This is a recording of my message on Leviticus for our Old Testament Survey series to the ABF Junior High Group.
Below is my outline for those who would like to follow along.
INTRO:
* If I gave you the opportunity, who here would want to go to space?
* How about the Sun? What a cool opportunity!
* Holiness of the Sun - BP video concept
SPOKE: Holiness: Leviticus (BibleProject)
* Pay attention to the problem and the solution!
* Watch: Book of Leviticus Summary: A Complete Animated Overview
* What was the Problem? What was the Solution?
HUB:
* Holiness
* God is Holy and We are not
* God is totally set apart and other. He is perfect and righteous and good.
* And we have seen in Genesis and Exodus that people are not. People are broken and twisted in how they treat each other and how they relate to God.
* Think Abraham, Pharaoh, Moses, the Israelites.
* Golden calf on the day of their relationship vows.
SPOKE: Holiness: A Good Problem
Explanation/Exhortation/Exaltation:
* Exodus 40:34-35
* Exodus 40. High point. After all of the formalities of the covenant at sinai and even after the big blow up of the golden calf, God’s presence comes down on the tent.
* YAY! God can dwell with his people again. We’ve been waiting for this since Genesis 3!
* But there is a problem - moses cannot go in? Why?
* There is a holiness problem. What does holy mean? Most basically it means “set apart/other”- the sun is completely other - there is nothing like it in our solar system
* Is Yahweh Holy? Are the people of Israel? Yes and no. Yahweh has called them to be separate from the nations but they act alot like egyptians still
* Is Yahweh’s holiness bad? Not it is a good thing! But it is a problem for the broken and flawed israelites
* Leviticus 19:1-8, vv18
* God’s Holiness - the sun
* Israel is unholy. Austronauts without any solar protection. God wants to change that. So he gives them instruction on how to be people who can host the power and glory of Yahweh - like the sun x1000 - in their midst. These are instruction on how to become new kinds of people, holy people.
* Do humans on their own know how to live and emulate God’s holiness?
* But what Yahweh does is not sit up in the sky and mock those who try and know they will never make it
* Instead he comes down to a people he chose out of sheer grace and gives them clear and loving instructions on how they can rightly relate to him
* The Laws in Leviticus were not only God’s Instruction/Wisdom but they were his grace for those people to have a way of rightly relating to a holy God.
* And the structure of the book of Leviticus shows us these wisdom categories.
* Do you remember them from the video?
* Sacrifices/Feasts - daily, weekly, monthly rhythms of giving and receiving from God to recognize their need for the holy one and their unholiness.
* Priests - people set apart from the nation to live “holy lives” and mediate God’s presence
* Purity - the habits, diets, and moral actions they were to uphold in order to host Yahweh
* More on that in the reading plan this week.
* QUESTIONS?
SPOKE: Atonement: A Necessary Solution
Explanation/Exhortation/Exaltation:
* Leviticus 1:1-2
* So Yahweh calls to Moses from the tent. Mo is outside and he says - hey we gotta fix this problem. Here is the way. Sacrifice and Atonement. (BP vid this week) the short version is sacrifice - Atonement - cover over someone’s debt,
* Chase and I go to dinner act it out - cover you
* and sacrifice washes away the vandalizing effects of that wrong. We see this most clearly in that thing that the video said is the center of the whole book! Which is? Day of atonement.
* What holiday was on Monday? Yom Kippur? Day of Atonement
* Leviticus 16:15-16, vv20-22
* The first goat - atones - covers over the debt. His death covers. The second goat takes the vandalism of wrongdoing and symbolically takes it into the wilderness.
* You might think - this is really cruel and barbaric. I thought God described his character as compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. This sounds like an angry God who kills goats.
* But this is an act of mercy and grace. What has been the major plotline of the Hebrew Scriptures so far?
* God wants to dwell with, partner with, and bless humans.
* Humans keep abandoning, wronging, and causing damage to God’s good world.
* Atonement and Sacrifice is the way that God is forming and shaping the people into the kind of people that can partner with and host his presence even despite their sin.
* We see God’s attitude here in this verse.
* Leviticus 17:11
* Does that verse say that Israel is giving God the blood and goats? No. what does it say?
* God is giving them the blood and goats to make atonement. It is a gift and provision. It’s like God has given the method for making a sun-proof space suit and said ok you gotta use part of your car and part of your phone - BUT - the result will be you can come be with me, we can coexist together even though I am holy and you are not.
Conclusion:
* And this leads us nicely into where I want to end tonight.
* Here in Leviticus, it says God is giving the provision to atone for sin. This point forward to someone greater.
* Isaiah would call him the suffering servant, John the Baptizer would call him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
* Jesus was the ultimate day of atonement. Jesus said he was the ultimate sacrifice, the great high priest, and he brought purity
* God didn’t wait for us to do enough to get to him. We could never do that. He came to us as the sacrificial lamb and God himself gave us the way to be able to have relationship with him again.
* When we couldn’t go into the tabernacle to meet God, in Jesus, John says he came and “tabernacled” among us
* We have the same problem as the Israelites but we have the best solution. What are we gonna do with that?
* QUESTIONS?
* Lets pray!
Small group Questions:
High and Low of the Week?
What stuck out from the message? (Respond to, Affirm, and Develop Observations)
What stuck out to you from the video? (Respond to, Affirm, and Develop Observations)
What is holiness and atonement?
What does it look like to live a set apart life? (Sermon on the mount)
What points to Jesus in Leviticus?
Prayer Requests?
