Opening and Introduction
I grew up in West Texas in a place called Big Spring. It’s a small town with tumbleweeds, oil wells, and loose dust that turns into a dust storm when the wind really starts blowing. One of our really big problems was water, and the water that we had was really hard. If you left a glass of water out and let it evaporate, you would get a crust of minerals in the glass. That residue also showed-up where ever water might sit.
Sometimes cleaning the built-up minerals around our sinks were really tough and we had to use something called Lime Away. It’s a smelly cleaning agent that sometimes worked. It felt like it was the only way, short of a jack-hammer, that we could keep our sinks and bathrooms clean.
Tonight’s message kind-of relates to that type of cleaning problem. When the Israelites became unclean, they had to work through an often-lengthy and difficult process to purify themselves. We too have tough problems that are hard to get out of our lives. Yet we have a different way to clean up our act.
To help us learn more about God’s standard of cleanliness, we’re going to take a closer look at how Leviticus defined it. We’ll also look at what Jesus had to say about it, and see what we can learn too.
Levitical Cleanliness
Let’s start with the tabernacle. It was where God’s presence dwelled. It was vital to keep unclean things away, from Holy God. Or to put it another way, to make the people acceptable before God. God gave a reason for this. He said:
For I am the LORD, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy. (Leviticus 11:45, CSB)
A few stories show us that when his standards weren’t followed, God was offended, and the result was death. Last week we heard a story about two priests, Nadab and Abihu, who were stuck dead, because they offered unauthorized fire.
In another time, a man named Uzzah helped transport the Arc of the Covenant in a disrespectful way. He wasn’t supposed to touch the Arc. But he did. And when he did, God struck him dead too.
God’s holiness is serious business. Cleanliness wasn’t just a suggestion. It was a requirement. There are only two standards. Either you’re clean, or you’re not; there’s no in-between.
People are prone to error. And the Israelites often became unclean from mistakes they made, or situations that they got into. Each situation of un-clean-ness, required a slightly different method to fix things. Leviticus outlined these different methods to make someone, or something, clean.
Sometimes, a person or an object, required WASHING WITH WATER. If a wood, cloth, or leather object became unclean, it had to be cleaned in water before it could be used again for any purpose in a house. For example, a wood item that touched an unclean animal, such as a dead mouse, would have to be soaked in water to clean it.
Some unclean problems required a TIME PERIOD from a few hours, to a few weeks. Many conditions repeated a similar pattern with the phrase “shall be unclean until evening”. Touching unclean insects and animals required this waiting period. Skin problems required eight days, longer if there was a real problem of disease. Childbirth was quite hard on mothers. She was unclean for 40-days when a boy was born, and 80-days for a girl.
In addition to washing and waiting, many unclean conditions required a SACRIFICE. For some an animal was completely burned up. For others, select portions were burned. Sometimes the people took a portion of the offering home with them. And sometimes the offering went to the priests. In all cases, the priest offered the sacrifice to God, on behalf of the people who presented them. The people couldn’t do this part on their own.
The idea of cleanliness, and an understanding of holiness, shaped society as the chosen people of God. The Israelites, were to keep themselves clean and pleasing to the Lord. To do that, they had to know God’s Word, and they had to obey it.
The priests taught the people, and parents were to teach their children. The purity laws reminded God’s people of the responsibilities they had. The unclean people who didn’t follow the rules, were cut off from society:
If a person who is unclean does not purify himself, he must be cut off from the community, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. (Numbers 19:20, NIV 84)
With the standards enforced so tightly, cleanliness was not just done on sabbath days. It was done every day. It was a lifestyle. It was continually focusing on being the chosen people of God.
The Israelites looked to make themselves pure not just by what they did, but by what they came in contact with, what they ate, and what they touched. The dietary laws were a big deal, as part of these greater purity laws. They were a part of separating Israel from the gentiles. From the outside, the world could see that these people were not like everybody else.
Jesus’ Explanation
But Jesus had a slight twist to the rules. Where Levitical law looked at the outward appearances of man to make him pure, it didn’t always shape how someone thought. Our Lord refocused to what was INSIDE a person, rather than the OUTWARD appearances. Jesus said:
Don’t you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated” (thus he declared all foods clean). (Mark 7:18b-19, CSB)
It wasn’t the things that God made, that caused someone to be unclean. It was what people thought, how they felt, the intentions inside. