If you could turn in your Bible to Leviticus chapter 1 and verse 1, the very first verse in Leviticus. Tonight we are starting a four-week series in the book of Leviticus, and I'm very excited about this. I've been looking forward to it. We're going to walk through, and tonight's going to be a different kind of message, a little bit more introductory. I told you I'm excited about this, but I have a feeling that there are some of you who don't feel quite the same way. And I understand because the book of Leviticus is not an easy book. Can we agree on that, anybody? Okay, we're all there. It can be a very difficult book. There are some things in the book of Leviticus that are hard to understand, and I agree. I'm right there with you. I was reading through it again in preparation for this series, and there are some points in the book where it's just, it's difficult. It's difficult reading. And I think we all know that feeling because as we start our Bible reading plans for the new year, anybody just started a Bible reading plan this week? All right, so a few of us. And as you start a new Bible reading plan, maybe you've done that before, and you start in the book of Genesis sometimes, and there's some exciting stories there, some accounts of God's miraculous works. You get to the book of Exodus, and it too is just full of God's miraculous salvation for the children of Israel as they come out of the land of Egypt. And then things start to get a little bit difficult. And you get to the book of Leviticus in particular, and it's just heavy reading. And oftentimes, the book of Leviticus spells trouble for a lot of Bible readers. And sometimes, I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands, but sometimes there are some of us who get to that book, we start reading, and we think, you know what? I think I'm just going to skip to something that's a little bit more helpful for me today. And I think we've all been there, we've been at points like that. And there's something to that that is natural, it is a difficult book, and yet I would like to put it this way, let's say you've got a young man who's in the military maybe 80 years ago, and the only way that he can communicate with back home, maybe he's overseas, the only way he can communicate is through hard copy letters. And so he starts to write with his fiancée, and she writes to him, and she writes a whole lot more than he does. And so he starts to get these packets of letters from his fiancée, and they come in packets. And so he—let's say he opens the first one, and he reads all the way through, and he's excited to hear from her, and he pours over that letter. And then he gets to the second one, and he reads a paragraph, and he starts to think to himself, you know, I already know her. You know, we're already friends. We're going to be married one day. I think I'm just going to forego the rest of this letter. I've got things to get to." So he puts that letter aside, and he never reads it. Picks up the third letter, and he reads a couple sentences, and he thinks to himself, I don't even know why she's telling me this. I don't really want to read this right now. And so he sets that aside too. And he thinks to himself, you know, I know her already. We're already friends. I think it's okay for me not to hear what she has to say. That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? That's a problem. And yet we often do that with God's great letter to us. God has written a very long letter to us, a letter to show us that He loves us and that He cares for us. And He has written in several different ways. He's written in some ways that are easier for us to read, and He's written in some ways that are more difficult for us to read. And yet all of it is God's letter to us. And there are no points in Scripture where God, as He was writing it, thought, it doesn't matter for them to know this, I'm just gonna put this in here just because I want to. All of it is God's revelation of Himself to us, and if we want to know God, we're going to have to read it. So Lord willing, that's what we'll do over the next few weeks. And one of the most important parts of this series is actually in the very back of your booklet there, Back page, there is a Bible reading plan. And what I'd like us to do is read through this together. It's a pretty easy plan, not a whole lot per day. It actually starts on today, so you might need to play a little bit of catch up tomorrow if you aren't able to read it today. But I would like us to read this together as a church. That is actually perhaps the most important part of this series. And there's a couple of things that this will help you with. First of all, if you are reading through the Bible in a Bible reading plan, and you are, realizing that you're gonna get to Leviticus at some point, you might as well do it right now, right? So let's go ahead and get it done with. But as we read through it as a church family, I hope that we will be able to learn together. And I think that what we study here on Sunday evenings is going to mean so much more if you have read it for yourself. So then we come to the question, okay, some of the Bible is harder than others, and Leviticus is certainly one of those books, so why study Leviticus? And I think there are two answers to that. The first answer is found in this passage in the New Testament, 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17. 