Alright, let's open our Bibles. We've got three placeholders this morning. If you'd like to go there. Where's the changer here? Three placeholders. Leviticus chapter 1. So Leviticus chapter 1, where we kind of parked last week when we concluded. You're going to be in Zachariah chapter 3. For those of you who want to know where Zachariah is, it's the second to last book in the Old Testament. So if you can find Malachi, go back one book. And then of course, You got the book of John, John chapter 13. Okay. So this is where we kind of left off last week. We were going to talk a little bit about imputed righteousness. Just kind of in reference to where we were, we saw Leviticus 1 where the animal sacrifice for the altar was taking place where God required them to bring the animal, place the hands, that Israelite would place the hands on the animal, which was transferring something to the animal. We know that it's a type of sin being transferred to the animal. The animal which had, which in this case was innocent, and then they would take the place of the sinner at the altar where the animal would die. So the Bible clearly teaches us that this is the Old Testament way of teaching us imputed righteousness. Just a fancy term for the word transfer, attributed, counted for, ascribed, and simply you're taking something from yourself and you're placing it on someone else or something else. And amazing here that This has been a really important doctrine for me, personally. It's an important doctrine for every believer. In fact, I believe every believer should have real understanding and be able to teach Romans chapter four about imputed righteousness. It is a game-changing doctrine, especially for people who are out there, and this is a large group out there, that teach salvation by works. And so imputed righteousness, it's so important to God that he dedicated an entire chapter in the New Testament to this very doctrine itself. Now we see it implied here in the Old Testament, by the way, you'll see a beautiful illustration of it in Zechariah 3, but we see God taking an entire chapter to give us an understanding of the importance of what imputed righteousness means. The transfer of one thing to another. So, I think most of us are familiar with these verses, but it doesn't hurt to go back and study them. Here in Romans 4, verse 2, it says, For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath wear of the glory. He had a right to boast. He did great works. But not before God. Not before God. That's so important. Especially with the works by salvation crowd. As we go back into Genesis 15, and he quotes this verse, he pulls it out of the Old Testament, he says, for what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God. It's as simple as that. Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. If you want to get something from God, you've got to believe what God said. So now the whole book of Romans chapter four deals with this doctrine of imputed righteousness, which by the way, it occurs eight times, the word imputed or counted for. So you read imputed or counted for, the same thing. It's relationship to imputed righteousness. Notice the beauty of these verses. This is really critical to a works-based salvation crowd. If you're dealing with someone who loves to talk about salvation by works, I do the Ten Commandments, or I do this, I go to church. You take them to Romans 4, and it clears things up real quick. Because what he says, to him that worketh not, there it is, clearly, but believes on him, what happens? His faith is counted for righteousness. He gets something. So David describes this blessedness of a man to whom God transfers righteousness without works. And then of course, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. So he takes away something and he gives you something in return. That's really important because imputed righteousness is a two-way transaction. There's a taking away and there's a giving. A taking away and a giving. We'll see this here. as this lays out in Romans chapter four. I love this verse, this part of the verse, and being fully persuaded. So God comes to you with the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, and says, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Jesus Christ died for your sins, according to the scriptures. And he was buried and he rose again, according to the scriptures. You believe that? That's what he comes to the center about, says, do you believe that? And fully persuaded that he promised he was able, okay, God, I believe what you said. I trust that that's what you told me to believe on for salvation. And then the Bible says, therefore, it is imputed, now in this case of Abraham believing, it was imputed to him for righteousness. But God says, it wasn't just for his sake that this was taught, and this was recorded for us in the Old Testament, that it was imputed to him, but guess what? It's to us also to whom it, the righteousness of God, shall be imputed, transferred, if we work for it. If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. That goes against all human reasoning. I mean, think about it. A man rising from the dead? Are you serious? Well, God says, if you believe me, guess what? I'm gonna give you something in return. It's that simple. We say it's simple. Most people miss it, folks. Most people, because James chapter two is interesting. A little background on myself. I came out of the church of Christ. When I was introduced to Christianity, I was introduced to a false gospel through the church of