“Worship God’s Way (Leviticus 6:8-7:38)" | 2/4/24
Leviticus 6:8-7:38 | 2/4/24 | Will DuVal
Organ or drums? Hymnals or lyric screen? Charismatic or subdued?
We all have our preferences when it comes to different styles of WORSHIP. Sadly, we’ve seen that play out in the modern-day evangelical church in the so-called “worship wars” of the past few decades, with many churches dividing, sometimes even splitting over such matters. But just a few weeks ago in our study of Leviticus, we were reminded that worship really isn’t FOR or about us at ALL; it’s for and about GOD. So the real question - the ONLY question, that REALLY matters - is not “How do I prefer to worship God?” but rather, “How does GOD prefer - and PRESCRIBE - that I worship HIM?”
God is going to ANSWER that question for us this morning, in Leviticus chs6 & 7. If you’re just joining us, this is our FOURTH Sunday now in the book of Leviticus, and so far we have examined the 5 different SACRIFICES that God designated for Israel’s WORSHIP of Him:
The WHOLE BURNT offering (ch1) was a tangible way for the worshiper to say: ““God, 1) you have given me LIFE; 2) so I BELONG TO you.”
The GRAIN offering (ch2) symbolically said, “God: 1) You have PROVIDED for me; 2) So I will THANK you.”
Next, in ch3, we looked at the Peace Offering, which said: “GOD, 1) you have RECONCILED us (given me PEACE with you); 2) so I will CELEBRATE you.
Then LAST week we surveyed the two ATONEMENT offerings, beginning in ch4 with the SIN offering: “God, 1) I need CLEANSING, 2) therefore, I come to you to make PURIFICATION.”
And then finally the GUILT offering, which confessed “God, 1) I need FORGIVENESS, 2) so I’m here to make RESTITUTION.”
5 distinct sacrifices with 5 somewhat distinct, but sometimes related purposes. And this morning, in chs 6 & 7, we’re gonna read the LAWS CONCERNING these sacrifices. Some of you may be thinking, “First we learned about all these sacrifices that are no longer even in EFFECT; NOW you’re telling us we’re gonna study a bunch of LAWS ABOUT those obsolete sacrifices?!”
But we need to remember what these sacrifices WERE: more than anything else, these offerings were the OT Israelite’s means of WORSHIP. A way of assigning God WORTH. Of approaching God… on GOD’S own terms. So I’m gonna make the case for you this morning that even though you and I no longer worship God in the same way they did - praise GOD, we don’t all have to drag our pet sheep and goats with us to church, and drive home in blood-splattered clothes - but I want to show you that the PRINCIPLES that informed and undergirded their worship 3,500 years ago are still JUST as relevant for us today. GOD doesn’t CHANGE - he is the same yesterday, today, and forever - and that means his worship preferences haven’t changed in 4 millennia either.
So if our worship is really for HIM, then we need to listen to Him, when he tells us how HE desires to be worshiped. 12 Principles I see here, in 8 different sections of laws about these various sacrifices.
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I invite you to STAND… Leviticus 6:8-7:38; the word of the Lord:
“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. 10 And the priest shall put on his linen garment and put his linen undergarment on his body, and he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and put them beside the altar. 11 Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. 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.
14 “And this is the law of the grain offering. The sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord in front of the altar. 15 And one shall take from it a handful of the fine flour of the grain offering and its oil and all the frankincense that is on the grain offering and burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 16 And the rest of it Aaron and his sons shall eat. It shall be eaten unleavened in a holy place. In the court of the tent of meeting they shall eat it. 17 It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my food offerings. It is a thing most holy, like the sin offering and the guilt offering. 18 Every male among the children of Aaron may eat of it, as decreed forever throughout your generations, from the Lord's food offerings. Whatever touches them shall become holy.”
19 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 20 “This is the offering that Aaron and his sons shall offer to the Lord on the day when he is anointed: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half in the evening. 21 It shall be made with oil on a griddle. You shall bring it well mixed, in baked pieces like a grain offering, and offer it for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 22 The priest from among Aaron's sons, who is anointed to succeed him, shall offer it to the Lord as decreed forever. The whole of it shall be burned. 23 Every grain offering of a priest shall be wholly burned. It shall not be eaten.”