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 is often one of those passages that is used to talk about what key doctrine. Inspiration, right? And that's important because it does tell us that God breathed out all of his word, but it also tells us another doctrine, and that is the doctrine of sufficiency. And so let's read it together with that in mind. I will read it out loud, 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." The key doctrine that is taught here is the doctrine of sufficiency. First of all, it tells us that the Bible meets every need that we could ever have. Did you know that? There's no need that you and I face that the Bible does not answer. You might be thinking, well, hey, I'm facing a need right now, and it does not specifically address that need, so I'm not sure about that. What we do know is that the Bible gives us everything we need for life and godliness. And so there's no trouble, there's no trial, there's no temptation that you might face throughout a given day that the Bible does not speak to. But we see something else, and it's found in that very first word, all. All Scripture is breathed out by God, and all Scripture is profitable. So you know what that means. That means that there are portions of Scripture which we might naturally say, you know, I'm not sure that that matters. God says it does. He says that as He breathed out Scripture, He breathed out every part for you and your needs. All Scripture is profitable for your growth in Christlikeness. So then, how are we going to approach Leviticus? Leviticus, then, we know is necessary. It is profitable for us. So how are we going to approach this? We're going to approach this much like you approach any book of the Bible, really, but I think it's important that we look at it this way, and it's the diagram at the very top of your page, and that is what I'm calling a bridge to application. I think the struggle that we face with books of the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, is that they were written a long time ago to a different group of people at a different point in time. And so as we read them, there's no direct application. As you read through Leviticus over the next few weeks, you're going to come across some laws that are difficult to understand. And there's no direct application to your day and your calendar and your schedule. So how do we approach that? Well, first of all, we have to ask this question, what did it mean for the original hearers? What is the original application? And that's a lot of what we're going to be doing as we approach these passages. What does this mean? And what did this mean for Israel? How are they supposed to respond to that? But like I said, there's not always a one-to-one correspondence to what we're supposed to do today. So we've got to find, then, the overarching, the transcendent theme, the theme that is timeless, and that is, what does this say about God? You know, the book of Leviticus is all about God. In fact, we find in the book of Leviticus that God is the speaker. He speaks pretty much the whole book. So what does this say about God? It has a lot to say about God. And so that's where we're finding that timeless truth. Another question we should ask ourselves is what does this say about me? What does this say about my needs, my struggles, my difficulties? Another thing that you can look for is repeated words and repeated themes. You know, you might come to some points in your reading over the next few weeks and you think, I have no idea what this passage is talking about. And at that point, I would encourage you to look for repeated words. What words, what themes, what truths are repeated over and over again? That's how you can get to that timeless theme. And that is when you then drop back down into today's application. What does this mean for my Monday? What does this mean for my commute to work? Things like that. Now, notice what we did not do. We did not go directly across from the original application and make a beeline for today's application. And that's where a lot of times people go wrong with books of the Bible. And I've done the same thing where I try to make a one-to-one application. Okay, he says that I'm supposed to, for example, not mix different types of cloth together. Well, what does that mean for me today? And some people have said, well, that means that I shouldn't wear polyester and cotton at the same time. But that's probably not the application for today. So we need to figure out what does this mean for us today? So let's go back then. We've asked the question, why Leviticus, and we went to 2 Timothy 3.16-17, but I also want to talk about why Leviticus in terms of what does it present to us which we must see? What foundational truths does it give us? And do you know Leviticus has a lot of foundational truths? It presents a lot of truths which are just foundational for the rest of the Bible and for our walk with God. Let me give you an example. How about the blood atonement? The atonement, the idea that we and God can be at one because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That's the atonement. And Leviticus introduces that to us. How about the idea of holiness? Holiness is mentioned 150 times in this book. What is holiness? Anybody have a simple definition of holiness that you could share? Set apart, right? Unique. That idea is presented probably in its fullest in the book of Leviticus. God is a holy God. How about the idea of cleansing? It's mentioned 45 times in this book. Do you know why we talk about cleansing in terms of sin? Why