[0:00] Just listen to the Word of God, Leviticus 6, starting in verse 8. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law for the burnt offering. The burnt offering itself shall remain on the hearth, on the altar, all night until the morning.
[0:17] And the fire on the altar is to be kept burning on it. The priest is to put on his linen robe, and he shall put on undergarments next to his flesh. And he shall take up the ashes to which the fire reduces the burnt offering on the altar, and place them beside the altar.
[0:31] Then he shall take off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning.
[0:45] And he shall lay out the burnt offering on it, and offer up and smoke the fat portions of the peace offerings on it. Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar. It is not to go out.
[0:57] Now this is the law of the grain offering. The sons of Aaron shall present it before the Lord in front of the altar. Then one of them shall lift up from it a handful of the fine flour of the grain offering, with its oil and all the incense that is on the grain offering.
[1:12] And he shall offer it up in smoke on the altar, a soothing aroma, as a memorial portion or memorial offering to the Lord. What is left of it, Aaron and his sons, are to eat. It shall be eaten as unleavened cakes in a holy place.
[1:25] They are to eat it in the inner court of the tent of meeting. It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their share for my offerings by fire. It is a most holy thing, like the sin offering and the guilt offering.
[1:36] Every male among the sons of Aaron may eat it. It is a permanent ordinance throughout your generations from the offerings by fire to the Lord. Whoever touches them will become consecrated.
[1:46] Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, This is the offering which Aaron and his sons are to present to the Lord on the day when he is anointed. The tenth of an ephah of fine flour is a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening.
[1:59] It shall be prepared with oil on a griddle. When it is well stirred, you shall bring it. You shall present the grain offering in baked pieces as a soothing aroma to the Lord. The anointed priest who will be in his place among his sons shall offer it.
[2:12] By permanent ordinance, it shall be entirely offered up in smoke to the Lord. So every grain offering of the priest shall be burned entirely. It shall not be eaten. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering.
[2:28] In the place where the burnt offering is slain, the sin offering shall be slain before the Lord. It is most holy. The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it. It shall be eaten in a holy place in the court of the tent of meeting.
[2:42] Anyone who touches its flesh will become consecrated. And when any of its blood splashes on a garment in a holy place, you shall wash what was splashed on. Also the earthenware vessel in which it was boiled shall be broken.
[2:56] If it is boiled in a bronze vessel, then it shall be scoured and rinsed with water. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It is most holy. But no sin offering of which any of the blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement and the holy place shall be eaten.
[3:09] It shall be burned with fire. Chapter 7. Now this is the law of the guilt offering. It is most holy in the place where they slay the burnt offering. They are to slay the guilt offering.
[3:19] And he shall sprinkle his blood around on the altar. Then he shall offer from it all the fat, the fat tail, and the fat that covers the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver he shall remove with the kidneys.
[3:33] The priest shall offer them up in smoke on the altar as an offering by fire to the Lord. It is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in the holy place. It is most holy.
[3:44] The guilt offering is like the sin offering. There is one law for them. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. Also the priest who presents any man's burnt offering, the priest shall have for himself for the skin of the burnt offering which he has presented.
[3:57] Likewise, every grain offering that is baked in the oven and everything prepared in a pan or on a griddle shall belong to the priest who presents it. Every grain offering mixed with oil or dry shall belong to all the sons of Aaron, to all alike.
[4:11] Now this is the law of the sacrifice of the peace offerings which he shall present to the Lord. If he offers it by way of thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil and unleavened wafers spread with oil and cakes of well-stirred fine flour mixed with oil.
[4:27] With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving, he shall present his offerings with cake of unleavened bread. Of this he shall present one of every offering as of contribution to the Lord.
[4:39] It shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offerings. Now as for the flesh of the sacrifice of his thanksgiving peace offerings, it shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it over until morning.
[4:51] But if the sacrifice of his offering is a votive or a free will offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice and on the next day when it is left, what is left of it may be eaten.
[5:03] But what is left over from the flesh to the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned with fire. So if any of the flesh to the sacrifice of his peace offerings should ever be eaten on the third day, he who offers it will not be accepted and it will not be reckoned to his benefit.
[5:17] It shall be an offensive thing and the person who eats of it will bear his own iniquity. Verse 19. Also the flesh that touches anything unclean shall not be eaten. It shall be burned with fire.
