The Imperfect Sacrifices (Good Friday Message 1)

Welcome & Prayer

Welcome. It is good to be together tonight, Amen?!?! Brothers and sisters are here tonight from several different congregations and it is only because of the Crucifixion that we now have much in common and have much to celebrate tonight! The nursery will be open and available. We are not staffing it tonight, but audio and video should be on in case you need make use of that room.

Please stand and let’s worship God through prayer..

Dear Heavenly Father,

your servant David wrote in psalm 22...

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:

so, Lord, please now cause whatever might be preventing our worship, and praise and adoration to right now be put away and settled. David went on to write,

23 You who fear the Lord, praise him... and stand in awe of him!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. 28 For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.

31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

So tonight, we praise you, for you have done it! You have done the thing we could not do ourselves. You have loved us and saved us and moved our stubborn hearts to praise you and we love you so much for this. May we succeed tonight in creating a tremendous noise that will bless you.

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Please remain standing as _____________ leads us in a Scripture reading.

Introduce whomever will be doing the Scripture reading.

SERMON

How many of us feel like we sacrificed something to be here tonight? Maybe you gave up the pile of dishes in the sink, or that pile of laundry. Maybe you gave up a hobby, or movie night, or a night out with the guys to be here tonight or to spend extra time baking cookies, or cleaning the church, or preparing music, or enabling someone else to be here tonight.

At some level, we all believe the sacrifice to be here tonight was worth it! But when we talk about making a “sacrifice”, we rarely mean we shed our own blood for someone else’s eternal benefit. Listen to how Heb 9:22 defines the word “sacrifice.” That verse says...

Hebrews 9:22 (ESV) “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

If you have your Bible, please locate Leviticus chapter 4.

While you are turning there… could you raise your hand if you have ever taken CPR, or if you are a nurse, doctor, or first responder? If not, you might have seen a person in a movie who was severely wounded. A person who is bleeding out and has a small chance of surviving, but then someone takes a large cloth, places it over the wound and applies pressure to try to stop the bleeding. That was the image in my mind this week as I was preparing for this message. Humanity was bleeding out...

Sacrifices became necessary to keep us (humanity) from bleeding out! (Rom 5:12; Heb 9:22)

Romans 5:12 (ESV) “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”

Because of Adam’s sin, all humanity began bleeding out. Bleeding, broken people can only reproduce more broken and bleeding people. Broken people deserve condemnation and cannot have fellowship with God, so our merciful God provided a way to restore our fellowship with him through sacrifices.

Under the Old Testament law, it is impossible to estimate how many gallons of blood might have been spilled every single day at temple altars. We just know, it was a lot of blood! All that blood was an object lesson that humanity was bleeding out! Death was inevitable: There was no hope for us, but then! our merciful God applied a tourniquet and then put pressure on our wound to keep us from bleeding out.

Any first responder knows that if someone is bleeding out, specific steps must be taken to save that person’s live. So, God, very specifically prescribed the remedy for sin in Leviticus 1-7 that prepared for Jesus’ perfect sacrifice.

(dont read) Sacrifices were very specifically prescribed. (Lev 4:27-35)

If you have your Bible open, let’s read Lev 4:32–35 to get an idea of that specific prescription of Old testament law to stop sin from bleeding us out.

verse 27 “If anyone of the common people sins…

skip to verse 32 “If he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he shall bring a female without blemish 33 and lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering. 34 Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out all the rest of its blood at the base of the altar. 35 And all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on top of the Lord’s food offerings. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven.

Try to imagine what it might have been like in that age to arrive at the temple to make your own sin sacrifice. Imagine that you are leading your own, carefully raised lamb, maybe you also have a bull to offer as a burnt offering, maybe you are also carrying grain or bread, or turtledoves for other offerings. As you enter the courtyard, you notice that people and animals are everywhere and your senses immediately become overloaded!

(Slide: Temple Mount w/ locations of altar,etc)

It is loud. There are bellowing animals everywhere! Your animals begin violently resisting you. They are tugging to get away from the smell and sight of blood because they instinctively know that the temple is a dangerous place for them!