24 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 25 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord; it is most holy. 26 The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it. In a holy place it shall be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting. 27 Whatever touches its flesh shall be holy, and when any of its blood is splashed on a garment, you shall wash that on which it was splashed in a holy place. 28 And the earthenware vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken. But if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, that shall be scoured and rinsed in water. 29 Every male among the priests may eat of it; it is most holy. 30 But no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the Holy Place; it shall be burned up with fire.
ch7:1 “This is the law of the guilt offering. It is most holy. 2 In the place where they kill the burnt offering they shall kill the guilt offering, and its blood shall be thrown against the sides of the altar. 3 And all its fat shall be offered, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, 4 the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. 5 The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering. 6 Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. 7 The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. 8 And the priest who offers any man's burnt offering shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered. 9 And every grain offering baked in the oven and all that is prepared on a pan or a griddle shall belong to the priest who offers it. 10 And every grain offering, mixed with oil or dry, shall be shared equally among all the sons of Aaron.
11 “And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the Lord. 12 If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil. 13 With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving he shall bring his offering with loaves of leavened bread. 14 And from it he shall offer one loaf from each offering, as a gift to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings. 15 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning. 16 But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day what remains of it shall be eaten. 17 But what remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned up with fire. 18 If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on the third day, he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be credited to him. It is tainted, and he who eats of it shall bear his iniquity.
19 “Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten. It shall be burned up with fire. All who are clean may eat flesh, 20 but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. 21 And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.”
22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. 24 The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. 25 For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people. 26 Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling places. 27 Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.”
28 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 29 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. 30 His own hands shall bring the Lord's food offerings. He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave offering before the Lord. 31 The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall be for Aaron and his sons. 32 And the right thigh you shall give to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifice of your peace offerings. 33 Whoever among the sons of Aaron offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat shall have the right thigh for a portion. 34 For the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed I have taken from the people of Israel, out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel. 35 This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord's food offerings, from the day they were presented to serve as priests of the Lord. 36 The Lord commanded this to be given them by the people of Israel, from the day that he anointed them. It is a perpetual due throughout their generations.”
37 This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering, 38 which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day that he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai.”
[This is the word of God… SEATED…]
12 Attributes here of God-glorifying worship. But we should note right up front that this list is by no means exhaustive. We could supplement this list with descriptors we find ELSEWHERE in Scripture that according to God, ought to characterize our worship (even more “P”s; I’m gonna continue my alliteration this morning, because why stop now!):
Psalm 63 - our worship should be PASSIONATE;
2 Samuel 22 - our worship is PROTECTIVE (“this is how I fight my battles…”
John 4 - our worship should be PNEUMATOLOGICAL (Jesus said,“true worshipers worship the Father in spirit”, the Holy Spirit)
Psalm 100 - sometimes worship is PLEASANT (“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!”) but other times, Psalm 42 - worship can even be PAINFUL (“My soul is cast down within me; therefore, I remember you”, Lord).
So there are LOTS of characteristics that can define God-honoring worship. But we find TWELVE of them here. And with EACH, I want to do FOUR things: 1) DEFINE it for you; 2) SHOW it to you, in the text; 3) PROVE it to you, by cross-referencing other Scriptures; and then finally, 4) APPLY it with you, practically, in our OWN worship.
LOTS to get to!
1) The kind of worship God wants is PERPETUAL (6:8-13), so “Let us worship God CONTINUALLY”
That is the primary point of emphasis in this opening section of laws concerning the BURNT offering. THREE TIMES this phrase gets repeated: v8 - “the fire of the altar shall be kept burning…”; v12 - “The fire… shall be kept burning; it shall not go out”; v13 - “Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out”. WHY?
Well, on the ONE hand, under the OLD covenant, the fire always HAD to be kept burning because the sacrifices could never STOP because the blood of bulls and goats could only temporarily atone for sin until your next SIN. So the Levitical priests could never SIT DOWN; it was a never-ending job.
