This is it!!!  Jesus has been beaten and mocked, spat on and pierced, He’s been hung on a cross and has died (given His life). In most cases this would be it, this would be the end of the story and we would have nothing left to say. When it comes to Christ we can’t stop there because the story does not end there. Christ continues to live, He rose from the grave just as He said He would do, (Jn. 2:19) and has lived on, and will continue to live on. (Matt. 28:20, Mk. 16:19, Col. 3:1) We my friends must take much confidence in knowing that Christ is not only alive, but He has not left us alone. He has promised to always be with us. (Matt. 28:20)  I get very excited when I speak of all the acts Christ has done. Lets look at some of them: He left a holy heaven where there is no sin at all, to come here and dwell in a sin ravaged earth with us people who suffer from sin ravaged hearts. How do you think that felt to Him? Jesus left a life that had never touched sin to come to a place that is disgustingly polluted and littered with sin for the specific purpose of dying for those who are sinning against Him and free them from there sin, most importantly rescue them from the wrath of God. The reason why I get excited about the works and selfless acts of Christ is not only because He has rescued me, but also because I know He didn’t have to do any of this.  He didn’t have to do one single thing, not one. But He did.We should rejoice in the freedom that is ours through our savior Christ Jesus, the freedom from sin, the freedom from the law, the freedom from the wrath of God. We must not stop there, we must now live our lives ever learning from the example Christ has shown us. (1Pet. 2:21, Jn. 13:15) We must live a life that pleases our Father not one that pleases us. We must go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Sone and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded us and remember that Christ is with us always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20).

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As we near the end of Matthew’s gospel. We find ourselves seeing the one who healed, loved, served, accepted the mariginalized, forgave the sinner and rebuked the self righteous, being betrayed by the infamous kiss. We see the master eat His last meal before His death, we see Him still thinking of others more than himself when the one coming to falsely arrest him is attacked by one of Jesus’ own disciples and even more heart wrenching is the prayer, the plea with the Father 3 times to let the cup pass; however, His will was totally submitted to the Father and what must be pursued; the wretched cross!

There are so many things to say about our readings today, but the only thing I want to focus on is the love of Christ. Hebrews 12:2 talks about the Joy of Jesus. Ultimately He knew what had to be done. As we are reading through Leviticus we see animal after animal killed, cut up and consumed by fire. We are now going to see a human sacrificed. The three years are up, Jesus has lived the sinless life, He has been prepared as Brian pointed out, by the oil being poured on His head. The betrayer has put things in motion and things are looking bleak.

But again we see a future statement in Matthew 26:32. He says “but when I am raised”. They have not yet understood this, but for us who look back we know fully. He who will be crucified raised from the dead and that is our hope. We know the end of the story. Christ is raised as the firstfruit of the ressurection and He promises us the same salvation.

I don’t want to get to far ahead, but last not look at the disciples with too much piety, we know that we will be raised from the dead and we still doubt, they had not yet experienced such a truth.

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I want to be honest, Leviticus is not the most exciting book to read. Historically many pastors have strayed from teaching its contents and when they do they teach it as moral case studies. Unless we view the Scriptures as Christian Scripture we too will fall into this category of ignoring one the many books of our “bible”. I want to attempt to help you see this a bit clearer with today’s reading.

Put yourself in the shoe of a Hebrew. You have been delivered from the slavery that has oppressed you your entire life, you have seen plagues utterly abase the greatest kingdom ever, you have seen the mighty Pharaoh (a god in and of himself) humbled, broken and eventually drowned in the same waters that were miraculously parted and then released on the greatest military around. Later this God that Moses has talked about you have heard, you have seen Him come down in a cloud, feed you from the sky,  give you water from a rock and graciously enter into a relationship with you by the way of a covenant.

Now, you will begin to understand just how Holy this God. He is terrifying, all powerful, all knowing but in spite of all of this He is full of grace. However this grace is not free, something (and later someone) has to pay for God not to utterly obliterate you and that is where I want to pick up.

Death is forever before the Hebrew. As you read through Leviticus I want you to keep the concept of DEATH before your eyes, it is the scarlet thread so to say of our biblical narrative and will unfold beautifully in the person and work of Christ.  So go back a few thousands years.  I want you to see the knife slit the throat of the lamb, bull, goat and ram,  I want you to see the blood trickle down their neck as they scream and kick. I want you to hear the squealing, see the priest wrestle with the animal. I want you see the pools and pools of blood. Now I want you to smell these animals. I want you to smell the blood. Look at the heart, look at the liver, look at the kidneys, look at all that blood. Look at the blood on Aaron’s ear, his clothes are saturated in blood, he stinks. The smell is nauseating, it is disgusting to see the animal, with all of its skin, eyes, ears and teeth, being cut up. Now I want you to see the fire that is kindling, I want you to see the priest THROW all of this stuff into the fire, I want you to see the remainder of some of these animals, thrown outside of the camp, look at the dung smell it, touch it, let the scent soak into your skin.