[5:28] As for other flesh, anyone who is clean may eat such flesh. But the person who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which belong to the Lord in his uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from his people.
[5:42] When anyone touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness or an animal or an unclean animal or any unclean detestable thing, it eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offerings which belong to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from his people.
[5:56] Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the sons of Israel saying, You shall not eat any fat from an ox or a sheep or a goat. Also the fat of an animal which dies and the fat of an animal torn by a beast may be put to any other use, but you must certainly not eat it.
[6:13] For whoever eats of the fat of the animal from which an offering by fire is offered to the Lord, even the person who eats shall be cut off from his people. You are not to eat any blood, either of bird or animal, in any of your dwellings.
[6:25] Any person who eats blood, even that person shall be cut off from his people. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the sons of Israel saying, He who offers the sacrifice of his peace offering to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of the peace offerings.
[6:39] His own hands are to bring his offerings by fire to the Lord. He shall bring the fat with the breast that the breast may be presented as a way of offering before the Lord. The priest shall offer up the fat and smoke on the altar, but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons.
[6:54] You should give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifices of your peace offerings. The one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat, the right thigh shall be his as his portion.
[7:07] For I have taken the breast of the way of offering on the thigh of the contribution from the sons of Israel from the sacrifices of their peace offerings and given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as their due forever from the sons of Israel.
[7:20] This is that which is consecrated to Aaron and that which is consecrated to his sons from the offerings by fire to the Lord in that day when he presents them to serve as priests as the Lord. These the Lord had commanded to be given them from the sons of Israel in the day he anointed them.
[7:38] It is their due forever throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, and the ordination offering and the sacrifice of peace offerings which the Lord commanded Moses at Mount Sinai in the day he commanded the sons of Israel to present their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai.
[7:59] I appreciate your patience as I read through that. You may see that a lot of this is repetitive and we ask ourselves why in the world God would command Moses to write these things again.
[8:11] Why would he have to repeat them? Some believe historically that this portion of scripture was really the regulations for the priest that what God commanded in Leviticus 1 through 5 was an instruction to the people that if you want to worship me or if you desire to come before me these are the manners in which you can come before me.
[8:30] But this is how it has to be presented. We see in Leviticus 6 verse 8 through Leviticus 7 verse 38 the way that it had to be presented by the priest.
[8:42] We see the invitation in chapters 1 through 5 the first part of 6 actually in which God says you can bring this and then a transition into this is what the priest must do with this.
[8:54] Now as we read these things we do not want to be caught in a legalistic manner. It is a temptation to read through especially portions of the Old Testament and say man I am really messing up and I am doing this and I am doing that and I should not do this and I should not do that but we must be very careful because we need to approach this text and realize that what God is not doing is in Leviticus he is not showing the people how to be accepted by him.
[9:19] Now that is important because he does not start out with saying these are the things you must do to be saved. Rather these are things that you do because you are what we would call in our terminology saved.
[9:33] They are in a covenant relationship. So being in a covenant relationship with God drastically affects the way they live. We call that worship. This is how God is prescribing his people to worship him.
[9:48] He has given them five sacrifices for five different reasons. A lot of them very similar as they overlap one another that they could worship him with thanksgiving.
[9:59] They can worship him with praise. They could worship him with peace. They could worship him in petitioning to be redeemed or to be forgiven for faults or sins and all these things they could have this restorative quality about them.
[10:12] But each one of these offerings are prescribed as a result of the relationship that they were already in with God. The Lord God Almighty was already in their midst.
[10:24] He was in the tabernacle speaking forth from the tabernacle. So what I want you to see tonight is God ordained worship. One thing that we get from the book of Leviticus and all of its details and all of its minutia and all of the things that kind of try us so much is that this is God speaking to his people.
[10:46] And since God is speaking to his people and declaring these things these are things which God deems important. Sacrificial worship wasn't something new to the people in this time.
[10:58] As a matter of fact history shows us that a number of people in other nations the ancient near eastern people would worship with a sacrificial system.
[11:10] The difference is that God's prescribed order of worship was very detailed. Everything had a reason. Everything had a purpose. Everything had an order about it.
[11:21] And what we see is that God is concerned about how we worship. In the details let us not get caught up in what they were offering how they offered it.
[11:32] Let us get caught up in the fact that God cared how they approached him. That man couldn't just approach him any way they so desired. That man had no right running into the tabernacle.
