Leviticus: Spiritual Leadership and Our Need of Jesus

Uh well, good morning.

Let's begin by remembering the Leviticus structure.

We're actually three sermons away from the end of Leviticus.

You never thought that could happen, right?

When we started in January.

And hey, good job, guys, because we're gonna do it.

We're gonna finish Leviticus.

And all of us quit reading Leviticus when you tried to read through the Bible.

Maybe like ten of you made it through and you're really self-righteous about it, and we're judgmental of you, but the rest of us quit.

But we're almost through the sermon series on it.

This is the structure of Leviticus that we've been talking about.

Everything is driving to and coming out of chapter 16, the Day of Atonement.

And then last week we learned that Leviticus is the center of the books of the law, meaning those five first books of the Bible.

Leviticus is the center of that.

And Sam Rapp said last week, therefore, the center of the center is God's free forgiveness of sinners.

And this is all the way from the beginning of the Bible.

God's free forgiveness of sinners.

And now in chapter 21, we get some words about spiritual leadership.

We're going to read Leviticus 21, 10 through 15.

The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured, and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let his hair of his head hang loose, nor tear his clothes.

So it means he can't even go grieve for something, for some lost per person, somebody who's passed.

Verse 11.

He shall not go out of the sanctuary lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him.

I am the Lord.

So point number one is this leaders are called to utmost holiness and loyalty.

And just when you think the bar can't get higher, this call to holiness and being clean, and just when you think it can't get higher, God just keeps raising the bar.

Verse 13.

And he shall take a wife and her virginity, a widow or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry, but he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.

So all these restrictions and regulations, they're all designed to ensure purity.

Purity of the priest, purity of the sacrifice, utmost loyalty to God, utmost loyalty to the service of God.

That's what's going on here.

The passage goes on and the bar is raised even again in the text.

And the text says that the priest's body should be unblemished.

So you can be a priest if you act as good and you're as holy as Billy Graham, and then your body, you know, looks like Brad Pitt.

Like if you have this, this is who's enabled to be a priest.

It just sort of shows the impossibility of this call, right?

Like, I mean, I mean, look at look, it's not Brad Pitt here.

Like I'm out.

I'm already out of the competition for leadership.

This week I was wearing some shorts, a t-shirt, I had a hat on, and sunglasses.

And I thought, I thought I was looking pretty good.

I mean, I was like, it's not bad, it's not bad.

I mean, it's not like great, but I was like, you know, it's not bad.

So I was with my daughter, so I looked at my six-year-old daughter and I said, Hey, uh, like if you just saw me walking, like, could I be in high school?

Like if you just saw me, like, because I thought I was, I mean, I was doing okay.

Like you just saw, I had a hat on, sunglasses, I was like, like if you just saw, you know, like maybe not like super, you know, up close, you know, but could have been, you know, and and she said no very quickly.

I was like, well, why?

And she said, because your skin is old.

Like, dad, you got on a good hat, your sunglasses, okay.

But like it's your it's your skin.

Like the problem is just all, just all of you is the problem.

Your skin's old.

So I'm processing.

Uh worse, worse yet, my skin's one issue, but worse is like I'm not perfectly loyal, um, and I'm not perfectly dedicated.

So, what's the point here for leaders and leadership?

Well, the the point is made slowly and painfully, and this is point number two.

Leaders are called to utmost holiness and loyalty.

True.

True and needed.

And every leader needs a savior.

In about a month or so, the Summer Olympics will begin in Paris.

Are we excited?

Do we have Summer Olympic people?

Anybody like you get into it, you're watching.

Is anybody going to the Summer Olympics?

Good, because we were gonna hate you and like just talk bad about you behind your back while you're gone.

Uh most popular Summer Olympic sports.

Do we know what they are?

Do you know?

We can interact here.

Um swimming.

Y'all named them.

You're doing great.

You're doing a great job.

Swimming, number one.

Number yes.

Wherever that came from.

Gymnastics is number two.

Diving.

Diving.

Did anybody say diving?

Yeah.