Now, see a HOLY GOD only blinking at your sin, because tomorrow it is going to happen again, and the next day, and the next year, year after year, day after day, the smell, the death, the sacrifice is perpetuated. And day after day, sin is before God and He graciously accepts this sacrifice but only temporarily. These scents, these deaths, these innocent animals, are a PLEASING sacrifice to the Father. Because HE HATES SIN! And He WILL NOT be approached, talked with, bargained with until His wrath and hate for sin has been propitiated!

Now after all of that, think of His Son Jesus Christ, who was also innocent who bore the wrath of His Father, agonizing in the garden, beat, mocked and spit on and nailed to a cross. And much like the sacrifice of these animals just became another thing, they got used to the scent. Many today are used to the story of our Lord, they come Easter after Easter, Christmas after Christmas, they drive pass church after church, they hear the stories, hear the songs, they know all about this and guess what? They too have grown cold!  But not only them those who have experienced this grace are bored with the story of Jesus. We say “I get it He died on the cross, I got it already, can’t we move on”. But our actions show we haven’t got it. We see the obedience of the Lamb and yet don’t follow in His footsteps. Yes we need to hear more of this Jesus. Our reading in Matthew deals with this. Much like God judged the Hebrews for their passivity, Jesus will judge others for theirs! Lets not take Leviticus too lightly my friends.

Atonement, Propitiation, Sacrfice, Wrath

In our OT reading God is still talking to Moses regarding offerings. He explains to Moses the sin offering, He gives Moses some scenarios in which some one will need a sin offering. God explains the details of the burnt offering, the grain offering and what the priests or to do for each. He explains what part they shall eat, if any. He explains what the priest shall wear and where the offerings shall be burnt. I must say that reading these different offerings and the detail involved in each of them makes me so grateful for the work that Christ did for us on the cross. The writer of Hebrews says: Heb. 10:10 “By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.”

In the NT reading Jesus teaches the parable of the talents. He gives an example of three servants or slaves, one is given five talents, one is given two, and the other is given one talent. Two of the servants put their talents two work and doubled their share, for which they were rewarded. The other guy did nothing with his and when the master came back said he did nothing because he knew the master was a mean guy and basically calls him a thief. The master says if you knew this stuff about me then why didn’t you  at least deposit the money so I can get interest. In this parable the servant with one talent didn’t know the master (Christ). We don’t know where he got his ideas of who the master was; but we do know that those of us who know the master know He is the exact opposite of what this guy described. When we don’t know Him we don’t bear any fruit. When we don’t know Him we are useless to the Father. The bible calls this guy a worthless servant or a good-for-nothing slave and says he will be cast into outer darkness.

Because of Christ’s work on the cross  we can experience the love of the Father, and be thankful to the Father that we who were all at some point in our lives very similar to the guy in this parable (one talent guy) have received the grace of the Father so that we can truly know who the Father is.

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In today’s OT reading  God is speaking to Moses on how he should instruct their sacrifices to Him. He explains to Moses the things the offerer must do as well as the things the offerer can’t do and the priest must. In these first three chapters of Leviticus God give Moses the detailed in structionon the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fellowship offering.

That brings us to our NT reading for today. Jesus is speaking about the end times and His coming back. Jesus explains that no one knows when these events will take place but assures us that they will. Jesus said: (Matt. 24:42) “Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day you Lord is coming. He follows by saying: (Matt. 24: 43-44)  “But know this: If the home owner had know what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. This is why you must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”(emphasis added)

I really don’t beleive I can say this or explain this better that the Lord has already done, so let us just meditate on the words of our Lord.

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The extreme detail and exquisite design of the tabernacle and everything that went in it is something to marvel. They used the very best materials (gold, bronze, silver, acacia wood, and the best essential oils known to man) to create a place of worship for the Lord God. But as I read today’s OT reading, I couldn’t help but think, “All of the splendor and majesty of the tabernacle was still not good enough for true worship. Christ still had to come. In fact, He was already slain and waiting for the Father to dispatch Him at the time when they were actually building the tabernacle!” We must keep this in mind as we are sifting through the Scriptures this year in order to understand the depth and severity of the Messiah and His redemptive work.

Speaking of redemptive work…

In our NT reading, we are in the middle of Passion Week. Christ is coming closer and closer to death, but before He dies He has to set the Pharisees straight once and for all. Now, let me pause right here to say this: The Pharisees were NOT “bad” men! In most teachings they are depicted as some rebellious God-hating sinners when in fact these guys were morally upright. They kept all the laws, were well-versed in the Scriptures, kept all the holy holidays, and were keepers of the temple ordinances. These were nice men with good intentions, but as the saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and that’s exactly what Jesus was saying.

