Leviticus: Be Holy for I am Holy | Associate Pastor: Matt Armstrong

Well, this morning we're continuing in our sermon series through the book of Leviticus.

And if you're like me, you know, this is one of those books that's sort of like shockingly relevant.

You know, you read it during your Bible reading plan and you think, what in the world is this?

Um, but when you sit down and uh reflect on its connection to Jesus, the gospel, the New Testament, it's it sort of like opens another layer of beauty and depth of the of the gospel.

And I hope you will see that this morning.

As I was reflecting on these books, or this book and this passage, it sort of reminded me of the early days of my relationship with Stacy, my wife.

Uh, young love.

One of the best things about young love is that desire to discover or understand this other person in your life, you know, in in the best of times, this beautiful gift from God that has been uh given to you.

They're intriguing, they're a mystery.

And in many ways, that's what these early chapters of the Bible are.

God has come to his people, he has chosen them, right, a long time before through Abraham, but now after the Exodus, he's come, he's rescued his people from slavery, and he says, I'm going to be your God and you're gonna be my people.

And God's people enter into almost immediately this um discovery process.

God, through his word and his deeds, his actions, he is revealing himself to them.

Last week, uh Russ talked about uh chapter 10 in Leviticus, where this kind of shocking thing happened, shocking to us, but shocking to God's people.

Aaron, the high priest's two sons, are killed by the glory of God.

They were like two electrical, young electrical technicians who were working on the power lines, and they didn't respect the power they were in the presence of, and they made a false move, and they were they were dead in the blink of an eye.

And so, even in that, God is revealing himself to the people of God through what he did and what he said.

It was exhilarating on the one hand, it was frightening on the other.

The God who could split the sea, destroy a Pharaoh, was also the God who loved them and would provide for them.

They had much to learn.

Now in chapter 11, we take an interesting turn.

The first ten chapters of Leviticus is about the sacrificial system.

It's the sacrifices, the animals, the plants, the different things they were to bring to make them, to forgive them of their sins, and the priests that were needed to offer those sacrifices.

Now in chapter 11, and for the next four or five chapters, we're shifting to purity laws, laws of what Israel could and couldn't do in order to stay holy in God's presence.

And so the shift is from God's holiness to the people's holiness.

They are to be holy because God is holy.

That brings us to our first point.

To be holy is to be set apart.

Russ talked about some of this last week.

Of everything that is holy, God is the most holy, right?

Like we kind of know that instinctually.

But what does that mean?

The technical definition of holiness is to be set apart.

If you have a group of something and you take one, you know, maybe a coffee mug, and say, oh, this is my favorite coffee mug.

I want to put it over here.

It's distinct from all these other coffee mugs.

You have made this coffee mug holy in that sense.

What does it mean that God is holy?

Well, it means that God is set apart, he is different, he's distinct from everything else that is, right?

All of his creation, he is uniquely other.

And that's kind of interesting if you think about it, because much of what we know about God is about what he is not.

We are limited in our human physical understanding.

And God is not those things.

And so it's even reflected in some of the words we use, some of the theology we have, right?

God is immortal.

Well, what does that mean?

Well, he's not mortal.

Okay, what does that mean?

Well, I don't know.

I'm mortal, he's not.

God is infinite, which means he is not finite.

Well, what does that mean?

I don't know.

Because I'm finite, I am limited by my very nature, nothing can change that.

And so God is something that I know is not like me, and therefore I can never fully understand it.

One of the ways God is set apart from his creation is that there is no impurity in him.

There is no sin in him.

He is perfect in every aspect of the word.

When the Westminster Divine sought to put down in writing a catechism, a way to teach and to train children and adults, they asked this question: what is God?

This was what they wrote down.

God is spirit, which really means God doesn't have a body, in and of himself infinite, and being glory, blessedness, perfection, all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.

It's like they're reaching for every supportative they could find.

And what the law taught the people is that they were not or we are not those things.

And again, this idea was brought home afresh to them in the death of Aaron's two sons.

That they, even them, set apart as priests.

When they acted in an inappropriate manner, when they acted in unholiness, they were consumed.

Remember from last week, this is what Leviticus 10, 2 says.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took a censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it, and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, with which he had not commanded them, and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them.

They died before the Lord.

