← ArchiveLeviticusSunday, June 3, 2018DateJune 3, 2018SpeakerDr Josh BurnhamTextLeviticus 26Passages in this sermonLeviticus 262:26John 1422:40Romans 522:52Isaiah 9:623:00Genesis 335:55TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00The book of Leviticus. Now, remember the story of the Bible began with humans in God's presence, but they were banished because of their rebellion. However, God wants to be in relationship with us, so he chooses one family that he will use to restore the world back into his presence. And so God's presence comes to dwell in a tent right in the middle of Israel. That's great. But it creates a problem because it's so intense that Moses can't go in and other priests who enter inappropriately, they die. Well, wait, if God's presence is good, how is it all of a sudden0:26dangerous for people? So think of it this way. God's presence is like the sun. It's pure power and goodness. And when something mortal and corruptible gets close to such pure power, it's destroyed. And so the word holiness is used in Leviticus to describe God's pure and powerful presence, which like the sun is both good and dangerous. So the point of Leviticus is to show how corrupt Israelites can live near God's goodness without being destroyed.0:56Welcome to summer in Alabama. It's already warm. So if you're fanning yourself, that's okay. You're excused. I just feel compelled to say this. Some of you who have been in a church before expect at the end of our service that we're going to give an invitation, but you've already clearly seen the good news of Jesus Christ displayed in the service. We could give the invitation now and go home. So I want1:24you to know if you're wrestling with what Jesus on the cross means to you, right where you sit, I encourage you to place your trust in Jesus Christ. You don't have to wait to the end of the service. You don't have to see a pastor or a priest or anyone else between you and the Lord as your heart writes because you have already clearly seen how Jesus Christ saves. If you would confess your sins and believe that he is1:50who he says he is and he died for you, you can have the life that you've already seen today. So I encourage you to do that right where you sit. And sometime this week at the end of the service, let us know. Let us know that you put your trust in Christ and we want you to walk those steps of obedience and faith. This morning, we're going to conclude our sermon series in the book of Leviticus, a title2:13really called Draw Near. God is drawing his people to himself. And so if you have your Bibles with you, as I hope that you do every week, turn to Leviticus chapter 26. Leviticus chapter 26. If you don't have your Bible and hard copy, you're welcome to take out your phone and turn to type to Leviticus chapter 262:35there. And our big idea this morning is simply, if you follow his ways, God will give you his presence. If you follow his ways, God will give you his presence. Leviticus near the front of your Bible, chapter 26. And we will read in verse three this morning.3:01If you follow my statutes and fully observe my commands, I will give you rain at the right time and the land will yield his produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time.3:27You will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land. I will give you peace to the land and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land and you will see no sword because it will not pass through your land. You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. Five of you will pursue a hundred and a hundred of you will3:55pursue 10,000 and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. Verse nine, I will turn to you. I will make you fruitful and multiply you and confirm my covenant with you. You will eat the old grain of the previous year and will clear out the old to make room for the new. I will place my residence among you and will not reject you. I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people for I am the Lord your4:23God who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke and enables you to live in freedom. Let us pray. Father, we cannot understand your word apart from your spirit and so we ask that you illuminate our hearts. Lord, the places in our life that are dark this morning4:51that you would shine the light of Christ. The places that we are ignoring that you would call to our attention. The things that we are not doing that you would give us strength to pursue righteousness and father. Where our hearts are hard, you would melt them before your holiness and that we would run to the throne of mercy in our time of need. This is our prayer. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen and amen. So we're going to end our5:16sermon series in Leviticus with this as a triumphal ending and the title is simply "The Blessings of Faithfulness." Anyone want to be blessed this morning? I am not setting you up. Anyone want to be cursed? Raise your hands. Okay, some of you are not awake. So we see this, that in the ancient Near East over and over again, that the people of God would have been anticipating what we're5:44going to read today. After every covenant, the end of a covenant or a treaty, you would have a series of blessings and curses. And so a covenant is not fully ratified if there are not some blessings and cursing. So the people of God are anticipating this moment in the word of God. So this is the holiness code and we end with a holy blessing exclamation point.6:10And this is what God has for us. I think that we need to pause here for a second and talk about what it means to be a blessing. Because if we're honest, everyone wants to be blessed. And most of us don't understand what that means. And I'm about to prove that your vernacular, that what you say betrays often what you believe.6:33And so listen to this. And this is what we say often. If you have said this before, I'm not trying to specifically call you out. You'll be okay. It's called conviction. So don't raise your hand. How often have you heard or said this? How are you doing today? Well, I'm blessed. Okay. How often have you heard or said, I am blessed to be a blessing?6:55I've heard that often, right? You live in the south. I've heard this. I am too blessed to be stressed. Now, youth, you're shaking your head. I know you've heard this before, right? Too blessed to be stressed. What does that mean? What do we say before meals? The blessing.7:20I don't know what that says about our cooking abilities. Most cultures thank God for the food. They don't bless their food. I've heard this. It was a blessing in disguise. So it was like a curse, but you unwrap the curse and there's a blessing inside. Who knows? I've heard this. I am going to bless him out. Some of you know who you are.7:48And then the big one in this context is king. Well, bless your hearts. That can mean, you know what? I'm so sorry. I'm going to help you out. Or that can mean you are so foolish. What were you thinking? This shows us that we don't really fully understand what the word blessing means.8:12How can I say, God, I want your blessing in the same mouth, say I'm going to bless someone out, which means I'm going to curse you like a dog. That's our culture telling us we don't have a clue what it means. Now, let me pause here again. Here is the gospel truth. When God's people live God's way for his glory, you can expect God's blessing.8:34When God's people live God's way for his glory, you can expect God's blessing. Now, this is where we struggle because I am not advocating and I have never been actually indicted for advocating what we call the prosperity gospel or prosperity theology. So I want to pause right now and debunk that. And then we're going to look at what biblical blessing means.9:00The Bible does not support prosperity theology, sometimes called prosperity gospel or health and wealth gospel or the gospel of success, which simply is a religious belief that many hold to that if you put your faith in God, he will give you financial and healthy blessings for all of your life. Do you know what that's called? That's a business transaction. That's a God, I'm going to put my faith ATM card in the ATM, eternal ATM.9:27And Lord, I hope that you give me money in return. And the prosperity gospel assumes that God will always do this for us. And it's a desire for material wealth. Let me just say this. If the prosperity gospel is true and God wants you to be healthy and wealthy and be happy, our Savior died on the cross, alone and abandoned and poor.9:46And he would deny to the prosperity gospel. If the prosperity gospel is true, then Jesus was not blessed by his Father.10:02And so we do not hold on to this. Well, if I just believe that my life is going to be like I want it, that's not blessing. What is true blessing? We're going to see that this morning. So let's walk through what biblical blessing looks like.10:25And I pray that this would be a blessing to you this morning and that we can expect the blessing of God in our life. Look at verse three. Very simply, the Lord blesses his people through provision. The Lord blesses his people through provision. Verse three, if you follow my statutes and faithfully observe my commands, I will give you rain at the right time.10:49And the land will yield as produce and the trees of the field will bear fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time. You will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land. You don't have to be a farmer to understand God is blessing faithfully his faithful. Now, this is where we miss in translation in this verse, especially we miss it in the English and the HCSB, which I'm reading and sort of misses the mark.11:17And so does the King James. Some of you have in that. So my Bible says, if you follow my statute. So my version fronts, if you follow, but listen to the Hebrew, right? I'm not going to read Hebrew. This is English, but this is the Hebrew translation. The Hebrew word order says this, if by my laws, you walk and my commands, you plural.11:45So this person was obviously a Israeli southerner. If y'all keep my commands and observe them. What is, what is the Bible pointing you to? What's the Hebrew pointing us to here? It's not if you follow, it's these commands. If you follow God's word is vastly more important than we are. It is his holy living and active truth is so important that it is fronted, which I'm reminded if, if I am not willing to live by the ways of God, I cannot call myself of the Lord.12:11And if I