is it that we say, God, I want to be cleansed of this sin or I want to be clean? Well, do you know that is introduced in the book of Leviticus? In fact, we find David saying in Psalm 51, What's he referring to? He's actually quoting from Leviticus chapter 14 about the leprosy laws. And he's saying, just like leprosy, I have a sin in my heart that needs to be cleansed. We find in Isaiah chapter 7 where Isaiah says he covers his mouth and he says, I'm a man of unclean lips. What's he referring to? He's probably referring to the leprosy laws where a leper would cover his mouth and shout unclean. We also see the idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice is mentioned 43 times in this book. This is a book full of sacrifices, and what does that point to? Well, that points to Jesus Christ. We find that throughout the rest of the Bible. Isaiah chapter 53, where Isaiah says, all we like sheep have gone our own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And that's the idea of God laying his hand on that sheep and placing our sins on the perfect sacrifice. That is presented in the book of Leviticus. And we also find in 1 Peter 1, he says, be holy. for I am holy." So all of these foundational truths come from the book of Leviticus, and we could really say in a word, it is the gospel. The gospel is presented in the book of Leviticus. Now some of you might be thinking some skeptical thoughts right now. Okay, we're talking about the gospel in Leviticus, Are we just tacking the word gospel onto everything in order to make it just a little bit better? Is that what we're supposed to do with the word gospel? I heard someone describe it this way, how we don't want to just say, you know, I'm going to go to my gospel church today and I'm going to go to my gospel small groups and eat some gospel cookies made by my gospel wife. You know, that's not the way we're supposed to use the word gospel, right? But we do use the word gospel when that is actually what is presented in this passage. And I would say that the book of Leviticus really is all about the gospel. It presents the foundational truths for the gospel. These are themes which are not only pertinent to the gospel, they are foundational to the gospel. But I think more importantly, Leviticus reveals God. It is a book that reveals God to us. And this is the same God that we serve today. We're going to read some portions of Leviticus this week that are difficult. And we might think, you know, who is this? What is this all about? You know, it's the same God. And so we want to find out about him. And we can do so as we look at this book. Okay, so let's give a little bit of introduction to what this book is going to be all about. And that's what we're going to do tonight, is just introduce the book, make sure that we know what the book is about, and then next week we'll dive into the actual content of the book. And I'll let you know, we're not going to go through the book of Leviticus on a verse-by-verse basis, but we are going to make sure that we get the big idea. But I'm counting on you to spend time in it yourself and make sure that you actually are reading through the book, because that's where you're going to gain the content of this book. So let's take a look at this book. And what I'd like to do is take a big step back from the book of Leviticus. If you're out house shopping and you're inspecting a house, you're going to look at various components of the house. You're going to make sure that certain things are working properly, the plumbing or the electricity. But at some point when you're house shopping, you're going to take a step back all the way to the curb and make sure that you know what this house is like. Make sure that you have a big picture of this house. And that's what I'd like to do right now. I'd like to take a step way back and really start and figure out where this book lands in the context of the Bible. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna start off, first of all, in Genesis. And I'm gonna talk about how much time elapses in each of these books. So first of all, Genesis. I need some feedback here. How many chapters are in the book of Genesis? Anybody know that offhand? 50, right? How many years, about how many years does the book of Genesis cover? Any ideas? You wanna just throw a wild guess out there? It's about 2,000 years, possibly more, but probably about 2,000 years that the book of Genesis covers. That's a lot of years, right? And then we get to the book of Exodus. The book of Exodus, how many chapters is that? About 40, 40 chapters. Anybody want to guess how many years is covered in the book of Exodus? Not quite 1,000, but it's a lot. About 500, about 400 years. We know at least 80 years of Moses' life, and at the very beginning, there's a whole lot more years in there. So about 400 years. So you got 40 chapters covering about 400 years. How about Leviticus? How many chapters are there? 27 chapters. 