Leviticus is one of the least read books of the Bible, but maybe one of the most important to our understanding of God. Leviticus helps bring the Old Testament and New Testament together as it holds some of the deepest revelations about God’s character and his intense pursuit of us.

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    Written at the base of Mount Sinai,
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    Leviticus is set in between
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    the Israelites rescue from slavery
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    and their deliverance into the Promised Land God set for them.
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    They were literally camping
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    between stops on their journey on the surface.
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    Leviticus might look like a collection of laws
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    that no longer apply, but it's really a story
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    of God pursuing His most beloved creation: Us.
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    Since the beginning, God has always wanted
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    a relationship with His people,
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    but they consistently turn their backs on Him,
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    just like us.
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    To make matters worse, their beliefs
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    about God's character were being hijacked
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    by the popular culture surrounding them,
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    just like us.
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    Today, like the Israelites, everyone is moving
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    from something and towards something else.
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    It's easy to look at the strictness
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    of the Old Testament, the rules, wars, and the brutality
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    and think that God is different than the one we worship.
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    Leviticus actually proves the opposite.
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    If God is anything,
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    He's consistent in His pursuit of His people.
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    Leviticus helps bring the Old Testament
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    and New Testament together as it holds some of
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    the deepest revelations about God's character
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    and His intense pursuit of us.
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    - I like tactile multisensory experiences.
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    Normally, your Crossroads or churches,
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    you've got your eyeballs you can use,
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    your eardrums you can use.
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    If you're having communion, you can have your taste buds.
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    But this is old school.
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    Some of us are saying, "Man, that reminds me
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    of my upbringing, my church experience,
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    brings me back to nice memories."
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    Others of us go, 'Man, I remember
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    back in my early church experience,
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    it brings us back to awful memories."
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    All of us are a bit different with this.
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    God's given us all the different senses that we have
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    and we get the opportunity to use all of them
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    in connecting with Him.
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    Today, we're going to try to get into a different gear,
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    a different sense, one that you may not have exercised before.
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    It's looking at the book of Leviticus,
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    maybe the most controversial, the most confusing,
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    the most maybe seemingly out of date book
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    in the whole Bible for a modern person in America to read.
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    And yet, it is very, very important.
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    So let's pray before I get into it today.
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    God, I am thankful for Your presence.
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    And just as this aroma is going throughout all of our rooms,
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    all of our sites have multiple people
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    going up and down aisles to give different smells.
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    I pray that You would smell us.
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    You would smell us as a people that wants
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    to know You more and wants to be more devoted to You,
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    or wants to come to You, come into relationship
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    with You for the very first time.
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    We give You our rest of our time
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    and we ask You to mold us.
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    And Lord, I'm asking You to use the words
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    that I think You gave me this week
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    to build into Your people.
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    And I pray these things according to the character
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    and identity of Jesus. Amen.
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    Man, it smells like mass in here. Hmm.
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    Book of Leviticus is not necessarily maybe
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    what you'd expect the week after the Super Bowl of Preaching.
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    Actually, I'll tell you about this a little bit later.
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    That's exactly what we chose to do
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    and is for a specific reason.
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    This book, Leviticus, it's the third book in the Bible,
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    Genesis, Exodus,
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    Leviticus is a very, very controversial book.
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    People don't like it.
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    It contains absolute instructions, absolute commands.
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    It contains a code, say, of sexuality,
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    a code of sexuality that is way, way, way, way outside
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    of America's code of sexuality.
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    And one of the ways that we
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    just dismiss anything that's in the book of Leviticus.
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    We'll find other rules in there that we think are ridiculous.
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    Like, you can't --
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    you've got to scrape the mildew off your wall.
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    So are you scrape the mildew,
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    scraping mildew off your walls?
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    If you're not doing that, then all these other things go out
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    and therefore we just dismiss the whole thing
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    because it seems very confusing to us.
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    And I think we do that at our peril.
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    Certainly there are things in the book of Leviticus
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    that were temporary for that time.
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    Certainly there were things in the book of Leviticus
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    that were for that people.
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    Certainly it's hard for us to find things
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    in the book of Leviticus that's applicable
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    to modern American life.
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    But what is applicable is understanding
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    an eye towards the character of God.
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    There's things in His character, in His identity
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    that only come through in the Book of Leviticus.
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    And so I'm looking for five weeks on this book
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    And here on this altar. Who's ready for me?
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    Who's ready for the book of Leviticus?
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    Who is it? Come on. Yeah.
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    Oh, you're going. Oh, I think. I don't know.
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    Let's take a look at the very first verse
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    in the Book of Leviticus.
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    Here's what the first two verses of Leviticus 1 says:
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    We're going to talk about bringing
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    an offering of sacrifice up to the altar here.
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    Now, part of why we don't look at
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    the book of Leviticus much is, you know,
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    we don't offer sacrifices anymore, thankfully.
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    And so we don't really relate to that at all.
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    But here's the thing, this whole portion of the Bible,
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    this is the Old Testament.
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    Most of us this is the New Testament here.
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    Most of us only know this much of God.
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    Even if you never actually read this,
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    this is the part of God that actually gets played up
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    really, really, really, really strong.
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    Which is good. Which is good. It's true.
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    And actually, on top of that, most of us
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    maybe only know this much of God.
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    That's the page on which the one verse is
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    that says God is love.
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    It's like, Oh, God is love, God is love.
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    I got that. God love.
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    Do you think we need all of this?
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    Do you think God's more than that?
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    He is that. He is that.
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    And here the Old Testament Jews,
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    the ancient believers only knew this aspect of God.
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    When you put all of this together,
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    all of this together, you get a full picture of God.
