Complete Surrender
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HONOR
Pray for Dad and those that might be sick.
I want to preach today from the book of Leviticus.
This has been our study in Sunday School - but today I’m going to take a piece and of it and not so much teach from it but preach from it.
My hope today is to do 2 things - help you fall in love with the OT, with Leviticus
And that the Holy Spirit would speak to you about areas in your life that need to be completely surrendered to Christ
Let’s go to Leviticus! It’s the 3rd book in your Bible…
Leviticus is not a book to be read as much as it is a book to be studied.
It’s not a page turner. It is a bunch of lists and charts and commands.
It’s a cook book.
As we read these lists of laws and commands, we might think, who could ever fulfill this? Who could ever remember and live up to this crazy standard.
Christ did and Christ does.
So, as we are reading, we can read with the end in mind knowing that Christ has fulfilled this law and has allowed us proximity to God.
the picture of fulfilled is not like a check list that now this item is complete we move on from it.
The way the Jewish people would have thought about the way of “fulfilled” would be more akin to a cup now being full to the brim. It is fulfilled.
We no longer have to work to fill this cup. Christ has filled it.
God’s standards have not changed! He is still Holy. God is still requiring sacrifices from us! They are just now different kinds of sacrifices.
39 and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Everyone (who is in Christ) is free from everything.
Leviticus is meant to overwhelm you.
Leviticus flys in the face of the consumeristic, “bless-me” mindset that our culture is in.
If you were to meet with the Governor, you’d probably dress a little nicer, you’d think of what you’d want to say, you would prepare yourself.
And yet, we have lost this mindset in our churches.
I remember sitting at FGF and some brought a bag of chips and a can of coke to eat during the service. YIKES!
And this is a paradox. We get to have access through Christ — but we still have sacrifices to offer God. We still should have a Holy Fear of God!
Leviticus teaches us how to be close to a Holy God.
Leviticus 1:1–5 (ESV)
1 The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, 2 “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.
3 “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.
4 He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. 5 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.
Have you ever recieved a gift that you know probably meant more to the person who gave it to you than to yourself?
Pastor Scott
Paula’s dad
The best gifts are the ones that fit into YOUR preferences.
For some people it’s the thought that counts - for others its the gift that counts!
God is a person with preferences.
God isn’t very casual with what He wants from you. He’s actually very clear and very precise.
Leviticus shows us that God has preferences and for us - an unholy people - to be in relationship with a Holy, Perfect God — We have to do things HIS WAY. Not the other way around.
3 “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.
Without blemish - Back to Cain and Able’s offerings. It was YOUR BEST. This aspect of God has not changed today.
God wants your best time, resources, money, talents - That is the same.
ACCEPTED. This is important. You can’t just do what you want and think God will accept it and honor it. You have to do it God’s way or it may not be accepted.
Let me say this — God isn’t obsessed with these little details because He’s OCD.
Do you know why God cares about the animals without blemish?
Because we care about the animals without blemish. Because they would have been worth more. They would have carried a greater weight.
Why does Jesus teach more on money than any other subject? Why does God care about money so much?
Because you do.
Because where your treasure is your heart will be also.
Can I tell you something? — God knows you better than you do.
God knows best.
Sometimes we lose this idea and think that God is somehow my handmaiden to help me through my day.
NO. He is the King and we are the servant.
God knows best.
Are our lives pliable enough for God to affect and move???
God is asking, commanding these offerings because He deserves the first place in our lives — AND BC He knows that what you worship, you become.
What you set your heart toward, you set your life toward.
So offering right sacrifices, ACCEPTABLE sacrifices, not your leftovers, your best, without blemish is how were able to have proximity with a Holy God! .l,k’;’.
VZFFERESSAAA… n . V GM b
4 He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
He had to lay his hands on the offering because he had to own it. The person needed to recognize that this was happening because of them.
You have to own your sin and recognize that it is not free. It costs something
This animal is having to die because blood is the cost of sin.
Sin is not an oopsy-doopsy.
It causes death and must cost life. Blood.
Its serious. God is so perfect that he CANNOT tolerate sin.
So He is willing to make an atonement for our sins …
Atonement is used 50 times in Leviticus. The Hebrew word is kâphar (כָּפַר), which means to cover.
8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
Atonement doesn’t mean that it’s gone but that God isn’t going to look at it.
Once you understand that sin costs blood, that there is a sacrifice, God is willing to pull His intentional forgetfulness over that sin and now no longer hold you accountable for that sin.
Leviticus 1:5–9 (ESV)
5 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. 6 Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, 7 and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire.
There had to be a bull, there had to be something, because you cannot pay for sin by yourself. There had to be something outside of yourself to pay what you cannot pay.
Then Aaron’s sons would be covered in blood and would throw it against the side of the altar. It is this picture of this gross disgusting mess. This is what sin is. This is what sin does. It’s not a simple mistake. It cost blood. It costs life.
Sin costs. It might not cost you something because of Jesus but it cost Him something.
8 And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; 9 but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
God likes the way this smells. God feels things and likes things and has preferences.
This is a repeated phrase through this chapter.
God likes this.
God wants this.
God is a person with preferences.
God likes when things are completely and totally surrendered to Him.
There’s not a piece being held back
There’s not a little kept on the side
No. It’s all God’s
This offering must be COMPLETELY and TOTALLY burned up. No one got to eat these. Some of the offerings the Priests got to share with God. Not these. Every piece of this was for God.
You burn it and then you burn it some more until there is nothing left of it. You don’t get to keep the horns from the bull and mount them in your den. You don’t get to take the ribeyes out. You don’t get to take the skin to make clothes from. It is all God’s.
Why? Because God is commending an idea that is still true today. Complete and total surrender.
Is this not a picture of Christ?
When we think of the Cross, when we think of the sacrifice that Christ paid on our behalf… it is this picture of a burnt offering.
This picture of complete surrender
Jesus did not only surrender his mind to God. He didn’t surrender only his emotions to God. But was so totally and completely surrender to His Father that He was willing to die - and die on the cross! Everything
2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
This sounds like it is straight out of Leviticus.
Christ loved you and got on the altar so that you wouldn’t have to. And it was a fragrant smell - and pleasing aroma to God.
And now - through the blood of Jesus, we have the ultimate atonement for our sins
Its now not the blood of bulls and lambs covering our sin — but the blood of the spotless, perfect lamb of God, Jesus Christ — that has covered our sin!
So now we can be called SONS OF GOD!
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
That smell - that fragrance - that pleasing aroma that Christ offered Himself up as — is now the smell of you and me to God!
NOW - You are that pleasing aroma to God! It’s not a sacrifice of bulls and birds - but of praise!
NOW - We come with confidence into the Presence of God - not to treat Him as Santa - but with the same fear and respect as the Son’s of Aaron did to STILL give God our sacrifices — but praise Christ the work has been finished that we don’t have to offer animals, we don’t have to offer our blood - because the blood of Jesus has been offered on our behalf
NOW - we come with praise and thanksgiving and EVERY PART OF OUR LIFE to be a LIVING SACRIFICE!
Its not a one-and-done kind of sacrifice.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
TOTAL LIVING SURRENDER
Leviticus 6:8–13 (ESV)
8 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 9 “Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering. The burnt offering shall be on the hearth on the altar all night until the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it.
12 The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. 13 Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.
This offering of TOTAL SURRENDER IS SOMETHING THAT NEVER STOPS.
This fire is continual. Your surrender to Christ is continual.
Every day. Every night. All day. All night.
It shall not go out!
ALTAR:
-Areas that aren’t totally surrendered.
-Repent
-Rekindle this fire of surrender
