Offering: Living & Giving for the Glory of God
Study of Leviticus
The Peace Offering
Leviticus 3:1-17
First Family Church
317 S.E. Magazine Rd.
Ankeny, IA 50021
www.firstfamilyministries.com
Transcript of Message by Todd Stiles
January 23, 2011
Take your Bibles. Find Leviticus chapter three and let’s continue to find great comfort in the bloodiest book of the Bible. And aren’t we thankful? I would encourage you not to ever grow accustomed to the bloodiness of the Bible, of the bloodiness of the beautiful, terrible cross or to try to run from it. For we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, amen?
So, boy, you just read Leviticus and sing those songs and you start realizing, wow, our culture may not think it is really in, but praise God for the shed blood of Jesus, amen?
We are looking today at Leviticus three and we have arrived here because we are looking at seeing how the Israelites worshipped and related to God when he came and lived among them. You recall the end of Exodus chapter 40. The glory of the Lord descended and suddenly God was not just in a pillar of fire or a cloud. He was now among them. And so how do we relate to this God that is living right here with us?
Well, that is what Leviticus is about. How do we approach God? How as an Israelite in centuries ago do we worship him?
And so Leviticus is really a book that describes how they worshipped God. And a couple of things we have seen from the first two offerings is that true worship is individual. That was seen in the burnt offering. You brought it. You laid your hand on it and then the whole thing was offered to God. We have also seen that true worship is grateful and we saw that in the grain offering.
Today we are going to see that true worship is also communal. It is something that we share together. So, yes, it is individual, but there is a wonderful place for the body of Christ to worship together. We are going to see how that is taught in the peace offering. So Leviticus three is where you have your Bible open to. And this short chapter describes the mechanics of the peace offering.
Now I got to tell you, though. This chapter is relatively short, but chapter seven about verses, oh, I think 11 through about 36 describe a lot more mechanics about the peace offering. We want to see both of these texts today in what will be somewhat mechanical and rote. Don’t let it lose your attention. Don’t kind of get bogged down. There is some good details here, but I want us to work through the text in an appropriate manner and then I want to bring some meaning to the peace offering by showing you some New Tes-tament Scriptures where this is kind of highlighted.
So the first few minutes might get a little long because we are going to be doing some theology and biology. You will see what I am talking about. But just hang with me. Don’t lose me.
I would draw your attention also to the screen behind me. This is kind of another, just a picture of the tabernacle. It is the entire enclosure. The tent of meeting is that house or that tent inside the white fence. And, of course, inside the tent of meeting is where the holy of holies was. That is were the ark of the covenant was and that is where God dwelt.
And this, outside the tent of meeting, there was the brazen altar. That is where many of these offerings took place. And all the tents, the camps, the families and the clans were facing, of course, that direction. And I am sure they extended for miles as you are talking about a million people plus.
Some of these logistics are hard to understand. I have had a number of great questions from you wonderful Bereans who study your Bible so well about how did that many peo-ple offer that many burnt offerings? What did they do with all that blood and all that flesh and all those carcasses and...?
Those are good questions. I don’t know if I have answers to them, but let you know. God is not a disorganized God. He had a plan and he had it working out just right.
Well, this peace offering was one of the ones they brought to the tabernacle. We are go-ing to read about it in Leviticus three.
Now when I say the word “peace” to you, you often probably think about peace in Amer-ican terms. You think about an end of hostility. You think about a cease fire. You think about something that means, ok, people are getting along.
But in the Hebrew culture peace had a much broader meaning. In fact, in some Hebrew historical documents, this is actually called the well being offering. And it refers to not just a demeanor of peace from the outside, but really a wholeness, a completeness, a sense of like, you know what? I am peaceful inwardly and outwardly.
It is also called the fellowship offering which refers to how we get along vertically and horizontally.
So when I teach through this, don’t just think about peace as in like cease fire. I will quit shooting if you quit shooting. Think about peace in the sense of Shalom which was the Hebrew greeting that people would give each other indicating, you know, I wish you well. I wish you completeness, restoration, wholeness. Does that make sense?
So with that as as our backdrop, let’s see some things about the peace offering, first of all, from a mechanical standpoint. Here we go. Chapter three verse one.
“If his offering is a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offers an animal from the herd,” cir-cle the word “herd.” And just drop now down to verse six. He then talks to them in verse six about offering something from the flock. Do you see that?