[11:46] Well God is over here so I'm going to go into this tabernacle. Not even the priest or the high priest could approach the tabernacle in any way he so desired. God says this is how you must come.
[12:00] Now in the Old Testament this order of things is given to us by way of sacrifices and we have seen at least hopefully and I know it's been some time since we've been into it but the sacrifices every one of them find their fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
[12:15] Every sacrifice points to a completed work of Christ. That's why if I cut into an animal and I eat a portion of the fat of the animal it's not like I am sinning because I'm not under this Old Testament sacrificial system.
[12:29] This was not a prescribed order for me. I'm not a Jewish person living in Judaistic faith living out in a very detailed order. I have found my fulfillment of these things in Christ.
[12:43] Christ has completed the law. Christ has fulfilled the law to the uttermost. So each of these are pointing to the person of Christ. But God is very detailed in how people could approach him which shows us you don't run into God's presence any way you so desire.
[13:00] There's only one way, one very particular way to come into the presence of God and that is through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
[13:13] Jesus says I am the door. All who come to the Father have to come through me, right? If you don't come through me, you're not coming the right way. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father lest he come through me.
[13:24] Old Testament time, you didn't approach God unless you went in this manner and you went in this way. God cared about the way that people worship him. God didn't just say, oh, I just want somebody to worship me, worship me however you so desire.
[13:37] God says, you were created to worship me, now I'm going to show you how you can worship me. Now, we're not talking about mannerisms and customs and things like that. We're not talking about music preferences in today's churches and we're not talking about the way like, oh, well, some people think if you make any hand gestures in worship, then that's wrong.
[13:55] Some things, you can throw some hands up in the air, that's okay. We're not talking about anything like that. We're talking about accepted worship before God. God ordained worship.
[14:06] Jesus says, those that worship in spirit and in truth, right? That it is a spiritual connection but it is also a true connection that we find truth and that God has called us in a very particular fashion.
[14:20] I want you to see three truths from this extended passage that are aspects of God ordained worship. Why God has prescribed these truths, why God wanted these details here, and three things we can take away from this which is true worship.
[14:35] Number one, we see that worship is to be a reminder of his presence. Worship is to be a reminder of his presence.
[14:47] It says in chapter six, very quickly in a passage in which we said, so you see verses 12 and 13, the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it.
[14:57] It shall not go out, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall lay out the offering, or the burnt offering on it, and offer it up in smoke. The fat portions of the peace offering on it.
[15:08] The fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar. It is not to go out. So we see here that God says, when you worship me, you will be reminded of my presence.
[15:21] There was another portion of the tabernacle which would remind the presence, or was a representation of the presence of God. Anybody remember what that was? It was the golden lampstand, right? The golden lampstand, the light was never be put out of the golden lampstand.
[15:35] The light was to continuously be burning, but do you remember where the golden lampstand was? If you're looking at the tabernacle, the tabernacle is this big walled-off curtain, right?
[15:45] So it's got this curtain going around it that is this huge wall. As soon as you look into the door, you see the altar. The altar is right there. It's the first thing you see.
[15:56] You had the altar, and the bronze laver, and then the altar of incense, and then there was this tent inside this walled-off structure, and inside that tent was the table of the show bread, and the candle, the golden lampstand, and then there was a veil, and inside that veil, there's the Ark of the Covenant, and what we call the Holy of Holies, which means the common man would never see the candle.
[16:23] He may see the light glowing from the candle, but he would never see the candle because only the priest could go into the, what we call the holy. He could go inside the curtain, but for every other individual, the only representation of the presence of God, other than the tabernacle, was the fire that was continually burning on the altar, and the fire was never to go out.
[16:48] As a matter of fact, as the smoke ascended from the fire, the people would continually be reminded of an acceptable form of worship, that God would show them that I am always available, the fact that the fire was never put out shows us that there was never this time constraint that if you sinned and if you've fallen, then you need to come between this time and this time, and God will accept your offerings.
[17:08] These are the times which we are taking your prescribed offerings, and maybe you want to celebrate and rejoice in the presence of God. Maybe you want to offer just this offering of Thanksgiving. Well, we'll be taking those offerings between 8 and 2.
[17:19] That's not the way it was. Or maybe you sinned, or maybe you messed up, wait until the morning and then you can come and you can bring that sacrifice and we'll be okay. No, the fact that the fire was continuously burning was an ever present reminder that God was there and God was always willing and was always available for us to make atonement, or for man to make atonement for his failures or to approach him in an acceptable form of worship.
