Leviticus: Our Devotion is through God’s Grace

So this morning we are continuing our study through this ancient book of Leviticus, the third book of the Old Testament, the third of Moses' books, of his books called the Pentateuch.

And what we are seeing is we are seeing that the Old Testament is picture after picture of God's grace to come, and that the New Testament is teaching after teaching about that grace.

Now, Leviticus follows Exodus, which was the second book of the Bible.

And Exodus, if you remember, begins with God's people in Egypt and slavery.

God is nowhere to be found.

But by the end of that book, God has rescued his people, and God is no longer distant.

And where we pick up at the beginning of Leviticus is Moses at the tent of meeting.

God has come down Mount Sinai, down to be with his stubborn, messy people, and he wants to reside, God wants to reside with his people in a thing called the tabernacle or the tent of meeting, his sanctuary amongst the people.

Now last Sunday evening I turned on the TV and the Golden Globes were on in Hollywood at the Beverly Hilton.

There's a picture of the Golden Globes, and at one point the camera kind of went across the crowd.

It wasn't a big room, a few hundred people in there.

And then it's a power room.

Ryan Gosling, Meryl Street, Martin Scorsese, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Matt Damien.

And of course, you know who was there.

She was there.

That's all I have to say.

She was, she was there.

Stunning green Gucci gown.

She resided in that room.

And everyone, everyone was aware.

She is here.

And it's a room of, that's a room of glory.

Not just because she is there, everybody in there.

That's a room of beauty and power.

I thought just for a second, I thought, what would that, what would that be like?

Just to be in that room and look around.

That's just the beginning of this idea of tent of meeting.

That God, creator of the world, all beauty, all power, says, Hey, I'm going to begin to teach you about me.

So I'm going to come down the mountain.

I'm going to stop being distant.

I'm going to move in to your people.

I'm going to move in.

I'm going to take up residence.

Now, in this tent, everything's symbolic.

Everything means something.

Here's an image of the tent.

If you kind of drew it out from all the details that we get in the book of Exodus, if you're a nerd like me, you can look at this image in the Gospel Coalition website.

It's an article called What Does the Tabernacle Symbolize?

You can nerd out forever.

It's wonderful.

Everything means something in this tent.

The tent reminds us that God is near to us and he shares himself with us.

The ark reminds us of the power of God's presence.

The tablets of the Ten Commandments on top of the ark remind the people of God's covenant relationship with them and that he has a certain way for us to live.

It's not up for grabs.

We don't have to make it up.

He tells us what's right and what's wrong.

The veil of the Holy of Holies, that curtain in the middle of the tent, that is a symbol that to enter into God's presence is not flippant.

And only the high priest could enter into that Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement once a year.

So in the New Testament, when we read that Jesus is our high priest, and we read that the veil was torn at the cross and the resurrection, it's not just religious language.

That means everything.

Because what it means is it means that He welcomes us into His presence without fear, without anxiety.

Complete welcome.

Paul expounds on this in the New Testament.

Think about this sanctuary and this tent, God's presence in the Old Testament.

And then Paul says, 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17, do you not know that you are God's temple?

And that God's Spirit dwells in you.

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are the temple.

That's revolutionary.

Alright, let's dig into our text.

Leviticus chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.

Leviticus 2:1–3

She liked it.

I heard the amen from the baby.

Verse 1 When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour.

He shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it, and bring it to Aaron's sons, the priest.

And he shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and oil with all of its frankincense.

And the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar.

A food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord, but the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons.

It is the most holy part of the Lord's food offerings.

Point number one is this we are active worshipers, not passive attenders.

I'd prefer us not even to use that word attenders.

We can use the word congregants, we use the word parishioners, use the word worshipers.

We're not attenders.

That's not what we do.

And this worship in Leviticus was active.

This grain offering of chapter 2, the second offering that we get in these beginnings of Leviticus, this grain offering is their worship, active worship, their active devotion.

Twenty years ago, I spent a semester serving a church in Scotland.

Here's a picture of that church, Buckhaven Baptist Church.

It was along the coast, the eastern coast, just above Edinburgh, along the Fife Coast.

And here's a picture of that coastline in the town, lovely town.

I'll tell you one thing, in the wintertime it doesn't look like that.

I was there in the winter.

Don't do that.

Don't receive that call.

Do not receive the call of God to Scotland in the wintertime because it doesn't look like that.

Now let me tell you about that church.

Nothing was aesthetic.

Wood pews.

So you're welcome for that cushy chair you're sitting on right now.

You're welcome for that.

Nice and comfy.

Wood pews, horrible lighting.

It's so cold.

So cold.

And these people, they'd open up these old hymnals.

This sweet elderly lady would get up and play the piano at the front of the church.

There's no worship leader.

And these people would sing.

And I thought to myself, as I am 21 years old, I am a Christian from the wonderful country of America.

And I am here.

I am here to tell these people how to worship.

Because I see it right away.

We can dim these lights.

We can get a projector.

Projectors exist in the country of Scotland at that point, technology of history.

