Leviticus: The Sufficient Atonement of Jesus

Good morning.

It's the new year.

Glad you're here.

Maybe you have a resolution.

Maybe you want to drink less, maybe you want to exercise more, plank more.

We all need to plank more.

Certain of that.

Maybe less bachelor episodes, more sleep.

It's possible.

And I know because I can just pastorally sense these things.

I can tell January 1st hit, and you thought to yourself, boy, if only I could go to church.

And if only we will study the book of Leviticus.

I mean, Mallory read that wonderfully, but halfway through, I wanted to leave.

I think I fell asleep at one point.

I wanted to leave at one point.

I thought to myself, I've made a huge mistake.

This is going to be a massive mistake in the history of Redeemer.

I mean, what in the world could this strange, ancient, barbaric book have to do with our lives?

We are going to study it from now until June.

We will break for Lent and Easter.

You're welcome.

And we're not going to get into every single detail, but we're going to make some sense of it.

I mean, what in the world could it do with our lives?

Leviticus is the third book of the Old Testament, third book of the Bible.

It's the third of the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch.

Can we say Pentateuch?

Very good.

And so it is the third book.

Maybe you've set out to read the Bible at some point.

You were committed.

And you read Genesis, and it was amazing.

And you read Exodus and it was amazing.

And then Leviticus, where all the dreams of reading through the Bible die.

There in Leviticus.

The Levitical Letdown is what it's called.

And it's just filled with ritual and rules and guts and blood.

An illustration I ran into this week helped me make sense of it.

Thinking about my U-12 girls soccer team.

Here's a picture of us.

There we are, the end of the fall, the ferocious, intimidating team that we have when we take the field.

People are very, very scared.

But we we dominated the fall.

Not sure if you're you heard.

But we dominated.

We have what we call the dominating defensive wall, which is three girls across the back there, and they are a defensive wall.

Brave girls.

That you can talk these little girls into putting their little bodies in front of any full speed bigger girl.

And they will do it because they don't want to let their coach down or their teammates get mad at them.

So it's amazing what you can get out of them.

We do have a few rules for the defensive team.

We have a few rules, and one of the most vital rules is kick to the sides.

Kick to the sides.

Don't kick to the middle.

Kick to the sides and up the sideline.

Don't kick to the middle.

And then the other rule is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever kick back to your goalie.

Ever.

Now what's interesting about that is that there's one field over, there's a bigger field with older teams.

They kick to the goalie all the time.

Right?

Like a defensive player kicks to the goalie, the goalie fields the ball, the goalie kicks to the other side of the field, swinging the ball.

Happens all the time over there.

So at one level, you never kick to the goalie, but then at another level, you kick to the goalie all the time.

The thing that didn't make sense makes sense at another point in time.

And this is how like Leviticus works a little bit.

Like if you just read one passage or one verse, you'll think it's crazy.

Like you're done.

You're like, why did I come to church?

Like you are done.

Back to 1 John, right?

But if you are more equipped, or if you can kind of back up and see the whole story, like a bigger view of the field, all of a sudden kicking to the goalie makes sense.

All of a sudden a verse or a passage can make sense in light of the whole story.

What we're gonna see is we're gonna see that Exodus leads us into Leviticus.

We don't really understand Leviticus without Exodus, so Exodus leads us into Leviticus, and then Leviticus takes us to Jesus.

And what we're gonna see, and even the sermon points, is Leviticus is singing the same song.

Now, as for structure, Leviticus has 27 chapters.

Chapters 1 through 16 take us one place, two chapters 16, and then chapters 17 through 27 take us somewhere else.

Here's how the structure works out if you need a kind of a visual of it.

Chapters 1 through 7, we get rituals, five sacrifices, 8 through 10, we get instructions to priests.

11 through 15, instructions for purity, all leading to the Day of Atonement, chapter 16.

And the Day of Atonement points us directly to our need and the fulfillment of all this law and ritual in Jesus.

Now, out of chapter 16, we get 17 through 20, Code for Purity, 21 and 22, more instructions for priests, and then 23 through 27, which is rituals.

Okay, Leviticus, here we go.

So we're gonna reread some of that because I know you want to hear it again, I can tell.

So we're gonna reread some of it and we're gonna make sense of it a little bit, a little bit.

Leviticus 1, 1 and 2.

The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.

So point number one is this God is with us and begins with our hearts.

The ancient Hebrews believed that the blood of the creature contained its life.

So if we or a sheep or the squirrel loses its blood, we die.

So blood was sacred.

This is the context God is speaking into.

A context where people knew blood was sacred.

And back then, the idea of a sacrifice wasn't this foreign idea.

These are not moderns, these are ancients.

They sacrificed all the time to different deities and to kings.

But here in verses 1 and 2, it's really interesting.

Because this sacrifice was not a routine festival sacrifice.

This sacrifice is talked about, it's very personal.

It's spontaneous.

