Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
Guess we're good to get started, right guys?
Up top. All right, cool.
So yeah, I just...
You know, I think I know all of you guys, but I'm Danny and
my wife and I, we were missionaries in Turkey for the past couple of years and
I remember coming to...
When I first started coming to Lansdale Life was, it was like spring of
2016 and then
got involved with the church and then quit my job in June of
2016 and I got involved with full-time missions in
September of
2016 and then basically since then, it's been a little bit off and on coming back and forth a couple years here or there,
but basically since then my
full-time
occupation has been to
be involved with full-time missions up until last year in May. It's almost like one year
from last week. My wife and I moved back
after we found out she was pregnant with our second. So we have a little guy,
Judah, he's 19 months and a little girl, Maya,
she's seven months and we did the majority of our mission work in Turkey
in Istanbul, but my wife also spent time in Israel and
Lebanon and I spent some little bit of time in Iraq and Egypt. So
been around, been around the block in the Middle East a little bit,
but it's definitely good to be back and I haven't, having consistently been to
the Bible studies since
2017 when I was home during the summer, but it was a really amazing time there and it's
really sweet just to dig into the scripture
every week and
yeah, so
I guess you guys, we've been in Leviticus, right? Leviticus 27.
That's where we're at today. So we can just open up our Bibles
to Leviticus 27.
Everybody's favorite book, right?
Yeah.
So
what I'd like to do
tonight is
basically
yeah, I'd like to run through
some points in Leviticus 27, dig into the scripture a little bit in there,
but then
would like to
ask some questions. I mean, unless a bunch of other people come in
would love to just get your guys' opinion on how the book was,
what were some high points, low points? Most of you seem like you've been here
every week or try to get here every week. What are some things that
started to make sense to you in the book? What are some things that still don't make sense?
Do you like the book more now or less? Less so. I would like to have just a little
conversation after running through Leviticus 27 and then wherever that leads us
we could go in a couple different directions depending on how much time we have.
But I do have some thoughts in general just about
priesthood and what that means for us today and
drawing on some of the themes within the book of Leviticus from a higher level.
let's start out with
just a word of prayer.
So Lord, we just thank you for this time.
Tonight we pray that you would just come Holy Spirit. Just teach us. Be our teacher.
Lord, we just invite you to come and to give us revelation over these words and
to teach us something new about you, God. Something that we can use, something that we can put into practice and
something that we can just be inspired to love you and get to know you more.
Jesus' name, Amen.
Alright, so
Leviticus 27, it's kind of like the
the add-on to the rest of Leviticus
and to Leviticus 26. Some scholars think this was kind of tacked on at the end
because
you know if you look at verse 26 or sorry chapter 26 verse 45
the Lord is talking about
curses and what he's going to do if the Israelites, you know, are
disobedient
and then
to kind of not end on that sort of low note
there's a couple more instructions here that the Lord gives Moses that are included in this in this text.
So
yeah, this section is not the most
interesting right out of the gate, I'll say.
Leviticus is probably out of the gate on the surface. It's not one of the more interesting books, but
there's always there's always nuggets. There's always gold in the scripture and
Leviticus, my general opinion of the whole book is
it's such a powerful book when taken out at a high level.
Especially today because we're so far removed from the context of the Israelites at that time.
But these are direct commands like concrete commands for the Israelite
priest, the Levites, to do and looking at it from our perspective in our shoes, it's kind of like, alright, well
Jesus now has fulfilled the law and these things don't really really apply to me.
But when you zoom out and you think about
what is the role of the Levites
within Israel and what are they actually doing here within the country in the nation, the community of Israel?
It's a really powerful thing and that's kind of what I want to touch on a little bit with priesthood at the end.
But since we are going through chapter by chapter, I do want to dig into
chapter 27 a little bit before that. So
yeah, the chapter is basically a regulatory section governing the vows and
redemption of pledges to the temple. And as you guys know, like the temple was a central part of the nation of Israel's
community and culture and this is where they would come and meet with God and
where they would come and preserve and maintain their covenant with God.