But we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the more POSITIVE side of this principle as well: that these sacrifices were God’s appointed means of access to Him, God’s way of allowing Israel back into RELATIONSHIP with Him. So the perpetual fire here symbolized God’s desire for perpetual RELATIONSHIP with His people, perpetual WORSHIP FROM them. God never wants us to STOP coming to Him, in worship.
And we see this all OVER the place in God’s word, both Old AND New Testament:
Heb 13:15 “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”
Ps 34:1 “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
Ps 113:3 “From the rising of the sun to its setting
The name of the Lord is to be praised.”
So how can WE apply this principle TODAY, in OUR worship?
Well, for starters, we need to broaden our definition of “worship”. “Worship” isn’t just what we do on Sundays from 9:00-9:15 am [10:45-11:00am] and maybe during your commute to work if you turn on JoyFM (*shout out to Jeremy Louis!) - NO; “worship” is something we do EVERY minute of EVERY day, because we are CONSTANTLY “assigning worth” to some-thing or some-one.
We do it when we SING (“Jesus, you are worthy!”) AND when we SPEND (“this sandwich, that I’m buying for LUNCH, is worth $10 to me”). We worship when we WORK (“this project is worth the next 3 hours of my afternoon…”) and when we PLAY (“this video game is worth the next 3 hours…”). With every thought, desire, word and action, we are assigning WORTH.
And God’s invitation here is: “Assign that worth… TO ME! Worship ME… perpetually!”
Now, does that mean we quit our jobs and leave our families and all become MONKS and NUNS?
No. In 1 Cor 10:31 God instructs us, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” According to GOD, there’s a way of EATING that sandwich that assigns the worth not just to Mike Duffy, but to GOD - “Heavenly Father, THANK YOU for this heavenly buffalo chicken sandwich; it’s a reflection and a reminder of YOUR goodness, YOUR scrumptiousness with every single BITE.”
There’s a way of tackling that project at work that assigns worth not just to your earthly boss but to your Heavenly One as well: whether you engineer planes or insure homes, whether you represent clients or heal patients, whether you manage others’ wealth or manage your own household, … WHATEVER you do, do ALL to the glory of God.
2) God wants worship that is PURE (6:14-18; 7:19-21), so “Let us worship God RIGHTEOUSLY”.
It is possible - QUITE possible, as we’ll see 2 Sundays from now in ch10 with the TAINTED worship of Nadab & Abihu - to displease and even OFFEND God if our worship is IMPURE.
Consider CAIN, in Genesis ch4; why did God REJECT Cain’s offering, but accept Abel’s? It wasn’t because Cain brought crops and God is a carnivore. Ch5 of Leviticus cleared that up last week; God even accepted FLOUR in the place of an animal for your SIN offering, so long as your HEART was in the right place. Hebrews 11 says: “By FAITH Abel offered a better sacrifice” (v4).
1 John 3 explains that Cain murdered Abel because Cain was evil and Abel was righteous, and darkness HATES the light.
But friends: GOD LOVES light, he loves RIGHTEOUSNESS. God loves it when we pursue PURITY. That’s what he highlights here with the law of the grain offering: v16, it had to be “unleavened” - we saw back in ch2 how “leaven/YEAST” was associated with fermentation and decay… DEATH… SIN... IM-purity.
So the grain offering had to be eaten, v16, in “a holy PLACE”. V17 repeats: “It shall not be baked with leaven…. [this offering] is a thing most holy”.
Same idea later in ch7, v19: “Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten…”. Our holy, PURE God desires pure worship.
What does that mean for US? Let me suggest 3 criteria of pure worship: our worship will issue from a pure HEART when our 1) MOTIVE is pure, our 2) POSTURE is pure, and our 3) FOCUS is pure.
1) Is your MOTIVE pure - your REASON FOR worship: are you here to “get something FROM God”, or are you here to “give something TO God”? When you PRAY, is it typically to get something FROM Him, or simply to spend time WITH God?
2) Is your POSTURE pure - your APPROACH TO worship: Are you ENTITLED or INDEBTED? Do you come patting yourself on the back, like the Pharisee, thanking God for how great YOU are? Or do you come beating your breast, like the tax collector, praising God for HIS great love in SPITE of how great you AREN’T??
