Well, Leviticus chapter 2 this morning brings us to the one kind of offering in the Levitical system that was not a blood sacrifice, but was instead a grain offering. And so, in the grain offering, rather than bringing an animal to be killed and blood to be used and poured out and sprinkled and so on, Here the Israelite would bring a portion of the produce of the ground in some form of grain and would offer this up to the Lord as a sacrifice, as an offering. So, clearly this is a unique kind of sacrifice and one that had its own place and function in Old Testament worship. But one of the things to note immediately at the outset is that the grain offering, most of the time, was not offered in itself. It was not something that was done in isolation. It was a part of the larger picture of worship in Israel. and it went along with animal sacrifices, most often the burnt offering, because we find that a grain offering regularly, continually, was to accompany burnt offerings. and particularly in the daily morning and evening ritual of the burnt offering in Israel. Every morning and every evening the priest was to offer up a lamb as a burnt offering and then following that he would offer a grain offering with it and probably even a pawn, the burning carcass of that burnt offering that was going up. So it's not surprising then that the instructions here in Leviticus for the grain offering follow right after the instructions for the burnt offering because they often went exactly in that order. And with that in mind, we realize that the grain offering, among other things, was a type of offering that went along with and presupposed a relationship with God already established, access to God having been established upon the basis of blood sacrifice. So we could say, initially, the grain offering is not because it's bloodless. That doesn't mean that, in this case, we get to sort of skirt around the issue of blood atonement. This is part of a larger picture of worship that presupposes that atonement. Well, Leviticus 2 is made up basically of two parts. First, there are instructions for how to offer or a procedure for how to offer the grain offering. Then, beginning at verse 11, there are some stipulations about grain offerings. So this morning we're going to look at those two aspects of grain offering in Israel, the procedure for the offering, the stipulations about the offering, and then we should be, in the process, be able to draw some conclusions about the purpose and the significance of this particular sacrifice in the worship of God in the Old Testament. Then also, we want to consider ways that the grain offerings—or at least the ideas underlying the grain offering—would apply to us today, still, even in the New Covenant era. So first of all, we look at the procedure for the grain offering, and you see that there are several options here. Just like in the burnt offering, one might offer from the herd or from the flock, or there might be an offering of birds if somebody was too poor to afford otherwise. Here in the grain offering, there are some options for the form of the grain offering. The first of those being sort of the default, that you would bring fine flour with oil and frankincense. That's covered in the first three verses. And then from verse 4 through verse 10, there are three kinds of already prepared offerings, grains that have already been cooked. It could be baked into loaves, it could be cooked on a griddle, or it could be made in a pan, which would indicate frying with some kind of fat. And then at the end of this chapter, there's yet another possibility. One's grain offering might be on a specific occasion of offering the first fruits of the harvest, in which case he would bring roasted, crushed, whole grains with oil and with frankincense. So here are some of the options that were open for the grain offering in Israel. But there were some things that they had in common. First of all, the grain was to be offered with the inclusion of oil. If the offering was uncooked, fine flour, the oil was poured on it. If it was a cooked offering, oil would be mixed with the grain before it was cooked, or perhaps it would be smeared on top of wafers that had been prepared. but it always had to have oil. And if it was an uncooked offering or if it was the roasted grain of the first fruit's offering, they were also to add frankincense, all of which would be burned up on the altar with this portion of the grain offering and would give it a sweet aroma as it went up in smoke to the Lord. And so one of the things immediately that should draw our attention that's inherent in these prescriptions and mirrors what we've already seen about the burnt offerings and will be throughout the descriptions of the offerings and sacrifices in Israel is that what was being offered to God needed to be pure. It was, in this case, fine flour. which implies the removing of the impurities, and they're bringing the best, the fine flour, the sifted flour, with oil and frankincense, these valuable items and staples of life, as well as the frankincense, which would be a valuable incense and a sweet-smelling aroma. They are to bring God what is their best. With that, we see about the oil and frankincense are prescribed here, but no particular explanation about why it's important that the grain offering would have oil or, in some cases, why it was offered up with frankincense and what was significant about that. But we might note that in the Old Testament, often oil was picturing or associated with the Holy Spirit. the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the empowering and grace of the Holy Spirit in someone's life. Well, at the same time, in places like Psalm 45, oil is associated with joy and gladness. So, perhaps, the fact that these great offerings needed to contain oil pictures or