And so the Lord has laid out many different regulations of how they are to approach him and how they are to maintain this
relationship with him. And this is a section
where it's dealing mainly with
mainly with
either cash or
in-kind, which just means like you can give a cash donation to the temple or tabernacle or the priests or you could give
in-kind, like if you donated your car to church as your tithe, that would be an in-kind
donation. And so what basically they're saying here is, you know, if you just we can just read a few verses
in chapter 2 or verse 2, it says,
And it kind of goes on and on. It talks about if they are under five years old,
it talks about verse 7, if they're over 60 years old, and if someone is too poor to pay the valuation,
then they shall be made to stand before the priest and the priest shall value him and the priest shall
value him according to what the Vower can offer. And then also there's
animals and
you can also
keep going. Verse
13,
you can dedicate your house as a pledge to the Lord.
And then in verse 15 it says, if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price.
So what's going on here? It's like basically
the temple needs
funds. The tabernacle needs funds. The priests are serving full-time and they
basically need money to
keep the sacrifices going. As you know, like there's a lot of sacrifices that need to happen and there's a lot of
things that the Lord is commanding the children of Israel to do. So the Lord is basically saying, okay,
you can either, you can give cash gifts or you can pledge yourself or
you know, or you could pledge your your goat or your your house.
But then the priest can kind of say, oh this house is worth like a hundred thousand dollars.
So instead of giving your house, you can give a hundred thousand dollars. And then they also, if you look at verse
15,
or what was it? 13, it says, if he wishes to redeem
the animal, he shall add a fifth to the valuation. So it's kind of like a little bit of accounting going on here. It's like
okay, this is the value of of your horse, but if you don't want to give your horse, then you will,
you can give cash, but if you're gonna give cash, then it's gonna be 20% more.
So it's kind of an interesting system laid out here and
you know, there's a couple points that I find interesting here.
Let's see. So the first the first point is that there's there's a price on the valuation.
And
so this I think you can look at this two ways. You could you could say
alright, if you want to if you want to give a donation to
like let's say you wanted to give the smallest donation possible. So you come to Pastor Chris and you say hey Pastor Chris
I have this car and
I'm gonna give you this car as my tithe.
But actually I'm not gonna give you the car.
I'm gonna give you the market value of the car. And so let's say it's a nice car. It's it's $40,000 car.
It's fairly new and
but you say actually no, the market value of this car is actually only five grand. So I'm just gonna give you five.
How's that? And then then Chris is like, uh, okay. Sure.
Like give whatever you want because Chris is you know, we don't have these rules.
But that's kind of like the one side is that there's sort of like a price floor for the valuation of
whatever you're pledging. And the other side is the priests are probably if you know
we would love to think that every priest is just a good honest guy,
but the priests are trying to squeeze as much out as they can.
Maybe. So to prevent that,
then there's a there's a price
tap on that too. Does that make sense? So like Chris couldn't come and say oh I actually
that car's worth a hundred thousand dollars. Now you need to pay me a hundred thousand dollars cash.
Does that make sense?
And so one thing,
so that that's one thing. It's kind of like a a
regulation around how much or how little
you have to value what you're putting up as as a pledge to the temple.
So I found that interesting.
Also one thing that really distinguished
the
Israelites from
people around them, especially the Canaanite populations
and the Mesopotamian populations that lived around them,
was, anybody want to guess what I'm gonna say? What is one thing that
distinguished them
from other people,
other communities or
nations or ethnic groups you could say, cultures.
That's not immediately obvious.
Human sacrifice. Okay, so basically
a
lot of cultures would, do you guys know what it means to put your, make your
son or daughter walk through the fire?
Yeah, pass through the fire. So there's a saying, it's not immediately
apparent to us, but
to the people in
the Old Testament, everyone would have understood that this phrase, to make your child
pass through the fire, means to basically offer them as a burnt offering
to a deity. And this was a common occurrence. It's actually,
this is a great apologetic
for why the Lord
had to
wipe these cultures out when the Israelites came through. You know, the people say, well,
how can you believe in the Old Testament God who just destroyed all those people who just judged all those,
all those innocent people living in the land or Mesopotamia? And it's like, all right,
yeah, like the Lord didn't just, you know, say, oh, I'm gonna, you know, get you out of there and destroy you for nothing.
Like these were cultures that were sacrificing their children wholesale.
They were making their kids pass through the fire and they would, they would literally whip their children and they would go through and they
would be a burnt offering to
Molech or whatever God that, a lot of those cultures had sort of the same
idea or framework for their paganism. It just, they had different names depending on their, the language they spoke.