am not willing to live by the ways of God, I cannot expect the blessing of God. But if you do live according to the ways of God, we can expect the blessing of God. And this blessing is his provision. It is the provision of God.12:36So what does the provision of God look like? How does the Lord bless us? God is very clear. He is Jehovah Jireh, God, our provider. That's okay. It is, listen, American church. It is okay to desire the blessing of God. It is okay to say, God, give me. Now, let me say this. Not God so I can have, but so God that I can show others that you are blessed my life because of the faith I have in Jesus Christ, that they might in turn see my savior, Jesus Christ.13:03God doesn't want it. God doesn't want hoarders. Spiritual hoarders end up on TV on a show called Hoarders. We don't want to be those people. But it's, but the opposite is just not true. God, we shouldn't say, well, God, don't bless me because I'm worried that I might have too much.13:24Give, give for the glory of Christ. This is the same God that King David wrote. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. What does that mean? God has given me everything that I need. This is the same father that Jesus teaches us how to pray. Our father who is in heaven.13:49Then he says this, give us today our daily bread or bless us. Give us what we need. God, we can expect if we put our faith in you, you will give us what we need. So if you are here today and you feel like you don't have what you need, I just want you to know that God knows that and he's going to provide.14:13Why? Because he is Jehovah Jireh. He is our provider over and over again. Look at the land. God provides abundantly for the land. Israel is one of these places where it will rain in certain times of the year in certain amounts. But we know this in Israel and in Alabama, it's the same. If they get all their rain for the year in one day, that's not productive.14:38It's not helpful. And so not only is God blessed, but what, how does he bless? Look, look at his provision. Verse four, I will give you rain in your time of need at the right time, my translation says. Not only will God bless you, but he will bless you when you need to be blessed. He'll provide when you need provision.15:07That's that's our struggle. We want God to meet our wants when we want, not our needs when we need. But God promises us that he provides. When does he provide? When does he your provider? When you, when I need, when we need it at the right time. And look at the provision of God. I love this imagery. I will give you rain at the right time. And the land in verse four will yield its produce. The trees will bear their fruit.15:30And we say the American is like, okay, God, you're going to bless us. How much can we expect? We're talking about $5 bill or $5 million bill. Here's what God says. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest. Now, let me say this about the seasons. The threshing season, grain would be early summer. The grape season would be early fall.15:55So what God is saying, I'm going to give you so much that you're not going to have time to reap the harvest of everything that I provided. You're going to be so worn out because I bless you so much that when you get to the time where this harvest should end, the next one begins. When does God, how does God provide abundantly in the right time? I love that.16:18God is not a stingy God. He knows how to give you good gifts because he is our provider. So why does he provide? Why does he provide? God provides so I can generously and abundantly give to the kingdom. I was reminded as I was praying through this passage that there are no self-made men in the kingdom. Look at what the Lord says, verse 4.16:47Who provides? God. And if you are a billionaire, which I don't know if we have any here today. If you are a closet billionaire with a B, you did not make yourself. God gave you every breath that you took to make that lifestyle work. There is nothing that I have accumulated in my life that God has not generously and graciously given me.17:14He is the provider. And even if you point your finger and say, well, I'm going to show you, Pastor, I don't even believe in God. I'm going to say, I'm going to show you, non-believer. God gave you the breath and the mind not to believe in him. And I'm going to pray that he changes your mind of unbelief and your heart of stone and that you would believe. And that you would follow Christ because he died for your sins.17:40God gives so that we can give to him. There are no self-made men, but surrendered men equal save men. So God gives that I may tithe and give for the gospel purposes. And we have been given in abundance. If you live in America, you live in the wealthiest country the world has ever known. And we were reminded last week that we should live within our margins that we might give to those who are in need.18:05Are you living God's way and say, God, abundantly bless me so I can give more and more and more. God, that is my heart. Do that. God is our provider. May the world see the hand of Jehovah Jireh on you. So I've been praying for our church selfishly this week. Lord, just abundantly pour forth your rain on us at the right time, that the world might see that you're good, that