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    The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament is meant
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    to connect the dots of ancient Hebrew Christians
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    to help them understand how this Old Testament portion
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    of the Bible relates to the rest of the New Testament.
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    Look at the Book of Hebrews, the very first verse,
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    the first chapter.
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    It kind of reminds me of what I just read to you
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    in the Book of Leviticus.
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    By the way, by the way, by the way,
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    Super Bowl was great last week.
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    Super Bowl is over. Bummer.
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    Today, I'm going to ask you to put
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    your big boy pants and your big girl panties on.
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    Can you do this?
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    Even if you can't do this, I'm going to today.
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    So I hope you -- I hope you've got your jaw muscles
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    ready to be able to chew on some things
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    and maybe understand things about God
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    that might not have understood before.
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    That's what I want to help you with.
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    Hebrews 1:1:
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    So Moses is an ancient person of God,
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    and this is hearkening back to the prophets,
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    the people that told us about God in the Old Testament.
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    And it says here that Jesus, in the Hebrews,
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    Jesus is central to understanding
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    the whole old Testament.
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    In fact, Jesus is central to understanding Leviticus.
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    Now, they didn't know that when Leviticus was written,
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    and as they practice it for millennia,
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    they didn't know that.
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    But we know that now looking back.
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    And we also know it tells us something about who God is.
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    So here's a brief history of God and of all this book.
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    And if we don't understand these things
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    about how the Bible was put together and about God,
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    we're never going to actually understand God.
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    Leviticus, the book of Leviticus
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    unlocks the character of God.
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    Without what we see in Leviticus,
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    you're not going to understand God.
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    Let me explain for us.
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    All those little sects of the Bible,
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    if you only saw one of those aspects of God,
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    you wouldn't understand God.
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    Like, if I came to you and I looked at your day,
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    whether it was a good day and a bad day,
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    could I look at one of your days and say,
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    "Oh, well, that's Susan."
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    Oh, well, that's Jamal right there. Yeah."
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    One day. Would one day do it?
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    What about a week?
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    If I looked at a week of your life, would that do it?
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    Would I get an accurate depiction
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    and understanding of you?
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    How about a year? A year?
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    Probably not.
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    What if you were in depression for a year?
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    What if you were in a hospital for an entire year?
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    What if you -- Whatever.
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    You would say I have to look at my, like,
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    a long span of my life.
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    This is what it's like, when we only look at one story
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    we don't understand God.
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    When we only look at one book in the Bible,
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    we don't understand God.
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    In fact, here's everything, we even look at
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    the entire Bible we don't fully understand God.
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    You God is fully described right here?
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    You think a book can give us the underpinnings of His identity.
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    It certainly gets us started, but it isn't even complete.
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    You'll be learning about God
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    if and when you get to heaven forever.
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    You can't figure out God by reading a book,
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    only one book. Very deep.
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    So the book of Leviticus is critical because
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    it's a slice of God's character
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    that you have to see to know Him.
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    Here's how it comes in context.
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    God has children. They're named Adam and Eve.
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    And Adam and Eve have a bunch of people that come out of them.
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    And all this stuff is how that God's nursing,
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    nursing them, taking care of them.
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    And then they get into bondage, they get into slavery,
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    and God calls them out.
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    He rescues them out of slavery.
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    And when they get out of slavery, God says,
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    "Now, I don't just want to get you out of slavery.
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    I want to get you to the Promised Land.
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    The Promised Land's on the other side of the Jordan River."
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    And so they send out spies, 12 of them.
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    They go over the Jordan River. They look at it. It's amazing.
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    They come back, said, "Hey, man,
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    I got to tell everybody, it is amazing,
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    land of milk and honey.
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    Fresh Market is going to open up some day right here
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    because all the produce is right here and it's amazing."
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    But ten of the spies say, "The people are massive.
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    We can't do it. We can't handle it."
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    If you're going to know God,
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    understand you will always be the minority.
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    Let me say that again, if you're going to truly know God,
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    not not have ideas about God, not be spiritual.
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    I mean, if you're going to really, truly know God,
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    if you're really going to be becoming more like God,
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    you will always be in the minority.
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    Get used to it.
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    Jesus says, "Wide is the way to destruction."
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    Everyone's going one way, the masses are going that way.
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    He says, "My way is the narrow way."
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    Same also with these spies.
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    Ten of the 12 come back.
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    The majority says, we can't do it. We can't do it.
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    Two of the 12 say, "Yeah, we can."
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    They say, "Yeah, we can."
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    And God is actually hurt. He's offended.
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    He said, "Now, I parted the Red Sea.
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    I rescued you out of slavery.
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    I brought you to a new place."
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    By the way, Moses is a type or a pre figure of Jesus.
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    When we look at these sacrifices that are going to be
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    forecasting forward how Jesus is going to be a sacrifice.
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    Also, Moses, as he brings people out of slavery.
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    So Jesus brings us out of slavery.
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    In fact, if you don't realize you've never been in slavery,
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    then you don't know God right now.
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    What do you mean in slavery?
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    Maybe we haven't been in physical slavery,
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    but you ever had memories you can't get over?
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    You ever have feelings that your dad told you
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    that you'll never measure up to anything?
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    Do you have sexual encounters
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    that haunt you still to this day?
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    Do you feel like you still can't make ends meet
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    and you just can't get over that credit card debt
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    no matter what you do, you just can't get there?
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    Do you feel like you just don't measure up and you --
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    Is there a mental illness you just can't get over?
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    Is there is there something in your past
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    that you did that you just -- you just have to be
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    a good person to earn your way out of it?
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    These are all different forms of slavery.
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    Some of them we brought on ourselves.