It's a sacrifice coming from a grateful heart, a response that's flowing freely.

Now, the first word of this book of Leviticus, the first word is the Hebrew word vayakra.

Let's say vayakra.

Who said viagra?

Somebody, y'all are horrible.

What a horrible group of people that y'all you would do, all of you thought it when I said it the initial time.

Okay?

We back?

We're back.

And God continued calling Moses.

So right from the beginning, Moses is connecting Leviticus back to Exodus, the book right before it.

We are dropped into an ongoing story when we open Leviticus.

It's like turning on Back to the Future 2.

Here's a picture of Back to the Future 2, right?

Marty and Doc, they head into the future.

Jennifer goes with them if you remember this.

Of which none of it really makes sense, that much sense, if you haven't seen Back to the Future 1, right?

And what Marty and Doc had to solve, and how Marty got back to 1955, and how he gets back to 1985.

The first part of the story helps us understand the second part of the story.

Leviticus is part two to Exodus.

And Exodus begins with God's people in slavery in Egypt, and God is nowhere to be found.

Their master, Pharaoh, has no love for them, they're just making bricks, brick after brick.

Finally, the people are at the end of themselves.

They call out, and God sends a disruption of grace and he rescues them.

They are freed to walk through the desert to their promised land, but the people won't listen to God, and eventually they just wander around.

They settle down in this desert for 40 years.

Around chapter 19 at Mount Sinai, here's a picture of Mount Sinai.

This is a picture today as a monastery there at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.

God speaks to Moses.

We get the Ten Commandments, but then also chapters 25 through 40, God gives step-by-step instructions of how to build a sanctuary for him.

It's called the tabernacle, or it's called the tent of meeting, which is what we see here at the beginning of Leviticus.

So Exodus begins in slavery with no God, and it ends with freedom with God in the middle of his people.

So we can say this way at the beginning of Exodus, where's God?

But by the end of Exodus, God is with us.

And this is where Leviticus picks up.

God speaking to Moses at the tent of meeting, and God is right smack in the middle of the mess of his people.

When I was 16, I would get into my 1985 four-wheel drive Toyota truck.

I'd put big tires on it, put a sunroof in it, tinted the windows, I'd roll those windows down, put on some Garth Brooks, I'd go pick up my buddy Kyle Hudlow.

We'd get a frosty at Wendy's.

We'd go by Goodwill.

We'd look for some good t-shirts.

We'd go jump off the Alcove Dam into the Alcovey Creek.

We'd go swim at our friend Aaron Hale's house.

We did all of this, and my parents had no idea where I was because there were no phones.

Just went wherever.

I'll be back later.

Right?

Now I think about my 15-year-old daughter today.

I pull up Life 360 and I see she's leaving the clothing section of Target to walk across the aisle into the cosmetics.

And I know that.

And we text all day.

It's a constant relationship.

Right?

And that's the transition from Exodus 1 to Leviticus 1.

In Leviticus, we get God that is constant, he's not distant, and he is right smack in the middle of the mess of his people.

Leviticus 1, 3 through 9.

If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish.

So that's a way to say, bring your best.

It needs to be perfect.

The sacrifice needs to be perfect.

He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.

He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

That verse 4 is crucial.

Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.

So it's a way to say, you said, Oh, that's so odd.

It's a way to say all of it.

The atonement we need is requiring completion.

All of it.

Everything is required.

Verse 7.

And the sons of Aaron, the priest, shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire, and Aaron's sons, the priest, shall arrange the pieces, the head and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire of the altar, but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water, and the priest shall burn all of it on the altar as a burn offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

All right, point number two is this we all need atonement from beyond our efforts.

We all need atonement.

Atonement's the way that we are made right with God in a secure, lasting, forever relationship.

That penalty of sin is paid for, the guilt trip is over, we are made pure, not by our own efforts, but by a gift from God to us.

Say you snap at your friend.

Say, you know, you're with your friend, whatever's going on.

Ah, you go, you're you're always like this.

Why are you always like this?

You're horrible.

You just you never care.

You're such a brat.

Maybe you go into worse words.

You just never.

And then two hours pass and you realize that you were just stressed out.

You were hangry.

You were the problem.

Suddenly, you don't just want to apologize.

You actually want to make it up to them.

Like you feel like you need to do something.

Because we all want to atone for our sins.

Ligonier Resources states this so wonderfully clear about atonement.

Atonement is God is perfectly holy and righteous, and this aspect of his character means that he cannot overlook our sin.

See, because of God's justice, he has to deal with our sin.

Because of his holiness, he has to deal with our sin.

Continues.

If we are to be restored to fellowship with him, atonement must be made.

For every sin is an act of cosmic treason, a betrayal of the Holy One who made us and who rules over all.

God had to condemn sin in the flesh of his son, because to accept us without atoning for our sin would be to compromise his own character.