But how do you, how do you take that
culture and say
all right, actually, no, we're gonna like have you do it the other way, right?
And the Jews actually, this is another point, the Jews believe,
this is not in the scripture, but the Jews believe that the Torah or the first five books
of the Old Testament,
that this covenant was offered to every people on earth. This is not scripture, but it's interesting that that they believe this
and that they,
the way the saying goes is that every culture around them at least had a reason as to why
they didn't want to accept this covenant with
Yahweh.
And so in, in their framework, which we don't see this in scripture, so don't take this as, as gospel,
but it does help to understand a little bit of, of the Jewish mindset behind this, that
the Lord is not just going in there and in a, in a moment he's saying
like just putting them all,
you know, on the, in the death penalty, so to speak, all these cultures, right?
You guys know what I'm talking about where the Lord came in and he cleaned out,
you know, they, Israelites waged war on other cultures,
and they basically took over the land.
And so one thing that the, that is forbidden within
the, the Bible obviously is child sacrifice.
Now we sit here and say, of course, child sacrifice.
Like any, no person can you find what, in our culture today,
whether they're a person who believes in the Bible or they have no belief at all,
they think, oh yeah, child sacrifice.
That's, that's good.
Or like, yeah, I think I'll do that.
Right?
Nobody thinks that because we've been so far Christianized.
People are living in a Christian culture,
benefiting from Christian morals and Christian order,
but they're not living out God's ways.
Does that make sense?
Some people, the way some people put it is we're living on borrowed capital or borrowed,
borrowed, yeah, borrowed capital, right?
We have the benefits of Christianity in our culture to a degree.
Some of them were, you know, can, we can see maybe starting to crumble,
but we are not fully as a culture.
We're not fully embracing the Lord in his ways.
Does that make sense?
But back to, back to my point there.
Did you guys ever, you guys know, or what is it?
Is it back here?
Let's see the section about
the, the firstborn is holy unto the Lord.
Is that, was that specific?
I wanted to touch on that, but was that specifically in here?
Because that relates to this.
Okay, I see
there it is in verse 26, but I don't see, I don't see the, okay.
I don't see the firstborn son.
So you guys know that verse in the Bible where he said that the Lord says
the firstborn is mine and the firstborn son must be redeemed.
You guys remember that?
So I, so this is this kind of same kind of idea as, as that,
like the first section within, how much do our people,
how much does it cost to redeem people?
So like, if I go and pledge myself, how I don't sacrifice myself to God,
because that's illegal, that God doesn't take pleasure in that,
but I pay a certain amount.
It's the same thing.
Like when Jewish people back in the day and some Orthodox Jews still do this,
the firstborn is holy unto the Lord.
And the firstborn male that comes out of the womb,
if it's a, if the first child that a couple has is a boy,
then they have to redeem that son.
And I think the price in the New, the Old Testament was five shekels
of silver to redeem.
And it's basically just a dedication with a money payment.
And the priest comes to the father and the boy and he says,
will you redeem your son for five shekels?
And the, the kind of, the idea is you either pay the five shekels
or the priest takes the boy because the boy is holy unto the Lord.
The Lord says, he is mine and he's holy and you shall redeem the firstborn.
And basically like, that's kind of the same idea here.
And even if the father says, well, no, I'm not going to pay the five shekels,
then the priest still doesn't take the boy in the, in the Jewish culture.
But the idea is that when you have a firstborn son,
when you have a firstborn of your flock or the first fruits of your harvest,
that belongs to the Lord.
And there's a monetary payment that goes along with that.
And that's kind of the same idea that's getting here.
That if, if you vow or you pledge yourself or your wife or your mom
or your grandma or your daughter or your son,
then this is the price that you pay to the temple.
Does that make sense?
That's a little bit.
When I first heard, I was kind of confused.
But that's, that's the way that, that's the way that I, I think it makes sense.
And so, yeah, the temple, the temple needs, the temple needs money to run.
And we, as the believers, you know, we are supposed to,
and the Lord commands us to pay tithes.
So what does the tithe mean that we have here in verse 32,
we see the same idea as a tithe.