Brother Harrower, the temple mount would not have smelled like not like your grill on a Sunday afternoon! Your nose would have been immediately accosted by the scent of burning flesh and bones. The animals were alive and not pre-drained of blood. The animals’ heads, skin, fur, entrails, dung were burned on the ash pile while the meat and bones were burned on the large altar that animals were led up to be slaughtered and prepared for sacrifice.

(Slide: altars)

As you near the large altar or one or the smaller altars, there was blood everywhere. Blood was running off the altar. blood was being sprinkled on the sides of the altars. Blood stained the priests hands and arms and garments. You hear a squish and realize you stepped in a puddle of blood, staining your feet and sandals.

Then you watch the person ahead of you lead his bull up the ramp, gently lay his hand on the bull’s head, then take a knife and slay his own animal. Then it is your turn and you are overwhelmed by the emotion that your lamb had to die by your hand. Your sin caused its death to be necessary, so you are overwhelmed by emotion as you carve up your animal for the priest to place on the altar.

I’m sorry if that is too graphic, but we cannot get through this weekend without being graphic. We cannot study Levitical sacrifices without thinking about gory, bloody, stomach churning, revolting images. Jesus’ Christ’s perfect sacrifice becomes so much more impactful when we consider the mess and gore THAT WE CAUSED!!!! So we come back to...

Hebrews 9:22 (ESV) “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

This should not be the only time of year when you have to be reminded of gore. Those priests of old touched the gore, and saw the stains, and smelled the stench every single day of the week, and yes, even on the Sabbath. Imperfect Sacrifices teach us three profound, overwhelming truths. First,

Imperfect sacrifices teach us that....

...sacrifices were deeply personal. (Lev 4:33, Jn 1:29)

If your Bible is still open, look at Leviticus 4:33 again. It says the person guilty of sin shall, “lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it for a sin offering”

The sin sacrifice was deeply personal. If that was me walking up the huge bronze altar,

It would have been MY animal!

that I raised and cared for or purchased for a costly price.

It would have been MY touch!

I would have rested my hand on my own animal’s head in a final caring and loving gesture. It was about to die because of me! It was to die For MY sin. That touch was an illustration my guilt being transferred to its’ body.

It was personal. In verse 33 who had to kill the animal? I would have had to kill my animal with...

It would have been MY knife!

The priest was not to kill for me. I would have had to do it because it would have been MY sin that made it necessary.

Then, once the animal was killed the priest sprinkled MY animal’s blood on the altar for MY OWN sin debt. Just one of my own careless words, or selfish action would have caused a perfect, spotless lamb to die. Then...

I would have smelled my perfect, spotless, costly animal burning on the flames to appease God’s wrath I, alone had earned. My animal would have died in my place on the altar to stop me from bleeding out!

Listen to John’s words from John 1:29. John “saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Jesus was my lamb (pause) your lamb. His sacrifice was deeply personal.

John was reminding his audience and teaching us the value of the Old Testament sacrifices. For every, single, little sin, I led Jesus up the altar. It was MY hand on his head. It was MY knife that was drawn across HIS throat.

And here is the crazy part, the beautiful part! Jesus not only went to the altar, it was as if Jesus was running to the altar dragging us behind Him because he passionately loves us! Do you see it? (pause)Jesus LOVES us! (pause) He craves for us to love Him in return.

Imperfect sacrifices teach us something else. They teach us....

…sin is costly! (Lev 5:11; Rom 6:1; Heb 6:4-6)

Lev 5:11 helps teach us this lesson. Sometimes a person could not afford bull, goat or lamb for a sin sacrifice, maybe they couldn’t afford it simply because of poverty or maybe someone sinned so frequently they literally had almost nothing left to sacrifice, so God made another provision.

Leviticus 5:11 (ESV) “But if he cannot afford two turtledoves or two pigeons, then he shall bring as his offering for the sin that he has committed a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it and shall put no frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering.”

Peace offerings, and other grain offerings were supposed to be offered with oil and salt to make them smell really good, like baking bread, but the sin offering was supposed to smell different.

Sin stinks.

The sin offering was supposed to hit you in the nose like campfire smoke built from green wood and grass.