Christ. For those of you not familiar with Church of Christ, Church of Christ believes in baptism for salvation, that it's absolutely required that you be baptized to be saved. They got a very complicated salvation system. Not only that, but they require that you work for your salvation after you get saved. So when you lose your salvation, I always ask the question, do I need to get baptized again? They could never answer that. It was like, no, you just believe at that point. Wait a minute. If salvation is connected to baptism, why, if I lose it, do I have to get baptized again? It's a mess, folks. I mean, it's circular reason. It's false gospel. It doesn't line up with scriptures and it causes a lot of confusion. And they're all millennial and all kinds of false doctrine came out of were birthed out of the Church of Christ, but I was in there, and I kept saying, something's not right here, something's not right, and God put before me a man who believed the book, and he preached the book, and by the way, he got in my face. He wasn't really kind about it. I was the kind of guy that needed a little bit of punch in the face. I didn't like it, but when he said, you're believing a false gospel, that's what he said to me. You're just believing a false gospel, young man. You're lost. You need to get the right gospel to get saved. You think about hearing those words. And I spent the next six hours asking questions with that man, saying, hey, what about this? And he, chapter, book, chapter, verse, book, chapter, verse. This is what God said. Do you believe it? Well, yeah, that's starting to make sense. These are the questions I had. And then God delivered me. I got saved. And as a result of learning that I got deceived, I decided to study this book like nobody's business. Because it comes down to the book. Not what man says, it's what the book says. Boy, we tend to go all over the place. It's easy to say what the book says, but sometimes we like to say something more than what the book says. But James chapter 2 is a crowd that runs to. Salvation by works crowd runs to James chapter 2. Martin Luther, we know that he talked about salvation by grace through faith alone. But when he got to James chapter 2, he was conflicted. He did not like this chapter. He even wanted to take it out of the canon of scripture. because it seemed to conflict with Romans chapter 4. It seems to be telling you the opposite. One's telling you salvation without works, the other one's saying, well, there's like a salvation by works. They're not conflicting, they're actually complementing each other. James chapter 2 says, you know, show me a man Yeah, show me a man that says he has faith and I'll show you a man that has works. You know, faith without works is dead. That's what James goes on to say other things like, though a man say he hath faith and hath not works, can faith save him? So you hear that and you go, whoa, so I gotta have works to be saved, right? Can faith save him? No, works save him. No, that's not what he's saying. And the example he gives is the most interesting. He's talking about offering his son Isaac was the work of perfection, right? That occurred years after Genesis 15 when he believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. He got his salvation in Genesis 15, but his work showed up later on in life. So, James is not talking about salvation by works. James is saying that salvation, if it's real, real faith, it works. It produces work. Someone wisely said, faith is the root. But obedience is the fruit. You don't see the root. God sees it and says it's real. Now he wants you to produce the fruit through obedience. So we don't work to be saved. We work because we are saved. And we have a lot that's gonna, we're gonna talk about that in regards to working. as believers. God calls us to work. I mean, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them, in them. The works. God hath ordained that we all have a work, we all have a ministry, we all have service for God. It could be small, it could be big, but God has something prepared for us. But we don't get saved by those works. It's almost foolishness. You've been saved long enough, you laugh at this stuff. It's foolishness to think I could get saved by works. Because if that's the case, I lost it a long time ago. I've lost it thousands of times since I've been saved. So what does that mean, I get saved 1,000 times over? No, God said no, it's fixed, and I'm gonna talk about that. I'm gonna give you some encouraging words here that really back up this whole idea of imputed righteousness. But here's a really good illustration. This is simple, but it's a two-way transaction. Very clear. When I trust Christ for my salvation, my sin, like that Israelite transferring the sin to the animal, my sin was transferred to the Lamb of God who died on the cross, who took away my sin. My sin, I say my sin, all sin was judged on the cross, and Jesus Christ was found, even though he became sin for us, he was without sin. So when God judged it, he found him not guilty. So he transfers, at the moment of salvation, that sin to Jesus Christ on the cross, and then he transfers his righteousness to me. It has to be a two-fold transaction. Transferring sin to the cross, once and for all, and then transferring righteousness to me, because you're not getting into heaven without the righteousness of Christ. The Bible doesn't say you produce your own righteousness. The Bible says the Holy Spirit produces it in us. You ever heard that verse, work out your own salvation? It's