signifies that this offering up of worship, the worship of God, would need to be accompanied with the grace and empowering of the Holy Spirit and with the joy in the Lord that comes from the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, it probably points us to Jesus, who would be the Anointed One, as oil was used in anointing and pictured the anointing work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Messiah, would one day come as the Anointed One. Here again, frankincense was sometimes offered. All of this was offered up as an incense on the sacrifice when it was used, and it would make it a pleasant aroma as it went before the Lord. Another thing that the sacrifices or the options for the grain sacrifice had in common was that they were, like other offerings, presented through the priest. So we saw with the burnt offering, the person would bring the burnt offering, they would lay their hand upon its head, they would kill that animal, but then it's the priest who would be responsible to actually offer it up on the altar. Same is true for the grain offering. it would bring it through the priest. The priest is the one who has to offer it to the Lord. And then, another thing that was common about the options here for the grain offering was that only a part of it was offered up on the altar. This is a big difference, obviously, from the whole burnt offering. The distinctive feature of that was that the entire animal is offered up on the altar. When they bring a grain offering, the priest would take just a handful of the grain and would burn it with some of the oil and with all of the frankincense, or if it was a cooked offering, he would take some portion of that which had been prepared, he would burn that on the altar, but the rest of it belonged to the priest. The lion's share, so to speak, of this offering is actually for the priest to eat. And so one of the purposes for this offering in Israel really was just to provide for the priest and the Levites They had been dedicated to the Lord for His service. They did not have an inheritance of their own in the land, and they were provided for by the people of Israel through things like the tithe, the firstfruits offerings, and as well here, the priests are partly provided by the grain offering that Israel brings. Well, how did this all function for Israel in terms of their relationship to God and their worship of God? Remember again, as we said earlier, this grain offering was usually offered in conjunction with some other kind of sacrifice, usually the burnt offering. So it's based on the fact, first of all, that God has already provided atonement for sin, that the people come to Him through an atoning sacrifice. And having been brought near, having been reconciled to God through blood atonement already then in the grain offering, they offer up to the Lord an offering from the fruit to the ground. And so, in doing that, on the one hand, it represents a portion of the harvest of grain that God has provided, that which has come from the ground. And at the same time, we might say that it represents the fruit of their labors. God brings forth food from the ground, and yet they had worked to the ground, they harvested the crop. Once it was harvested, these particular offerings, in one way or another, have already been processed. They've, at a very minimum, processed the grain down into a fine flour. So they've put some labor into this. And so, in offering up the grain offering, the Israelites are taking something of their material possessions and their labors, and that which they have labored in, and they are devoting it, they are offering it up to the Lord, And in doing that, they acknowledge that it all belongs to Him. We're probably to understand it in that way that, yes, we're bringing a portion of this, but as a memorial offering, and it's called this, it's called a memorial offering, the part that's offered actually on the altar to the Lord, that speaks of a remembrance of something, purposefully remembering. What are we supposed to be remembering in offering up the grain offering? Most likely this served as a reminder and an acknowledgment that the people of Israel belong to the Lord, that God has given them the land, that God is the source of all of their blessings, of the very life that they enjoy, that it is God who provides the basic sustenance of life. He gives them bread from the ground. He provides it all. That's true in the first place because the Lord Yahweh that they serve is the true God, the Creator God, the sovereign Lord of all creation. Everything comes from Him. Life itself comes from His hand. And Israel is to acknowledge that continually, but not only as their sovereign Creator God, but as their covenant Lord. He is the covenant God of His people. He is the God who has redeemed them from Egypt. He is the God who brought them into covenant with Himself and then gave them the land of Canaan from which they have brought this harvest. So He is the covenant Lord. The land is His. The people are His. He gives them blessing. He protects them from their enemies. He gives them the food that sustains their life. They owe Him their total allegiance, and they acknowledge that every time they offer a grain offering. And this goes on again morning and evening in Israel. Following the burnt offering comes the grain offering that says, now we and all that we have are yours. Deuteronomy 26 gives instructions about the offering of firstfruits. And it really kind of expresses the same idea that I think is inherent in the grain offering, that the Israelite, when he brought this offering of firstfruits, would recount verbally The exodus from Egypt that God accomplished for His people, the fact that the Lord had delivered Him from slavery, had brought Him into this land and given it as a possession, as an inheritance