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    Some of them are just the human condition.
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    And God tells ancient Israel,
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    "I brought you out of slavery."
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    Just like when you come to know God,
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    Jesus begins the process
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    of bringing you out of your slavery.
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    And when God brought them out of slavery, He said,
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    "I told you I was going to give you a new land,
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    a Promised Land, we're going to work for this.
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    And now, right away, you disagree, you have no faith?'
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    He said, "I don't know what I'm going to do to these people.
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    I've got to discipline you."
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    And He says, "All you people who don't believe,
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    you ten spies and all of your families,
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    all of you don't go in this Promised Land.
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    In fact, the whole nation of Israel is going to
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    wander around in the desert until all of you die,
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    except for Joshua and Caleb and their families."
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    So, that's what the wandering in the desert is,
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    wandering around until all the unfaithful masses died,
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    so that the faithful few would be able to go in.
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    Wow. Wow.
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    Now, the first five books of the Bible
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    are what's known as the Torah.
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    Torah in Hebrew means instruction, laws.
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    So while the nation of Israel
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    is wandering around in the wilderness,
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    God is giving them instructions, He's giving them laws.
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    He's helping them cultivate a culture
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    that will work long term and helping them
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    actually to to understand Him.
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    To know God, and to understand the book of Leviticus,
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    you've got to understand a couple of things
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    about God that are still true today.
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    Number one is this: God is systemic.
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    He's systemic. He's working a system.
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    To take a look at any individual Bible verse,
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    any individual Bible chapter, any individual Bible book
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    is good and healthy and is true and all that stuff.
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    But it's always incomplete because God is working
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    from the beginning of the Scriptures till now,
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    He's working a system.
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    He has a game plan in mind.
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    He's trying to parent His children, which is you and me.
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    He's trying to develop into us Christ-like character
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    that we wouldn't have had any other way.
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    Let's take a look at Leviticus 1:3:
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    God is systemic.
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    This word here "burnt" a burnt offering
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    is the word "Olah," Olah in the Hebrew,
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    which means whole, whole, entire, entirely.
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    That's also where they get the word Holocaust.
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    Hitler tried to wholly and entirely
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    burn out from the planet the Jewish people.
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    That word Holocaust, Olah is where we get this,
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    that there was people that would bring their goats,
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    their lamb, their pigeon, whatever it was,
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    and they would put it on the altar.
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    And it had to be one without blemish.
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    It wasn't the one that was going to die any day
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    or the ugly one, it had to be the best one.
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    That's why Jesus, by the way, is known as the Lamb of God,
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    the human being without any blemish.
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    The one human being who's never been enslaved to anything.
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    He is -- the system,
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    the system that God was starting to work out was,
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    "Hey, I'm going to start them off here on --
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    start them on on understanding lambs
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    and I'm going to work on this process.
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    And then eventually there's going to be
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    an ultimate lamb who's going to be sacrificed,
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    and we won't need all this physical stuff anymore.
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    But this is an important stuff in the process for us
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    because it was part of the system.
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    And my actual,
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    I went back and dusted off my seminary textbooks.
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    And this is the way my textbook put it, said this:
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    We don't like to think of the fact that
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    we have sin in our life, that we rebel,
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    that we're about ourselves and not about God,
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    that we have hard hearts that are about our ways
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    and we do what we want, not what God wants.
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    We don't like to think about these things.
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    We just prefer to think that
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    I'm just an understandably flawed person
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    who needs some good, helpful spiritual principles.
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    No, we are broken.
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    We are broken beyond repair without God.
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    We are sinful. We are separated from God.
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    That's the reason why we don't understand God
  • 00:18:19
    why we feel separated,
  • 00:18:20
    because we are separate from Him.
  • 00:18:21
    Because void of there being a sacrifice,
  • 00:18:24
    something to atone for our sin, for our slavery,
  • 00:18:28
    we don't come close to Him.
  • 00:18:31
    We can't get there.
  • 00:18:32
    And this is what would happen.
  • 00:18:33
    They would bring --
  • 00:18:34
    all these folks would bring their thing
  • 00:18:36
    and they would put their hands on this thing
  • 00:18:39
    that was dying and they would recognize themselves.
  • 00:18:43
    "I should be the one who's dying.
  • 00:18:45
    I actually deserve death."
  • 00:18:47
    That's why that verse says.
  • 00:18:48
    You put their hands on it.
  • 00:18:49
    And then the priest would kill it.
  • 00:18:51
    And as the life would drain away from this animal,
  • 00:18:53
    you would recognize, "Man, the life
  • 00:18:55
    needs to drain away from me, or at least it should.
  • 00:18:58
    That would actually be justice."
  • 00:19:00
    God is systemic. He's working a system.
  • 00:19:03
    And He is intense. He's intense.
  • 00:19:09
    We don't like to think of God as intense.
  • 00:19:11
    We want to think of God as He's my copilot.
  • 00:19:13
    He's my homeboy. He's a big guy in the sky.
  • 00:19:18
    He's, you know, He may be all those things.
  • 00:19:21
    And he's intense. Very, very intense.
  • 00:19:25
    Leviticus will not allow us to see God as any other way
  • 00:19:30
    without first seeing that He is intense.
  • 00:19:33
    He is vast. He is strong.
  • 00:19:35
    He is powerful. He is intense.
  • 00:19:37
    Verse 5 to 6:
  • 00:19:54
    God is intense.
  • 00:19:55
    I have these creative things that come through me
  • 00:19:57
    every once in a while and I just say,
  • 00:19:59
    "Oh, man, this will be a great idea."
  • 00:20:00
    So we had this creative meeting getting ready
  • 00:20:02
    for this series, and I had this thought come.