we might give it all the way.18:28And that they might see that you are good. Secondly, God blesses us this way. He's not only your provider, but He will give you His peace. He will give you His peace. Look at verse 6. The Lord says to Israel, I will give you peace. Shalom in the land.18:57We live in a time that we are consumed with peace. Listen to our music. You don't have to sing along. Here's our music. John Lennon said, give peace a chance. A man named Cat Stevens wrote about the peace train. If there's ever a train I want to get on, it's that one. Come on, ride the peace train. John Lennon wrote, imagine. Imagine all the people living in a life of peace. Bob Marley wrote, one love.19:25If we just love each other. Buddha said this, to enjoy good health and to bring peace to all, one must discipline and control the mind. So Buddha says, the way you find peace is controlling your mind. Some of you, some of us can't control our mind enough to pay attention right now. So I would say it's not about the mind. We can't control our mind fully. Einstein said this, peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.19:54And then the great philosopher, Jimi Hendrix, said this. When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. When's the last time you heard a pastor quote Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Einstein, Buddha and Bob Marley in the same sermon? What does that tell us about our world? We long for peace.20:22Our culture is longing for that. And the beautiful promise of Jesus Christ is that those who follow him, those who follow the Lord according to his ways, you will have peace. You will. That is his blessing. He will give us peace. And we know this, that if God is your provider and you don't have peace, it's fool's gold. It's no benefit. How do I know that? Look at the houses we built. Even if you're the billionaire and you build a million dollar palace, what are you going to do to that palace?20:51You're going to put in an alarm system. Why? Because provision without peace is no good. If God gives you everything you could ever want and you don't have peace, you will still have a longing that will never be filled. How do I know that some of the richest people in the world are still searching for something? So if you're here today and you think if I just had all the wealth in the world, if God gave you that right now and you don't have peace, you will not have what you need.21:16But God's blessing is church. God's blessing is what? That he will give peace. And we must recognize, look at verse 6. Peace is not earned. It's what? Verse 6. Peace is not earned. What does God say about peace? He said you don't jump on the peace train. You don't discipline your mind.21:44What does God say about peace? This is important for us. I will give. Peace is given. It is not earned. I love that about the glory of Christ. This is what the Bible says about Jesus. Think about what the truth of God says about our Savior. His gender reveal was not announced on Facebook. Some of you have had very creative gender reveals. I'm impressed. One of our staff members had a firework display.22:13And I was like, that's awesome. Well done. But how was the birth of Christ announced? Not on Twitter. There was no Instagram. There was a heavenly host. And what did the heavenly host say? Glory to God in the highest and peace. Why? Because peace is given. And it's given through Jesus Christ. What does Jesus say in John 14?22:40The Savior says, peace I leave you. My peace I give to you. Have you heard that before? Leviticus chapter 26. Romans 5. Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. His name in Isaiah 9:6. His name is wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, and prince of peace.23:02God is not only blessing his people with provision, he blesses you with peace. With peace. Now, how does that work out in our lives? Because some of you right now are thinking, well, I'm a father of Christ and I don't have much peace in my life. Things are falling apart. How can I say God is peace when I don't have it?23:28Bill Thrasher gave us this mathematic formula and it works. Biblically, concern plus unbelief equals anxiety. Concern plus unbelief equals anxiety. Anyone concerned about anything here? Am I the only one? Anyone concerned about anything?23:55Okay. Most of us are concerned about something. Some of you are thinking, what am I going to eat right now? That's a concern. But here's what it tells us. We are all concerned about something. Concern plus unbelief is anxiety. Concern plus belief is a virtue. So what's your concern? If you're here today and you say, I don't have peace. I'm concerned about everything. Put your trust in Christ and say, God, I am concerned.24:22My life is falling apart, but I believe in you because you bring me peace. The trouble is not concern. The trouble is, do you believe? And if you believe, God has already given you peace. That is his blessing and that is his promise. C.S. Lewis says it this way. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from his self.24:47Because there is no thing, there is no such thing as peace without Jesus Christ. If you're concerned today, put your trust and hope in God more. Lean into his grace and he will make that a virtue. God blesses you with his provision. He blesses you with his peace. Thirdly, he blesses us this way. Look at verse nine. He blesses us with his presence.25:15The Lord blesses his people with his presence. Verse nine, I will turn to you. I will make you fruitful and multiply you and confirm my covenant with you. Verse 11, I will place my residence among you and I will not reject you. I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people. This special relationship.25:42The idea that some people of faith could have a relationship with God was the entire goal of the covenant. Everything through the old covenant is pointing to the presence of God. Through the presence of God. How do I know that? What did the tabernacle represent? The presence of God. What does the temple represent? The presence of God. And then what does Christ say that we are through his holy word?26:09Especially in Corinthians. Paul says that we are the temple of God. Because of Christ, we have his presence. Listen, church, everything that Israel longed for, you can have in Jesus. Israel was longing for the presence of God. And in Christ, we can say we have it. What a beautiful blessing of God.26:37Why did Israel take so much pride in the tabernacle? Why were they devastated when the temple was destroyed? Because they believed and they felt the presence of God was not with them. And for the person of God to not be in the presence of God is destruction. In Jesus Christ, we have the presence. Listen, the presence of the Lord is not something you need. It is everything you need.27:05The presence of the Lord is not something you need. As if we can find it on Sunday morning and eat and get our fill. It is everything that you need. And for my life, if I only had one prayer for my family and my life and for yours, it would be this. God, give us your presence. God, I don't need your provision. I would like it. I would like it. God, I don't need peace. God, if I could only choose one thing, I need your presence.27:34And why is hell so damning and scary? It's not because it's dark. It is. It's not because it's hot. It is. It's not because it's painful. It is. It's not because it's a place of isolation. It is. It's a place eternally where the presence of God is not.27:58And if I had one prayer for your life, it would be, Lord, give us your presence. Because if we have your presence, we have everything. John MacArthur says it this way. To be filled with the spirit is to live in the consciousness of the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. As if we were standing next to him and we'd let his mind dominate our life, it is to fill ourself with God's word so that his thoughts will be our thoughts.28:25His standards, our standards, his work, our work, and his will, our will. That should be our desire and that is God's promise and his blessing that he will give you his presence. And what a glorious blessing that is for the people of God.28:50The blessing of his presence. This verbiage here, I will be your God. And I wish I had time to really unfold this fully, but I'll just drop this truth bomb and then leave. Verse 13, I am the Lord your God and I will be with you and you will be my people. That is in an ancient Israel language.29:17That is the language of adoption. That is the language. I will be your God and you will be my people. That is the language of adoption. How can you have the presence of God? Because Ephesians is very clear that the death of Christ has adopted you into a family. Now, let me just say this because I can't help myself sometimes. The church has not replaced Israel. You are adopted into the family.29:46So God does not look at his adopted family and say, you guys are really awesome. I'm going to neglect my other family. No, we are adopted into. How can I say that? Because even in the Old Testament, it is not through works. It is by faith that Abraham was justified. We are in the same family of faith. And this is a language of adoption that he will be our God. And if we have faith in Christ, we will be his.30:13What a tremendous blessing, the presence of God. Church, never take that for granted. And if the world takes everything from me and they don't take the presence of God, I have everything I need. We have everything I need. Lastly and fourthly, verse 13. God blesses his people with freedom. I couldn't think of another P. God blesses his people with freedom.30:43I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. Why? I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to live in freedom. This is slavery language. This was a yoke that was placed upon a large animal or the yoke that was placed upon a person. And the language that's given to God's people. He said, don't forget when you were in slavery, you carried a heavy yoke around your neck.31:10Now, I want you to think about the picture of the freedom that God has given his people and he promises to you. When the yoke of oppression and sin and slavery is on a person, how do they walk? Hunched over. Hunched over. Because the yoke is heavy. And the way we're called to walk. And when the Bible says now in Christ and through the new covenant, you walk upright.31:38It means you've thrown off the things that hinder. This is the power of Christ. He gives us freedom. And