The following is a sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi. you may recall, we have been working our way with various breaks for mission conference and Christmas and the month of January. We've been making our way through the book of Leviticus here on Sunday mornings, and we come to the beginning of the final major division You'll remember there are three parts in Leviticus, chapters 1 through 15 are about how we may draw near to God by means of sacrifice and temple or tabernacle and priesthood. Then chapter 16 stands alone as a second section. It's the day of atonement, the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar, really God drawing near to us by means of the atoning sacrifice. And these first two sections together that we've been considering over these weeks and months, they have preached the gospel to us, haven't they? Again and again and again, in vivid, sometimes graphic detail, they have pointed us to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, whose cross fulfills all the sacrificial rites of the old covenant. But now today we begin the final section of the book, chapters 17 through 26. And this part, this final section of Leviticus is designed to answer the simple question, now that atonement has been provided, now that the way to be reconciled to God for sinners through the blood of the Lamb, now that that way has been established, what difference ought it all to make in our daily lives? These final chapters are about living lives of grateful devotion to God, in response to His amazing grace. And we begin this last section with the teaching of Leviticus chapter 17, which directs our attention to the subject of worship, because worship is the first and most essential response of the human heart to the grace of God in the gospel. When your sin is forgiven, because of the blood of the sacrificial lamb, when your guilt is washed clean because of Jesus. What should you do? Leviticus 17 says, you should worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. If you look at the chapter with me for a moment, I want you to see three things especially about acceptable worship from this text. First, verses 1 through 9, we learn something vital about the manner of acceptable worship. And then I want us to go back and look again at verses 5 through 7 and hear an important reminder about the object of acceptable worship, and then finally 10 through 16, the indispensable mechanism of acceptable worship. So the manner, the object, and the mechanism of acceptable worship. Before we look at each of those, let's bow our heads and pray, and then we'll read the passage together. Let us all pray. O Lord, would you now by your Holy Spirit open our eyes to behold wondrous things out of your law, for the glory of the name of Christ? Amen." Leviticus 17 at verse 1, this is the Word of God. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the people of Israel, and say to them, This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp or kills it outside the camp and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a guilt offering to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord, blood guilt shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people." This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices, that they sacrifice in the open field, that they may bring them to the Lord, to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord. And the priest shall throw the blood on the altar of the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting and burn the fat for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations. And you shall say to them, any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from his people." If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood." And I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, no person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. Anyone also of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten, shall pour out its blood and cover it with the earth. For the life of every creature is its blood. Its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, you shall not eat the blood of any creature. For the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. And every person who eats what dies of itself or what is torn by beasts, whether he is a native or a sojourner, shall wash his clothes and shall bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Then he shall be clean. But if he does not wash them or bathe his flesh, he shall bear his iniquity. Amen. Let's think first of all about the manner of true worship, the manner of true worship in verses 1 through 9. There's a Peanuts comic strip featuring Charlie Brown. He is coming back from a baseball game. He hangs his head in defeat. He drags his baseball bat behind him. Good grief, he says, 184 to nothing. I don't understand it. How can we lose when we were so sincere? Charlie Brown was learning the hard way that there are some things that require more of those who participate than sincerity alone. Winning a ballgame is one of those things, and acceptable worship is another one of those things. If you look with me at verses 1 through 4, you'll see that the Lord forbids the Israelites to offer private sacrifices just wherever they want. If anyone of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp or kills it outside the camp and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord, blood guilt shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off. from among the people. So all sacrifices now must happen exclusively at the tabernacle. Verse 5 gives us the reason for the new rule. Look at verse 5, this is to the end, that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices that they sacrificed in the open field to the Lord, to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord. And verse 6 completes the picture by giving us, in summary, the ritual of the peace offering that we considered when we looked at chapter 3. So up till now, sacrifices were performed individually and by families out in the open fields or perhaps beside the family tent in the midst of the encampment of Israel as circumstance and