Here are two categories similar to chapter one. If you brought a peace offer you could bring something from the herd, a bull or an ox or something. If you brought something from the flock, then you brought a sheep or a goat or a lamb.
What is not allowed, apparently, in the peace offerings, is any kind of bird which was true in the burnt offerings. But it doesn’t seem to be the case in the peace offerings. You strictly had to come from the flock or the herd.
So let’s back up now in verse one and verse two.
If you bring something from the herd you must bring a male or female which is different than the bunt offering. Recall, the burnt offering was strictly a male. Here, though, you can allow... you can bring a male or a female and you offer it, again, without blemish be-fore the Lord. You lay you hand on the head of his offering and you would kill it at the entrance of the tent of meeting there just outside that inner sanctuary. And then “Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw the blood against the sides of the altar.”
Now watch this.
“And from the sacrifice of the peace offering...” The animal is killed. It is not explicitly stated, but probably skinned here as well. The blood is drained. Some is thrown against the sides of the altar. And then it says here, “...as a food offering to the LORD, he shall offer the fat covering the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys.”
Remember I told you that being a priest wasn’t necessarily your... the easiest job. Man, you had to be a biologist as well, didn’t you? I mean, you had to really know these ani-mals.
So they are reaching in. They are taking care of these animals. They are cutting them up. They are getting the fat. And then they are burning the fat on the brazen altar.
It says, verse five, “Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering, which is on the wood on the fire; it is a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.”
So if you brought an ox or a bull or something that is what you did. You took the insides and the kidneys, the fat and you gave it all to God and then we will see in a little bit how you shared some with the priest and you kept some as well and ate along there like in a communal meal. We will see that in a little bit.
If you brought something from the flock, an animal from the flock a male or female, much the same thing happens. It shall be without blemish. You see that in verse six. In verse seven, if you offer a lamb then you will offer before the Lord. You will lay you hand on the head of his offering and you will kill it in front of the tent of meeting, very similar. He is throwing the blood against the sides of the altar. And, again, verse 10 says, verses nine and 10 say that you remove the whole fat tail which, by the way, in mature lambs—now just hear this—that was a delicacy. The older the lamb and the—I don’t know about saying the bigger the tail or the greater the tail, but that fatty portion was a prized possession.
And, by the way, if you are wondering why does God want the fat offered to him burnt like that, because he did this in the bull, the ox and the goats as well as the lamb. It ap-pears that in this culture the fatty portions were the most valuable, just like the tail of that lamb and just like some other portions of those animals. And I think it speaks to us that God wants our best. He wants our first and our best.
So in these sacrifices he took the fat. It was burnt on the altar to the Lord. You see that not only in the herd, but also in the flock.
Verse nine. The sacrifice of the peace offering, you remove the whole fat tail. You cut it off close to the backbone. The fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the en-trails and you kind of read that again. Just some biology along with the theology here.
So they are taking these animals. They are offering them. They are burning the fat. And he says if it is a goat you shall offer it before the Lord. Lay your hand on its head and kill it—this is verse 12—in front of the tent of meeting.
Again, you throw... the sons of Aaron throw its blood against the sides of the altar. He shall offer it as his offering for a food offering, the fat covering the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails. The two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, the long lobe of the liver he shall remove with the kidneys.
The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering with a pleasing aroma. That doesn’t sound pleasing to your nostrils, does it, or to mine. But God apparently enjoyed the best that they could offer. And when it was burnt and sacrificed to him, he received great pleasure and joy. All fat is the Lord’s.
“It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.”
And, by the way, he says here not to eat fat or blood. In 1 Samuel 14 Jonathan, who was Saul’s son, was very famished from beating the Philistines. And they captured most of all that they had, like the Philistine’s ox and cattle and sheep. And because they were so famished they began to teat and then 1 Samuel chapter 14 it records how they ate the flesh and the meat with the blood.
Saul got word of it and came and said, “Stop, stop. What you are doing is a terrible sin before the Lord.”
And you can read about that, but this is something that lasted beyond Leviticus. They were not to eat the fat and they were not to eat the blood of the animals.
Now you may be wondering why that is. I explained to you about the fat. It seems to be a very valuable, priceless part of the animal and God wanted their best. The Scripture doesn’t tell us exactly, but that seems to be the case.