to Him, and He would say, He brought us into this place, Deuteronomy 26, 9 and 10, He gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground which you, O Lord, have given Me, and then set it down before the Lord in worship. So, in other words, this offering of a grain offering is a humble and a thankful acknowledgment that the people or that this individual person from among the people who has come near to worship God, based on blood atonement that God has provided, that every blessing of life and life itself and the very sustenance of their life comes from the Lord. Everything is owed to Him. and everything that He has and everything that He does belongs to the Lord. That's what He's saying by this offering. Well, that's the procedure for the grain offering in a nutshell. Beginning in verse 11, we hear the stipulations for the grain offering. There are a couple of things in view here. There's something you don't do and something you do. First of all, the grain offering had to be offered without leaven. So you never add leaven or honey to the grain offering. Again, there's no particular explanation of why, just don't do it. With the one exception that the offering of firstfruits could have leaven, but the difference here was that when they brought an offering of firstfruits, that offering itself was not burned up on the altar to the Lord. Remember what we looked at last week with regard to burnt offerings, that which is burned up on the altar goes up in smoke. Visually, symbolically, it goes up to the presence of God. given over to Him." So, the firstfruits offering, that was not the case. It was okay that you could have leaven there, but no offering that was to be offered up in smoke on the altar. He says in verse 11, you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the Lord. They were unacceptable to be offered to Him. The one thing that The leaven and the honey, in the context of Old Testament, would have had in common was that both would have had this effect of causing fermentation. And so, they're probably here associated with just the general idea of corruption and decay. We come to the New Testament. Jesus speaks of the leaven of the scribes and the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. It's doctrinal corruption. It's moral corruption. Paul speaks about the leaven of malice and evil. He associates leaven also with the false teaching of the Judaizers. Again, corruption, that which decays, that which brings uncleanness. So, it seems like we would understand the significance of leaven as whatever is corrupting, whatever would bring impurity or decay to this holy sacrifice that must be offered up and burned on the altar to the Lord that is not to be allowed. On the other hand, while there should be no leaven in the offering, there needs to be salt. Every grain offering was to have salt. In fact, he says, with all your offerings, you shall offer salt. And we might note that salt was used for the opposite effect of leaven and honey, while they would have a decaying or corrupting influence, salt was used to preserve things, so it has a preserving influence, preserve things from decay. But then, specifically, it is called in this context the salt of the covenant with your God, and salt was specifically associated with the covenant and with covenants in the Old Testament, and even outside of the Bible within the context of Old Testament. We have a couple examples in Scripture where salt was associated with covenant. One of those is in Numbers chapter 18, where the covenant with the priest was called a covenant of salt forever before the Lord. And in 2 Chronicles 13.5, ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt? So here it's talking about the Davidic covenant. Both of those passages emphasize the same thing. The permanent and unending nature of the covenant, something that is preserved, it's secured permanently because it is God's covenant. So here, when we see that God requires salt in the grain offering, we should think of the covenant God has with His people. But more specifically, with the permanent and unending nature of that covenant that God has bound them to Himself that in a sense that covenant relationship God has made with His people, it's unending, it's unbreakable, ultimately because it is God's covenant that He has established. So now as the Israelites come to bring their grain offering and they need to add salt to this offering, it is the salt of the covenant, which means they're being reminded every time this offering is brought to the altar of the promises and blessings of God that are contained in that covenant. along with the obligations that fall upon them because there's both sides of that. There's the assurance that God has made these great promises to His people in covenant, but that covenant means they have an obligation to serve and worship and trust in Him. It comes with all the warnings of what would happen if Israel would fail to keep the covenant with God. Now what does covenant have to do with the grain offering? Because remember, we picture the grain offering here as picturing this offering up of the fruits of the land, the fruits of their labors, the stuff of life, saying it really comes from God and we belong to God, so it all belongs to God. What does it have to do with the covenant? Well, it's a reminder that all of life is lived in covenant with God in Israel. The mundane stuff of life—their daily food, their labor, the blessing they enjoy of the land and the security they have in it—all of those things were grounded in God's covenant with them. All of life was rooted in the fact that God has made Himself their God and they are His people, that He is the one who has given them the land, He gives them their daily food, He gives them life itself. The land in which they live that is an inheritance