convenience dictated. But now that Leviticus chapters 1 through 16 have been given to Israel, all of that had to change. There was now an ordained priesthood operating in their midst and an entire system of sacrifices that had to be performed in exacting conformity to the rules of the Word of God at the altar of God and in the tabernacle of God. The message to Israel was really very simple and important, and it actually remains vitally important today. The message is true worship, worship that God requires from us and accepts from His people, true worship demands more than sincerity in the heart of the worshiper. It really matters what you do. The Israelites might prefer to make their sacrifices in the field or beside the family tent. Always having to go to the entrance to the tent of meeting was undoubtedly inconvenient at times. You'd have to wait your turn to see the priest. You couldn't just get it over with quickly in your own time, at a location, and in a way that suited you, and then go about your day having paid your religious dues. No, no, now they had to put their preferences aside and come to the tabernacle and worship exclusively according to the word of the Lord. This really offends me. Did you know that Burger King changed its famous tagline? It's used this tagline since 1974. You know the Burger King tagline? Have it your way. Very good. September 2022, all of that changed. I didn't know. Now the tagline is, you rule. That really offends me. I was born in 1970. I don't care for Burger King at all. But this slogan has been around since the year of my birth. How dare they change it? Have it your way. Or you rule. Of course, my outrage and my sense of entitlement reflect the very sentiments that both slogans tap into so very effectively, don't they? Have it your way. You rule. Well, that's right, I think to myself. I should be in charge of all the things that I like. But the narcissism of that is toxic, isn't it? Never more toxic than when it is applied to the worship of Almighty God. And let's be honest, we want worship on our terms, according to our style preferences, within the limits of our tastes. God knew that about His people long ago. He knows it about us all here today, too. And Leviticus 17 calls us to repent of worship our way. It reminds us that we most certainly do not rule The Westminster Confession chapter 21 paragraph 1 actually sums up the principle here admirably when it says that the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by Himself and so limited by His own revealed will. that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scriptures. The manner of worship matters. Nearly being sincere about it is not enough. You might remember the question of acceptable worship came up in a conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. She asked the Lord Jesus if worship that would be acceptable to God should be offered exclusively at the temple in Jerusalem, where the Jews worshipped, or on Mount Gerizim, where her Samaritan ancestors worshipped. And Jesus explained that now, with his arrival on the scene, true worship no longer focuses on a location or a building or an altar. He in himself fulfills priesthood, sacrifice, and temple. Now, he said, true worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth that is enabled by the Holy Spirit and in union with Christ according to the truth of God's holy words. In other words, even though there is no longer a place or a building or an altar at which we must worship, The point remains true today, as it did in the wilderness of Sinai long ago in Leviticus 17. God alone rules in the manner of and the matter of worship. The crucial question that a true worshiper in ancient Israel or a true worshiper today must ask is not whether we enjoyed the experience. whether it was moving or inspiring, much less whether it was convenient, quick, and easy. The crucial question is whether God had it His way. Does what we do in worship, as well as what we feel about our worship, communicate to the Lord our God, you rule, not me, you rule? Friends, who rules in the matter of worship for you? Is it you, your tastes, your preferences, or is it your God alone by His holy Word? The manner of acceptable worship. But now let me invite you to look back again at verses 5 through 7, and notice with me in the second place the exclusive object of acceptable worship, the manner of worship, and now the object of worship. In verses 5 and 6, the emphasis falls on bringing the sacrifices to the tabernacle and to the priest, rather than performing them willy-nilly out in the fields. And the concern behind that is to ensure that these offerings be made only to the Lord. Verse 7 underscores that point, actually quite dramatically, doesn't They are to do all this so that they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons after whom they whore." The Israelites seem to have been tempted by the false gods of the pagan nations all around And as the subsequent history of Israel demonstrates over and over again, this will actually prove to be a temptation that would be difficult for them to shake. So, for example, in 2 Corinthians 11, 14, and 15, we have a description of the schism, the fracturing of Israel into two parts, the northern tribes of Israel under Jeroboam separating from the southern tribes of Judah centered in Jerusalem, and the line of kings descending from David. It was written many years after Leviticus 17. And we're told in 2 Chronicles 11 that the Levites left their common lands and their holdings and came to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam in the north, Jeroboam and his sons cast them out from serving as priests of the Lord. And listen to this, he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat idols. and for the calves that he had made." That word for Jeroboams, false gods, goat idols is the same word as the word used in Leviticus 17.7. This is a sin that persists through the ages. Scholars suggest that the false deities invoked here were part of a fertility cult. And when Leviticus 17.7 says that they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons after whom they whore, that stark language was