When it comes to blood, though, you might think is it just a hygienic reason or is there a theological aspect to this? I tend to think and, again, Scriptures say, other than this one verse in Leviticus, that the life of the flesh is in the blood. I tend to think that the reason that the Israelites were never to eat any kind of blood at all was because blood signified life and to take control of that, to have dominion over it or say, “You know what? I will eat this,” like an authority over that. The authority over life is God’s alone. He is the giv-er and taker of it.
I think there is some symbolic meaning to the fact that, you know what? Life is God’s call and the blood is his, all his.
So this is kind of the mechanical aspects of what is called the peace offering.
Now if you are just reading Leviticus three you are thinking, “Well, that is pretty simple. You could bring some from the flock, some from the herd. You do it kind of similar to the burnt offering and you are done.”
But Leviticus seven lays out a few more stipulations and options for us. So turn a few pages to the right and notice how he kind of breaks out the peace offering a little more. Again, there is a good bit of text here. Don’t let that bother you. That is why we meet to study the Word. Amen. And that you should say amen as well.
But I do want to kind of skim through a little bit of it and help you understand it in a larger perspective because it could get a little wordy in the sense that it is hard to understand.
But let me show you how it breaks down the peace offering. He says in verse 11 of chap-ter seven that this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings.
And he says in verse 12 that one peace offering that you can make is called a thanksgiv-ing offering. Do you see that? You want to circle that word.
So you would bring a peace offering, but if you brought it as a way to say thanks for something it is called a thanksgiving offering, but it is kind of under the heading of peace offering.
It says here that you “shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loves of fine flour mixed well with oil.” And he talks here about bringing things even in addition to the animal.
If you offer—verse 14 says—one loaf from each offering that is what you shall offer as a gift to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering and he shall not leave any of it till the morning.
So if you brought a thanksgiving peace offering, then in addition to the meat you would bring some unleavened bread of some type. And all this was combined and you could eat it there. The priest would eat his portion and you could share in a meal. But if it was a thanksgiving peace offering, you had to eat it that day, no leftovers allowed.
However, if you brought a peace offering for what verse 16 describes would have been a vow offering. Do you see that in verse 16? Or a free will offering, two different types, but they had the same qualifications. A vow offering was when you would just simply say, “I have completed a vow I made to God and I bring a peace offering to celebrate that.”
And a freewill offering is exactly what it says. It is just an offering because you want to. It is just of your own volitional free will. You know what? I want to give a sacrifice to God. You are not necessarily thanking him for anything in particular. You are not com-pleting a vow. You are just saying, “God, I love you. Here is an offering of my own free will.”
If it was one of those two, then you could eat it actually on the day you bring it and on the next day. I would have liked this offering the best. I love leftovers. This would be my favorite one. And it appears that in this text what probably happened was after they waved part of the offering and contributed part of the offering—we will read that in a minute—that often you might call for your friends and family because you might have a good bit of meat here. Refrigeration wasn’t an option probably. And so you just called your family.
“Hey, you know, Jim and Joe.”
I am not sure those are Hebrew names, but we will go with it.
“Come on by. I have just made a peace offering and a bunch left. The priest took their portion. I would love to have you share a meal with us.”
Apparently I am not sure where they ate it, Chris and Corbin. But it appears that they shared this meal together. It is a communal type of sacrifice. You had to eat it. It was a thanksgiving offering on the day you made it. Or if it was a vow or freewill offering you had to eat it within two days. You weren’t allowed to eat anything on the third day verse 17 says. If you did, according to verse 18, you would be bearing your own iniquity.
That is an interesting phrase. I don’t know quite how to unpack this very well except to tech you this. God had some stringent requirements for this offering. Certain types of it, certain variations of it. But if you ate part of the offering on the third day, you bore your iniquity. Or, another part of the Scripture here in Leviticus seven says you would be con-sidered outside the camp or cut off from your people.
Now, if you broke the sabbath... this same phrase, “bear your iniquity” is used in Leviti-cus and if you broke the sabbath bearing your iniquity meant you were killed. And we don’t think that was the case in this offering infraction, but I simply remind you of this because the Lord does not look lightly upon handling his things with carelessness, does he?