  • 00:20:04
    I said, "Oh, I got it, I got it.
  • 00:20:05
    How can we help people understand
  • 00:20:07
    the sacrificial system?
  • 00:20:08
    Here's what we do.
  • 00:20:09
    What if we go out and we buy a bunch of field mice
  • 00:20:13
    and we give everybody a field mouse
  • 00:20:17
    on their way into church
  • 00:20:18
    and then everybody kills the field mouse
  • 00:20:22
    representing I should die and not the field mouse."
  • 00:20:25
    Then was like, "Oh, no, no."
  • 00:20:26
    Oh, come on, I actually spent about like 5 seconds
  • 00:20:29
    trying to talk people into it.
  • 00:20:30
    Fortunately, they killed the idea.
  • 00:20:31
    They killed the idea. Not a good idea.
  • 00:20:33
    I was thinking through, like,
  • 00:20:35
    give everyone a hammer and stuff.
  • 00:20:36
    How would we do this whole thing?
  • 00:20:39
    I thought it really wasn't that big of a deal
  • 00:20:41
    because do you know many field mice
  • 00:20:42
    you and I participate in the killing of
  • 00:20:44
    because of all the products we wear.
  • 00:20:47
    Ooh, getting too close. Ooh.
  • 00:20:50
    No, seriously, I haven't seen statistics for it.
  • 00:20:52
    All of us are responsible for the killing of a lot,
  • 00:20:54
    a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of field mice
  • 00:20:56
    that have our shampoo on them and eat the food,
  • 00:20:58
    all that stuff. Right?
  • 00:21:00
    We don't like to think about that.
  • 00:21:02
    Don't like to think about that. Whoa, whoa.
  • 00:21:04
    And this is part of Leviticus, we're like,
  • 00:21:06
    "Oh ho ho, sacrifice the animals.
  • 00:21:08
    Don't wanna think about that. Whoa, whoa. Whoa."
  • 00:21:14
    We don't want to think about
  • 00:21:16
    that god could be genuinely angry with me.
  • 00:21:19
    Genuinely angry.
  • 00:21:21
    Too intense for me. Too intense for me.
  • 00:21:23
    No, no, no, just want to hold hands with God
  • 00:21:25
    and blow bubbles and stroke unicorns.
  • 00:21:28
    That's all I want to do with God.
  • 00:21:33
    If you want God, you've got to have His intensity.
  • 00:21:37
    It's part of who He is.
  • 00:21:39
    It's part of what we get.
  • 00:21:40
    And this was intense.
  • 00:21:41
    I'm bringing the best animal
  • 00:21:43
    and it's dying right before my eyes
  • 00:21:45
    and I'm recognizing that I should die as well.
  • 00:21:53
    See, there's so many things
  • 00:21:54
    in our modern cultural context we don't get.
  • 00:21:56
    One of the things that's really good about America,
  • 00:21:58
    I think, we're getting better and better understanding
  • 00:22:01
    that we can't look down on other cultures.
  • 00:22:04
    That I shouldn't assume that just my culture,
  • 00:22:06
    even it's a subculture inside of America,
  • 00:22:08
    I shouldn't assume that my culture is just the right way.
  • 00:22:11
    We all feel that way, whatever our culture is,
  • 00:22:13
    but at least we know like,
  • 00:22:14
    "Okay, I shouldn't look down on other cultures.
  • 00:22:16
    That's their culture."
  • 00:22:18
    And yet all of us collectively as modern Americans,
  • 00:22:20
    we actually do look down
  • 00:22:22
    on all previous older cultures than ours.
  • 00:22:25
    Like, "Oh, the barbarism and the Bible Oh, all the --
  • 00:22:29
    all the blood and sacrifice. Aha."
  • 00:22:31
    Can we get out of our spiritual high horse
  • 00:22:35
    that always exalts our culture
  • 00:22:37
    and just for a minute
  • 00:22:38
    consider that all ancient cultures were this way?
  • 00:22:41
    And can we just for a minute extend them some grace
  • 00:22:44
    and not look down them
  • 00:22:45
    just because they were different than us?
  • 00:22:47
    And might we also even be able to say
  • 00:22:48
    maybe they had some things in our culture
  • 00:22:50
    that we could learn from?
  • 00:22:53
    I happen to think that if you're a meat eater,
  • 00:22:56
    if you eat meat,
  • 00:22:57
    you should have killed something at some point.
  • 00:23:00
    Because if you haven't, you don't understand
  • 00:23:02
    the sacrifice that went in to give you protein.
  • 00:23:05
    I think it's great if you're a vegetarian and you,
  • 00:23:08
    and because you don't want animals to be killed.
  • 00:23:10
    I think that's very, very consistent.
  • 00:23:12
    And I think it's very, very inconsistent to eat meat
  • 00:23:15
    and think it's gross that someone should lose its life.
  • 00:23:18
    Then don't eat meat, or actually try it sometime.
  • 00:23:22
    See, we live in this completely separated world
  • 00:23:25
    where we want to believe things, but not do things.
  • 00:23:29
    I want to believe that I can have,
  • 00:23:30
    but I don't want to actually do it.
  • 00:23:33
    And we come to the Old Testament,
  • 00:23:35
    God would have none of it.
  • 00:23:37
    No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
  • 00:23:38
    You're going to get engaged with God what God says.
  • 00:23:41
    No, you're going to get it.
  • 00:23:42
    You're going to make amends
  • 00:23:44
    and you're going to get engaged with all the stuff.
  • 00:23:46
    Bring the thing in, mke a sacrifice.
  • 00:23:48
    Put your hands on it, and you're going to sense it.