[17:45] The fire was always burning and it was showing that God was present. He was present to receive worship, he was present to extend forgiveness, he was present to repair broken relationships, he was present to bring fellowship among, because the peace offering really was a fellowship meal, right?
[18:03] We have peace with God. That probably would have been my favorite offering. If there was one thing that I said, man, I wish that I lived in that sacrificial system, the peace offering was the offering that I would bring to the altar and I would bring people with me and after it was cooked we would take it off and we would eat it together.
[18:23] It's a fellowship around the offering and God says, I'm always here to restore fellowship, not only with you and I but with one another. I'm always here to offer forgiveness and redemption, I'm always here to forgive you for your sins.
[18:35] Worship is this continual reminder of the presence of God. And not only that he was there present extending grace and mercy, but he was there present extending his work and his power.
[18:51] Anybody remember, we haven't got there yet, it's in Leviticus 9 verse 24, who lit the first fire on the altar? Who lit the first fire? Leviticus 9 is a pretty cool passage because Leviticus 9 you have Aaron and his sons preparing this sacrifice.
[19:06] These God ordained sacrifices and they lay it out in order and they have it already and they're sitting there and you're like, okay, now we got it. Everything's built, right? The tabernacle's constructed, everything's there and they lay it out on the altar and they're ready.
[19:19] Now, who lit it? Because that's important, right? Who did it first? Who did it? What is so cool is that they built it and fire fell from heaven. God lit the first fire on the altar.
[19:30] The first fire built on the bronze altar, which was to be a place of worship and acceptance and a place of reconciliation, it was God initiated. So when they looked and they saw the fire burning, God's work and his grace and his mercy and his power is still available today.
[19:47] It's there when I need it. It never goes out. It's always present. Friend, listen to me. This does not point to Christ. Acceptable worship is this. It is worship that realizes he is present, he is able and willing to forgive, he is powerful enough to redeem, he is always working and always moving in our midst.
[20:09] Acceptable worship is a worship that remembers and reminds one another of his presence. If we worship together and we are not reminded of the presence of God Almighty and we are not reminded of the presence of the Savior who paid the price and we are not reminded of the moving of the Holy Spirit, then I will say we have not worshiped.
[20:32] Because God ordained acceptable worship is a worship that reminds us that he is present. We may have a good meeting, but we will not have worship unless we leave being reminded he is here and he is available and he is willing.
[20:50] Mercy is real, grace is offered, his power is present and he is always there. He is not on the time frame, he is not constrained to our orders of worship, he is not constrained to our times of meeting, he is present and that is what true worship is.
[21:09] It is a reminder of his presence. Number two, not only is it a reminder of his presence, it is a recognition of his provisions. It is a recognition of his provisions. True worship, sincere worship, is a recognition that God is the great provider, right?
[21:26] That he is the one who sustains, he is the one who gives. Now think about it, we are thinking in Old Testament times. There are some pretty wealthy people in the Bible by the way, you ever notice that? I mean there are some people who had some means about them.
[21:37] God is not like saying well all my people are going to be broke and all my people are not going to have anything. I mean that is just not the way it operates. We see in scripture that God blesses his people. We are not talking about a prosperity gospel.
[21:49] We are not talking about that. We are just talking about that God is faithful, right? That God provides. There are two classes of people, really one class, but we would give them two names of people who are totally abandoned to God.
[22:03] I mean their life is given totally over. Old Testament, we are just talking about Old Testament time, right? They have surrendered their life mainly because they are born into it, right? But they have surrendered their life and their dependency upon God.
[22:17] We have the priests and the Levites. Aaron and his sons, they were to be in the temple, they were to be in the tabernacle, they were not to do anything else. They were not to own herds, they were not to plant gardens, they were totally given to the service of God.
[22:31] The Levites, we see this all throughout scripture and it is a beautiful picture, especially in Old Testament. The Levites had no inheritance in the land. When they came into the promised land, I mean they didn't even get in land to anywhere to plant a garden, right?
[22:42] They didn't own anything. Now I know that there was land around the city that was given for the Levites' use. I understand that and there's things of that nature and they had cities and things of that nature, but they had no inheritance.
[22:53] They had nothing that they could say that is mine. Why? Because God says, for the Lord their God is their inheritance. What we find with the Levites and with the priests is that these were people, especially in the Old Testament, who were totally abandoned to depending upon God.
[23:10] Now this is important. Why? Because Jesus Christ says, follow me. That's his call. It wasn't just a call to 12, by the way. That's a call to all. That's right. That's just give yourself to me.
[23:21] Jesus Christ says, I would rather you be cold or hot. I don't want you lukewarm. What he is looking for is people who would abandon their lives and abandon themselves and give themselves completely to him.
[23:33] You said, does that mean I have to leave my job? And does that mean I can't do this? Does that mean I can't prosper? And my answer to that question is, I don't know. You said, what do you mean I don't know? I'm not your Lord and master, but you go before him and you sacrificially surrender yourself before him and he will tell you what you need to do.
[23:51] The question is not whether he's asking you to do it. The question is whether or not you're willing for him to command you to do it. Will you abandon yourself completely, 100%, for the sake of the Lord your God almighty?
[24:09] You say, well, what does that look like? Well, it looks good in the Old Testament because God is a great provider. You see this. We see this even in the sacrifices, right?
[24:20] These sacrifices that were brought to the temple or to the tabernacle at this point, not yet in the temple, but these sacrifices that are brought to the tabernacle. In these sacrifices, God made provisions for Aaron and his sons and the priests.
[24:35] Some people say, well, they didn't have a well-balanced diet. All they ate was red meat. They had red meat and carbohydrates, right? They had grain and meat. It was not too bad of a diet at times.
[24:46] They had plenty of bread, unleavened bread there, so it was fresh bread. They had to eat it fresh. It was baked fresh. It could have been on the griddle or it could have been in the oven. They had all the meat that they wanted to eat, but they probably supplemented it with vegetables as well.
[24:57] But what we see here is that God provides for his people. And every time the people worshiped, there was a reminder that he was providing through this worship.
[25:09] God didn't need the food. Many of the ancient Near Eastern people would worship the Lord their God and they would, or the Lord their God with a lowercase g, not the capital G, right? Lowercase L, lowercase g.
[25:20] Their Lord and God, something that they had fashioned and created. And they would bring this food and they would lay it before this God that they had created. And their thought was is their God was hungry. And to appease the hunger of their God, they would have to feed this God and they would present food before this God.
[25:35] It still goes on, by the way, all over the world. We want to appease God. We don't want him to be mad at us. So we want to present our food and lay it out before him and allow him to eat and consume. God's not like that.
[25:46] God in the Bible, the true God, doesn't need to be fed. He doesn't need anything that we want to give him. We're not trying to appease him, right? He's commanded. Do you see most of what is brought to him?
[25:57] Most of the grain offering, especially, except for a handful, goes to provide for the priest. Over and over, and all these sacrifices, he can eat it. It is the priest's portion.
[26:08] It is this one's portion. The one who offers the sin offering shall eat of the sin offering. The skin shall be his. I mean, God just provides over and over and over again. What I see in this truth is that those who completely abandon themselves to the Lord God find a great provider in the Lord God.
[26:24] And as they worship him and as they follow this prescribed worship, he more than provides for them. As a matter of fact, it says that they and all their household can eat from it and every male can eat from it.
[26:34] You can sit down and have a feast. Why? Because God is a great provider. And true worship, true worship recognizes the fact that he is a provider.
[26:48] Maybe he hasn't called you to leave your place of work or maybe he hasn't called you to leave your place of residence. But the reality is, is he is still a great provider. And true worship says, yes, God, you've given me this day.
[27:03] You've given me everything. And it recognizes the fact he is provider. So God ordained worship reminds us that he is present.
[27:13] It recognizes that he provides. And number three, and probably the hardest one, something that the book of Leviticus focuses so much on, number three, true worship realizes the weight of our practices.
[27:26] True worship realizes the weight of our practices. What we do matters. One thing that Leviticus deals a lot with, and especially when we get to the middle section of it, and things that we'll probably say, well, I'm tired of hearing about that, and I don't know why we got to hear about that.
[27:45] The great theme of Leviticus is what? Holiness, right? That God is holy. The major theme is, be holy for I am holy, says the Lord God Almighty. It is all about the holiness of God.
[27:57] It is why he dictates a prescribed worship in such a fashion. This is why he determines this, and we'll spend some time looking at, maybe we'll have to look at it in large chunks as we did tonight.