Oh, something that you do, two days, three days, it doesn’t matter. Well, apparently it does matter. And God said, “This is the way I want you to offer the sacrifice and it that teaches us something, that God is not just kind of, you know, kidding around with his requirements of us and his... it is not the 10 suggestions, amen? It is the 10 Command-ments. It is the New Testament that teaches us how to live.
I would encourage you to have the same attitude these guys did and see God’s Word as really it is not an option, amen. We don’t get to vote on it. It is God’s Word. He says it. He expects obedience.
And our response should be what? Yes, sir.
He then talks about the uncleanness of flesh and different things, how to stipulate those. Then in verse 22 he talks a little bit more about not eating fat and not eating blood. I am just kind of skipping through some of these, because then it gets to some other variations of the peace offering.
Let me show you these last little bit as we continue talking about the mechanics here. When someone brings a peace offering, out of this peace offering, part of it went to the priest. The breasts of the animal and also the right thigh or the right shoulder went to other priests. And so that is where you get the concept of sharing. They brought an offer-ing. They share some unleavened wafers. It was a thanksgiving offering. They shared part of the animal and they ate it. The priest ate it and then God, of course, had his own food offering as well.
This wave offering or your Bibles might say heave offering. I am not sure I like the word “heave” very much. But it was really a wave offering. Here is how it looked.
Can I use you, Marty, for a second?
The offerer would bring his animal, kill it, skin it. And then he would give part on the altar and then he would give part to the priest and what historical documents seem to say, especially some Masoretic texts, they seem to say that the priest, played by Marty here, I would take the breast and I would give it to Marty. We would hold it together and then together—make sure these over here can see it—we would make the shape of a cross. They tend to think historically that the motions were in the shape of a cross. They would go up, down over and back and then the priest would take it and he could enjoy that as his food.
Thanks, Marty, I appreciate that.
Isn’t that interesting? If that is historically accurate, it is funny how even in this part of the peace offering symbolically we see who really we are looking forward to to really give us lasting peace, amen?
So you would bring the breast. You would give it to the priest. They would wave it be-fore God. And then you give the thigh or the right shoulder part... that is called a contri-bution offering in verse 32. Do you see that?
These, again, were different variations of the peace offering.
Verse 34 proves this. It says, “For the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contribut-ed I have taken from the people of Israel, out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings.”
Now, you might hear all that and say, “Wow, Todd, that is just a lot of remote facts that I have very little connection to.”
Well, that is what I think sometimes, really. Man, that is just... that is a lot of regulation.
Perhaps an example of the peace offering would help you because the peace offering was really an offering of sacrifice that was not given to make peace. It was an offering given to celebrate peace. In fact, it would be like if I was to bring my wife a note, an invitation to say, “Sweetheart, tonight we are going to dinner to celebrate 22 years of marriage.”
Now if I took her to our favorite place, Chiles, we sit down and then we have a meal and I say to her, “Listen, I know I have not been a very good husband for 22 years,” and I ask for forgiveness and we make peace. That wouldn’t be a peace offering. That would actu-ally be what we are going to see later is a guilt offering.
See, I wouldn’t share a meal with her and say, “Honey, I am sorry. Forgive me.” But I would share a meal and say, “Listen. It has been an awesome 22 years. Man, the peace, the celebration, the... it has been great.” And we would celebrate the fact that there is peace. Does that make sense? That is the peace offering. It was a celebration type of of-fering over the work that God had already accomplished.
A good example is when Solomon dedicated the temple. I believe the reference is 1 Kings chapter eight. Now this will astound you. You may already know this, but Solo-mon on that day offered 142,000 peace offerings.
Ok, I don’t know how that happened. Don’t ask me questions about logistically or I don’t know how many altars they had. I don’t know how many butchers they had. That is a lot of entrails. That is a lot of livers and that is a lot of kidneys, isn’t it. But on the dedication of the temple they offered 142,000 peace offerings. And the Bible says later that for two weeks the children of Israel all came and feasted. That is pretty awesome, isn’t it? They shared a meal together. They celebrated the fact that God is with us. He is victorious. He is the conqueror. His temple is finished.
So the peace offering is a real celebration of what has happened. The mechanics are laid out in chapter three and in most of chapter seven.
And you may be saying, “Well, Todd, what does that say to me in 2011? Interesting his-torically, good to see an example of it. That would be a massive feast, 142,000 sheep or lamb. That is a lot of meat. But we are not dedicating temples and that is not a barbeque I am planning to attend any time soon, you know?”