I like the little towel.

You know.

It's like I wish they had a bigger towel specifically to cover up their waist, but that's up to them.

Alright, do y'all know this sport?

This summer sport?

Do y'all know this?

Dressage.

I I thought it was dressage.

I mean, that's not what we say.

Georgia.

Georgia people say dressage, but it's a French word, dressage, which is it's just French for uh like horse stomping around.

And then some pretentious people just uh they grade it, apparently, is that sport.

So that's not my sport.

Maybe you love it.

Maybe you're into dressage.

I actually like the high jump, so I love the high jump.

I learned this week that the high jump record has been held for a long time, since 1993.

That's a long time.

This one record, this high jump's been held by a Cuban Javier Sotomayer, eight foot one fourth inch.

So eight foot was set, the bar was set at eight foot, he cleared it, no problem.

Eight foot one fourth inch, set, the bar set, he cleared it, no problem.

Eight foot one half inch.

Nobody in the world has ever jumped over eight foot half inch.

Right?

The bar keeps being raised until it gets to a point nobody can do it.

This is how holiness is.

Because holiness is absolutely pure, as soon as we begin to talk about like rules for holiness or a code for holiness, eventually the bar gets to a point where people just can't do it.

The holiness code becomes a raised bar that eventually no one can jump over.

Alright, now before we kind of reconcile that, let's first pull out some leadership principles from Leviticus chapter 21.

Leviticus 21 · chapter mention

Because I need these, and maybe you're a leader at work, or maybe you're a leader with your friends or school group, or maybe in your neighborhood or your family or something, but we're all leaders in some way.

So here are five principles being pulled from Leviticus 21.

I'm gonna read through them.

You're probably not gonna have time to write them.

So if you're a note taker, maybe you want to take a picture.

Um, but here they are.

These are from Leviticus 21.

Leader, number one, leaders have loyalty to God above personal convenience, emotions, or the desire to be liked.

Number two, leaders strive for integrity through all of life.

Who you see is who we are.

Number three, leaders live in this world but are not preoccupied by this world.

Number four, leaders care for all parts of their life, spiritual, emotional, and physical, including old skin.

You got a lotion up.

We got a lotion up, people.

Number five.

Leaders are compassionate as priests while executing their roles with excellence.

Now, 30 years ago, I started going to a really big Baptist church in our town.

And the Big Baptist church, I was about 15 years old or so.

Uh Larry was the pastor.

Larry was the preacher, and the pastor, there's a picture of Larry.

This is at the Starlight Crusade, 1996.

I'm sure I'm out there as a good Southern Christian boy sweating it for Jesus.

Uh I just remember being miserably hot, and you were supposed to be there.

So I was there, and that's Larry.

So that's Pastor Larry.

And Larry, uh, I watched him from a distance, and I what he was friendly, like he had, you know, the pastor-friendly thing that we do where we like walk through a crowd and we're like friendly to everybody.

Like he was so good at it.

He was a pro.

He had it down.

He could work a crowd.

And he led the church.

I mean, he took like a hundred people in like rural Georgia, and like the church speaking of thousands and thousands of people.

I mean, the guy was an incredible preacher, great preacher, great leader.

Uh, he, everybody knew that Larry loved Jesus, and Larry loved people.

And it was never even up for debate.

Everybody knew this.

He was a great leader, and I think he was a great leader because he knew who he was as God's child.

Now, let's take one time out from Larry and just a few leadership nuggets from Paul Tripp's book, Lead.

Here are four of them that I pulled out, trying to kind of chapter principles for leadership.

Chapter two is this gospel.

If your leaders are going to be tools of God's grace, they need to be committed to nurturing that grace in one another's lives.

Chapter five is about character.

His spiritually healthy leadership community acknowledges that character is more important than structure or strategies.

Chapter 9, identity, where your leaders look for identity always determines how they lead.

Chapter 12 is presence.

You will only handle the inevitable weakness, failure, and sin of your leaders when you view them through the lens of the presence, power, promises, and grace of Jesus.