in this case likely more than a mere metaphor for unfaithfulness to God's covenant. You see, in an effort to secure the material blessings that they wanted from these demonic false gods, the people engaged in temple prostitution. And so the pursuit of material prosperity and illicit sexuality were combined in this one act of pagan idolatry. Now, while the worship of literal pagan idols continues to ensnare many millions of people all over the world in spiritual bondage, The twin heart idols of material prosperity and illicit sexuality seem to be especially pernicious and persistent in our own present cultural context and time, don't they? The warning that God issues the Israelites here in the wilderness is as relevant to the people of God today right now as it was back then. Beware idolatry in general, but prosperity and illicit sexuality especially are constant competitors for your believing hearts. The regulations of Leviticus 17 were designed to stop the false worship of counterfeit gods out in the fields, you know, out of the line of sight of the watching priesthood, by requiring that all worship now be offered at the tabernacle and only according to the pattern laid down in Holy Scripture. In other words, here's the principle. Write worship. is the best preventative and antidote for false worship. If you want to set a guard on your heart against the pursuit of the idols of material plenty and illicit sexuality, Give yourself to the worship of the triune God according to His Word. True worship is the best preventative and practical antidote for false worship. You defeat the demonic power of sex and materialism by filling your heart and your life with the praises of the Lord. the manner of acceptable worship, the object of acceptable worship. Now finally, look at verses 10 through 16 and the mechanism of acceptable worship. In verses 10 through 12, there's a general prohibition against eating any blood. And in verses 12 through 16, that prohibition is extended to apply not just to the blood of the sacrificial animals offered in the tabernacle and then eaten as part of a ritual meal, but it extends to animals of any kind killed while hunting, or to animals that are already dead. You'll notice verse 13 says that an animal that has been killed for food during a hunt is to have its blood drained onto the ground and covered with dirt, presumably to make sure the blood is put entirely beyond use. At first glance, these rules seem awfully far removed from the subject of true worship, don't they? They're really about what is and isn't acceptable for the menu of an Israelite dinner party. They have nothing to do with worship, surely. But look again at verse 11. Verse 11, here's the reason for these prohibitions. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." The blood is symbolic of the life. The shedding of blood made atonement because a life has been sacrificed as a substitute in exchange for the life of the repentant sinner. And to underscore for the Israelites just how important that principle was, all blood was forbidden to them, whether the blood of sacrificial animals whose blood was shed on the altar, or animals for common food harvested for the table whose blood was shed in the open field. The blood was never to be consumed because blood is the mechanism of atonement, the only way to come to God. and bring to him your life and heart in acceptable worship was by means of the blood." Now, I want you to notice two things about that before we finish. First, this ties worship to the gospel, doesn't it? It ties worship to the gospel. Yes, worship that is acceptable to God should be sincere and from the heart. Yes, its acts and elements must conform to the regulative authority and teaching of Holy Scripture. But above all, and fundamentally and necessarily, worship that is pleasing to God must be offered to Him through the blood of the sacrificial substitute. Hebrews 10, 19. We have confidence. We have confidence to enter the holy place. How? To come close to God. How? By the blood of Jesus. Jesus opens the way. His shed blood opens the way to God so that sinners like me and you, we can get close to Him and know Him and fellowship with Him. You cannot approach God. You cannot call on God. You cannot offer worship that honors God. However exacting and correct the forms of your worship might be, you cannot hope to find personal acceptance with God. unless you come, as it were, bringing with you the blood of the Lamb." This is the great difference, you know, between Christianity and every other religion, every other approach to worship. The worshiper in every other approach attempts to curry the favor of the gods by offering them something that will buy them off. some ritual, some labor, some work performed. But the Christian gospel says that God in His great love for us has acted first and has provided His own Son to be the sacrifice that satisfies the demands of His righteous anger that burns against our sin. It's John 3.16, isn't it? God so loved the world, the world of wicked, rebellious human beings, that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life. God loves sinners. and provides the sacrifice for us in the death of Jesus Christ. And when you take hold of Christ and His shed blood by faith, when you claim Jesus as your own, your only hope, your refuge, when you rest yourself, your hope, your confidence for acceptance with God on Jesus' blood alone, You stop viewing worship as an exercise in God manipulation, trying to leverage your efforts to persuade him to love you. You stop trying to buy him off. No, now, now you find you're responding in faith to his prior love for you. And you offer yourself your praise, your devotion. cheerfully and freely as an expression of your own wonder-filled love for Him. You might be here this morning thinking that you can quiet your guilty conscience with worship, applying worship like a salve to the festering sore of your guilt. Or maybe you hope that Sunday morning church will somehow make God look on your forthcoming final exams more favorably. Maybe if I redouble my efforts to make it to church, I'll secure that promotion, or my health will improve, or my