[28:08] But one major theme throughout the book of Leviticus is the clean and the unclean. Don't touch this, do touch that. Don't do this, do do that. You saw in this section of scripture that if you boil this offering in an earthenware vessel, then you have to shatter that vessel.
[28:22] Earthenware would be an unpainted or uncured vessel, just a clay pot. And you'll read later in the book of Leviticus that if something runs across this, you break it, or if something does this, you do that.
[28:33] You just have to destroy it. It is the clean and the unclean. And the question is, well, why were these things considered unclean? Some of the portions of scripture make sense. Some of the clean and unclean laws make a lot of sense.
[28:45] As a matter of fact, the spreading of number of diseases throughout history have really been stopped. And I know we're in the midst of some of that right now, simply because man decided that, hey, scripture says that they, you know, that God says set apart those who are unclean.
[28:59] When the black plague hit, people were always, you know, there's this mass hysteria going on and a lot of things are going on. Somebody opened up scripture, said, you know what? In the Old Testament, God said if someone was unclean, you quarantined them and you set them apart.
[29:10] So they began to do that and it started, you know, it made sense, right? It started setting things apart or you clean things and you get away from this spread of things and God's order began to make sense.
[29:22] Man started seeing that God had some rhyme and reason behind it. But part of it doesn't make sense to us. Like, why does it matter if I touch that animal? Why does it matter if I do this?
[29:33] And the answer to that is the only reason it matters is because God said don't do it. And that's what it comes down to. Every parent, you understand that, sometimes your kids don't need to know the answer why you said don't do it.
[29:47] They just need to know the reality that you said don't do it. Sometimes the only reason you want them not to do it is because you just don't want them to do it. And maybe it's not a feasible response.
[29:59] You know, because I said so is always a good one. But I mean, maybe it doesn't make the most sense and we won't always have a reasoning behind that. But God had a reasoning. He was calling his people out to be separate, to be set apart, to be different.
[30:14] And one of the ways that he would set his people apart would be by the clean and the unclean. That they wouldn't touch and handle and deal with things the way everyone else would.
[30:27] That their life would look different. It would be recognizable. And one of the most recognizable ways in which it would be different, now man abused this, right? God gave very clear laws.
[30:39] By the time Jesus was born, there were over 634 oral laws. And there was all these different regulations. And you could carry something to the weight of a coffee cup so many steps. But if you went any further than that, then you would be sinning.
[30:51] And all these things. And man just began to legalize it. But what God was doing is he wanted his people to be on display. He wanted people to look at them and scratch their heads and go, now I wonder why they just broke that perfectly good plate.
[31:02] Or I wonder why they didn't touch that animal. Or I wonder why they're separating themselves. God wanted his people to be recognized. Which is not a bad thing. Because God calls his people to be billboards to a watching world.
[31:20] Not to be people who hide under a rock and let nobody see them. Jesus himself said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. And what? Glorify your father which is in heaven. Which means two things.
[31:31] Number one, you need to be recognizable. And number two, it's really not all about you. It's about God getting the glory. But God gets the glory through our life. We are to put him on display.
[31:46] We ought to be a little peculiar. We ought to be a little bit different. You see this all throughout scripture. God calls his people to live visible, different lives.
[31:57] So much so that people question why they're doing it and questions are great things. Because it gives us an opportunity to testify, right?
[32:08] But we see here that true worship realizes our practices matter. What do you mean? God says they are holy. They are holy. They are holy. And if the blood splashes on the garment, you need to wash the garment.
[32:22] If it's such a holy, that sacrifice belongs to him. He says that if you come to him in chapter 7, verse 19, also the flesh that touches anything unclean shall not be eaten.
[32:36] So if it accidentally grazes something unclean, don't eat it. Don't touch it. It shall be burned with fire. As for the flesh, anyone who is clean may eat such flesh. So in order to do that, you had to be clean, which means we haven't got to the laws yet, but we'll get to them.
[32:49] If you accidentally touch this or you did that, then don't eat it. Why? He said, well, I didn't mean to do it. It's not really a big thing. I washed my hands afterwards. But God says you're unclean. You're unclean. That matters. You don't take an unclean self and run into the presence of a clean, holy God and think all of a sudden I can behave as if nothing happened.