We can get a guitar.

Right?

Maybe we put a cello on stage.

Maybe you want a smoke machine.

I don't know what you want.

We can do that.

We can turn the heat on.

It'd help.

Just kind of warm up some worship.

And it took about three Sundays.

I'd say three Sundays in.

As I watched them because they would sing.

They had no problem.

They had no problem with the puke.

They had no problem with the lighting.

I had a problem.

Like I had a heart in love with worship aesthetics.

But not a heart that loves to worship.

I had to learn what they knew.

Circumstances don't create our worship.

We show up as active worshipers with hearts overflowing with something on us to God.

Something.

Because he loves us and he found us.

And he came down Mount Sinai to reside with us in the valley where he meets us at the end of ourselves.

So yeah, we show up as worshipers.

Now if we go back to the text, we see these ingredients, right?

Picture after picture of God's grace to come.

We see these ingredients, oil and frankincense.

Frankincense is an incense with this grain offering.

The oil reminds us that whatever we offer and worship, we owe because of the Spirit's working in us.

And then the incense is a symbol of what worship is.

It's a sweet fragrance, aroma, sweetness to the Lord.

It just tells us the Lord's after our hearts.

He's always been after our hearts, however broken and messy we are.

Point number two is this our worship is an offering to the Heavenly Father, who is worthy of our lives.

In verse one, the word grain might also be meat.

Maybe your translation of your Bible says meat offering.

The point is it's a meal offering.

And then that word offering is the word minha, which meaning it's a pledging of oneself.

That's what's going on in chapter two.

A pledging of oneself.

That's what we do when we worship.

We're pledging ourselves to the Lord.

It's a pledge offering.

And this word speaks of a lower person, it's a tribute of that lower person giving something to a superior.

And this grain offering in chapter two is not demanded by God.

It's an overflow.

It's a heart response that he is enough.

Alright, verses four through ten, a bit of a read, hang with me.

When you bring a grain offering baked in the oven as an offering, it shall be unleavened loaves of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers smeared with oil.

There's gonna be a lot of oil because it's a symbol of God's spirit.

Verse 5.

And if your offering is a grain offering baked on a griddle, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil.

You shall break it into pieces and pour oil on it as a grain offering.

And if your offering is a grain offering cooked in a pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.

And you shall bring the grain offering that is made of these things to the Lord, and when it is presented to the priest, he shall bring it to the altar.

And the priest shall take from the grain offering its more memorial portion and burn this on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons.

That is the most holy part of the Lord's food offerings.

Man, that's detailed, right?

Like, okay, like is it in a pan or a griddle?

It's mixed with what?

What's poured over it?

It's the beginning of a standard of worship, and it's the beginning of a standard of what of being a worshiper, which as soon as we get into these details, is gonna be like, like, I'm just gonna need grace.

Like, I'm gonna need God's grace on me.

It's a lot to keep track of.

But it also is telling us like we are gonna need that grace.

Like we're gonna need it.

We can't just get life lessons, right?

This is the story.

God down the mountain to us, not us up the mountain to Him.

And point number three is this being a devoted Christian always returns us to our need of God's grace.

So, yeah, we want to be devoted Christians.

Chapter two is about devotion, but it's always returning us.

We don't graduate from grace, we fall only more deeply into it.

Last week my girls took on the big chore of reorganizing our pantry.

I didn't get a picture of the pantry before, but I found like one online that was kind of a representation.

So this was sort of like what our pantry looked before.

Not nasty, like you wouldn't be ashamed of it, but also like it's just a little messy, it's always just sort of a little messy.

And then they they went at it, they ordered some containers, they made labels, and now it looks like this.

This is actually our pantry now, right?

I mean that's that's amazing.

That they may be addicted to home edit.

Is anybody else addicted to home edit?

You're into home edit?

It's beautiful.

Like, I'm just like, this is beautiful.

Like I didn't know you'd have a beautiful pantry.

It took about two days for me to see the problem that was created.

I can't just take the tortillas and throw them back in there.

They gotta go in the container for the tortillas, which is the second shelf down, back right.

Maybe I've been lectured, right?

They're very concerned about dad's snack bin.

That was, I requested that bin.

And I, you know why I wanted that bin?

I want to do what I want in that bin.

That's my bin.

And they're like, hey, your bin?

Like, your bin's not live living up to like the standard of the rest of the pantry.

And it's just, yeah, like I can't, like, I can't keep up with this.

Right?

So, like, in light of the the holiness standard of the pantry, like I am gonna need your grace to me, right?

Right?

You you see what I'm saying, right?

Because back to Leviticus, if we go back to Leviticus, the blood offering of chapter one, the blood offering comes before the grain offering of chapter two.

See, the grain offering is our devotion.

So our devotion comes through God's provision of grace because your devotion is never enough.

It's not gonna be passionate enough, it's not gonna be sincere enough or long enough or sustained enough, right?

All of our devotion, chapter two, is through the blood offering, God's provision of grace, chapter one, which is pointing us to Jesus.