As a tithe, and actually using that word,
it says, and every tithe of herds and flocks,
every tenth of every animal of all that passed into their herdsmen staff
shall be holy unto the Lord.
One shall not differentiate between good or bad,
neither shall he make a substitute for it,
and if he does not substitute for it,
then both it and the substitute shall be holy,
shall not be redeemed.
These are the commandments of the Lord.
And so, yeah, basically, the idea here is to pay your tithes
a tenth of all your firstfruits, if you, if we think,
okay, we're living in this time in Israel, right?
We're farmers, most of us, and tenth of our wheat,
tenth of our, of the flock that comes in every year,
we give that to the Lord.
And we don't pick, we don't pick the bad wheat, right?
We don't pick like the lamb that came out without a leg
and say, oh, Lord, you can have this.
And I think, on the one hand, it's a practical thing, right?
Giving of your resources and your money to the Lord,
now, we do it because things need to run, right?
If we bring it to modern day,
like we tithe because we want to keep the lights on,
we give because, you know, we want a pastor
to be able to have time and the ability to serve the body,
do the time that, and spend the time it requires
in order to pastor the flock, right?
So that's kind of the practical side.
But then there's another side to tithing,
which is really strange, which, and I say strange,
but it's really the spiritual part of it, right?
Where when we give of our resources to the Lord,
it's this trusting of Him that when we live
in a cash-based society, basically,
we don't barter or trade for stuff.
So, you know, almost all of it.
I don't think anybody here in this room or in our church
gives like, you know, wheat or of their service to the church.
Maybe some people do.
I know we do have some people with some good skills
that could give of their time and resources to the church.
But most people are writing checks
or you're paying your tithe with a credit card.
But when we do that, we open up our heart
to be reliant on God.
And we open up our spirit to connect and rely on Him.
Really tithing is such a spiritual thing.
Tithe just means a tenth.
And so giving 10%, you guys have probably do it
and probably heard it a hundred times.
But, you know, the weird thing about tithing is
it always stays the same.
A tenth is always a tenth.
And I remember just thinking when I was 22,
working in a bank and not making that much money.
And I was like, I don't really have much money.
Why am I going to give 10%?
Not that much anyway.
And I was just an entry level guy.
And I remember my bank account was just creeping up
and I had like $4,000 my bank account
after working at this bank a couple of months.
And I was like, wow, that's a lot of money for me.
I was living at home and so I didn't have that many expenses.
But I just had this weird feeling came over me
and I began to not want to give any money to the Lord
or I didn't want to tithe anything.
I didn't want to trust God with any of my money.
And in that moment, I knew, oh my gosh,
like I have to give, I have to develop giving
because right now I'm not making much money.
And it's the old saying, you've heard it a hundred times probably,
but if you don't give 10%, when you have a little,
you're probably not going to give 10% when you have a lot, right?
If you're making a million dollars a year,
that's $100,000 to give.
If you're making $40,000 a year, that's $4,000.
What do you think is easier?
And especially if you're a millionaire,
you're getting taxed at a much higher rate
and you probably have a much higher lifestyle.
Normally, tithing doesn't ever get easier.
It always stays the same.
And even right now, like my wife and I,
we're probably the tightest we've ever been.
We're living with my parents.
And like I said, we got back from Mission Field a year ago
and now I've started doing some work.
I'm doing accounting.
And we're giving, but it's hard.
It hurts.
You know?
And we're looking at maybe getting into a house
and it's like doing the budget.
It's like, well, I didn't say this to my wife,
but I'm thinking it.
It's like, well, if we didn't give,
we could definitely afford this way more comfortably, right?
If you think about it.
But then I just remember, you know,
there's so many promises and commands in the scripture
about giving and tithing.
And you know, really, it is true.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
That's, you know, that's Matthew five or six.
And then another one that has stuck with me for years
is I think it's second Corinthians eight
where he who sows abundantly will reap abundantly.
And during our time, it's so weird for us right now,
finances, because when we were serving as missionaries,
you'd think that'd be harder to believe God for money, right?
Because we don't have a salary.
We're just people give to us, you know, monthly
or just, you know, one time donations.
But I just had so much faith to believe God
that he would provide for me and for my family on the field.
And it was just like I got to that place
where I was just full of faith for that.
And then moving back home now,
now we have two little kids and that might be part of it.