  • 00:23:51
    It's going to be intense.
  • 00:23:54
    Who was it, Marx that called --
  • 00:23:57
    Marx that called religion the opiate of the masses?
  • 00:24:03
    I heard Tim Keller, pastor, say,
  • 00:24:06
    "Christianity is the smelling salts of the masses."
  • 00:24:10
    Leviticus is like smelling salts, like, Ooh, ooh.
  • 00:24:13
    It's intense. Ooh, tough. Ooh, intense.
  • 00:24:17
    Can't quite handle it.
  • 00:24:20
    See you don't know me from sitting one day with me,
  • 00:24:25
    one week with me.
  • 00:24:26
    You don't know me for spending one year with me.
  • 00:24:28
    I don't know you fully either.
  • 00:24:32
    When it comes to parenting,
  • 00:24:34
    there's different systemic intense phases we go through
  • 00:24:38
    as parents with our kids.
  • 00:24:40
    Our kids need that.
  • 00:24:42
    All of us, if we ever had kids,
  • 00:24:43
    or if you are a kid right now, you would love to have
  • 00:24:45
    a great peer to peer friendship with your parents.
  • 00:24:48
    That's one of things that great parents want, eventually.
  • 00:24:51
    The problem is there has to be a system that you go through.
  • 00:24:54
    And this system, I believe, is also shown in the Bible.
  • 00:24:58
    The first era that you go through as a parent
  • 00:25:00
    is you nurse your kid.
  • 00:25:02
    This is where God is nursing all of us
  • 00:25:04
    as seen in Genesis.
  • 00:25:06
    He forms men and women.
  • 00:25:07
    He's the first person to give actual clothing to Adam.
  • 00:25:10
    He's taking care of them.
  • 00:25:11
    Just just giving, right? You're just serving.
  • 00:25:14
    That's what you do when you have a little infant.
  • 00:25:16
    You're just a nurse, you're just serving.
  • 00:25:17
    You get nothing back in return.
  • 00:25:19
    You're not giving them instructions.
  • 00:25:20
    It's just helping them, helping them out.
  • 00:25:22
    And then the next phase is you go in the phase
  • 00:25:25
    which is an authority phase,
  • 00:25:26
    which is where you recognize --
  • 00:25:28
    you want your kid to recognize that you are the authority,
  • 00:25:31
    that you are the king and you are queen.
  • 00:25:33
    And I know, I know I'm in the minority right now.
  • 00:25:36
    I know I'm in the minority.
  • 00:25:38
    And I know this sounds really, really awkward
  • 00:25:40
    to so, so many of us, but it shouldn't be.
  • 00:25:43
    God is a Father and He is a King. He is a Queen.
  • 00:25:48
    And if you don't see Him as a King,
  • 00:25:51
    then you're never going to fully see Him,
  • 00:25:53
    because that's who He is.
  • 00:25:55
    And your kids, though you never want them to be,
  • 00:25:58
    like, your underlings forever,
  • 00:25:59
    if you want them to be your friends,
  • 00:26:01
    there's a very key formation process they have to earn,
  • 00:26:04
    they have to have respect for you.
  • 00:26:06
    They have to see that you're capable.
  • 00:26:08
    And sometimes they have to do it just because you said so.
  • 00:26:14
    I love my kids.
  • 00:26:15
    We have a friendship, which those four phases,
  • 00:26:17
    by the way, are: Nurse, King, Coach, Friend.
  • 00:26:22
    There's four distinct phrases.
  • 00:26:24
    And friend, often times I see people
  • 00:26:26
    trying to be friends with their 12 year old,
  • 00:26:27
    with their 7 year old or 8 year olds.
  • 00:26:29
    It doesn't work that way.
  • 00:26:30
    If you're a friend with a kid too soon,
  • 00:26:32
    you will not be a friend with him or her
  • 00:26:34
    when she's in her 20s or 30s
  • 00:26:35
    because there's just no depth there.
  • 00:26:37
    They won't respect you.
  • 00:26:39
    That's what I found.
  • 00:26:41
    It's crazy that my kids actually like me.
  • 00:26:44
    I'm actually friends with my kids. It's wonderful.
  • 00:26:46
    In fact, too much of friends.
  • 00:26:47
    Last week all my -- they're all married now
  • 00:26:49
    and have their own homes and stuff.
  • 00:26:51
    They're in their twenties and they, like,
  • 00:26:53
    they were over my house three nights for dinner
  • 00:26:56
    in the last seven days.
  • 00:26:58
    That's too much. It's too much.
  • 00:27:01
    That's too much. That's too much food.
  • 00:27:03
    That's too much me doing dishes.
  • 00:27:04
    That's too much. It's too much.
  • 00:27:06
    But they actually want to be around Lib and I, they do.
  • 00:27:10
    And my son, when he and I do motorcycle trips together
  • 00:27:13
    and he was in college and even today,
  • 00:27:16
    his friends are still, like,
  • 00:27:17
    "I can't believe how much you spend time with your dad,
  • 00:27:20
    that you actually like him."
  • 00:27:21
    It's because we're friends.
  • 00:27:24
    And the crazy thing is, if you took a look at
  • 00:27:26
    the snip of the life where I was their king,
  • 00:27:28
    you would have thought I was the worst dad.
  • 00:27:30
    Because I did this thing called spanking.
  • 00:27:33
    See, I can tell you now.
  • 00:27:35
    I can tell you now because you can't cancel me now
  • 00:27:37
    or call Children's Services on me now because they're in 20s.
  • 00:27:41
    I spanked them. Not a lot.
  • 00:27:44
    I think my son I spanked the most
  • 00:27:46
    and it was five times, I believe, five times.