we were reminded last week from Memorial Day that freedom is not free. It is never free. I would say this in Christ that not only is freedom not free, but blessing is not free, which we're going to see shortly.31:58So if you are here right now and the sin in your life is almost choking you, the life out of you, I want you to know that right now you can find freedom in Jesus Christ. Unconditional freedom. And you say, well, Pastor, you don't understand what I am struggling with.32:26I don't. But you don't understand that Christ took what you're struggling with and carried that burden to the cross. And if you know Jesus, I want you to think about this. The picture that when we are hunched over in our sin and we are released, we're still prone to walk, right, with struggle. Have you ever carried a heavy backpack around and someone takes that backpack from you?32:52I had that conversation this morning. The moments following that, what are you, what are you prone to do? Right? So when the heavy weight is taken from you, what do you still feel on your shoulders sometimes? The weight. You still are walking in a way that you've, you almost feel as though the weight is there, although it has been lifted. And let me just say this to those who know Jesus Christ, the weight of sin is eradicated. And the struggle you're going to have is in your mind, you often feel the guilt and the shame of sin is still on your back.33:22It is gone. And the struggle we have is you will have people in your life reminding you of the heavy weight you used to carry. But it's gone. The struggle you might have is you might have people in the church reminding you of the heavy weight you used to carry. And in Christ there is freedom. And when people say, how did you come to fight?33:51Do you remember what you used to do? You say, I do, but look how straight I'm walking now. I couldn't even, I was crawling. The weight was destroying me, but Christ has redeemed me and he has taken this yoke off of me. And now I am living out, verse 13, so I am no longer a slave. Jesus carried the weight of our sins to the cross that he would remove the weight of our slavery and bondage.34:15This is the blessing of God. And if you are walking around dejected because you feel like the heavy weight is there, the promise of the gospel is that if you would give that to him right now, he will remove it. If you put your trust in Jesus, he already has. And would you now walk with uprightness and rejoice in what the Lord has given.34:45So why is all of this important? Why are the blessings of God important? I want to end here. Freedom is never free and blessing is never free. So that you and I could be blessed, God made his only son a curse. So whether you realize it or not, you and I are living in a cursed world.35:12Because of your sin, you're cursed and your relationship with God is broken, destroyed. It's so broken. Can I just be honest with you? You want to know how broken you are in your sin? The Bible very lovingly calls you dead. Not sick. Not struggling. Because of my sin, I am dead. And you know what dead people are?35:41Dead. Right? I mean, so don't, we should not think of ourselves any other way. Because of my sin, without Christ, I am dead in my sin. And my relationship is eternally broken. And not only that in Genesis 3, that God cursed snakes. Can I get an amen for that? Right? He cursed the land. So now that our work is difficult, we're sweating like I'm doing right now. And there will be thorns and there will be struggles in the home.36:06Struggles over authority and dominion. And we look out and there is cancer ravishing our world. And there are epidemics and there are wars. And all of this is a product of the curse. And we're so cursed that we now call our curses a blessing. That way we can say, we can bless you out. But we're not really blessing you out. We're cursing you out. Because we're cursed people living in a cursed world.36:33Now let me say this. To reverse the curse in our life. Galatians says this. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Because it is written, cursed is everyone who hung on the tree. Church, dear brothers and sisters.36:59God sent his only son to become a curse so that I never have to be. That we never have to be. And we have freedom because of the cursed that is placed upon Jesus. We have provision because of the curse placed upon Jesus Christ. We have his presence because of the curse placed upon Jesus Christ.37:27And we have peace because of the curse placed upon Jesus Christ. And if you are a child of his. Take a moment later and respond and say God thank you that you have blessed me. And it's not about stuff. It's about redemption. That you have taken this weight off of me. And Lord I can stand upright. Because of the curse. So that I never have to be cursed. I can be blessed.37:56If you have never placed your trust in Jesus Christ. Know that he died for you. That if you would repent of your sins. Place your faith in Jesus. And confess him as Lord. And surrender to him. You will be saved. And all the blessings and the promises that you have heard today. Can be yours. Because of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Let's pray.← Previous in LeviticusSunday, May 27, 2018More sermons on Leviticus →