But moving back home now, it's like, oh my gosh,
I feel like I'm struggling to trust God to provide
for me, just working, you know, a regular nine to five.
And, you know, I'm getting better.
I feel like the Lord has strengthened me
and I've been talking through it,
but it's been this a different working
a different muscle for me.
You know what I mean?
And yeah, so it's just never, if you don't,
if you don't just say, hey, I'm going to give
and you just budget for it,
it's really hard to like adjust later.
So anyway, yeah,
yeah, no, for sure.
Yes, we are, you know, we are continuing to do it
and to give, but I just want to, you know,
encourage everybody as well that, yeah,
just to give, even when it hurts, right?
So yeah, I think that's kind of all I wanted to hit on.
Wasn't really planning to go in that direction,
but the Lord, you know, we believe that he's leading us.
And yeah, so I would just like to ask you guys
that now as Leviticus is wrapping up,
like what were some, and maybe this won't go that far,
but what were some things that you,
like I guess, what is the one thing
you took out of this book
that you feel like you didn't have
when you first started going through it?
Anything?
I mean, I, the, and if you want to say something,
just jump in, go for it.
I'll let you guys think, just a second.
But you know, Leviticus is not everybody's go-to, right?
And I think going through Leviticus verse by verse,
it's amazing that when you take the time to read it
and you take the time to study it,
how actually much the Lord teaches you through this book.
And I think it's an awesome book.
Yeah, if anybody else has something,
but I did have some one other thing
I would like to touch on if we have time,
something that I think will bless all of us.
But if anyone wants to say, you know,
point they took away from the book
or something that shifted their perspective.
Yeah, one thing that when you study the ancient Near East,
you see that many of the things
that the Israelites were commanded to do
and many of the laws and the traditions
and even if when you look through Leviticus,
the different rituals and the cleanliness regulations,
they were fairly similar
to what other cultures were doing that were pagan.
But there were clear, distinct lines
and very clear differences that were communicated
within the Israelite tradition
and obviously like who Yahweh is.
And well, you know, I don't want to say,
feels weird to say was,
but who he is, right?
And those cultural things
like the rituals and the cleanliness
and like just look at our,
look at your feet, right?
Is anybody wearing socks?
No, we're all wearing shoes, right?
So why are we wearing shoes?
Right, because you would never approach,
in our culture, it's fine to wear shoes, right?
But where I came from, from Turkey,
you would never wear your shoes
in their house of worship in a mosque, right?
Why? Because it's communicating something.
It communicates reverence.
Now we don't, now we're all reverent to God, right?
Like we, none of us walked in here today
and said, I'm going to wear my shoes
because I'm in defiance to God, right?
But we have our shoes on.
So what's going on here?
It's a cultural, it's a cultural thing
to approach God with our shoes on
because it, like we don't live, number one,
in a culture that has a lot of dust or mud, right?
If we were just tracking tons of mud in here,
we'd probably take our shoes off
or we'd figure out a way to keep it clean, right?
But no, we get, a lot of us,
we go out our door, get in our car,
which is in our garage, we drive here,
walk across the street
and our shoes are pretty clean, right?
But, and people have different preferences
about their house and keeping shoes on.
But anyway, shoes is kind of a weird example,
but a lot of the rituals
and a lot of the temple worship and practice
makes a ton of sense to people in the ancient Near East.
For instance, when people in the ancient Near East
read Genesis 1 and 2 and 3,
they read it in a way that we probably don't read it.
And so, what do you think people
in the ancient Near East and Mesopotamia back in that time
would immediately recognize in Genesis 1, 2, and 3?
Any thoughts?
Anyone get where I'm going with this?
Okay, maybe not.
But they would read it as a temple.
That the Garden of Eden is actually a temple.
So a lot of temples in the Near East, in Egypt,
in Mesopotamia, in Assyria,
they would have gardens,
they would have pools of water,
they would have streams flowing in and out.
And then, they would have like an inner chamber
where the presence of that deity
that they worship would come,
rest, and dwell.
And so, when you read the book of Genesis
chapters 1, 2, and 3,
with someone who has that perspective
of the ancient Near East,
you begin to see,
oh, this is the place where God dwells,
where this Hebrew God dwells,
where this Yahweh dwells.
And then, you begin to see that God is walking
with Adam and Eve.
