Introduction & The Burnt Offering Series

Offering: Living & Giving for the Glory of God

Study of Leviticus

Overview & The Burnt Offering

Leviticus 1:1-17

First Family Church

317 S.E. Magazine Rd.

Ankeny, IA 50021

www.firstfamilyministries.com

Transcript of Message by Todd Stiles

January 9, 2011

We are beginning a new series entitled “Offering: Living and giving for the glory of God.” It is a chapter by chapter understanding of the book of Leviticus. That is right, I said Leviticus. It is the third book of the Old Testament. Some of you have never proba-bly even read a verse in that book. So if you are wondering where it is, go to the begin-ning of the Bible and then just kind of turn to the right a few pages and you will see Le-viticus. It is a very intriguing book.

But I want you to know that I share in some of your distance from the book because I have discovered the last several days I have never preached a message from Leviticus. I say that probably to my shame. In all my years of youth ministry and these last, I don’t know, seven, eight or nine as a pastor, a lead pastor, at least, teaching weekly, I think I probably avoided it. I think I probably avoided it. I don’t know if I did it consciously, but for whatever reason I have never preached a message from this book. I have referenced it. I have given verses. I have shown principles. But I have kind of viewed Leviticus like you have, like, you know what? It is part of the Bible, yes, but do we have to read it? Because it just seemed hard. It seemed difficult.

We sometimes see Leviticus like a trip to the dentist, don’t we? You know, if you like going to the dentist don’t raise your hand and blow my analogy, ok? But I don’t think I know anyone that likes to go to the dentist. Now all of us go don’t we? Sure we do. You get them cleaned. You get a cavity filled. You get a root canal. And you do whatever you have got to do because you know it is necessary and you need it. But I have never met anyone that says, “Guess what? Today is my dentist’s day. I get to go to the dentist. Let’s have a party.” No one says that. You just don’t look at the dentist that way.

And I think sometimes we see Leviticus like that. It is necessary. We know we should and so we will, but we just don’t like it.

I have a personal goal that by the end of Easter that we will be done with our series in Leviticus. I pray that, you will reread it because you want to and that you won’t see it like a trip to the dentist, but you will see it like a trip to your great grandmothers.

You say, “What do you mean by that?”

Let me explain. Because that is how I see Leviticus. It is like a trip to my great grandmas. We call her Momma Ruth. She lived in Cleveland, Georgia and we would go see my mom’s parents. That really wasn’t that different for our family.

Now she grew up on a farm. We were city kids, so that was different, but the truth was we would go to my grandparents. They had similar things. It wasn’t that different, but when we went up the road to Momma Ruth’s house, for some reason it was like entering into a bubble, a time warp happened. And suddenly it just seemed like, wow. I am step-ping back into something I am very unfamiliar with.

Now watch this. I didn’t mind doing it. The truth is me and my sisters we kind of liked going to Momma Ruth’s because it was really strange and different in some ways. And so we would say, “Hey, can we go down the road to Momma Ruth’s house?”

And Mom and Dad would say, “Sure, let’s go visit.”

Even though we liked it, it was really different. It was different from the minute we drove in the driveway because as a kid I remember pulling into the dirt gravel road and there was this car the size of a boat and it had three letters on the back, L T D. I am thinking, L T D, is that a word? What is that, you know? This is a massive car sitting in the driveway. That was different.

And we would enter into the house and there was an old rickety porch. The carpet, the walls, all the pictures were black and white. Everything just seemed like a different day and time.

But I knew somehow I was connected to that. Somehow the lady in those pictures and her parents, which would have been my great, great grandparents, somehow I have got a connection to them. And so amidst all of the things that were different and made me real-ize why I don’t... I don’t know if I really belong here. I knew somehow... watch this. I did belong.