[33:07] God says, no, wait a minute. Why? Because, verse 20, but the person who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which belong to the Lord, there he is. You get to eat of it. It's a provision.
[33:17] But it's his in his uncleanliness or in uncleanness. That person shall be cut off from his people. What's the thing? Don't worship me in an unclean manner. If your life has been influenced or if you've touched something that God told you not to touch, the whole reason behind it is it's not that you touch something.
[33:35] It's not that you came across something and you didn't mean to. It's you have lived in disobedience. God said don't and you did. And God says, if you can't obey me in the little things like don't touch this, do touch that, they don't come to me and try to worship me in the big things.
[33:55] Your practice matters. Holiness is important. You say, so am I working out my own salvation with fear and trembling? Absolutely. That's what Paul said, right? Work out your blood of the lamb.
[34:06] You have been made new. You are washed as white as snow. You are forgiven. You are redeemed. Your life is different now. You approach a holy God. And we don't want to bring our uncleanliness into his presence simply because we chose to do things how we wanted to do them, when we wanted to do them.
[34:24] All of a sudden our practices matter. What we do matters. Why we do it matters. All that. And then he goes on to say don't eat the fat of any of the animals that are offered. Why does that matter?
[34:35] Because God says this. God says these animals are what I accept as sacrifices. So I have set them apart, right? So you're not to eat the fats. That is a recognition that this animal in God's eyes, not that this animal is holy.
[34:47] It's just that this I'm not going to give of myself, indulge of myself. Again, this is Old Testament times. I'm not trying to pronounce a church age standard, right? I'm not telling you don't go home and eat the fat of a lamb or don't go home and eat the fat.
[35:00] I'm not telling you that. I'm just saying that in this system, God says this is something set apart for me. So don't put it on your table and act like it's okay for you. That fat tail, the fat, the kidney, around the lobe and the liver, that's mine.
[35:15] That's for me. Even if it dies out in the open, you don't have the right to go get it because that's mine. That's set apart for me. You're not going to consume that which is set apart for me. What is God doing?
[35:26] God says what you do, how you do it, it matters. worship reminds us that our practices have a great, our personal practice, what we do has a great influence on how we approach him.
[35:45] It does. Are we forgiven and redeemed? Absolutely. Are we blood bought and blood stained? I pray that we are. We know Jesus Christ eternally, but in our worship, we dare not rush to the throne of worship in the midst of our uncleanliness.
[36:05] Rather, we beg for redemption. We beg for restoration, and then we go and worship. This morning, we looked at Revelation chapter 4, right? Revelation chapter 4, we saw the church worshiping.
[36:18] They fell down before his feet and they cast their crowns. They fell down on their face and cast their crowns. But what were they clothed in? White robes, which is signifying cleanliness, right?
[36:29] They had been cleansed and been restored. We'll see later that is the white robes of the righteousness, right? That is the robes of righteousness. They were in right standing with God.
[36:41] Therefore, they had every right to bow down before the throne of God and worship him. Our practices matter, and God has prescribed very detailed orders of worship.
[36:52] Why? Why? Because he is worthy. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this night. God, we want to come before you and worship you.
[37:03] I pray, oh God, that our lives would be lives of worship. That they would be lives, Lord, captivated by the throne. God, that they would be lives fixed upon you, cast completely upon you for your use and your purposes and your glory.
[37:20] Lord Jesus, I thank you that you have called us to this. I thank you that you have cleansed us for this purpose. Oh God, we pray your mercy for the ways we have become unclean in our practices.
[37:36] Lord, we pray your mercy for the things we have done, which you've commanded us not to do, the things we have not done, which you've commanded us to do. So, Lord, as we worship, we pray, oh God, that our lives would be that which practice what we profess.
[37:54] They would be completely cast upon you. And Lord, that this world would see you high and lifted up to the things which we do. We ask it all in Christ's name.
[38:14] Amen. Amen.
[39:14] Amen. Amen.
[40:14] Amen. Amen.
[41:14] Amen. Amen.
[42:14] Amen. Amen.
[43:14] Amen. Amen.
[44:14] Amen. Amen.
[45:14] Amen. Amen.
[46:14] Amen. Amen. Amen.
[46:45] Amen. Amen.
[47:15] Amen. Amen.
[47:45] Amen.
[48:15] Amen.
[48:45] Amen. Amen.
[49:15] Amen. Amen.
[49:45] Amen. Amen.
[50:15] Amen.