from the Lord really belongs to the covenant Lord, and they belong to Him. They're not their own people, they're His people. This is a permanent covenant, so that always in all of their lives, there's this covenant obligation upon them in obedience to God's law and His Word. Bringing a grain offering was acknowledging that they submit themselves to their covenant Lord. They submit themselves to obey Him, to recognize His right over them, to serve Him in their labors, to worship Him as God alone. Here, I think, is the essence of the grain offering in Israel, how it functioned, what its purpose was in worship. But then we come, thirdly, to the application of the grain offering. In other words, what does it mean for us today in the New Testament? Think of the bloodless grain offering. In some ways, we seem a far stretch from New Covenant realities and application of this to Christ and life in the New Covenant. But I would suggest several ways that there's application of these principles to us today in new covenant life as God's people. First of all, that we, as well as Israel, live all of life in covenant with the Lord God. The people of Israel, they bring these sacrifices as a testimony, as a reminder that their lives are bound to the Lord who has redeemed them, who called them to be His that they are living life continually in their sowing and harvesting, in their marrying and being given in marriage, in their eating and drinking, in their working and in their resting. It is all in covenant relationship with the Lord. That is no less true for us today. Context is different. We don't offer food offerings on an altar and fire to the Lord. But yet, the same covenant God is the source of life and every gift and every blessing in every part of our lives and all that we receive. First of all, again, because He's God. Because He is the creator and the sustainer of all creation, we owe Him our very existence, our very being. He's the one who sustains our existence in this world from moment to moment, from breath to breath. Every material blessing comes from Him, including our food and drink and clothing and housing and all the many needs that He supplies for us. He gives us the strength and ability to do our work. That means even when you've worked hard, come home tired because you've been working hard to earn a living, to earn that paycheck. The fact that we earn food to eat, the fact that we have the strength to do that, we still owe the fruits of all those labors to the one who's given us that strength and that life and that ability. It all comes from Him. Now, we don't bring grain to the temple and burn it on an altar, but we are called to offer up sacrifices of thanksgiving. In fact, Our lives as New Covenant believers in Christ are to be lives that are filled with thanksgiving, humble testimony, acknowledgement that God is the source of our life and every good thing we enjoy. So that Paul says there in Ephesians 5.20, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of the kinds of spiritual sacrifice that we offer in worship to God in the New Covenant. It's our thanksgiving. The writer of Hebrews says, through Him, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. So we have this obligation of thanksgiving and regularly acknowledging that all that we have comes from God, who is our Creator and Sustainer, but also remembering that, like Israel, we stand in a covenant relationship to the Lord, that He has brought us into this covenant of grace, that we who were enslaved to sin, who were walking in the darkness of spiritual death, who were under the wrath and the curse of Almighty God, that He took it upon Himself to redeem us. that He has now reconciled us to Himself, we stand reconciled by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross so that we are His people and He is our God. That means that all of life is lived in covenant with Him. In other words, there's not one single aspect of your life or my life in this world that can be separated out or segregated from our relationship to the living God through Jesus Christ. We can never think about some little corner of our existence, no matter how mundane it might be, we may not think of it as, well, you know, this is just my own personal earthly life that doesn't really have anything to do with Jesus and my relationship to Him. and extends to things as mundane as eating and drinking. As Paul said, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. So being Christ's church, Being in covenant with God through Jesus Christ means we're called to use our earthly lives, our material blessings, our strength, our ability, our resources, our gifts to glorify the Lord who bought us and the Lord who brought us into this covenant bond by the blood of His own Son who offered Himself up for us. So first of all, all of life is lived in covenant with God. Secondly, recognize, and we see this reflected in the grain offering in Israel, that all of our worship, our prayer, our service to the Lord is only acceptable, is only pleasing to God as it comes through Jesus Christ with sincerity. Three things about the grain offering briefly here I want to touch on that remind us of that truth. First of all, that the grain offering, just again like all of these offerings, had to be brought through the priest, even though it's not a blood sacrifice, even though the priest is not going to be sprinkling blood or pouring blood or some such thing. And even though, in this case, the worshiper is offering up the fruit of his own labors, it still has to come through the mediation of the priest. Because God is constantly teaching the Israelites this, they need a mediator. They are not fit in themselves to come that near to the altar, to minister at the altar and offer these gifts directly to God. And in that, these sacrifices are constantly pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ as our great High Priest, our Mediator, the one through whom we come, we bring our worship, we bring our prayers, we bring everything else, is only acceptable because it is presented by Jesus on our behalf. He's the only one who is worthy to present our offerings to the Lord, to God. And so again, Hebrews 13, 15 says, through Him, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise. That is, our praises, our sacrifices, all our spiritual worship must come through Jesus Christ. Secondly, we note that the offerings had a sweet aroma. It was the purpose of burning frankincense on the altar to make sure that even this raw grain had a pleasing aroma when it went up to God. Otherwise, it would not be acceptable. It is the person and work of Jesus that makes our spiritual sacrifices go up to God as a pleasing aroma. He is the frankincense added to our worship, to our prayers, and to our praise. And He is the one who offered up Himself as a sinless offering without the leaven of sin or corruption or any such thing so that He and His sacrifice of Himself would be a pleasing aroma to God. And now He sanctifies all of life for us. Our worship, our offering of our praises and prayers and even of ourselves and our lives is carried by the merits of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ and therefore becomes a pleasing aroma to God. Thirdly, we note the offerings being offered without leaven, without a corrupting influence. We've seen already how the New Testament draws on that imagery to remind us that our worship And our life in covenant with God is to be without the corruption of hypocrisy or deceit or evil intention, duplicity. It must come to God with a sincere faith, with a single-minded purpose to serve. and obey the Lord. We see a couple of examples in the New Testament, the example in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul is talking about leaven there as malice and evil. He's talking about a case in which the church was tolerating gross and unrepentant sin in their midst. This thing that leavens the whole lump, that to hold on to sin in your heart and life, unrepentant, while you're worshiping God outwardly, is just deceit and hypocrisy. It's the opposite of the sincerity and truth that's called for in the worship of God. So in these ways, we're reminded it's Christ who mediates our worship, our prayers and praises, our thanksgiving, our service. It's acceptable through Him when offered with sincerity. And now finally, Another way that the grain offering, I think, points to us today and has an application for us today is reminding us that the God who provides bread from the ground, who provides the stuff of life, is the God who has provided the bread of life, Jesus Christ. You think of the Israelites who are bringing this grain offering, and again it's being offered on behalf of the nation every morning and every evening besides all the other instances of grain offering. There's little that would better represent the sustaining of human life than the grains and the breads that made up the staple of Israel's day-to-day diet. So they're offering and acknowledging to God that God is the one who has given them life and sustains their lives. Here again, I think this offering pointed beyond itself, and it pointed beyond just the immediate issues of grain and bread, to the true bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. He would be the source of eternal life, not just physical life in Canaan, but eternal life in the heavenly Canaan. Christ offered Himself without impurity. He offered Himself as pure and blameless, unleavened to give us life. Jesus says in John 6.35, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. It should be our response then to God who has given us Christ to be for us reconciliation and peace and then the sustenance of our very life now and for eternity. First of all, we live a life of constant thanksgiving. Our lives should be characterized by the sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, the God who gave His own Son for our redemption. And then secondly, it's the offering up of ourselves, the whole of our lives to be holy unto Him. Paul appeals to us in Romans 12, by the mercies of God, brothers, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. In our eating and drinking, in our relationships, in our work life, in our home life, in our hobbies, in our rest time, in our parenting, in our learning and studying and pursuits and whatever it is that we do, We do all that we do in the context of covenant with the eternal God. It all belongs to Him. It all comes to us from Him. We are to seek to glorify Him through Jesus Christ, offering up ourselves, all that we have, continually. Just as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, which we read earlier, and I'll close with this by reading it once more, We've concluded this, that the one has died for all, therefore all have died. He who died for all, he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you today again with thanksgiving, which is ever incumbent upon us. Consider the great love with which you have loved us, we who have been rebels against the sovereign of the universe, the eternal, immeasurable, bounded, most holy God, that you, in your great love, gave Jesus Christ who offered up Himself, shed His blood on the cross, and was offered as a pleasing aroma, so that all of our life now may be life in communion with You, in covenant with You. Help us, Father, as we go forward, as we go into the weakness before us, that we would have this in mind. that You would impress these truths anew upon our hearts and help us to live all of life. To Your glory, to Your praise, and submission to You as our covenant Lord and Savior. These things we pray today, in Jesus' name, amen.