And he's dwelling with them, essentially, right?
And so then, when the fall happens,
and they're banished from the garden,
a lot of us think,
well, now they don't get to be in paradise.
They don't get to live in this amazing environment.
But people in the ancient Near East
would immediately think,
and maybe some of us think this too,
but we are banished from God's presence.
That actually, the temple,
we are no longer able to approach
the place where God dwells.
That was the real punishment
for violating God's commands within Eden.
Okay, so this is the first setting
in the Bible where God is saying,
I want to dwell with man,
and I have a place,
I have a house where I rest,
and that house is Eden.
And then, you keep going,
Adam and Eve get exiled, if you will,
from Eden,
and we come through Abraham,
or Noah, Abraham,
come all the way to Moses.
And God speaks to Moses,
and he says,
I want you to lead my people
out of slavery,
and out of exile,
and I want you to bring them
to a promised land.
And then he says,
in Exodus,
I think it's chapter 29,
where he says,
I will dwell among the Israelites.
So now you see,
his original intent
was Eden, to dwell with people,
and now he's saying,
I want to dwell with you
among this nation called Israel,
and I want to dwell with you.
And I want you,
this is Exodus 19,
he says, I want you to be
a royal priesthood.
And Leviticus is all about
being a priest.
And every one of us,
as a believer and follower of Christ,
it's also called to be a priest.
And so what does a priest do?
A priest maintains
the place where God dwells.
And the Lord,
given the time,
and this is like a deep theological discussion,
and you could go different ways with this,
but the Lord,
and it's kind of your point Monday,
like why all the regulations,
but the Lord laid out
to Israel and to Moses,
this is the way
you will approach
and maintain my temple.
And this is the way you will support it,
and this is the way
that I'm choosing to dwell among you,
and to be with you as a family,
because the Lord's original intent
always was to dwell
and have fellowship with us.
But you know,
humans always keep
running away from God,
and we always need to be
reconciled back by His grace.
And so the temple,
being a priest,
is all about maintaining that presence.
Some scholars say that the menorah,
you guys know the menorah,
that's the Jewish lamp
they light on Hanukkah,
that the menorah
actually within the temple
as it rests there
in the Holy of Holies,
that symbolizes the tree of life
in the garden.
And that's where you go
to meet with God
and live forever.
And so we have Eden,
we have the temple,
and in this age,
right,
we are the temple
of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
We are the temple.
After Jesus came,
died, resurrected,
1 Corinthians 6 says,
your body is a temple.
The Spirit is in you
and is a gift from God.
Right?
So now we are the temple.
The temple went from Eden
to a tabernacle.
It was like a tent, right?
That they gave to Moses.
Then David wanted to build the Lord
at a real brick and mortar temple
and the Lord was touched by that.
So then we had the temple in Jerusalem
for a long time.
Then it got knocked down,
I got rebuilt and knocked down.
Now we don't have a temple there, really.
But after Christ died and resurrected,
now we are the temple.
We are the priests.
And if you look at
the book of Revelation,
the book of Revelation
also echoes this image.
And chapter 20 says
that you will reign,
blessed and holy is he
who shares in the first resurrection,
for he will reign as a priest
and a king throughout the millennium.
And so forever,
our destiny, our identity
is to reign as priests with God,
maintaining the fire.
One of the priest's jobs
was to maintain the fire.
I think Jesse talked about this
a couple weeks ago
of maintaining that fire, the lamp.
May the fire never go out.
And that fire, what does it symbolize?
It symbolizes our nearness
and the eternal communion
that we have with God.
And that will go on forever and ever.
And so I just love the theme
of priesthood because
it runs throughout the whole scripture.
It starts in Eden
and it runs all the way through
the Torah, the first five books.
And then it runs all the way to Christ.
And he is our high priest
and we follow him.
And then it runs all the way
through eternity.
And for all of eternity,
we will be a priest and a king
unto our Lord God.
And when you put
the book of Leviticus
in this context,
the book of Leviticus
specifically is teaching
the people of Israel
how they can approach God
and maintain this agreement
or covenant with him.
That is the closest thing
we have to it on earth
is marriage.
Of that marriage contract,
covenant, we could say,
contract might be a better word,
but it's a contract
of being in union with God.
And priests, we are to maintain
that union with God.