Now, that takes us back to Larry.

Because when I was in seminary, I had a class, I needed to have a pastor mentor relationship.

And so I emailed Larry and just explained this, and he fortunately he said, yes, no problem.

So we met together like once a month throughout the semester, and he would do all these like you know Baptist revival services, like at different Baptist churches and stuff.

And so I would I would go with him to some of these and ride with him and just kind of be with him and he would preach.

Um, and what I learned about Larry is Larry really was a great preacher and a great pastor.

He really was exactly who he showed himself to be.

He loved Jesus, he loved people.

But I also started to see some other things.

Like Larry probably worked too much.

Like Larry worked a lot, like a whole lot.

His family loved him, but he was working.

And sometimes Larry seemed to be stubborn about some things.

So it turns out that Larry was a great leader, a great preacher and a great pastor.

And it turns out Larry was also a human being.

He is, in fact, just like me, or just like you, like a sinner in need of God's grace.

And this is where Leviticus leads us, talking about priests.

And this is where Paul Tripp's whole book for leadership points us.

Any leader, me or you, whatever realm of leadership you have, we must be defined by Jesus long before we do anything for Jesus.

We could say it this way: your soul is served by Jesus before you serve for Jesus.

Or we could say, you are loved by Jesus before you do for Jesus.

Now back to Leviticus, and we'll tie it all together.

The call to holiness is repeated, coming out of Leviticus 16.

We go into chapter 19, verse 2.

Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Leviticus 27.

Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I the Lord your God.

Leviticus 20, verse 26.

Leviticus 20:26

You shall be holy to me, for I am the Lord, am holy, and have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine.

Leviticus 21, eight.

You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God.

He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord who sanctify you, am holy.

So Leviticus calls us to be holy.

It's very, very, very clear.

It just doesn't tell us, like, how?

Like, how do we like how do we do this?

Like, how do we desire to be holy?

Or how do we want to do that?

How do we, how are we empowered to do it?

It just tells us to do it.

Well, the structure actually helps us.

The structure actually points to what the New Testament teaches so clearly.

Because remember the structure we talked about?

The center of the center is God's free forgiveness for us in Jesus.

And so out of chapter 16, out of that forgiveness flows this call to holiness.

Now, here's how Paul teaches in the New Testament.

Much clearer.

Ephesians 5, 1 and 2.

Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

So point number three is this you, including any leader, you are a dearly loved child of the Heavenly Father.

This is our starting point in the thing that we keep repeating back to every single day.

Paul is setting for us a framework that the entire New Testament teaches.

This is something that can really transform us from like a guilt-driven, exhaustive, exhausting faith and spirituality into something that's grace-centered and restful and is from the heart outward.

What we like to say in our church is we live the imperatives, what we should do, that's the imperative.

We live the imperatives through the indicatives, what's been indicated to us or what's promised to us in Jesus.

Meaning, how we should live is fueled by what is already true about us.

So we read Leviticus, be holy, be holy, be holy.

Well, how?

How do we do that?

Well, Paul is teaching us how we do this.

Now, let's just take verse one, just as like a Bible study.

Verse one.

Be imitators of God as beloved children.

So we can break that down and look for the imperatives and the indicatives.

Well, the imperative is be an imitator of God, be holy, be like him, act like him.

That's great, right?

What would Jesus do?

Fantastic.

That's the imperative.

Now, how do we do that?

How are we empowered to that?

How do we desire?

You're a beloved child.

God really loves you.

You're his child.

That's your identity.

The more we rest in the identity, the more the fruit of that can come out.

So who we are fuels where we live.

Now here's another example.

Sort of Bible study practice.

So as I read this verse, why don't you think about and look for the imperative and the indicative?

1 Peter 5, 6, and 7.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

So just as a Bible study, we can get the practice.

Let's do this as a group.

We can interact.

You can call it out loud.

What are the imperatives?

What do you see in the passage that is telling you what you should do or how you should behave?

What are they?

What do you see?

Humble yourself.

Humble yourself.

There's one more.

Cast your anxieties, right?