And 3) Is your FOCUS pure - what is the OBJECT OF your worship? Is it really about God, or is it about the way “worship” makes you FEEL, in which case it’s not really worship AT ALL, is it? It’s self-help. It is SELF-focused. Self-ISH.
God desires - and He DESERVES - pure worship from a purely motivated, purely postured, purely focused HEART.
3) God wants worship that is PIOUS (6:19-23), so “Let’s worship Him WHOLLY” (#2 was about “H-o-l-y” worship; now in #3 we worship God “WH-olly)
Pious means “having or showing… an earnest wish to fulfill religious obligations” to God; “of or relating to religious DEVOTION”.
That’s what characterized the “anointing offerings” we find in vv19-23; they were a subset, a specific TYPE of grain sacrifice, offered at a priest’s ordination ceremony, meant to symbolize his complete consecration, his being utterly SET APART for service to God.
That’s why v22 declares: “The whole of [this offering] shall be burned. v23 Every grain offering of a priest shall be wholly burned. It shall not be eaten.” Because like the priest himself, this offering was WHOLLY DEVOTED to God.
Deut 10:12 asks, “What does the Lord your God require from you, but… to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
1 Sam 12:20 “do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.”
Romans 12:1: “present your [whole] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
DOZENS more passages, all reminding us of God’s calling to single-minded, whole-hearted DEVOTION.
What does that look like, PRACTICALLY, for us?
We might begin by asking, “Who or What are the biggest COMPETITORS with God for supremacy in my life?”
My FAMILY? According to God’s word, my devotion to my wife, to my kids, to my parents, my siblings… ultimately flows out of devotion and reverence for CHRIST. I love and serve them because I love and serve HIM. But when Jesus called the disciples to LEAVE their families and come follow him INSTEAD, the choice was CLEAR. Where does our ultimate allegiance lie?
My WORK? Some of us our “wholly devoted” to our jobs; we have no problem putting in overtime at the office. But sometimes we struggle to devote 20, 30 minutes to the LORD in our daily quiet time.
May we worship him SUPREMELY, and be devoted to Him FULLY.
And #4) Related, God wants our worship to be PARTICULAR (6:24-30; 7:22-27); “Let us worship God EXCLUSIVELY”.
“Particular” means “of a single or specific person, thing, group… rather than to others or all; special rather than general:”; in other words: “exclusive”.
We move on to the “law of the SIN offering” now, which reiterates God’s call to PURITY in worship (“it is most HOLY”), as well as His call to PIETY (the vessels in which this offering was cooked had to be DESTROYED afterward; they were NOT to be used for other, NON-holy purposes; exclusively devoted the LORD).
But look especially with me at v30: “no sin offering shall be eaten FROM which any blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement”; ch7, v23: “You shall eat no fat”; v26: “you shall eat no blood whatsoever” - WHY?
Because the blood and the fat were reserved for God ALONE.
Do you remember God’s #1 commandment, on His “Top Ten” list? ““I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery.You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex 20:3)
When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, how did he respond? ““Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”” (Matt 4:10)
There are ways in which I interact with my wife that are TOTALLY exclusive, “particular”, to that relationship - I wouldn’t THINK of sharing that thought, that joke, that conversation, that kind of physical contact… with anyone else.
The same should be true of THE LORD as well - there ought to be ways in which we interact with GOD that are totally unique to our relationship with Him. Because no one ELSE brought me out of EGYPT, out of SLAVERY! No one else DIED for me, to RESCUE me! So I don’t BOW in surrender to anyone else; I don’t raise my hands in PRAISE to anyone else; I don’t get emotional and CRY just thinking about the sacrificial LOVE of anyone else - I told you: I thank Polly all the time for putting up with me; few women would. But the reality is: SHE’S a sinner TOO! We’re ALL stuck “putting up” with one ANOTHER, down here.
But friends: GOD is sin-LESS! He is HOLY, PERFECT in every way! And he didn’t HAVE to love us, CERTAINLY not to the point of DEATH, on a CROSS!
So there is a love and a WORSHIP that we have in RESPONSE to who God is and what He’s done, that is reserved for Him alone.