We are to keep that fire burning.
That's part of our role.
And I just love that
about the book of Leviticus
and thinking about everything
that the book of Leviticus
means for us today
in terms of the first seven chapters,
the sacrifices.
Are we being a living sacrifice
to the Lord?
It says, and there are many times,
it's a pleasing aroma.
The Lord gets pleasure
from our sacrifice,
from our communion with him, right?
This echoes Romans 12
where it's saying
we are a living sacrifice
to the Lord.
And he gets pleasure from it.
I love the way that Leviticus
puts it that
he smells the sacrifice
of the burnt animal there
and it's a pleasing aroma to him.
He's not actually
probably doing that,
but he gets pleasure from it
that we can actually
give the Lord pleasure.
He enjoys our fellowship.
That's the craziest thing to me
is that the Lord enjoys us.
You know, it's like
we mainly just want stuff from God.
Like, Lord, give me this.
Give me this.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah.
Bye.
No, you're like,
we're just kids, right?
Like, my kids are just like,
I want food.
It's like, you know,
they don't really say thanks yet.
They're just going, right?
But the Lord loves us so much
like our kids.
Like, we love our kids.
Even though we don't get a whole lot of,
at this point,
like we don't get a whole lot of like,
hey, dad, thanks.
It's just really appreciate
you like waking up
and coming in here at like 3 a.m.
and, you know,
just like holding me for like,
you know, half hour, right?
It's like, we don't get that,
but we get pleasure from parenting
and just want to encourage you.
That's basically all I have for today,
but just encourage you
if you feel like
you maybe don't have as much tenderness
or hunger for God
or passion for the Lord
as you maybe would like in your life,
remember how much he desires you,
how passionate he is
about having a relationship with you.
And like Gail was saying,
it's not anything that we muster up.
Even this might be a little bit mind blowing
or maybe you've never heard this before,
but I'm just going to say it anyway.
The covenants that God made with Israel
were also based on grace.
They were also based on atonement.
And there were measures and means
that the people would get saved
and be in covenant with God by his grace.
It wasn't like nobody was perfect
in fulfilling the law.
Like the law is basically designed
so that you have a fault, right?
And you're like, okay,
I can't do it on my own.
You come and you present yourself
to God and today it's the same way.
We are saved by grace,
not under ourselves.
But if we give him our faith,
we believe in him
and we don't just do it with our mouth,
but we actually live it with our life
and they align.
Because that's true for
that's true.
Salvation is letting your words
and your life come into submission
under the Lord
and letting him purify you
and teaching you to be holy.
And we don't have to do it
on our own strength.
We do it by relying on him.
And we get to be priests
and we get to maintain the fire.
And so, yeah, I would just encourage us.
I'm encouraged just thinking about this
that the Lord is so desirous
to dwell with us and live with us
that this has been mainly
what he's been trying to do since Eden.
He's been trying to work this out
and it's this amazing story.
And right now we're in such
an exciting time with it
because now it's not mainly concentrated
on only Israel,
but it's to go out to all the nations
and all the tribes and tongues in the world.
And even you can make arguments
that when it was given to Israel
there was some type of evangelism
or proclaiming to the nation going on.
But it's kind of all the little things
I'm kind of throwing out here
is not really in the scope
of this conversation,
but I'd love to just ramble.
So I'll wrap it up.
But yeah, anyway,
does anyone have any thoughts on that
or does anybody want to add anything?
Maybe you thought of a thing
that you really learned about Leviticus
or any other kind of questions
or stuff that you'd have.
But that's basically all I have.
Maybe you guys think
you want to just add anything
and then we could wrap up.
Or do you guys want to break
into small groups
and just talk more about it?
I know Walt, you like small groups, right?
Should we do that?
Could just break up into people.
People probably will talk more, right?
In the small.
Yeah, it is a small group, so.
All right, we'll just do that then.
We could just turn this off.
Lord, we thank you for this time.
We thank you, God,
you just desire fellowship with us
and being priests
that we would be priests to you, Lord.
Let us follow your example,
Jesus of being a high priest, Lord.
And we just desire fellowship with you.
And thank you for this amazing book,
Leviticus, that's not easy to get into
right off the surface,
but it has so much treasure.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His word.
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Be blessed and have a great day!