What do we do with this?
Well, I think the peace offering says something about us and something to us. And I want to end with just a couple of applications for you.
The New Testament, in fact, will give us some really good insight into this offering later.
The first thing the peace offering says about us is this. Please listen carefully, church, that I need repair from and reconciliation to God. Ok? You see, there is something funda-mental about the peace offering that you have to understand. And you are not going to like this, but I am going to speak it to you clearly because I want everyone here to hear this and hear it very plainly.
You and I, we are broken. Apart from Jesus we are broken, ok? We are not whole. We are not complete. We are separated from God. We are alienated from him. We are strangers. In fact, catch this. Before Jesus you were actually a hostile enemy of God.
I don’t say that to drive you away from our church. I am not trying to be intensely rude to you. I am trying to help you understand something that is truthful about our pre salvation state that we are depraved and broken. And we need a restorer.
Enter Jesus our peace offering.
Let me show you what the New Testament says about it. Look at Ephesians just briefly, Ephesians chapter two. He is labeled here. He is identified so clearly as our peace offer-ing. And if you were a Jew or a Gentile, hearing Ephesians read in your local assembly, I have no doubt you would have thought about Leviticus three. You would have remem-bered the Torah. Perhaps if you were a Jew, obviously, but if you were a Gentile, maybe just to getting accustomed to some of the Judaistic ways, you might have thought of the Torah, the Pentateuch, the law and the peace offering. Look what Paul says about Jesus our peace.
Ephesians two about verse 11 and 12 he talks about our alienation from God, how we are strangers. We are separated. These are intense words, people. We are without hope verse 12 says. We are without God.
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off...”
Remember the phrase the eternal predicament? We have used that several times. That is our situation before Christ. We have no way to get right with God. We can’t build a bridge to cross the chasm with our works or our name, our pedigree. There is nothing we can do. We are without hope. We are away from God. But Jesus he has brought us near by his blood verse 13 says. Isn’t that awesome?
And so Paul is starting to lay out some sacrificial words. The blood of Christ. They are thinking, “Oh, yeah. We know about sacrifices and offerings, about blood.
Verse 14. “For he himself is our...” Say it with me. Peace.
And there is no doubt a Jew hearing this would think, “Oh, so Jesus makes me whole. Jesus is the shalom that makes me complete with God?”
Exactly.
When we were alienated, far off, distant, cut off, separated, Jesus brought us close.
Let’s keep reading.
He is our peace. He “has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances,” all these things you have got to keep, you know? Jesus fulfilled them all. And now he has created in himself one new man in place of the two and making what? Peace.
And here is what is so ironic about this passage. I want to share this with you. Just catch this. Not only is it a vertical discussion here and I will say more in a minute, but he talks here about the horizontal aspects. He says, you know what? It is not a matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile. Once you become a Christian, you are in Christ. That is the new man you want to be known by. It is not what race you are. The question is: Are you a Chris-tian? We say Christian. But you want to be known by his name. Hallelujah, Christian. That is really what matters.
He talks about peace then, peace horizontally, peace vertically. Verse 16 says that he “might reconcile us both to God in one body,” what? “Through the cross.” Again, this phrase, “killing the hostility.”
Verse 12. “He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”
And watch this phrase.
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”
It sounds like a family sitting down for a meal, doesn’t it? That is the peace offering and that is what Jesus did for us. He gave himself to reconcile us to our Creator.
And now to all who believe we are invited to family dinner.
Would you pass the salt, please? Can I have some of those kidneys? Maybe not. How about some liver? No way, right?
Hey, I am just kidding. The point is, man, this whole idea of Jesus being our peace offer-ing and bringing reconciliation of God. Wow. It is so clearly identified in the New Tes-tament.
So Leviticus three really just screams Ephesians two. It also looks forward to Colossians chapter one, just one single verse here. Would you look at Colossians one with me? Go to the right a few more pages. Here Paul writing again to some different believers he is speaking of Jesus in verses 15 through 20 what I call the Jesus treatise. It is a quite mag-nificent set of verses about the priority and just the... Jesus how great he is.
He says in verse 19, that “in him,” speaking of Jesus, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heav-en.” And watch these next two words. “...making peace.” How? “…by the blood of his cross.”