27 chapters. So how much time is covered in Leviticus? Well, it's actually about—some people, you know, there are different ideas about this, but it is very little time. It's probably about one month. About one month of time elapses in the book of Leviticus. So I'd like you to take a look at that really quickly. When you're reading a novel or a book, there are times in the story where the writer will say something like, years passed. And when you see that, it's probably not super important what's going on if he picks up many, many years later. But when the novelist, when the writer slows down, and when he starts to, you know, fill a few seconds worth of time with paragraphs, what does that mean? Well, that means that what he's talking about is really, really important, right? It means that what he is describing to you, you need to pay attention to. And that's kind of what we're seeing here. Now, the book of Genesis does have some points where it slows down. For example, you remember the part that we just studied in adult Bible study where Abraham offers Isaac on the altar and he lifts the knife and you can tell that the narration is slowing down because it's a very important part. But that's kind of what we see in the book of Leviticus, where it slows down. And really what it's slowing down to is a very doctrine heavy book of the Bible. Leviticus is full of truths about God. And it's slowing down to that because it wants to make clear, God wants to make clear to us who he is and what he expects of us. So what's it all about? What is the book of Genesis all about? Well, let's start with the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis answers an important question, and that is, what has God planned for His sinful people? We saw at the beginning of the book of Genesis, they're in the Garden of Eden, it's a perfect atmosphere, they're fellowshipping with God, and then they choose to sin, and they are expelled from God's presence. And then God promises them that he will send someone to save them. And so we see God making promise after promise after promise in the book of Genesis that somebody is coming. And yet we have to remember this. It hasn't happened yet. And we come to the end of the book of Genesis and we still find sinful people outside of God's presence. They haven't been able to enter God's presence yet. So Exodus, the book of Exodus, which we just started this morning in adult Bible study, that builds upon that and answers another question. Where? Sinful people—sorry, let's go back to God's promise. Sinful people, God says, they can still worship Him. But the question is where, and it's all about location. Where should God's people worship him? And Exodus says, first of all, it's not in the land of Egypt, so he takes them out of the land of Egypt. But then he starts to build what at the end of the book of Exodus? What is being built? The tabernacle, right? It's like a little bit of heaven on earth where God says, this is the place that my presence will be. And so they get to the end of the book of Exodus and the tabernacle is built. God's presence is there. And here's where I would like you to take your Bible and turn one page back to the book of Exodus. And I'd like us to take a look at verses 34 and 35. So here's what we see. We're at the point where the tabernacle has been built. God has promised that sinful people can worship him. He's made a place for them to worship him. All that they need now is to be able to enter and fellowship with God once again, just like they did back in Eden. But what happens in verse 34? It says, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting. Let's stop right there. This is a very special place. There is no place on the globe at this time where this is happening except the tabernacle, where God is coming down to dwell in a place, a place made with hands. And yet we find out later that God cannot dwell in a place made with hands. So this is God's glory that is filling the tabernacle. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses, was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." So what do we see here? Everything's ready. Everything's ready for God's people to worship him again, and yet Moses cannot enter. And it tells us why he can't enter. It's because of God's presence. It's because God is there and there is something that is keeping Moses away from God's presence. And what is that? It's sin. Sin excludes us from God's presence. Now, it could stop here. But instead, we turn the page and we see God speaking. in verse one of chapter one of the book of Leviticus. And what does God say? It says, the Lord God called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. And at that point, he launches into several chapters of how to bring sacrifices to God. So what do we see there? We see that man is expelled from God's presence because of sin, and yet God wants to make a way for us to fellowship with him. And God initiates that in the book of Leviticus, and he starts to create this plan, a way that you and I can enter his presence. And that's what the book is all about. So we see that Genesis talks about God's promise, Exodus talks about God's place, but then Leviticus answers the question, how? How can God's people worship him? And here God makes a plan, and his plan tells us that sinful people can still worship God. And as we look at this book, We're gonna find a lot of laws. We're gonna find descriptions of lots of things that they have to do exactly. Lots of things that must be just right in order to enter into God's presence. And it's easy to begin to think that somehow God doesn't want them in his presence, but the opposite is true. And all of the laws that we see actually tell us more about our sin and what a mess our sin has gotten us into. And what we see in the book of Leviticus is not just a book of laws, it's actually an invitation. God is inviting sinful people to enter into his presence and he's telling them exactly how. Now, as you look through this, you might start to think, well, this is