What God has taught his people is that in when unholiness comes into the presence of holiness, it is consumed.

It's like taking a piece of paper and putting it at a fire and sort of being shocked or just, you know, um dismayed that it is that it is burned up.

It is simply the nature of things.

But now in chapter 11, God tells the Israelites that he is now setting them apart.

They are to be holy.

This is what we read earlier in verse 44.

For I, the Lord your God, for I am the Lord your God, consecrate, which is the verb for make holy, yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.

This is a problem.

Leads us to point two.

The law revealed the distance and and the heart of God.

So this summer, the uh Summer Olympics are coming.

Woo-hoo, every four years.

I love the Olympics.

Uh there it is, Paris, 2024.

What I love most about the Olympics is, yes, kind of the competition and seeing how many gold medals America has compared to the rest of the world.

But but maybe even more so is these stories, right?

We get these heartwarming stories about these incredible athletes and what they do to become the greatest athletes in the world.

You remember this guy, Michael Phelps?

That is his name, right?

Now all of a sudden I'm doubting myself.

Yeah, Michael Phelps.

He uh Olympic swimmer, won an incredible amount of medals.

I mean, this guy is like an Adonis, you know, he's just you know handsome and it's just great at everything.

What I remember about the stories about him, though, in particular, was his diet.

They they talked about he would eat 12,000 calories a day when he was uh you know at the peak of his training.

And I was like, man, you know, I'm supposed to only get like 2,000.

This guy gets 12,000 calories.

And it when you think about uh an Olympic athlete, like what they give up or what they devote themselves to, right, they are holy in a sense.

They've set themselves apart in every aspect of their lives, what they eat and what they won't eat, what when they sleep, what they do with their time, every aspect of their lives is devoted to this one thing, to be an elite athlete.

And the same was true for Israel.

As God revealed his law to them, it became very clear that to be holy, to be God's people and set apart touched every aspect of their lives.

Now, if you look at chapter 11 in Leviticus, it's actually really long, and we're not gonna spend any time going through the chapter, because it conveyed this one thing that everything they ate impinged on, whether they were holy or not.

And God set down some very minute details about what they could eat and what they couldn't eat.

In fact, what they could touch and what they couldn't touch, and what they had to do if they did.

If you ate uh the wrong kind of animal, you were unclean until evening, and you had to walk, go through these ceremonial washings.

But as the rest of the law unfolds, as we know, right, what how they were to work and not work, how they were to use their time, right?

The Sabbath, who they could marry and not marry, every aspect of Israel's life was dictated by the law.

And as they studied and as they learned and as they um as they attempted to follow the law, two things were revealed to the people.

First was the vast gulf that existed between them and their God.

God was holy simply in his being, he was all those superlatives simply because of who he was.

To be holy was way harder than being an Olympic athlete.

But second, what was revealed to them was the gracious heart of God to provide a way to be in relationship in the first place.

Um it would be, I was trying to think about how what was that like for them?

And I remember the recent masters.

I don't have a picture of this guy, but Scotty Scheffler.

He he just won the Masters.

He's like the most incredible golfer of all time, apparently.

Uh I'm learning.

Imagine going to play golf with Scotty Scheffler this afternoon, right?

We have a lot of avid golfers in in the room.

We also have people who've never played golf before.

Doesn't matter.

Imagine going to play golf with him.

Right?

The par of most golf courses is a 72.

And I imagine he would get through 18 holes and he might shoot, you know, like a 62, some incredible score.

What would you shoot?

Well, I haven't played golf in 20 years, so if I have no hope of breaking 100, I'm saying like realistically, I'm gonna get 112.

40, 50 shots worse than Scotty Scheffler.

Imagine how would you feel being in the presence of that elite athlete?

And as you played, your shortcomings as an athlete were just on display.

And I can imagine, even if you're a scratch golfer, you're so intimidated.

You know, let's say you're gonna get a 75 or something.

And you're just there in that relationship, it's this this contrast, this vast gulf between you and this elite athlete.

And yet as you're playing, he's smiling, he's complimenting you on your good shots.

He seems to really enjoy your presence in a very small way.

This is what the law was like for Israel.

This God who was high, holy, lifted up, he was above all other gods, he moved towards God's people.

And he said, I want to be in your presence.

Right?