Again, I think of reference to the peace offering. Jesus did everything necessary to settle your war with God. Isn’t that awesome? Aren’t you thankful that Jesus has paid it all.
So you are not in a hostile war with God the minute you believe, because you have been reconciled by the blood of Jesus.
You see, knowing that Jesus is the only avenue to peace really helps us think correctly about the messages we hear in this world. Because you get of him from Oprah, Dr. Phil, radio talk shows, magazines, the internet, your daily bombardment of emails in your in-box. Everyone has got the medication or the secret. But did you know that you cannot be whole without Jesus? You can’t.
“Well, Todd, you don’t know me. I go to the gym. Man, I am working outl. I am in good shape.”
You are not whole without Jesus.
“Now you haven’t seen my portfolio, Todd, my IRA. I am in good hands.”
But you are not whole without Jesus, because Jesus is the avenue of peace. And because we are broken we have to have someone restore us. Who is that? It is Jesus.
It is Jesus that enable David Haines to be at his mom’s beside and know that even in the dying days of her life he can say to me like he said on Friday. He said, “Todd, I have got great peace. Mom is just going home.”
Isn’t that awesome?
And so, you see, when you look at that, if you did not have Jesus, if there was not the peace that he bring then you would be like, well, man, life stinks. It is broken. We are broken. Nothing works.
That is true. That is the natural response without Jesus. But when Jesus enters the picture and we know that he is our peace, he is our restorer, he brings us peace, then even in times like death we can do what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians four, that we grieve, but we don’t grieve like those who have no hope.
You see, Christ’s peace doesn’t take away our humanness. There is still grief, but it is grief with something, with hope. And if you take away Jesus the peace he gives and the hope he provides, then you are left with just a very painful, broken life that never seems to really work right.
But enter Jesus, the sole provider of peace which really restores life and takes us away from brokenness to wholeness, man, even in times like death there is an understanding and a confidence. This is not the end. Hallelujah, church.
So my question for you just in this simple point about vertical peace. You need repair from and reconciliation to God is this. Have you experienced? Have you laid claim, so to speak, to the peace that Jesus offers through the bloody, terrible, awful cross?
Yes, the most beautiful tree in the world is bloody and terrible, because at that tree Jesus paid your price.
And to all who believe, the hostility between you and God is gone. You are at peace. That is wonderful.
Are you at peace with God? Just ask yourself. Are you at peace with God?
When did you and God sign the peace treaty? When did you all sit down and say, “God, I believe in your Son Jesus, was born, died and he was buried and rose again and he has ascended on high and only through Jesus am I brought to wholeness and restoration with you. I believe and confess that Jesus is your Son and that he gave his life for us on the cross of Calvary. I believe in Jesus and confess him.”
The minute you do that God says he will save you. And he will no longer be at enmity with you, but he will be at peace with you.
If you have not done that there is a good time to do that. It is called now. In fact, the Bible says now is the day of salvation. And right there in your seat you could be praying while I am talking. Just pray, “God, I want to be at peace with you. So I believe that Je-sus is your Son and that he did what he said he did on the cross. Save me today.”
And right now, even while I am talking God will save you. He will save your soul and he will make you whole.
There is one more aspect of the peace offering I need to mention before we close and that is the horizontal aspect, because the peace offering says something about us. We need restoration. We need repair. But it says something to us as well. Here is what it says. I need to gather and get along with others. This is the horizontal aspect of the peace offer-ing.
Now notice we said more than just gather. If all we did was gather you could sit here. He could sit there and never the two would meet, right? The typical church that never gets along, but everybody shows up anyway. God forbid that ever happened here.
It is not just about gathering and pretending. It is about gathering and guess what? Get-ting along. The peace offering is a wonderful picture of the unity in the body of Christ. We bring what we have. We share it with God, our best. We share it with those like the priest in the Old Testament. We share it with him and then we share it with others and we share it with ourselves. And there is this communal sharing aspect going on with the peace offering. It pictures unity. In fact, the peace offering is the Old Testament picture of what we know as communion in the New Testament. It is when we gather around the Lord’s table and each of us we share in the body and blood of the Lord figuratively and we are eating with one another. We are eating with him and all together as a family we are enjoying the peace that Jesus bought for us on the cross.