nerve wracking. Entering God's presence is really hard. Can anybody enter God's presence? Can anybody do all of this perfectly? The truth is that you don't have to do all of these sacrificial laws. As you read through this, you're going to realize that these sacrifices, you don't have to bring a lamb into God's presence. You don't have to slay a lot of animals in order to be accepted by God, because God himself became a man, a perfect man. And he perfectly fulfilled the law. He perfectly obeyed his father. And yet he took upon himself human flesh, not to thrive upon earth or to pamper himself, but rather to be butchered as a sacrifice for our sins. And a lot of the blood that we see in the book of Leviticus, all of it is fulfilled in the blood that was shed by Jesus Christ for us. And God placed our sins upon Jesus. The worst, the most heinous sins that you can even imagine were placed upon Jesus Christ, upon that perfect body. And he endured the full weight of the wrath of God. And then just like a burnt offering, he gave up his life completely for you and for me. And then something happened that we actually don't see in the book of Leviticus. A lot of what we see in the book of Leviticus is life turning to death. A lot of people dying, a lot of blood being shed, but Jesus actually turned death into life. And he showed that God completely accepted his once for all sacrifice. So what can we do now? We can just come into God's presence boldly. Because all of this, the weight of what we see in the book of Leviticus is done. It's been completed. God has invited us into his presence. He welcomes us into his presence and he has sacrificed his own son so that we might be able to come into his presence. And so therefore we come in. We don't worry. We don't fear his judgment. We enter and we enter by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. And so we see God's purpose for all of this in chapter 26, verses 11 through 13. And I love what God says here. This is God's heart behind this book. Just read it carefully with me. It says, he says, I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect." This is God's desire for his people. God longs for you and me to be able to come into his presence and to fellowship with him. You know, God could have left it with us outside of his presence forever. In some ways, he almost should have, because we were expelled We had sinned against him. We had said no to him. And yet in this book, we find that God says, welcome, come into my presence because of the shed blood of my perfect son. So what's the theme of this book? We could put it succinctly. We could put it like this. A holy God desires his sinful people to worship him. And so he mercifully makes a way. And that applies to us. We can worship God because God has made a way. Now, I want to make sure that you have some shelves to put this book on as you read through it. And we're going to wrap it up here in a minute, but I want to make sure that you understand what this book is all about. And one of the things that it's helpful to do when you start a new book is to open it up and read the table of contents. Nobody ever does that, right? I think just nerdy people like me. So it's helpful to look through and read the table of contents and figure out kind of where are we going here. And so that's what I'd like to do. This isn't perfect, but I want to make sure that you understand kind of where this book is going. So we already talked about this. The key question that we see in the book of Leviticus is how. How can sinful people worship a holy God? And then we see three parts to this book. The first 10 chapters, one through 10, are all about the need. our need, and our need is to approach God through sacrifice. And notice I called it a need, because you and I cannot stay out of God's presence and live. Do you know we were not designed to live outside of God's presence? We weren't designed to live outside of Eden. And that is why when God kicks Adam and Eve out of Eden, he says, now you are going to die, because any life outside of God's presence is a life of death. So we have this need. We must approach God. We must be at fellowship with God. And then we see the answer, the solution, in chapters 11 through 16. And this is really the high point of the book. The book is kind of heading to chapter 16, and the answer here is the atonement. That a holy God and a sinful people can be reconciled through the blood of Christ. And then finally, we see the result in chapter 17 through 27. And I think it's interesting that this last portion is there, because in some ways it could stop at the end of chapter 16. Okay, now we can enter God's presence. Now we have the ability to come to God. But let me ask you this, using New Testament illustration, the book of Ephesians, what are the first three chapters all about? Or what do they consist of? Doctrine, right? They're full of doctrine, and that is specifically the gospel, what God is doing in the gospel. And then chapters four through six, what does that consist of? more practical application, right? And you see in chapter four in verse one, a verse that we've mentioned several times, and our pastor has mentioned, and that is, now you need to walk worthy of the calling with which you've been called. And that's kind of the idea that we see in the book of Leviticus. You see the first 16 chapters presenting the solution of the atonement, and then in chapter 17 through 27, he says, now here's how holy people live before