So in Jesus, this fullness of atonement, we can rest because God's grace satisfies all of God's holiness and justice.

And we are at peace.

Leviticus 1, verse 4, I said this is crucial.

Leviticus 1:4

The person lays his hands or her hands on the sacrifice.

It's a symbolic substitute that you don't have to pay your own price for your guilt or your sin.

What I deserve, this animal is receiving.

What I deserve, Jesus takes on for me.

It's the gift of forgiveness.

Yet we often want to pay for our own sins.

That's our natural reaction.

Be our own sacrifice, earn our way back into God's favor.

How much self-pity is needed before you feel welcomed by God or accepted.

Is that two days of self-pity?

Is it five days?

Is it five months?

Is it five years?

How much religiosity or good deeds is needed before God loves you again?

See, that's a shedding of your own blood.

You being your own sacrifice rather than trusting God.

The book of Hebrews helps us understand Leviticus.

Leviticus and Hebrews play off of each other.

The book of Hebrews in the New Testament, listen how this all comes into completion in Jesus.

Hebrews 10, 5 through 10.

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

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, Jesus said this, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me, and burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.

When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings, these are offered according to the law.

Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will.

So we can think about all this we're reading in Leviticus, he does away with the first in order to establish the second.

This is the way of grace known in Jesus.

Verse 10, and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

So we could say this Leviticus gives us the holy God as to lead us to the God of grace.

The call to holiness drives us to our need of God's grace.

We have to have holiness in sin in order for us to see who we are.

Honestly, not perfect, can't hold our acts together no matter how good we get, and we need God's grace.

Last passage, verses 10 through 17.

If his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, from the sheep or goats, he shall bring a mail without blemish, and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priest, shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar, and he shall cut it into pieces with its head and its fat, and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar.

But the entrails and the legs he shall wash with water, and the priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar.

It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

If his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offerings of turtle doves or pigeons, and the priest shall bring it on the altar, wring off its head, and burn it on the altar, its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar.

He shall remove its crop with its content, and cast it beside the altar on the east side in the place of ashes.

He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall never sever it completely, and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire.

It is a burnt offering, a food offering, pleasing aroma to the Lord.

And we say, Amen.

End of chapter one, Amen.

We made it through.

Point number three is this God welcomes us through our need and his astonishing grace.

Now I read all that for a reason, um, to severely bore you.

Just take pleasure in that.

And then number two is this there's actually a great point hidden in here.

I didn't catch it at first.

I opened a commentary and I go, oh my gosh, it was right there.

See, the first we talk about a burnt offering from the herd.

And then verses 10 through 13, a burnt offering from the flock.

And then verses 14 through 17, burnt offering of the birds.

See, some people were rich and they had a herd.

A lot of people didn't have a herd.

All they can round up is a bird.

And what's amazing is that God makes no valuation between the two.

And the reason why he does this is because God has always been about the heart.

He's about our hearts.

Dane Ortland writes this in Gentle and Lowly.

We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off his heart to his own sheep.

No such reason exists.

Every human friend has a limit.

If we offend enough, if our relationship gets damaged enough, if we betray enough times, we are cast out, the walls go up.

With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resume items that qualify us to approach him.

See, this is such good news that if it's like, oh, if you have a herd, you know, bring for the oh, if all you got is a bird, bring a bird.

We could read right over that, but it's to say bring what we have.

Like God welcomes us.

He wants us, he's after us.

Point number four is this Christian faith is first about what Jesus has done for us before it is about what we do for him.

For me, this started to take shape during this week as three prayers.

So I just want to offer these three prayers to you.

Prayer number one is this Heavenly Father, grant more rest in thee.

Not more rest in me.

You know, help me to rest in you.

Peace in the sacrifice already given once for all.

I don't have to keep sacrificing myself.

Help me to trust that more that I might be at more peace, that Jesus is enough.

Prayer number two, Heavenly Father, create more thanksgiving in thee.

That out of an overflow of a grateful heart, my spiritual life would come.

Maybe that would have something to do with my worship, maybe something to do with my devotions or spiritual practices, but none of it because I have to, but because my heart is being affected.

And there's a personal response that I want to.

And lastly, prayer number three, Heavenly Father, increase my love to thee.

I love a lot of things that just don't matter.

So, God, would you help me?

Help me increase my love to you.

For the past two years, the song More Love to Thee has meant a lot to me.

And so I close with these lyrics.

Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest.

Now thee alone I seek to give what is best.

This all my prayer shall be.

More love, O Christ, to thee.

More love to thee.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you are enough in Jesus once and for all.

When you are waiting for us to fall radically backward into your grace, the sufficiency of Jesus, all of you, the perfect sacrifice, every bit of you for us, that you are fully sufficient for us, and there's nothing for us to add, there's only more for us to rest in.

Would we know a greater freedom in these days, a greater joy, a greater contentment?

God help us to trust in you and increase our love for you.

In Christ's name.

Amen.