not work on your own salvation. Work out because it's in you through the Holy Spirit to work out and manifest the work of God. This is all important. You gotta keep this stuff in your mind because the laver is all about this. You'll get this here in a few minutes. So, Zechariah chapter 3. It's a beautiful and powerful illustration. So turn I want you to turn there. You got to see this of imputed righteousness Now in Zechariah chapter 3, we're not going to read all these verses But verse 1 he showed me Joshua the high priest Standing before the angel of the Lord, by the way, that's the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ Jesus Christ has always existed When it says the Lord or the angel of the Lord appeared unto Abraham when there was a conversation going on, you're reading about Jesus Christ. When it talks about that Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, they're walking with Jesus Christ. So the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. In Zechariah chapter three, that's what you're reading is, he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. Now watch, Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. So you have a classic courtroom setting here. You've got the prosecuting attorney, Satan, that is accuser of the brethren, making accusations toward a guilty individual, Joshua the high priest. And that's why the next verse says, and the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord rebuked thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuked thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? What's interesting is the defense attorney, who by the way is judge and jury, he's at all. The prosecutor attorney doesn't have a chance. to win this case, because he's like, isn't this a brand plucked out of the fire? He's already declaring victory. This is a brand plucked out of the fire. And then he goes, so in this classic courtroom setting, verses three and four is where it really takes root here. Joshua's clothed with filthy garments. You get the picture? standing guilty, being accused of being guilty, which all of us are, but in Christ Jesus, the accusations fall on the ground, because that was a bran plucked out of the fire. I took him out of the fire, and he had filthy garments, and by the way, the word filthy garments is connected to the leper. And the leper's clothes, if you know, when they were contaminated, They couldn't be touched. That's why they would come through the city and, unclean, unclean, because they were unclean with their leprosy. Our righteousness are as filthy rags. All our righteousness, the best efforts and works we can do are as filthy rags. We're no better than a leper. Anybody who's been around a leper knows it's a horrible, horrible scene. But that's what this individual's being described as. He said, look, in verse three, he said, he's clothed with filthy garments, but it's already been declared he was plucked out of the fire. And here's where implied righteousness or imputed righteousness is implied, happens. The next verse, look in verse four, and answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments. Remember, take away something and then apply it. Take away my sin and apply righteousness. Take away, apply. And here, he says, take away the filthy garments. Take away his sin. He says, unto him, behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with a change of raiment." What a beautiful illustration of imputed righteousness. I'm going to take away the filthy garments, the sin. I'm going to cause your iniquity to pass from thee, in the case of the believer, to the cross of Jesus Christ. And I am going to clothe thee with righteousness for eternity. Once and for all. What a beautiful illustration. And that's in the Old Testament. So yeah, this is really important to God. Throughout Scripture, you'll see this whole concept of being clothed with garments. The first illustration is right out of the book of Genesis 3. They had sinned. They made a covering. We talked about that. Their first religion, works-based religion. And God said, that's not gonna do. He kills the animal, the Lamb of God. He clothes them. He took away their sin, placed it on the Lamb of God, killed the Lamb, and then gave them coats of skin. He gave them His righteousness through the Lamb. We see this with the tribulation saints who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. And guess what? The Bible describes all of us as an army, an army in heaven being ready to go in Revelation 19 with Jesus Christ, who sits on the white horse, and he's followed with him the armies in heaven, which are clothed in white linen. We receive the righteousness of God, which is allowing us to be able to stand before God in his presence in heaven. Without the righteousness, you're not going. You can work all your life for that and still miss it by that much. Because God says, I need, the only way you're getting here is through my righteousness. God does it all. So, we see the new garments take off the filthy garment and put on the new garment. The garment of righteousness. So back to the altar. And where does the laver fall into all this? The altar, the first and largest instrument, was the very picture of God establishing His relationship with His people. Before God does anything, any communing with you, any fellowship, any power on your life, He first has to establish a relationship with you. He took care of that at the altar for Israel. He said that animal that dies, and of course in their case they had to die over