Jesus repeatedly calls them hypocrites because all the good that they were doing outwardly didn’t amount to a hill of beans because their hearts had not been transformed. They knew the Scriptures—they TAUGHT the Scriptures—yet they did not know the One to whom the Scriptures were about. He accuses them of being clean on the outside but dirty on the inside. He tells them that their proselytizing is worthless and that they make it harder—if not impossible—to enter the Kingdom.

Whoa, Jesus! What are you trying to teach us here?

The implication of the word hypocrite has everything to do with the condition of the heart. You can know the Word, teach the Word, be the first one in the church and the last one out, pass out tracts and evangelize on the street corners, pay your tithe, fellowship with the brethren, and do all the things that make you look righteous on the outside…But if your heart has not been transformed by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you do not understand that worshiping God is not restricted to a majestic place or merely something that we do but that it starts with a transformation of the heart, you are a hypocrite and no good will come from you. And on that Day, He will say, “Depart from me. I NEVER knew you…”

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In the OT, we open with the Lord telling Moses that He has filled a man with His Holy Spirit to empower him to do the work that He called them to do. He graced them with the ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship to worship Him.

God does not leave us to ourselves to figure out how to worship Him. He has given us a specific way (in Christ) and endows us with His Holy Spirit to do so.

Moses has been up on that mountain for quite some time getting instructions from Lord, and the Israelites get very impatient—so impatient that they convince Aaron to build them an idol god so that they could “worship” Him. The ink on the Ten Commandments hasn’t even dried yet, and they are already SERIOUSLY violating the first one! God’s sees this and gets angry enough to want to destroy them. However, Moses intercedes for them and God spares them from His wrath.

We must ALWAYS wait patiently on God and refuse to settle for a cheap idol to fill our desire for worship. Ours may not be a golden calf. Maybe it’s our car, gadgets, children, or spouse…Also, let us never downgrade the power of prayer—especially intercession. Because of Moses’ faithfulness to God and willingness to intercede for His people, Moses was able to see the glory of God—so will we. Chances are He’s not going to side-slide by you on a mountain while you hide in a rock, but His glory will be revealed in others ways, namely His Son and the fruit of your regenerated heart’s work for Him.

In our NT reading, the Sadducees have approached Jesus in an attempt to disprove Him, and He throws a wrench in their plans with one of His classic moves: the double entendre (ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation). He tells them that they do not know the Scriptures or the power of God and that God is not the God of the dead but of the living.

The Sadducees could recite Scriptures but they didn’t know the Scriptures. Jesus counts that as not knowing God at all because if they did they would have understood the things He was trying to teach them. Jesus also tells them, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” Jesus meant that literally to validate the resurrection, but He was also trying to convey that God is not the God of those who are spiritually dead and stuck in their religious traditions. He is the God of those who are alive IN CHRIST. Only those alive in Christ can rightfully say they belong to God and He to them. The spiritually dead are not in Christ; therefore, He is not their God.

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Today’s reading has us listening in to the conversation God had with Moses. God is giving details on how He is to be worshipped and not only that, who is allowed to approach Him. We have before us the purification of the priest, the instruments of worship, how God is to be approached and what must be offered to Him as acceptable. You see God gave CLEAR details and nothing else will be accepted. The result of approaching God wrong, offering something unacceptable, using the wrong instruments and even substituting something else for what HE has commanded resulted in only one thing. DEATH!

Today; however, many believe they can worship God however they please. You hear “come as you are” or even worse, many teachers in the body of Christ feel that anything and everything is acceptable. Others say “don’t judge”, this my friend is in a specific context and it is not that we don’t judge, we don’t judge wrongly or hypocritically. But we MUST make a judgment call on what God calls acceptable worship and what He does not. As ambassadors of His word we have no choice. And just in case we believe that God only kills in the Old Testament we only need to read Acts 5:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

But why we must ask? Because God is Holy, Righteous, Just and Perfect and He is not to be played with. God is not a nice cosmic teddy bear that you can hug whenever you are feeling down, nor is He like Santa Claus, big jolly with a red suit bringing gifts and candy to good little boys and girls. Nor is He like a jolly ol’ grandpa who allows the children to behave unruly when they are with Him. God is not like us and any God who does not look like the God of Numbers 16:25-35 is a god of our imagination. However….