God. And several times throughout those chapters, he stops what he's saying and he says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Because all that we do, all of our practice is rooted in the gospel. It's rooted in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. Now, there's another interesting element to this, and that is that there are actually only two stories in the book of Leviticus. The book of Leviticus is mostly laws, and that's why sometimes it's so hard, but there are actually two stories, one in chapter 10 and one in chapter 24. The story in chapter 10 is actually a story about death. And it's a story where God executes people who try to enter his presence and are not doing it the way he prescribed. They enter on their own terms. And so he executes them. And story number two in chapter 24 is also about death. And that is where the children of Israel must execute someone who lives before God in a way that does not please God. He does not reverence God. And both of those stories kind of frame the problem for us, and that is that sin brings death. And so we are reminded throughout the book, we need help. We need a solution to this. And so that's what we see. That's the table of contents, and that's one thing that you can look at. I'd encourage you to keep these with you, and as you read through, make sure you understand kind of what's going on in each passage. So let's summarize this. First of all, we see a big truth, a reality, and that is that God is holy. God is unique. He is completely other. He is, He identifies Himself. There is no one like our God. And everything in this universe was created by Him. And everything in this universe must align itself with Him. It's not the other way around. We don't make a God like we want. We don't read through our Bible and pick and choose verses that we like and parts about God that we don't like. It doesn't work that way. We align to him because he is holy. But there's a problem, and that is that we don't do that. Instead, we choose to sin against him. We choose to say no to this God, the God who is the king of the universe. And in so doing, we bring upon ourselves eternal death. He must expel us from his presence. There is no way for us to come back into God's presence without him. We cannot come into his presence. And really, if it were up to us, we would be outside of God's presence for the rest of our lives on into eternity. And that would result in our death. And yet God mercifully makes a solution. And that is, we can approach a holy God and we can live before him in holiness through the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. That's the answer. God allows us into his presence. And I want to finish with a passage from the New Testament. Hebrews chapter nine is actually referring to Leviticus chapter 16, which is the day of atonement. And I wanna read this because I think it really helps us understand how Christ is the fulfillment of all of Leviticus. You see, these sacrifices were never intended to actually take away sin. Instead, they were intended to point to something far better, and that is the person of Jesus Christ. It says, for Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, and he's referring here to the priests who would go into the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement, But Christ did not enter into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself. This is the real deal. Now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." And that's really what we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks, how Christ sacrificed himself for us. And really what we're going to be reading are shadows. Hebrews calls these shadows. They're shadows of the real thing. And obviously in this new year, we want to learn about Christ. We want to grow to become more like Christ. And the way we do that is by looking at Christ, by beholding Him. And we can do that even as we look at Leviticus. As we look at the shadows, we can see what they are referring to, what they're pointing to. They're signposts pointing to Jesus. Well, in conclusion, I'd like us to talk about really quickly, what does this mean for this week? because this has been a little bit heavy, a lot of content, but how does this apply to this week? Well, if you're an unbeliever here, before anything else happens, you must approach God. Now, obviously, there's no one here who would say, yes, I'm an unbeliever. Maybe there is, but there may be somebody here who's thinking, you know, I believe that if I do my very best, if I work hard enough, if I bring enough good things before God, good deeds, maybe even some sacrifices that I've made, if I bring those before God, then maybe, maybe I can tiptoe into God's presence and show Him these good deeds and maybe He will accept me. Maybe one day I'll be able to stand before Him and there will be enough good on my record that He can accept me. And I'm sure you've heard that. You know, there were some folks in this book that tried that. Chapter 10, there are two guys who try to enter into God's presence on their own terms. And they only try once because they die. They die immediately. Because God does not allow any sin in his presence. He does not allow any wrongdoing. in his presence, because he is of purer eyes than to behold evil. And you know, there are so many people in this world, millions of people, every other religion besides a true relationship with Christ, which are trying to wrestle their way into God's presence, which