circumstances will change. If I just give God a bit more of what He likes, maybe He will give me a bit more of what I want. But this is precisely the attitude Leviticus 17 was written to kill. That's why there were to be no more private offerings out in the fields, no pagan worship of goat idols, no casual misuse of the blood. It was all designed to force the worshiper to the door of the tabernacle and to the one altar of the Lord's and to the blood of the Lamb. It's all about bringing us back again and again and again to Jesus Christ. and to His cross, would you be free of this burden of sin? There's power in the blood. Power in the blood. Would you o'er evil a victory win? There's wonderful power in the blood. There's power, wonder-working power, where? In the precious blood of the Lamb. That's the message here. Your guilty conscience can only be cleansed at Calvary. Your sin can only be dealt with at the cross. There is no worship that God will regard, no praise that can please Him, unless and until you have come to Jesus Christ. not in an effort to manipulate Him into giving you what you want, but in repentance. Humble yourself, confess your sin, wash your stains in the atoning blood of Christ. Trust in the Lord Jesus, who died for sinners. He will reconcile you to God and give you confidence to draw near to Him by His blood. This last part of the chapter joins worship to the gospel. But finally, notice it also ties worship to life. In 10 through 16, we're taken really into two remarkably ordinary domestic scenes, aren't we? We are in the Israelite household, sitting at the family kitchen table as the main meal is being prepared. Or we're out with a hunter in the open wilderness, stalking his prey, trying to find something to put on that table. And these aren't special. These aren't extraordinary scenes. They're mundane workaday. This is ordinary life. And yet God tells them even here, in these daily domestic moments, Reverence for the blood must never be forgotten. You see how the altar and the temple and the worship of God and the sacrifices that it involved, they cast their shadow over everything in Hebrew national life, over the routines and rhythms of daily family life. Everything was oriented toward worship, colored and affected and shaped by it, adjusted to accommodate it. Worship was not a bolt-on extra at the end of the week if you have the time. Worship was the sun shining at the center of the solar system of a person's life and family and home, and everything was colored by its light. True worship affects everything. is the point. It touches and reconfigures everything. Faithfulness and worship on the Sabbath day has a permeating influence on Monday morning and Thursday afternoon and Friday night. It colors your friendships, your thoughts and your words and your deeds, your habits, your use of time and money, your days. This is why God has ordained public worship, Lord's Day by Lord's Day. It is a discipline for your spiritual good. And if you'll give yourself to it, the aroma of worship will begin to suffuse your whole life. Faithfulness in public worship is like opening an air vent into the stuffy, choking smog of our sin-filled lives. The fresh scent of heaven. blows through a life centered on the worship of God on the Lord's Day. Worship will fill your lungs with the oxygen of heaven. We each ought to be asking ourselves what place the worship of God really holds in our lives. Does it exist only in the margins? A mere afterthought, a casual and occasional obligation to which I must drag myself And when I drag myself to worship, am I always eyeing the clock to see when I can escape to do the things I really much prefer? And does the thought of Sunday evening worship sound like a crushing burden, an intolerable interruption into my leisure time? I paid my dues on Sunday morning, you know, and the rest of the day belongs to me. That's your attitude if you are actually a Christian at all. You need to know there is a red flag on the field. Something is seriously wrong in your heart. You are backsliding, falling into worldly patterns. Worldly priorities now have a hold of you, and Leviticus 17 is a call to repentance. Stop your worship out in the field of the pagan deities of pleasure and leisure and entertainment. Come back to the one altar of God, the cross of Jesus Christ. See again how He has loved you and given Himself for you, withheld nothing that your soul needs. And will you continue to grumble and wriggle and fuss under His call to you, to devote one whole day and seven to worship and rest for the glory of His name. He has spread a banquet for your soul every Lord's Day. Who wouldn't want to eat more? I don't understand Christians who want to get in and out and be done. Who wouldn't want more of the Lord Jesus in the place He's appointed that you should come and meet Him? So the manner of acceptable worship, worship must be according to the Word of God alone and not according to my preferences, however sincerely I may hold them. The object of acceptable worship, the triune God of Scripture and not the idols of sex and prosperity or leisure and entertainment. And the mechanism of true worship, We can have confidence to draw near to God all the way into His presence, to enjoy Him and glorify Him, but only through the blood of Christ. We need to cry to the Lord Jesus for His mercy, accept the cleansing His blood affords us, and begin in earnest to worship God acceptably at last with reverence and awe. Let us pray. Our God and Father, as we bow before You, we bless You that You have opened a way into the holiest place through the veil that is through the flesh of Christ, torn open, as it were, for us at Calvary, so that we can come to You forgiven and clean to offer acceptable worship. Why is my heart, why are our hearts so reluctant to come? Why are we so prone to find excuses and alternatives? Why do we love the idols of the world more than the God who loved us and gave his Son for us? Please have mercy on us. Forgive us as we repent before you. Apply to us the cleansing blood of the cross, that we may come to You with full hearts to praise You for Your marvelous grace, in Jesus' name. Amen.