And that is what next Sunday night is about. It is an opportunity for us to kind of experi-ence more of a communal Lord’s supper which was very common in the Scriptures. In fact, 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is the most succinct teaching about the Lord’s supper in the Bible. Verses 17 through 34 lay out a lot of good instruction.
And what I find really intriguing—and we are not going to turn there now and read it—but what I find really intriguing about that passage is this. It all begins with an exhorta-tion to avoid division and seek unity. Isn’t that interesting?
The New Testament peace offering communion is introduced by talking about why are you do divided? Some of you come for the Lord’s supper and then you hurry through it and you bring a bunch of food and you don’t wait. Others come and they don’t have anything and they don’t ever get any food. And you are just divisive. Why can’t you wait for one another, have the right attitude, share your stuff, focus on God. And then he says at the end, “The rest I will say more to when I come.”
So he is going to kind of settle them when he got there face to face. But his whole point about communion was this. Guys, it shouldn’t be an opportunity to showcase division. It should be the one time the church showcases unity.
I mean, think about it. You give a guy over here or a girl over here and she is tall and someone over here they are short. Dark hair, light hair, east side, west side. And you could list all the different character traits and personality preferences that make us all dif-ferent. But at the Lord’s Table we all come together and those are put aside. Guess what? We drink from the cup that Jesus drank. We eat of the body and blood of Jesus. And we say, “In spite of all of our differences, here is what we really hold in common and I, sister, and I, brother, share this with you.”
Isn’t that awesome? That is the community. And that is what happened at the peace of-fering. It was a real shared atmosphere. And it spoke loudly that people were gathering and getting along because of Jesus.
Now if you recall the very first Lord’s supper, it was on the night that Christ was be-trayed. Do you remember that? Isn’t it interesting that a meal that is to typify unity was actually begun in a very divisive environment? One of the best friends Jesus had turned his back on him.
At that meal he said this. He said, “I will not eat of this again with you until that day when I eat and drink of it with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
That is the way he told us something. He said, “I am starting this ordinance, the Lord’s supper. It is to be shared. It is to be communal. It is to be focused on me. But I am going to be absent for most of your Lord’s suppers, so to speak, because I will not partake of this personally again until we do it again in my Father’s kingdom.
So actually, do you know, that though we have been having the Holy Spirit here the per-son of Jesus has been absent from the very first Lord’s supper. Now the Spirit is here, but the person of Jesus, he is waiting till we all get home and he will have one final meal with us, what I think is actually a New Testament, almost prophetic picture of the peace offering when we gather around, the judgment has happened. Jesus is King of kings, Lord of lords. And we all now gather and we have what the Bible calls the marriage sup-per of the lamb.
Won’t that be good? It will be a meal. And it will be a shared meal. He will provide eve-rything. We will share with one another and the focus and centerpiece will be Jesus, once again. He is our peace offering. And we will feast eternally on the goodness of our Sav-ior. Won’t that be a great day?
So even while we today are in memory looking back at the cross, we are anticipating one final meal with Jesus, one final get together when we share and celebrate the peace he brought.
Revelation talks about it. In fact, I want you to read the verses with me, because they are just exciting verses. They talk about this day.
I want you to stand and read these verses with me. I will read the part that is not in bold. But here is a description of that final marriage supper of the Lamb. This is in Revelation 19. He has come. He has judged. He is now reigning and notice the next time we are go-ing to eat in person with Jesus. He talks about it here. Oh, this will be a good day. I will read the part not in bold and you join with me as we celebrate our peace offering Jesus.
It says that, “ I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude.” Isn’t that inter-esting? Not just a few, but a great multitude. “...like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, and they were crying out,” say it with me, church, “Hallelujah, for the Lord our God the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Won’t that be awesome? And that day is coming when the King will be known by more than just you, but every tribe and nation and language and tongue will be there. And they will declare, “He is our King. He is our peace.” And we will celebrate the peace that Jesus brought us in his body by his blood.
______________________________________________________________________
This resource is provided as a learning tool produced by First Family Church in Ankeny, Iowa. The Church’s mission is to develop devoted followers of Jesus Christ in people groups around the world who celebrate, grow and serve. For more information on First Family, visit our website at www.FirstFamilyMinistries.com.
This recording may be duplicated free of charge with attribution to First Family Church, Ankeny, Iowa.
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