  • 00:27:48
    And spanking can be, remember,
  • 00:27:51
    can be with the right parent and the right child,
  • 00:27:55
    done the right way and the right time, it can be good.
  • 00:28:00
    If, there's a bunch of ifs there.
  • 00:28:02
    But that foundation of, "Hey, what Dad says goes.
  • 00:28:07
    What mom says goes,"
  • 00:28:08
    is critical to forming the future of the friend.
  • 00:28:11
    Jesus says in John 15:15, Jesus says,
  • 00:28:14
    "I no longer call you servants,
  • 00:28:16
    because a servant doesn't know his master business;
  • 00:28:18
    but I call you friend."
  • 00:28:20
    So God's getting us to friend.
  • 00:28:22
    This is Jesus language.
  • 00:28:23
    He's getting us to friend. He wants us to be friend.
  • 00:28:26
    But we have to go through the system.
  • 00:28:29
    We have to go back and understand He also is King
  • 00:28:32
    and He is Kinging His people during this wilderness time
  • 00:28:37
    in a way that will help them as they get coached.
  • 00:28:39
    That's what the prophets are doing.
  • 00:28:40
    Prophets are coaching them, giving them some freedom,
  • 00:28:42
    calling them back.
  • 00:28:44
    And then finally the goal to get to a friend.
  • 00:28:45
    But it is intense and you can't fully understand God
  • 00:28:50
    and come this intimate, beautiful friendship
  • 00:28:52
    relationship unless you also recognize He's not you and I.
  • 00:28:56
    He's different. He's distinct.
  • 00:28:58
    He's beyond. He is holy.
  • 00:29:02
    That's the other thing we see about God
  • 00:29:04
    in the Book of Leviticus: Holy.
  • 00:29:07
    Being Holy means that He is distinct,
  • 00:29:10
    He's other than, He's in his own category,
  • 00:29:14
    He's beyond us.
  • 00:29:16
    And all of us in our current modern culture,
  • 00:29:18
    we want to be spiritual.
  • 00:29:19
    And what spiritual means for many of us
  • 00:29:21
    is I'm spiritual, so there's me
  • 00:29:23
    and there's the spiritual realm and there's God.
  • 00:29:25
    We're kind of -- we're kind of all in the same thing,
  • 00:29:27
    the understanding stuff.
  • 00:29:29
    And that's fine to be to be spiritual,
  • 00:29:32
    but that's not the same as God being holy.
  • 00:29:35
    Because that means He's not you and He's not me
  • 00:29:39
    and He's above us and is beyond us, He's different.
  • 00:29:43
    And in Leviticus, He's doing this.
  • 00:29:45
    He's spelling this out for his people.
  • 00:29:53
    When we get to heaven, if you get to heaven,
  • 00:29:56
    it's going to be amazing.
  • 00:29:58
    And one of the things you'll do in heaven
  • 00:30:00
    is you'll learn about God for the rest of eternity.
  • 00:30:03
    Do you think that you could get to heaven
  • 00:30:05
    and automatically understand the depths of God? No.
  • 00:30:07
    Do you think you understand God? No.
  • 00:30:10
    God is so distinct, so other than, so deep,
  • 00:30:14
    so transcendent that this book is doing its best
  • 00:30:17
    to help us understand. Come on.
  • 00:30:19
    Do you think you could actually memorize
  • 00:30:21
    this whole book and know God? No.
  • 00:30:24
    No, because He's holy. He's different.
  • 00:30:25
    He can't be described only and purely in sheets of paper.
  • 00:30:30
    And if it was, how many books would that be?
  • 00:30:33
    Shoot, you'd have a biography of somebody
  • 00:30:35
    that takes this many pages.
  • 00:30:36
    You think you know God in this many pages?
  • 00:30:38
    If you know it,
  • 00:30:39
    you think we'll actually know it in heaven?
  • 00:30:43
    No, because He's beyond,
  • 00:30:44
    because angels actually flutter around Him in heaven.
  • 00:30:46
    The only purpose is just to affirm Him and say,
  • 00:30:48
    "You're holy, You're holy, You'reholy,
  • 00:30:50
    You'redistinct, You'redistinct, You'redistinct.
  • 00:30:52
    You're beyond, You're beyond, You'rebeyond.
  • 00:30:54
    You're above, above, above. Pure, pure, pure.
  • 00:30:56
    Your own category, your own category, Your own category."
  • 00:30:58
    That's all what the word holy means.
  • 00:31:02
    And the Book of Leviticus roots us in it.
  • 00:31:05
    That's not like me just actualizing myself
  • 00:31:09
    and having a spirituality
  • 00:31:10
    where I feel one with something else.
  • 00:31:14
    It's there is something, someone beyond me,
  • 00:31:18
    above me, maybe even in me
  • 00:31:23
    that I need to bend to and to allow to King me.
  • 00:31:28
    Because I am under Him and I choose to be under Him
  • 00:31:33
    because I too want to be holy.
  • 00:31:36
    I too want to be loved and I want to love
  • 00:31:40
    and I want to feel His presence.
  • 00:31:43
    And Leviticus gives us this, verse seven:
  • 00:31:51
    This is pretty interesting, the priests.
  • 00:31:54
    So there again, God is systemic.
  • 00:31:57
    Am I giving you too much today? Are we okay?
  • 00:31:59
    I can't tell if you're -- I can't tell if you're bored
  • 00:32:01
    or you have your thinking cap on.
  • 00:32:03
    Everyone's looking at me like this.
  • 00:32:06
    You're bored, or you're thinking,
  • 00:32:07
    I'm not sure which it is.
  • 00:32:08
    I'm having fun, so I'm going to keep going anyway.