God has provided a way. We will see a High Priest who does not need to offer up atonement for Himself  (Hebrews 9:11-28). He will be the all sufficient, ram, lamb and bull. No need for bells to be tied to Him, no need for Him to kill a bull at the opening of the tent, no need for Him to slay a young ram and poor its blood on the alter, nope! He is all sufficient 100% God and 100% Man. We will see the blood of bulls and goats can never atone for the people. It will tell us in Romans that God only winked at our sin, but every year more bulls, more goats, more doves, more lambs had to die. More incense, more perfume, more anointing oil, had to be burned and poured. Thank God of Jesus Christ.

Finally in our NT reading we see this “come as you are” also being rejected. There is a parable about a great wedding. The original invitees not only rejected the invitiation but killed the King’s servants. You see what the response to that was right (Matthew 22:7). He then went out and called those who were not invited and many came; however, one “came as he was”. And the results were tragic for that fella.

God will only be worshipped on His terms. He is too Holy to negotiate with man. Do not be fooled that you can come as you are, you must come, covered with the blood of Christ or you will hear on that day “depart from me, I never knew you”. Don’t be numbered in that number friend. Trust wholly in the Lord Jesus, He has approached God on your behalf, you only need to be sprinkled in His blood.

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Today’s OT reading God is still giving out His very precise instruction of the pattern and layout of how He wants the tabernacle to be set up. So far God has explained and described very specifically how He wants the ark of the covenant, the showbread table, the lampstands of gold, curtains of linen, curtains of goats’ hair, the boards, and sockets, the veil and the screen the, bronze altar, the court of the tabernacle as well as the what the priest should wear. God is not quite finished with giving His instruction on the tabernacle layout, we will continue to follow.

This brings us to our new testament reading. Jesus is in the temple teaching and while teaching He is interuppted by the chief preists and the elders. They approached Jesus questioning his authority as if the authority was their’s to give. What’s incredible is that after they ask Jesus who gave Him the authority to teach, once He answers they are now under the very authority they question. The lesson plan has now been directed to them about them. In the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:28-32) one of the sons says no to the father, later regrets it and does what the father asked of him. The other son says yes to the father and does nothing. Jesus tells these religious leaders that prostitutes and tax collectors will get into the kingdom of God before they do. He explains by saying that when John came and preached to them repentance the tax collectors and prostitute believed John, but the religious leaders did not. He then says that not only did you not receive John, but you didn’t feel remorse afterwards either and still didn’t believe him. My question is this: Have you really grabbed hold of the gospel? Have you allowed the gospel of Jesus Christ to come in change your life and renew your mind? Or  have you decided to reject the gospel and just “do church”? Are you just dressing up on Sunday, carrying your bible, rembering a scripture to impress those that we see?  If you have not allowed the gospel to change your life, no matter how righteous you may seem, Jesus was talking to you in this parable. Allow His words to penetrate your heart and change your life.

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January 30, 2010 Daily Reading

After the children of Israel refused to listen to God for themselves and asked Moses to serve as a mediator, God began to give them rules and regulations for living as a unique kingdom among the kingdom of the world. These rules cover everything from how to treat animals to how to treat other people. They were told how to approach God and how to stay away from other gods.

But, in the midst of the rules and regulations, we get a glimpse of what could have been, as God dines with Moses, Aaron, Aaron’s sons, and 70 other leaders from among the children of Israel. (Exodus 24:9-11) In the midst of exclamations of God’s holiness and the people’s sin, God make himself known in a person way and to serve a meal to some of those sinners… “and he did not lay his hand” on them.

God had every right to stay away from them… to not allow them in his presence. He had every right to destroy them. They deserved to be punished for their sin… for their grumbling… for their complaining… for their lack of faith. But, instead of punishing them, God chose to serve them dinner.

Could this be a glimpse of how God desires to relate to people? Unfortunately, these people had rejected God and refused to know him personally. (Exodus 20:18-19)

As we turn to Matthew, we remember that God has now come to man… not in lightning and thunder and smoke and fire, but in meekness… in the form of a servant. (Philippians 2:5-11) Jesus never lost sight of who he was or what is purpose was. And, so, he once again reminds his followers that he would suffer, die, be buried, and rise again.

And how do his followers respond? The began seek power and position for themselves. Still thinking that Jesus would be an earthly king, James and John’s mother asked Jesus if her sons could rule with him.

In response, Jesus tried once again to teach them about his “upside down” kingdom. “Do you want to be leaders?” Jesus asked, “Then serve one another.”(Matthew 20:25-28)

Did Jesus mean that leadership is a new type of service… a super-service? No. Jesus meant that servants are the real leaders, and those who follow will be serving right alongside of them. Or, to put it another way, do you want to know who to follow? Jesus would say to follow those who serve.

Jesus demonstrated exactly what he meant. As he was walking along the road, he stopped to serve two blind men… two blind men who had nothing to offer him in return.

God continues to serve others… and calls us to serve others along with him.

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