthians 5:7 (NIV) 7Get
rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you
really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has
been sacrificed.
1 Peter
1:18-19 (NIV) 18For
you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold
that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you
from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood
of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Revelation
5:6 (NIV) 6Then
I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain,
standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the
four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes,
which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
[When have you ever seen a dead lamb standing?
Obviously this isn’t a picture of a dead lamb, but a picture of
Christ. And what was his
position when he was slain?]
Revelation
5:12-13 (NIV) 12In
a loud voice they sang: “Worthy
is the Lamb, who
was slain, to receive power and wealth
and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” 13Then
I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on
the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on
the throne and to the
Lamb be praise and honor
and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
Revelation
6:16 (NIV) 16They
called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from
the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of
the Lamb!
[Now do you picture a lamb that is ferocious? I’m not sure what a mad lamb looks like.
Actually I don’t picture lambs with wrath.
We aren’t supposed to picture a lamb for this phrase at all,
but the glorified Lamb, Jesus Christ who comes back as King of kings and
Lord of lords, to judge. The judgment will not come from a meek lamb, but from the
wrath of the LAMB who is worthy!]
Revelation
7:14 (NIV) 14I
answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have
come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the
Lamb.
[Are you tempted to switch from Clorox to lamb’s blood to get your
clothes whiter than white? Obviously
this is talking not about sheep’s blood and clothing at all, but about
the shed blood of Christ and the power to make our lives clean!]
Revelation
12:10-11 (NIV) 10Then
I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of
our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our
brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled
down. 11
They overcame him by the blood
of the
Lamb and by the word of
their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from
death.
Lesson # 8: God does
not want us to worship passively
The worshipper got blood on his hands in their
active worship. They were
fully engaged. Worship
narrowed the field to those who were willing to recognize their sin
causes death, death at their own hands.
Until you see this, you probably are not ready to truly worship
the Christ who took upon himself your sin and death, death at your
hands. At his trial, those
who wanted him crucified said, “let his blood be upon us and our
children” (MATTHEW 27:25).
It is true, his blood will be upon everybody in one way or
another, either we will have bloodguilt upon us, or we will have the
covering of his blood atonement as an offering of sacrifice.
One releases, and one condemns.
There is no passive ground.
There is no neutral ground with Jesus.
We either will worship him whole-heartedly or we will reject him.
God does not tolerate lukewarmness.
Lesson # 9: Total
Commitment Pleases God (1: 9, 13, 17)
You’ve heard of doing something in the present tense…
Sacrifice is Worshipping God in the Unpleasant Tense
The burnt offering was a pleasing aroma to the
Lord. A burnt offering was
a costly sacrifice that pleased God.
I can’t imagine that the Old Covenant worshipper found the
experience to be pleasant. I’ve
never thought of a worship experience being unpleasant before.
Have you? The Bible
seems to be filled with the concept.
Old Testament Sacrifices were by design unpleasant worship
experiences. Slitting a
lamb’s throat while holding its head certainly had to be unpleasant,
however, it was nowhere near as unpleasant for the worshipper as it was
for the lamb! And that was
the point! I’m glad Jesus
didn’t say, “I don’t do crosses” or we’d be dead ducks, or
rather dead lambs. Now that
we are not dead lambs, God asks us to offer ourselves as living
sacrifices out of gratitude. This
means worshipping God in ways that might be, for the moment, unpleasant.
This is what is so pleasing to God.
The pleasing aroma, is the aroma of sacrifice. Jesus’ sacrifice pleased God.
Now we can please God also.
God is very pleased when we choose the difficult, unpleasant
things, out of obedience and love for Him.
God loves that kind of love.
How costly is Worship for us today?
More than Lip Service
One 3-year-old girl by the name of Katherine was
dancing and singing around the house when her mother noticed she had
changed the words to the familiar chorus.
She was singing, “I love you, Lord, and I lift my noise!”
I wonder if God as a parent sometimes feels like that’s exactly
what our lip service sounds like? Just
Noise.
Another 3-year-old girl was just being herself in
worship when she was singing the song, “We exhaust thee! We exhaust thee!” I
wonder how much of our lip service worship merely exhausts God?
He gets tired of the lip service only, and wants our lives.
- WORSHIP AS SACRIFICE means WORSHIPPING GOD IN THE
UNPLEASANT TENSE, MAKING SACRIFICES, doing something we wouldn’t
normally do, but for the love of God because Christ gave himself for
us, we offer ourselves as a fragrant offering back to him as an
expression of total commitment.
- It doesn't take any special ability to live a
self-centered life. But it takes character to sacrifice.
Sacrifice is Worshipping God in the Unpleasant Tense.
Study Assignment:
READ further in Leviticus and memorize Romans 12:1 before
next Sunday.
Action Assignment:
Do SOMETHING you wouldn’t normally do, but for
the Love of God DO IT as a fragrant offering to Christ who gave himself
for you.
[i] Dr. Perry Buffington,
licensed psychologist, author, columnist; "Playing
Charades," Universal Press Syndicate (9-26-99)
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