Related again, 5) We offer God our most PRECIOUS worship (7:1-10); “May we worship Him LAVISHLY”
The emphasis in vv1-10 of ch7 now, with the GUILT offering, is once again on the FAT: “the fat tail, the fat on the entrails, the fat on the kidneys…” - that most PRECIOUS portion of the animal (along with the BLOOD) which was reserved for GOD.
The quintessential biblical example was Mary’s anointing of Jesus before his death (Mk 14:3-9) - she dumped an entire bottle’s worth of perfume, worth over a YEAR’S wages, out on his FEET. And Jesus said, “She has done a BEAUTIFUL thing for me.”
Is OUR worship that EXTRAVAGANT (def: “spending much more than is necessary or even wise; [some might even say] wasteful:”)? Our worship shouldn’t be PRACTICAL. I know some of you have INCREDIBLE witnesses with your lost friends and family members simply because your devotion to the Lord, from THEIR perspective, is so insanely impractical.
Some of you spend HOURS, every single DAY, in prayer.
Some of you give more - MUCH more! - than 10% of your paycheck back to God.
Some of you give HOURS and HOURS of your already minimal free time to this church, pro-bono, UN-paid - to help lead, SERVANT-lead; being a “leader” for you means using your vacation time to sleep in a DORM room again with a bunch of smelly TEENAGERS at youth camp; it means being late to dinner with your family so you can go take communion to the congregant in the memory care facility who can no longer make it to church.
These are the kinds of impractical, extravagant things that so many of you do week in and week out - THAT is worship, friends. Giving God that which is PRECIOUS to you - vacation time - because He is WORTH it.
6) Our worship should be PRICKING, PUBLIC & PRESENT (7:11-18) - “Let us worship God HUMBLY, CORPORATELY, & FRESHLY”
To “prick” is “to cause sharp mental pain… as with remorse”; to CONVICT the conscience.
We find one of the most surprising details in ALL of the laws here in v13 concerning the PEACE offerings now; God says: “With the sacrifice of [your] peace offerings… [you] shall bring… loaves of leavened bread. ”
Wait, LEAVENED bread? I thought that symbolized SIN, IM-purity?
But watch what you DO with it; v14: “It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings.” → God didn’t want these PRIESTS to start thinking that THEY were the ones who had “made peace” between God and the worshiper, so he had folks bring them a leavened loaf of bread as a tangible reminder to the priest of his own SIN. The fact that HE TOO needed atonement, forgiveness, PEACE, reconciliation, with a holy God, because he too was a SINNER.
Hebrews 5: “every high priest… himself is beset with weakness… [so] he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.” (1-3)
Likewise, the Bible instructs US to “Humble yourselves before the Lord” (Jam 4:10). God promises “If my people… humble themselves… and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear [them] from heaven” (2 Chr 7:14).
We approach God HUMBLY, in our worship.
But then we read ON, and v15 includes another interesting detail: “the flesh… of his peace offerings… shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning.” What’s THAT all about?
Well, obviously there’s a SANITARY component to it; no refrigerators back then, so God didn’t want them eating rotten, spoiled meat. But I think this law is about MORE than that. It evokes TWO principles related to our worship.
First, to eat an entire BULL, or even a SHEEP or a GOAT, in just 24 hrs - that’s just not feasible for one person. I’ve watched a lot of “Man vs. Food” episodes, I even WON a few food challenges back in my prime - I ate a 20” pizza in 1 hr. and I’ve got the t-shirt to PROVE it - but a SHEEP?! No way.
So you remember I told you back in ch3: the peace offering was the only one where the worshiper’s entire FAMILY, your TRIBE, your whole VILLAGE could all join in on the FEAST. The peace offering occasioned a giant community party, to celebrate our COLLECTIVE reconciliation with God.
Our worship is PERSONAL but not PRIVATE - God loves it when His people join TOGETHER in His praises.
He exhorts us “Not [to] neglect to meet together”, for corporate worship (Heb 10:25).
Jesus promised to be WITH us, in a unique way, when we are together: “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt 18:20).
And I can SKIP the application on this point, because we’re ALREADY DOING it! This very MOMENT! We are obeying God by gathering together for public worship. What a blessing! See you again next Sunday, God willing. 🙂
But the SECOND principle we glean from God’s command that they eat the meat the same day is that God wants our worship to be FRESH. Not to grow STALE, stagnant, rotten.