and over again, Thank the Lord we don't have to deal with that. We had one time, the Lamb of God. He took away it. But in there, they had to be reminded of, but still it was a picture of God establishing a relationship with the sinner. So where does the lever fall in? Because that's the next instrument. Not the first instrument, it's the second instrument. And that's what we're gonna try to answer, and it's gonna take some time. We'll get through it. Bear with me, because there's a lot here. This is loaded. So the altar settles the sin issue and establishes a relationship. I have to park just for a minute. In the theological circles, we often talk about the relationship with God as positional sanctification. Big word, huh? Positional, what does that mean? That means somewhere I'm positioned with God, even though I live here. Positional sanctification, I was set apart for God as God's vessel. Not for work, but for salvation. Positional sanctification is this. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 10 says that by one spirit are we all baptized, immersed into the body. So at the moment of the new birth, the moment I trust Christ, there's a massive transaction that goes on spiritually. And one of those is I'm immersed, I'm baptized into the body of Christ. So much so that Ephesians 5 verse 30 says that I become a member of his body, wait, of his bones and of his flesh. So explain that to me. Are you kidding me? How can I explain to you Christ is in heaven I'm here, but the Bible says that I'm a member of his body, of his flesh, flesh, and of his bones. What? It's right. What? That's how I'm one with Christ. When the Bible says you're one with Christ, man, it's one with Christ. So much so that the Bible says in Ephesians 2, you were quick, he hath quickened you, made you alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, and by his grace, he's made us to sit together with him in the heavens. Think about that. I was made to sit with him in the heavens. Well, if I'm of his body, I'm of his bones and of his flesh, that means right now, as I'm talking to you, I'm actually seated with Christ. You, as a born-again believer, are seated with Christ right now, because it's done in God's mind. It's over! You were already, Romans 8, verse 30, glorified. I don't look at any glorified bodies right now. You have already been glorified. In the mind of God, it's done. You're already seated. You say, explain that to me. Well, you're seated with Him, but you live here. Positional sanctification is the altar. It's the relationship. It's permanent. It's over once the moment the new birth occurs. But now I gotta deal with something that's more practical. Whatever's going on there needs to be reflected here on this earth. If that's where God has put me, he's given me, I'm seated with him, I'm one with him, that means now he wants me to reflect that, that grace. That's why I work. That's where the work comes in. Bible says in Colossians 3, verse 3, your life is hid with Christ in God. It's hid. When he shall appear, you shall appear with him. Why is that? Because you're already with him. You're here, but you're really here. But really, you're here, but you're here. Get that? No. You'll get that. Think about that. Right now, Brother Jim is really not sitting here. He's sitting with Christ. But now God says, okay, because I've done that, now I want you to reflect that life. That's where the laver comes in. The altar took care of this. The laver's gonna take care of this. The walk. The walk in this life that reflects what God's already done. We call that practical sanctification. Not positional, that's fixed. That's the altar. So the laver is gonna settle this whole concept of fellowship, the communion, the service of God, the power of God. And you, by the way, have to deal with your sin, not for salvation, but for fellowship and for the work of God. You say, well, explain that. That's why we're gonna study the laver. Because the laver is the beautiful illustration of God about how the believer learns to walk with God. and how he stays clean in a world that's really dirty. And not only do we live in a dirty world, we still have a sin nature that needs to be dealt with all the time, every day. So the labber establishes fellowship, and this is a beautiful verse. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Can I walk with God and disagree with him? Well, that's not gonna work out too well, because God's right, he's always right, he's never wrong. So that means I've gotta either agree with God, or I'm not gonna agree. My life's gonna agree in my walk with God, or it's not gonna agree with God in my walk. When it's not an agreement, it's sin. And when we have sin in our life, God can't use us. And that's the practical part of our life. Then God says, well, you gotta get this straightened out. You gotta go to the laver, and you gotta get yourself cleaned up. Because if you wanna do service, you gotta stick to the laver. I've already taken care of this part, now it's your turn. So, practical sanctification. Exodus chapter 30, verse seven, I'm not gonna read those verses, we're not going there. But God is describing the brass laver. By the way, there's two instruments that were brass. What did we learn last week? Brass is related to what? Judgment. And we knew about the judgment of sin in the altar, so why is the, Laver made out of brass, because it too deals with judgment. But it's a different type of judgment. It's our judgment regarding our life and our walk with God. And you'll see all this beautifully