Leviticus – Page 3 – Sovereign Grace Fellowship

Leviticus

Leviticus 9 “Preparing For God’s Presence”

March 8, 2020

Hard work is HARD! If we want things to go well we have to make preparations. Want to have a fun party, then you gotta plan. Want to do well in Algebra, then you’ve got to study? Want to get a degree in school, then you have to do what it takes to get that degree. Want to succeed in your plans, then you have to do more than daydream. You’ve got to roll up your sleeves and get to work. My kids have always heard from me, get your work done, then you can play. Well that’s not to say that this isn’t some deep fatherly advice. No, it’s just common sense. The farmer has to plan, make preparations for the soil, then plant, then harvest. It’s a lot of work. Anything that’s worth doing, is going to take preparations. These are earthly things we have ben considering, but how much more the things of God, spiritual growth? Can we expect to just show up and boom, God is just going to zap us with all sorts of profound knowledge? There’s the saying that says you get out of it what you put into it. And there’s some truth to that. God has designed us and desires for us to have relationship with Him. But we have to do things His way. We can’t just fly by the seat of our pants. We can’t just go making stuff up. You wouldn’t want to go see a doctor and not have put in the tremendous amount of study required so that they can treat your condition. You don’t want just anyone putting on a white coat, strolling into the room and making stuff up on the fly. Then why we we suppose that it would be OK for us to do the same when it comes to the things of God? When we meet with God, do we really understand what we are doing? Do we really grasp who it is whose presence we have come into? If we come to church, to presumably meet with God and worship him, and we return to our homes, unchanged, might it be that we have failed to adequately make preparations?

Leviticus

Leviticus 8 “Consecration and Ordination of Priests”

March 1, 2020

When you buy something new, it usually comes with an instruction manual. Although more often these days, you might find a quick setup guide and be directed to the manufacturer’s website to download an instruction manual. But the point is that when you get something new for the first time, you don’t know how to use it. maybe some things are simple plug and play devices, but you can still learn a lot of useful things and get the most out of it by referring to and reading the manual. Some things are so complicated that you run the risk of breaking the thing or not properly caring for it if you don’t read the manual. It might even save you some embarrassment. I recently saw a youtube video of a dad who sent his daughter into the auto parts store to buy some blinker fluid. And of course she returned to her dad laughing his head off. But if she had read her car manual, she would’ve known there wasn’t such a thing. But how much more should we be concerned when it comes to following the things of God? God had given us a manual for how we are to conduct our lives, and for how the church is to conduct its affairs. It’s called the Bible. And since He created us, and the church, we should follow his commands. He didn’t write suggested guidelines, as if he was giving us his personal recommendations. He has given us commandments and we are obliged to follow them. And so as we continue making our way through the book of Leviticus, God is revealing his Holy nature to us in how he has established for himself a chosen people, and following his commandments is an issue of life or death. And if it’s a matter of life and death, then we ought to pay close attention to his instructions, to his Word.

Leviticus

Leviticus 5:14-6:7; 7:1-10 “The Guilt Offerings”

February 23, 2020

Last week we talked about making unintentional mistakes. But some mistakes we make have an associated cost. I remember one fine summer evening in Houston, and I was weed trimming around the house and I ran my weed-eater and sliced right through one of the sprinkler system pipes. All of a sudden I have a water geyser shooting 20 feet up in the air and now I’m soaked, and I’m mad, and so then I had to call a plumber to fix my mistake. And of course you don’t do yard work in Houston during “normal” business hours, you do it in the evening when it cools off, so now I have to pay even more expensive “after hours” call. Some mistakes will affect your pocket book. Another time, I thought I would get ahead and do some preventative maintenance and change out the brakes on one of my cars. The front disc brakes went smooth, but the rears were drum brakes, and I was, needless to say, way in over my head. After managing to crack a brake line, spill out all the brake fluid on the driveway and royally messing up the brakes , I had to call a tow truck to tow it to a garage and have them fix the mess I had made. So much for prevention, so much for maintenance. It was just a flat out screw up that was expensive. Dave Ramsey likes to call these mistakes stupid tax. And over the years I have certainly paid my fair share of stupid tax. All of this to say that sometimes when we make mistakes, there is a price to be paid.

