Rob's Expository Sermon Preparation | Leviticus 13:1–8

Introduction:

· “Just some Levitical Law”

LET’S LOOK AT WHAT THESE LAWS SHOW US ABOUT GOD’S CALL TO RITUAL PURITY, MORAL PURITY, AND HOW WE CAN EXPERIENCE TRUE PRUITY IN OUR LIFE TODAY.

I) Living Before A Holy God Requires Ritual Purity

A. God Instructs His People concerning Ritual Purity

i. God is spelling out rules for food, fluid, and flesh

1. A new section: laws governing everyday cleanness in everyday life

2. “Food, fluids, and flesh” – a tour of chs. 11-15

ii. God is teaching his people about the power of purity

1. Clean & unclean are usually not moral (though sometimes) but proximity

2. EXAMPLE: visiting a hospital, or entering an operating room

B. God Requires His People to practice Ritual Purity

i. A flow chart: Diagnosing skin conditions (vv. 2-8)

1. NOT Hansen’s disease but any number of skin conditions

2. A napkin drawing: applying varied criteria to determine contagious illness

ii. The message: Living in God’s presence requires nothing affiliated with death

1. Why some conditions over others? contagious illnesses represented death

2. God is the fountain and source of all life and not compatible with death

GOD REQUIRES RITUAL PURITY. BUT THERE IS SOMETHING MORE SIGNIFICANT HERE.

II) Living Before A Holy God Calls us to Moral Purity

A. Ritual Laws Point to Moral Laws

i. God uses ritual holiness to teach about moral holiness (chs. 18-19)

1. Entering God’s presence required ritual holiness; livingàmoral holiness

2. EXAMPLE: sex; honoring parents; loving neighbor; care for stranger, etc.

ii. God’s ritual holiness is tied together with his moral holiness

1. Holiness encompasses every part of our life: Living Levitically

2. Holiness involves loving our neighbor – not just personal piety

B. Therefore, Ritual Laws Illustrate The Power of Sin

i. Sin has the power to contaminate – (vv. 45-46)

1. Calling “Unclean” wasn’t cruel, but a way to preserve the community

2. Likewise, allowing sin free reign will destroy a life, and a community

ii. Because Sin is destructive we must pay any price to remove it

1. Adherence to these practices was time consuming, inconvenient, costly

2. Like gouging out an eye, the cost could save a soul (Matt. 5:29-30)

Matthew 5:29–30 ESV

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

3. EXAMPLE: Pride; reputation;

SO, GOD CALLS US TO HOLY LIVING – BUT HERE’S WHERE THERE’S A DANGER.

III) Living Before God Requires Jesus to Make Us Holy

A. We cannot attain the holiness that We Need

i. Our holiness falls short

1. The danger becomes thinking that we can make ourselves holy

2. Most of us feel or fear that we aren’t enough

ii. Only a priest could declare a person Holy

1. No person could make themselves holy;

2. Being declared clean depended on the pronouncement of a priest

B. Jesus Gifts us the Purity That we need

i. Jesus touches unclean Lepers and makes them clean(not the other way around)

1. In each of Jesus’ encounters with a leper, he “touches” them

2. Jesus’ cleanness flows to them, their uncleanness to Jesus

ii. Jesus gives us the moral purity that we long for:

1. The impurity of our guilt is passed to Jesus, who is “expelled” for us

2. Therefore, the priest can pronounce us Holy, clean

AS WE COME TO THE LORD’S TABLE THIS IS WHAT JESUS WANTS TO IMPRESS UPON US.

Conclusion

Communion reminds us that Jesus’ body/blood were broken/poured out for our forgiveness