They jump right out.

Okay, now indicatives.

What do you see in there that is indicating promise to you?

Something's already true about you.

He cares for you.

He cares for you, right?

That's the one that jumps out.

Definitely is that indicative.

So the imperative, humble yourself, cast your anxieties and pray.

Okay, how do we do that?

How do we want to do that?

How do we keep doing that?

How are we empowered to do that?

And the indicative, God is mighty, and you are God's, and He cares for you.

So we cast our anxieties because we are immeasurably cared for by God and Christ.

This is how growth and grace occurs.

Out of the wealth of your identity in Jesus comes the Christian life.

Now let's jump over to Hebrews 13, 7.

Back to leadership.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.

Point number four is this.

Spiritual leadership is repeating what is already true about God and you.

For my birthday, Christy got me Cirrus Radio.

Do we have any of y'all Cirrus people?

A few Cirrus people.

Okay.

I love the I love the radio.

I'm old.

I got old skin and I listen to the radio.

I love, I mean, there is nothing better to me than driving around and I got one hand on the wheel and one hand rests on, you know, like the shift thing, and I can just touch the radio, and I have six preset radio stations.

Did your 99X is back, by the way?

Anybody else 45 years old?

9NX is back.

That's amazing if you're from Atlanta and you're 45.

Like it's back, which is unbelievable.

I'm still not over it.

Anyway, so I have six presets FM stations, and then boom, to jump up, six Cirrus presets.

And I've discovered channel 30 on Cirrus.

Does anybody know what channel 30 on Cirus is?

DMB, baby.

Dave Matthews band.

All the time.

Every time I hit it, it's Dave Matthews band.

It's not what Dave Matthews likes, like the Kenny Chesney station.

I picked up on that.

DMB radio, it is Dave Matthews all the time.

Live shows, studio recordings, every time I go there.

It's different, different songs, different, you know, different, different seasons.

He's had a long career, different seasons, but it's always him.

Always him.

Always the same music.

That's the point.

That's the point of Hebrews, of like leadership.

What's a pastor supposed to do?

Well, a good pastor, and hopefully I'm like learning to get there, is just refreshing the gospel to you.

Just refreshing you in the gospel.

Primarily.

There's lots of other stuff, trust me.

It's not it, but primarily.

Just refreshing the gospel.

It's the same powerful musical notes every single time.

True spiritual leadership isn't looking to invent a new spiritual truth for you.

It's to remind you of what's already true.

It's to remind you of this Leviticus structure and what it's pointing to.

All the forgiveness you ever need is in Jesus.

All the righteousness you ever need is in Jesus.

All the validation and acceptance you ever need is in Jesus.

This is about your identity.

Who you are as a child of God.

Who you are in the wealth of Christ for you.

And this Jesus doesn't just pursue you when you get your act together.

He pursues you to change us today, exactly as you are.

Last point is exactly that.

Point number five.

There is only one great high priest who is Christ Jesus.

Leviticus 21 and 22 make it clear: no human being will be a perfect priest.

We all need a perfect high priest, and Jesus is that.

Let's close with Hebrews 7, verse 26 through 28.

Hebrews 7:26–28

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.

He has no need.

Jesus has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of his people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

For the law appoints men and their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that Jesus is enough for us, that Leviticus and all of the Old Testament is appointing us to our need, the sufficiency and the beauty of Jesus for us.

Thank you that Jesus is enough for the law, for the holy and righteous call for our lives, all the ways that we need forgiveness, all the ways we fall short, all the ways we're not performing as we should, that Jesus is enough for us.

Thank you that this call to loyalty to you never stops.

And at the same time, thank you that Jesus has performed it perfectly for us.

On this Father's Day, we remember that you are the Heavenly Father that cares for us like a Abba Papa.

And for us in this broken world that are performing imperfectly as fathers, and we've experienced imperfect fathering, what a rescue it is to rest.

That we have a heavenly father that's not a reflection of our earthly dad, but a perfection.

And that you love us with a limitless love, and that Jesus is enough for us.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.