Leviticus

Luke 4-5:13; 6:24-30 “The Sin Offering”

February 16, 2020

People make mistakes. It’s part of what it means to be human. We have been moving into the age of artificial intelligence. Super computers, smart phones, smart homes, and smart cars. They are working on cars that drive themselves! Why? Because human drivers make mistakes. We make bad choices. People drive under the influence, drive too fast, drive too aggressive, drive too sleepy. You get the idea. Peple make mistakes and so if we can make computers that remember everything, can evaluate and make the best decision, well then the thinking goes that we can save humanity from ourselves. And yet for all the promise of technology, we still figure out a way to make a mess of our lives with technology too. Why? Because we are human, and we are fallen, and we live in a fallen world. Now I’m not anti-technology, I like my iPhone thank you very much. But we can’t put our hope, our faith in technology. Well if we did, we’d be making another mistake. When we make mistakes, something has to be done about it. There is someone we can turn to. And that is what we will find in our text this morning.

Leviticus

Leviticus 3; 7:11-36 “The Peace/Fellowship Offering”

February 9, 2020

Leviticus 3; 7:11-36 The Peace/Fellowship Offering

Leviticus

Leviticus 2, 6:14-23 “The Grain Offering”

January 26, 2020

Celebrating Thanksgiving in one of my favorite holidays. We have so much to be grateful to God. That we as a nation would mark out that date to celebrate is a good thing, a healthy thing. As we continue studying in Leviticus, looking at these Jewish offerings, I want you to be thinking, “what can I glean from God’s word that I can apply to my life.” Of course we don’t offer these gifts in exactly the same manner, but the principles undergirding these offerings are directly applicable in the New Covenant Christian life. And as you know, we Christians are to be thankful year round! So when we present our offerings that is certainly what motivates our giving. We give thankfully and cheerfully. We give because we love.

Leviticus

Leviticus 1:2-17; 6:8-13 “The Burnt Offering”

January 19, 2020

When I mention the word offerings, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Maybe you get a mental picture of your billfold, your purse, or checkbook. Maybe the image of an offering plate circulating around comes to mind. But I wonder if a different image comes to mind when I add the word “sacrifice.” A sacrificial offering. Maybe now the idea of animal sacrifice surfaces. We are, after all, undertaking the study of the Old Testament, and much is said on the topic of sacrifice. As we think about sacrificial offering the concepts of value and cost begin to emerge. There is a cost associated with offering and sacrifice. Ultimately sacrificial offering finds its fulfillment in the greatest and most perfect offering and sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the life of Jesus Christ. And as glorious as his sacrifice is, are we done with topics of offerings and sacrifice? Is there anything more for us to think about for the New Testament church, living under the New Covenant? When we take the Lord’s Supper together we are proclaiming the death of the Lord Jesus and He has charged us to do it in remembrance of Him. So I think the biblical understanding of sacrifice and offerings continue to be important. It is relevant for our lives today, and it is especially relevant for our worship. We do not want to worship in ignorance. As Jesus explained to the woman at the well. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:22–24) It is absolutely necessary that we get both aspects of this right for us to worship God. And recall that it didn’t take the new nation of Israel very long to mess up in worshiping a false god, going so far in fact to create the golden calf. Someone might think, “Yeah that was a pretty stupid idea.” But yet, how easily do we become distracted, giving other things in our lives more priority in our hearts, essentially worshiping some other thing, or idol, in our lives? We were created to worship. More accurately, we were created to worship our Creator! We will worship someone or something. We will adore the world, ourselves, or we can worship God and do so rightly, as He has prescribed. God chose the Levites to help his people worship properly. God created us, and He created us to worship him. He gets to say how that worship is to be conducted. And the key we must remember, is that worship does not begin with us. It is not about our felt needs, or otherwise. Worship begins with God. Once we understand our place, (He is God, we are not, He is the Creator, we are the creatures) then we will understand that we are fallen creatures and we are of unclean lips as Isaiah said. He is Holy, Holy, Holy and we are not. Worship is to be focused on God, not on man. If you come away from worship thinking what a great time you had, how funny the sermon was, how entertaining it was, then you’ve got it wrong. If you come away from worship service, with a greater appreciation for how glorious, how magnificent, how wonderful our God is, how Holy He is, then your worship has its proper focus. And if you are a child of God, then you need to pay attention to lest you worship in ignorance, and not in spirit and truth.

Leviticus

Leviticus 1:1-2 “Introduction: Why Study Leviticus?”

January 12, 2020

Why Leviticus? Did pastor spin the dial and Leviticus popped out? Well there are many reasons to think about for why we should undertake the study of the book of Leviticus. There are deep theological truths to be mined here, but not just so that we gain knowledge for our heads. There are truths here that will impact you, that will speak to how you are living, how you are conducting your lives as a child of God. And the book of Leviticus is also properly foundational to the understanding of the book of Hebrews which, Lord willing, is where in the not too terrible distant future we will be headed. So I hope that this is a book that you will not find to be boring, but instead will find to be enlightening to your heart and mind as you come to know your God more intimately through his Word.