Do you remember the amazing lyrics of Rock of Ages cleft for me?

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill the law's demands.

Could my zeal no respite know?

Could my tears forever flow?

All for sin could not atone.

Thou must save.

And thou alone.

Verse eleven.

No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven or any honey as a food offering to the Lord.

That's odd.

We'll get to it.

Verse 12.

As an offering of first fruits, you may bring them to the Lord, but they shall not be offered on the altar for a pleasing aroma.

You shall season all your grain offerings with salt.

You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering.

With all your offerings, you shall offer salt.

Point number four is this.

We're tying these things together, the structure of one and two, and then we get this ingredient salt.

Point number four, our devotion comes through, empowered by God's lavish provision of grace.

If you remember, this New Testament gives us Jesus, the fulfillment of everything we are not, helps us understand this freeing and empowering grace that we have, that we not only have freedom and grace, healing in grace, we also have growth in grace.

Hebrews ties it together for us, 10, 4, 5, and 9.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

So we need something more than this first covenant, this first way, verse 5.

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, we need the second way, verse 9.

He does away with the first in order to establish the second.

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

This is why we say, we've said before, in Christ we are always forgiven and always righteous, meaning Jesus is your righteousness.

He is your righteousness.

And in Christ we're liberated from performancism, performing to God as to be righteous or as to be enough or as to finally be forgiven.

Jesus is this for us.

So we're liberated from performances to live by the Spirit in freedom.

So spiritual anxiety, spiritual exhaustion, and even spiritual pride is over.

Because our way forward is a growth in grace.

If we go back to our text, remember the salt in Leviticus 2?

Salt was used for preservation.

It was also a key component and sealing of covenants at the time.

Everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord.

It's an image for us.

It's a picture.

See, we'll exhaust ourselves with questions, even as Christians.

Am I good enough today?

Am I good enough yet?

Am I pleasing to God?

Does God delight in me?

Could he delight in me?

Can he know me and love me?

Have I done enough today?

Yes.

You are good enough today.

Because of the salt.

Because of the covenant.

Because of the salt, which creates secure bonds, which is the image that God has bound the relationship, not you, in the secure covenant by Jesus for you.

That changes everything else, doesn't it?

When we have that kind of security.

And then we get verse 11, because the good news is not over.

Don't put any leaven, don't put any honey in that devotion, that grain offering of yours, which were such incredible ingredients at the time.

But both ingredients fermented.

They went bad.

So this was God's way of saying this relationship, this bounty of grace, this bounty of God for you, never runs out.

All right, last few verses.

Verse 14.

If you offer a grain offering of firstfruits to the Lord, you shall offer for the grain offering of your first fruits fresh ears, roasted with fire, crushed new grain, and you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it.

It is a grain offering.

And the priest shall burn as its memorial portion some of the crushed grain, and some of the oil with all of its frankincense.

It is a food offering to the Lord.

Point number five, our worship is inside of God's covenant care for us.

This word first fruits, it means take the first.

Take the beginning of what you earn and have and create.

As if to say we're always remembering.

Like even when we bring our devotion and our worship, and we're coming to God to show God who we are, our pledging, even our grain offering, we're always remembering.

We could say this the gift of grace, Jesus, empowers the call of our devotion in grace, which is our worship practices.

Right?

Chapter two comes through chapter one.

Our call is to behold Jesus more.

Like I want that for you.

To slow down more, to worship weekly, to open the scriptures, to do that together communally, to do that personally on a daily basis, to have devotions, to pray, to read, to journal.

Like your pastors are waiting for that question.

Like, hey, pastor, what should I read?

Like, what's a great book?

What's a great devotion?

And then when your devotion falls short, when the grain offering falls short, there's always chapter one.

There's the memorial.

We're covered in the grace of Jesus.

God is teaching through the structure of this text.

And the good news is so clear that our devotion for Jesus is always empowered by our already acceptance in Jesus.

See, for years I left Jesus behind in my great devotion religiously to pursue him.

Like Jesus is the front door.

Now I'm just gonna go get on a treadmill and like prove how I'm so sincere, you know, just run it out.

Right?

This is kind of like me perpetually or you perpetually like climbing the mountain to get up to God the whole time God is with you in the valley in your weakness.

This is about receiving him in the valley where he pursues us.

And so then the call is like, yeah, bring your grain offering.

Bring your worship, bring your devotion.

Pursue more, but not for any acceptance, but because and through the already acceptance you have in him.

Chapter two comes through chapter one.

I close with the great lyrics from when I survey the wondrous cross for the whole realm of nature mind that were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you that our grain offering, our devotion, our worship, our spiritual disciplines come through the blood offering.

Chapter two is after chapter one.

God, thank you for the structure of this text that you're putting before us, picture after picture, of our need of Jesus and the power of Jesus for us, for our salvation and for our Christian walk.

May we trust you more.

May we fall more deeply into your grace for us, be transformed more, grow in grace, and give to you our worship, for you are worthy of all of it.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.