  • 00:32:11
    God, again, God is systemic.
  • 00:32:13
    He's giving us a system.
  • 00:32:15
    In Exodus -- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus --
  • 00:32:17
    Exodus, the book before Leviticus,
  • 00:32:19
    God gave a vision to the nation of Israel, all of them.
  • 00:32:21
    This is before all the sacrifices come out,
  • 00:32:24
    God tells them you will be a nation of priests.
  • 00:32:27
    All of us will be a nation of priests.
  • 00:32:31
    But then in Leviticus,
  • 00:32:32
    they actually establish these priests.
  • 00:32:34
    These priests are there to remind us that
  • 00:32:36
    God is here, God is holy, and I am here.
  • 00:32:39
    And the priests were the intermediaries,
  • 00:32:41
    the priests are the ones in between
  • 00:32:43
    that would bring up the prayers, bring up the offerings.
  • 00:32:46
    Because God is so intense and we're not.
  • 00:32:49
    So we instituted the priest just to help us
  • 00:32:52
    understand and learn that He's Holy and we're not.
  • 00:32:54
    But, but in Exodus 19, He says very clearly,
  • 00:32:57
    "You're a kingdom of priests."
  • 00:32:59
    So He has a long term vision
  • 00:33:01
    of everybody interceding with God.
  • 00:33:04
    That was His long term vision.
  • 00:33:06
    And this is where we are today.
  • 00:33:07
    We have no priests today.
  • 00:33:08
    There's people who are pastors
  • 00:33:10
    and they go by the priest title for one reason or another.
  • 00:33:12
    I don't -- I don't want to get into all that right now,
  • 00:33:14
    but I would just say this.
  • 00:33:16
    Just say this, I'm not your priest.
  • 00:33:18
    In fact, you don't need me to go before God for you.
  • 00:33:21
    Now I will.
  • 00:33:22
    If you come to me and say, "Hey, Brian,
  • 00:33:24
    could you really pray about it?"
  • 00:33:25
    Yes. I promise you I'll pray about it.
  • 00:33:27
    I'll probably do it right there so I don't forget about it.
  • 00:33:29
    Yes, it would be an honored to prayer for you.
  • 00:33:31
    I'll pray for anybody.
  • 00:33:32
    It'll be an honor for me to intercede.
  • 00:33:33
    But understand that there's nothing special about me
  • 00:33:36
    that you don't have.
  • 00:33:38
    God doesn't look at me and go, "Oh, yeah,
  • 00:33:40
    the guy's up on stage. Okay, good.
  • 00:33:41
    Well, I'll listen there.
  • 00:33:42
    But the other people who, you know, work wherever."
  • 00:33:45
    No, no, no, no, no.
  • 00:33:47
    That all gets washed and eliminated.
  • 00:33:50
    We all get to be priests.
  • 00:33:52
    We all get to go directly to God.
  • 00:33:55
    Isn't that good?
  • 00:33:56
    That's wonderful. It's awesome.
  • 00:33:58
    You can go directly to God.
  • 00:34:01
    The Holiness is very, very true, very, very true,
  • 00:34:06
    but we still go directly to God.
  • 00:34:08
    That's what Jesus has allowed and enabled us to do.
  • 00:34:12
    But in Leviticus, gosh, they had to really have
  • 00:34:14
    nailed down what it meant to be
  • 00:34:19
    into the kingship phase of God,
  • 00:34:21
    and to see Him as holy
  • 00:34:23
    and to see Him as a fire that was raging.
  • 00:34:31
    Hebrews 10:19 says this:
  • 00:34:40
    We have confidence, this is to everybody,
  • 00:34:42
    brothers, sisters, we have confidence
  • 00:34:44
    so all of us can go directly to God
  • 00:34:47
    without somebody else going to God for us.
  • 00:34:50
    That is amazing that God wants to dine with you.
  • 00:34:53
    He wants to talk with you. He wants to hear from you.
  • 00:34:57
    It doesn't matter what you did yesterday.
  • 00:34:59
    He wants to hear from you. You're not disqualified.
  • 00:35:02
    He wants to hear a sorry.
  • 00:35:05
    He wants to hear I'll do a better -- do better next time.
  • 00:35:09
    But He's not waiting for you to clean yourself up
  • 00:35:12
    until he loves you.
  • 00:35:13
    He loves you right now,
  • 00:35:15
    and you can be with Him right now.
  • 00:35:16
    In Leviticus, in that process was the system.
  • 00:35:20
    Do you think the priests were sinless back then?
  • 00:35:23
    Do you think the priests didn't have problems?
  • 00:35:25
    Of course they had problems.
  • 00:35:26
    Of course, they were human.
  • 00:35:28
    And yet they were interceding and raising it up to God,
  • 00:35:34
    the one who is worthy.
  • 00:35:35
    The last thing about God, I'll just mention that God is worthy.
  • 00:35:39
    Leviticus 1:9, it says this:
  • 00:35:52
    A pleasing aroma.
  • 00:35:54
    So all of this sacrifice and this blood is going up,
  • 00:35:58
    a pleasing aroma.
  • 00:35:59
    People, I remember hearing people say,
  • 00:36:01
    "Oh, disgusting. All the blood everywhere.
  • 00:36:05
    Oh, the smell of burning flesh."
  • 00:36:10
    You ever been around a barbecue?
  • 00:36:13
    I mean, I'm not saying they have Montgomery Inn ribs,
  • 00:36:16
    rib sauce, I don't know what the sauce was,
  • 00:36:18
    but no, this was an amazing smell.
  • 00:36:21
    It smelled amazing.
  • 00:36:23
    I mean, even vegetarians have to admit
  • 00:36:25
    it smells good, right?