(pause)

The weight of sin was and is costly! Sin caused days and days of expenses. It caused significant care in raising the animals and protecting them from spot or blemish. It caused a significant cost to the owner because only the very best would do!

Sin wastes time.

If you think waiting in the doctor’s office is bad, think about how long the waiting line must have been at the temple. Historical records estimate an average of 100,000-250,000 people visited the temple mount daily! One could easily spend most of a day on the temple mount. That is a lot of time spent confessing sin!

Sin is expensive.

If we still had to sacrifice at the temple today, i want you to understand the great expense that just a single three day trip from here to Jerusalem might cost.

If you are making the minimum wage $13.20 an hr, your lost wages would be $950 dollars.

A flight and two night hotel stay would cost you $1500. By the time we include food and provisions for our live animals and extra baggage fees for grain, bread, etc, our sin might cost us $3000 for one trip.

Then we would get back from the trip and need to make the trip all over again because of sin that we would allow in that short time frame. A single unkind word, a single errant glance, a single misplaced hand or foot or eye, and we would need to make the trip all over again.

Here’s a question, do you think if you had to personally raise, and lead, and slay, and kill your own animal, and finance the process, do you think you could easily forget the cost of your sin? I could not.

The apostle Paul identified the main problem with the American church when he asked this question, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom 6:1) Should I sin and pretend it never happened?

God forbid! Every. Single. Sin is costly. Look at this powerful verse on the screen...

I am going to paraphrase what you see on the screen… (Hebrews 6:6)

Every time we sin we should have a mental image that we are “crucifying, again, the Son of God... and holding him up to contempt.”

Every time we sin, we should remember the bloody, gory, costly sacrifices in Leviticus 4. We MUST stop taking Jesus’ sacrifice lightly. Stop sacrificing Jesus. Stop wasting Jesus’ blood! His life was far more costly and far more precious than any other lamb. Stop “crucifying him” over and over again if you will. Jesus only died once, but that mental image is powerful. It should cause us to stop sinning!

pause

Imperfect sacrifices teach us many more things, but the last thing I NEED you to know tonight is this...

...God is eager to forgive us! (Lev 4:35; 5:10; 6:13,27)

He is eager to be reconciled to us. He paid the debt we should have paid.

Under the Old Testament law, sin caused separation from God to last a long time. Let me explain...

Have you ever had a fight with your spouse or loved one and then you could not wait to be forgiven by that person? What if you had to wait days or weeks for that process to be complete.

Under the law, when a person felt guilt of sin, that person owuld have to start a purification process which took days or weeks depending on what was being purified.

Leviticus 4:35 contains a key phrase that was repeated after ever single sacrifice is described, 9 different times! That phrase is this…

“and he shall be forgiven”.

Over and over in Leviticus chapters 1-7 we are reminded that God gets excited about forgiving us. We are reminded that God promises to forgive us!

but, under that system, forgiveness didn’t happen until that lamb was finally sacrificed on the altar! Can you imagine waiting days and weeks for that burden to be lifted? That is a heavy load to carry!

When Jesus cried, “it is finished” people didn’t need to wait days or weeks to be forgiven! God is eager to forgive us and so he instantly forgives us.

Please flip to Lev 6:13 because I want to show you another proof that God is excited to forgive us! Leviticus 6:13 says...“Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.”

(notes only) “the fire shall not go out”

“Do not let the fire go out, because I cannot wait to forgive you! I cannot wait any longer. The past days of separation have been miserable! Keep that fire ready because I am always, and instantly ready to forgive you when you come!”

pause

Closing Statement

As the worship team makes their way forward, I’ll say this...

The lessons learned from the sacrifices in Leviticus are intense! Jesus’ death was intensely personal! My sin sin was extremely costly! But, BUT God is eager to forgive. Wow!

Maybe you have never sought God’s forgiveness. You need to know that He is ready to forgive you even though you have held the knife to his throat. Will you be drawn in by His overwhelming love?

Maybe you are already forgiven, but will you commit to stop taking sin so lightly? Tomorrow, read Lev 1-7. I guarantee that in those 20 minutes you will have a completely different view of the deep cost of every single sin.

I am so grateful God provided a way to stop me from bleeding out!

NOTE: Stay on stage and transition into next song set.