Leviticus - Week 3 "I Am The Lord Your God"

The Lord Said

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Leviticus 19:1–8 CEB

The Lord said to Moses, Say to the whole community of the Israelites: You must be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy. Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must keep my sabbaths; I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves; I am the Lord your God. When you sacrifice a communal sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, offer it so that it will be accepted on your account. It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice or the following day; whatever is left over on the third day must be burned with fire. If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is foul; it will not be accepted. Anyone who eats it will be liable to punishment, because they defiled what is holy to the Lord. That person will be cut off from their people.

Have you ever told a child, “Because I said so?”

Does it feel good hearing that as an adult?

Leviticus here is pointing us backward to the 10 Commandments, (some of them anyways) and to a fundamental about the relationship to God.

I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD

This is the first commandment and it is the one I would argue we struggle with keeping the most.

With God, we want the comfort of knowing that there is a God and that God desires us, but the handing over of control of everything to God… that we struggle with.

What do you struggle handing over to God?

I struggle with things of Pride.

I struggle with things that I’m ashamed I’ve done

I struggle with things that make me angry (I prefer a happier God)

I want my independence, my dependance on God is hard

It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice or the following day; whatever is left over on the third day must be burned with fire.

Part of this is about our independence and our dependance

God wants us to follow the rules. Our independence want’s us to take matters into our own hands. Our independence says to make your own way. Our independence is counter to what God is commanding us.

Our dependance in God has always been there. We didn’t make ourselves. We didn’t provide the way, the answers the… anything really. Yet we cannot fathom the dependance on God because of the earlier roods of our sin, our holding on to the things we should be handing over to God.

This is also about our preferred future

Last weekend I made a post that lost me friends and even fired up people in my family.

It was because it appeared to have conflict between a preferred future and current realities

This always happens

This will cause stress, but the preferred future will always point to God if we are faithful

Today we are going to come to the table.

Today we are going to confess our sin

Today we are going to profess our dependance

Today we are going to be set free

Today we are going to be reminded through these ancient words of the covenant that leads to life.... to the ending of sacrifices that cannot meet the needs and embrace the only sacrifice that has been born out of love.