are hoping that by doing enough good, they can get into God's presence. But it's not possible. They will die. if they do not trust the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. There's only one way. There's only one way to get into God's presence, and that is through Jesus Christ. And that is very clear. As we read through all of these laws, we're going to find out that it's very difficult to get into God's presence. It's actually impossible unless we have a perfect sacrifice. So I'd encourage you tonight, if you are in any way trusting in your own goodness or your own deeds, I would encourage you, cast your faith completely on Jesus Christ. He is the only way to approach God. How about if you are a Christian? Well, I think it's simple, but it's hard, and that is just approach God. You were made to fellowship with Him, and He wants to fellowship with you. The curtain has been torn in two. You have open access to your heavenly Father. You never have to dial a number. You never have to fill out an application. You can talk to Him any time of the day and you have open access to His presence because of the person of Jesus Christ. And yet so often we don't enter His presence. So often we linger outside and we try to fix our problems on our own. As we launch into 2019, I would encourage you, if you would like to make prayer an important part of your life, then you should approach God daily, even several times a day. Approach Him throughout your day, because we cannot live outside of God's presence. He has made a way. Approach Him. Hebrews tells us to boldly approach Him. We don't have to fear His judgment. Come into God's presence. I would encourage you, mothers and fathers, do your children see the welcome that you have into God's presence by how often you approach Him? Do they see that? Do they realize that the God you serve is a God that welcomes sinful people into His presence? Do they see that by how often you pray? And then how about as you relate to people in the world this week? We are surrounded by people who do not reflect God's holiness. We are surrounded by people who have not been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and yet God calls you to be different. He calls you to be unique. He says, be holy, but don't just be holy as an effort to be extra good. Be holy because I am holy. You see, our uniqueness is based completely on the uniqueness of God. God is a unique God. He is holy. So the way that you act around those who are not believers is going to reflect on God. And I would ask you this, what is it that your coworkers notice about you? What do they notice? Do they notice how uptight you are when circumstances get difficult? Do they notice maybe your desire for the limelight? Maybe your lack of attention to your work or to detail? Or do they notice that there is something unique about you, that you somehow reflect the holy God that you serve? And you know, we can only do this through the gospel. That is why chapters 17 through 27 of Leviticus follow the gospel, because we are now able to live out the gospel through our holy lives. What is it that the world sees in us? Well, in just a second, we'll pray, but I want to encourage you to make sure that you take time this week to read through these chapters, the chapters that we have, chapters one through 10. And actually you'll see on the second to last page here, there's some study questions. And those are just kind of to guide your reading this week. There's some portions of this that are gonna be difficult. And so I wanted to try to kind of help guide where we're going with this. So I'd encourage you to use those. And then some questions to kind of cause you to think some more. Let's go ahead and ask God for grace for this week. And let's ask him for grace as we launch into this study. Father, we thank you so much for Jesus Christ. We thank you that he has made a way for us to enter into your presence. We don't need to bring a sacrifice. He is that sacrifice. We don't need to shed any blood. He shed his lifeblood. And so, Father, we pray that we would take advantage of the position we have in Christ and that we would boldly approach you, that we would come. That we would come when we are tempted, that we would come when we are tested, that we would come when things are going poorly, and that we would come when things are going very well. That we would come and that we would approach your presence. Please make our church, help us to be a praying people. Help us to pray for each other. Help us, as pastor said to this morning, to intercede for each other. And I pray that this week, that as we encounter people who are still outside of your presence, who have not been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, I pray that we would take those opportunities to share with them. Oh, Father, please give us opportunities to share. The news, the story that we have is a good story. It is good news. And we wanna share it. But we confess to you that often we are not bold and often we don't realize the treasure that we carry in these jars of clay. Please help us to understand that better. Help us now as we study. Help us as we read your word this week and as we take time to encourage each other. And I pray that as we launch into our various roles in life, that Father, we would remember your holiness and that we would reflect it in our daily lives. Thank you. Thank you for your love for us. And we love you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.