We often get stuck on the crushing weight of the law, and that's true.

We also get stuck on the shocking reality of what it looks like when holiness and unholiness come together, like in Leviticus chapter 10, and that's true.

Leviticus 10 · chapter mention

But beloved, that was true whether or not God came close to his people.

What God revealed in coming to them and giving them this law and showing them this gulf is that his heart towards them was love.

He was willing to endure, he was, he would do whatever it took to be with them.

Listen to what God says in Deuteronomy chapter 7.

Deuteronomy 7 · chapter mention

He says, For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession.

Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more numerous than the other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you are the fewest.

But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping an oath he swore to your fathers.

Why did God come to the Israelites?

Why did he set them apart as holy?

Why did he want to be their God?

Because he loved them.

He wanted to be with them.

That too was revealed to them in the law.

But it's also true that there was an inherent tension in the law.

Right?

Because the law was there and it allowed them to offer these sacrifices, telling them what to eat and not eat in order to be in relationship with God, and yet they were not perfect, and they were not able to keep it perfectly.

And so, though it created a relational dynamic, there was always this inherent tension.

And not to be too graphic, but it reminds me of, again, the early days of my relationship with my wife, Stacy.

The time of our engagement was sweet.

It was so good.

We just loved being together.

We would read all these books on marriage together.

I mean, we were just like dorking out on it.

Could just not spend enough time.

But there was an inherent tension in our engagement.

We longed to consummate our marriage.

And we were doing our darndest to keep what we believed God was telling us to wait to consummate our marriage until we were married.

And so this law, Israel's relationship to God, was like being engaged, but not yet fully being able to be one together in union.

And so this is the state.

God longs to be with his people.

God's people are growing to long for him as they come to know and understand him.

Which leads us to our third point.

That Jesus fulfills the law so that we can truly be holy in him.

In Galatians, Paul talks about the law like a guardian or a governess, kind of like Mary Poppins, right?

She came, she took care of the kids while the parents were off doing their thing.

And the the role of this guardian was to take care of the children until they came of age.

It was it had a temporary function.

This is the way Paul describes it.

He says, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoptions as sons and daughters.

You see, the law had a role, a very important role.

God revealed himself to them, he revealed the gulf, he revealed his heart, but he also revealed the need.

The need that was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus.

That he came and was uniquely the only human being to come and perfectly fulfill that law that we utterly fail at.

But in that perfection, living that perfect life, he also willingly gave himself as the perfect sacrifice.

And so Israel had learned, just like the Israelite who would lay his hand or her hand on the head of the lamb before that lamb was offered in sacrifice, when we put our faith in Christ, our guilt is transferred unto Jesus as he takes it on the cross, takes it to the cross.

And his perfect holiness is transferred to us.

And so finally, finally, after the death and the resurrection of Jesus, God's people are able to be truly holy in Jesus.

This is the beauty of our union with Christ.

That all that he earned, all that he was, the love the Father has for the Son is now ours by faith.

Leads us to our fourth and final point.

Now Jesus is our holiness and not the law.

In truth, the law was never capable of providing the holiness that God's people needed, right?

But like Israel, we often fall into that mindset, that mistake that it is, that it could.

And God's people thought they were holy and unique because of their ability to keep the law.

And beloved, we do the same thing on a regular basis.

But the beauty and the freedom of the gospel is this that we are holy in Christ alone.

By faith alone.

By grace alone.

All things that God requires of us are now given.

If you are in Christ, then you are a new creation.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We have utter and complete freedom in the gift of our holiness.

And so now we are free to love, free to love God, free to love our neighbor, free to serve.

Not to serve or work to earn our holiness, but to serve and to work out of our holiness.

Because of our love for God.

Beloved, we need this radical truth on a regular basis.

That's why we come each week.

We hear the gospel preached.

We receive the gift of the body and blood of Christ and our communion so that we can stand afresh again and say, we and ourselves are utterly unworthy, but in Christ we are fully, holy, beloved, sons and daughters of God.

Hallelujah.

Amen.

Our Father and our God in heaven, Lord, thank you for the gift of true holiness in Christ.

We ask that that truth would go deeper into our hearts, that your love for us, its height and breadth, its width and depth, would become more comprehensible to us.

We love you.

Thank you for loving us.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.