  • 00:36:26
    You may not like it,
  • 00:36:28
    may not want to participate in the killing of it,
  • 00:36:29
    but you got to say it's a nice smell.
  • 00:36:31
    Come on, admit it. It's church. Be honest. Come on.
  • 00:36:37
    A pleasing aroma.
  • 00:36:38
    So when I live my life in a way
  • 00:36:41
    that I live in a sacrificial way,
  • 00:36:42
    I give my life to Christ.
  • 00:36:44
    If I give my life to God, I'm a pleasing --
  • 00:36:47
    I'm a pleasing aroma.
  • 00:36:49
    That's what this was supposed to signify.
  • 00:36:51
    A pleasing aroma is going up the Lord
  • 00:36:55
    whenever there is somebody who lays down their life.
  • 00:36:58
    It is a pleasing aroma whenever there's somebody
  • 00:37:01
    who sacrifices for the will of God,
  • 00:37:03
    it's a pleasing aroma.
  • 00:37:06
    I had so much fun last week in the Super Bowl.
  • 00:37:08
    And the Super Bowl, I'll just be the first to admit it.
  • 00:37:10
    I mean, it's stupid, right?
  • 00:37:11
    It's just -- it's just, in a good way.
  • 00:37:14
    It's a stupid, right? But it's wonderful.
  • 00:37:16
    And then there's Leviticus.
  • 00:37:17
    We intentionally plan Leviticus after Super Bowl,
  • 00:37:21
    we intensely wanted the whiplash
  • 00:37:24
    because there is a whiplash in the Bible.
  • 00:37:26
    Jesus came full of grace and truth.
  • 00:37:28
    There's a whiplash between grace and truth,
  • 00:37:29
    how they fit together. Whap, whap.
  • 00:37:32
    Super Bowl, Leviticus, whap, whap.
  • 00:37:33
    You know, it's a --because it's in the extremes
  • 00:37:37
    that we understand the character.
  • 00:37:39
    It's the extremes of this book
  • 00:37:41
    to understand the character of God.
  • 00:37:43
    I got some emails people asked, like,
  • 00:37:44
    Evan McPherson, Money Mac, Shooter McPherson,
  • 00:37:47
    and all the Super Bowl services?
  • 00:37:49
    That's a lot of time. How much did we pay him?
  • 00:37:51
    How much did we pay him?"
  • 00:37:52
    It's a fair question.
  • 00:37:56
    We probably would have paid him.
  • 00:37:57
    We paid him nothing. Nothing.
  • 00:37:59
    Why is that?
  • 00:38:00
    Because Crossroads is his church home
  • 00:38:02
    and because he wanted to volunteer,
  • 00:38:05
    just like people in the parking lot volunteer,
  • 00:38:07
    just like people in Kids' Club volunteer,
  • 00:38:09
    just like people who are licking and sticking enevlopes,
  • 00:38:11
    just like people who are volunteering
  • 00:38:13
    in your neighborhood, loving your neighbor as yourself.
  • 00:38:15
    In fact, loving your annoying neighbor as yourself.
  • 00:38:19
    He was bringing himself as a pleasing aroma.
  • 00:38:23
    And every time you honor God, every time you serve,
  • 00:38:26
    every time you sacrifice, honoring God in the process,
  • 00:38:30
    it's a pleasing aroma, and His nostrils are, like, (sniffs)
  • 00:38:32
    "Mmm, that smells good. Mmm."
  • 00:38:35
    Every time you tithe, (sniffs),
  • 00:38:37
    every time you love, (sniffs),
  • 00:38:38
    every time you serve, (sniffs),
  • 00:38:40
    every time you encourage, (sniffs),
  • 00:38:42
    every time you look out after the least of these, (sniffs),
  • 00:38:46
    it's a pleasing aroma
  • 00:38:48
    in the nostrils of the One who loves you.
  • 00:38:51
    We're going to help you and I give Him
  • 00:38:54
    some great smells over the next four weeks.
  • 00:38:57
    Lord, You're good to be patient with sinful people like me.
  • 00:39:03
    And You're good to be intense.
  • 00:39:05
    We are sorry for just putting You in a box,
  • 00:39:08
    putting You in a corner with only attributes
  • 00:39:10
    that we like or can fully understand.
  • 00:39:12
    We want to know You more,
  • 00:39:13
    and I think we do know You more today.
  • 00:39:15
    You're good.
  • 00:39:16
    And I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to the Weekend-Follow Up This is the group part of the Bible Challenge, so your questions are based on specific Bible passages from the weekend message. Each week, your group will discover what God might be saying to you, and how you can respond through a group discussion.

  1. If you had to live without one of your senses, which would it be? Explain your answer.

  2. What stood out to you most from this week’s message?

  3. What makes you interested in learning more about the book of Leviticus? What’s intimidating about it?

  4. What is a new thing you learned in the message about God’s character?

  5. Which aspect of God’s character you learned about excites you the most? Which one scares you?

  6. How might your relationship with God change based on what you learned?

  7. Read Hebrews 13:16. What’s one way you could lean into sacrifice this week?

  8. Let’s end with prayer. You can say something like, “Jesus, thank you for sacrificing yourself for us. Thank you for revealing so much of your character to us. Give us courageous hearts willing to do the same. We want our relationships with you to grow.” Amen.”

More from the Weekend

Bonus Questions! Check these out if you’re on a roll and want to go a little deeper.

  • How does the burnt offering change the way you think about Jesus’ sacrifice?
  • Read Romans 1:12. How would your life change if you were willing to give everything you have to God?

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Feb 19, 2023

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