displayed here coming up. Described an instrument. It doesn't tell you it's a bowl. I'm going to read back into that it's a bowl. And one of the reasons why I believe it's a bowl is because there's no measurements connected to the bowl. All the other instruments are squared off, and they have the pieces of furniture. They all have, except for the golden candlestick. We'll explain that later. But this one has no instruments, so most likely it's a circle or a bowl, because a bowl is representing something infinite, eternal. What's the old pi squared? It's diameter, circumference divided by diameter is pi squared. It's an eternal digit. It never ends. Computers will say it goes on forever. So something's round represents something eternal. So that laver is going to represent something eternal. And it's filled with water. Hmm. Why is it filled with water? Well, of course, to clean yourself because of purification. And it had the bottom of it, a platform that caught the water called the foot because they had to wash their hands and they had to wash their feet. And as a result of that, they could do service. Well, what's interesting about this, There's a warning connected to the laver. They die not is mentioned two times. This is tough. There's no doubt that in order for the priest in the Old Testament to do service for God in the tabernacle, those priests had to stay clean. The fastest way for a believer to get to heaven is stay unclean in your walk with God. I'm talking like just rebel against God and just spit in his face all the time and God, now God will deal with you in the way he needs to deal. Every believer's different. But one thing's for sure, there's a warning connected to this labyrinth. You better stay clean and in the case of the Old Testament, because there's no mercy, you're gonna die. So, we see. The importance of the laver is about doing service. Practical sanctification. Now we're gonna talk about the laver in great detail next week. I promise you, you'll walk away, you'll have clear understanding of how this relates to your walk with God. Because Jesus gives us, which we're not gonna get to, the greatest illustration of all in walking with him. But practical sanctification. Now we talked about position, now about our walk with God. It's how God works in our life to set us apart for His use. It's about service, fellowship, testimony, and witness, all important to God. That's why the Bible says, be ye holy, which means separated. Why? Because God is holy. He wants you to reflect Him. So, He's gonna work in your life using the laver. I'll just use that term, the laver. The priest, are you not a priest? We're all referred to last week as the royal priesthood. We're all priests. We all have responsibility to keep ourselves clean in the service of God. And there's a lot there. So practical sanctification's about us maturing. By the way, that's a lifelong process. I'm not even close. It's how we tap into the power of Christ. It's to learn how we walk in the Spirit. How many times the Bible says, walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh? Walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh. God wants us to learn, and the older you get, the more mature you get in Christ, the more you start to recognize the flesh for what it really is. And we get really discouraged sometimes, we get disappointed, but that's God's process of maturing us. Because ultimately, ultimately, God is conforming us to his image. As we grow in Christ, we become more like him. Sometimes I look in the mirror, I'm like, man, Lord, this is just taking too long. I've been saved almost 38 years, and sometimes I feel like I'm back on square one. But that's the process of maturing and God saying, humbling you to get you to the place that he can teach you to grow you. It's never finished. Paul said that he's going to conform our vile bodies. We have a problem with this body here. So the purpose of the labyrinth, which we'll start next week, is you've got to think about purification, that the conditions that those priests were working in, their hands and feet were prone to getting dirty. We live in a world that is filthy. I'm not talking about from a cleanliness standpoint, I'm talking about from a sin standpoint. I think we're living in the darkest times in history. Not because it's, this dark ungodliness has been going on from the beginning of time. Sodom and Gomorrah was a perfect example. It's been around. The difference is we have access to it more than ever. That's the problem is you can't go anywhere without being exposed to sin. And so in our walk with God practical, our feet get dirty. And God says, I want you to keep it clean. So that's where the laver comes in. And you got to think of what those priests were dealing with a dirt floor, blood, sweat, tears, animal fat, you name it. And they were commanded to stay clean. It was ongoing. And then next week, We're going to talk about the purpose of the laver taught in John 13, the most beautiful illustration about our walk with God and how Jesus taught his disciples to walk with him. So be prepared. I'm telling you, you won't be disappointed in this. So with that, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for the Holy Scriptures. We pray that, Lord, you help us illuminate the things that will help us in our walk with you, Lord. Thank you for This hour of worship, we pray that you will be glorified and lifted up in all things as we ask it in Christ's name, amen. If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you, and God bless.