In the same way that the Israelites were commanded in Exodus to collect MANNA each day - only 1 day’s worth - as a reminder that we rely on DAILY bread from God, not just physically but SPIRITUALLY - Jesus said, “Man lives not on bread alone but on every WORD that comes from God”; we need to HEAR from God, READ his word DAILY for our spiritual sustenance… in the same way, HERE, God symbolically shows us that our RESPONSE to having RECEIVED that daily bread from Him should ALSO be daily, FRESH, present-rather-than-past-tense WORSHIP.
In Ps 119, David proclaims “Seven times a day I praise you [O Lord] for your righteous rules.” (164) How much MORE should WE now praise God - DAILY, afresh - for his GRACE, for our SALVATION in CHRIST?!
In 6 different Psalms we are encouraged to “Sing unto the Lord a NEW song” (33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1; Isa 42:10) - we obeyed THAT one this morning TOO, didn’t we? “All-Sufficient Merit”. God knows that if we sing the same songs every week, our worship will get STALE.
Here’s another application point for us: don’t count on Sunday’s worship to sustain you, OR to be sufficient PRAISE and THANKSGIVING unto GOD for the rest of your WEEK. We remain in his word DAILY, in prayer DAILY, not just because we NEED it (“daily bread”) but because God DESERVES it (“daily worship”).
7) Our worship must be PERSONAL, PRIEST-MEDIATED, & PORTIONED (7:28-36); “Our worship is INTIMATE, it is CHRIST-FACILITATED, & it is CHRIST-EXALTING.”
We see this same tension again that we’ve observed previously, whereby our worship must, on the ONE hand, be PERSONAL - v30 specifies that if someone makes a sacrifice “his OWN HANDS” shall bring “of HIS peace offerings” - but on the other hand, the ritual itself must be performed by the PRIEST; later in Leviticus it becomes clear that the WAIVING of this “wave OFFERING” was done by the PRIEST (9:21; 14:12; 23:11; Num 5:25; et al).
Some of us lift our HANDS when we sing to God - the Bible encourages us to: Ps 134:2; Ps 63:4; Lam 3:41; Ps 141:2; etc. - because worship isn’t just something we do with our voices, or our heads, or even our HEARTS; Ps 146 declares “Let my whole being praise the Lord!” (v1; CEB).
So YOUR hands brought the offering, but then the PRIEST’S hands had to waive it, signifying its dedication to the Lord. Because the only way you could BRING it before the Lord, APPROACH God in worship, was not just through the blood of a SACRIFICE, but through the priestly intercession of a MEDIATOR as well.
And the same is STILL true, today, friends. In our sinfulness, we are not FIT to approach God SOLO; our worship, our prayers, our songs, our offerings are ONLY pleasing to God when we bring them THROUGH CHRIST, our great HIGH PRIEST. “Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God… Let us NOW with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Heb 4:14-16). We can ONLY come to God - approach His throne of grace - through JESUS, His SON, our mediator. Jesus says, “I am the WAY… NO ONE comes to the Father except through ME.”
And because he grants us access to God, because he has made PEACE between rebel sinners like us and our perfect heavenly Father by the blood of his cross, we therefore give JESUS our worship. V34 says the priest who DID the interceding got to KEEP a portion of the offering - the breast and the right thigh.
So too, because of CHRIST’s priestly intercession on our behalf, we bring our “peace offerings” - our celebration and THANKS for the restored relationship we now enjoy with God, to JESUS, who laid down his life as a RANSOM for us. We WORSHIP him.
Lastly, and in conclusion: 8) God wants PROPER worship (7:37-38) - “May we worship Him WORTHILY”
God has TOLD us how HE desires to be, how He DEMANDS to be worshiped; v38 closes by saying “the Lord COMMANDED Israel to bring their offerings” perpetually, purely, piously, particularly, preciously, publicly, presently, personally, Christ-centered-ly… This is proper worship. Suitable, fitting, RIGHT worship. It’s not a subjective thing. It’s not about OUR feelings; worship is about HIS glory. May we worship Him WORTHILY. Amen?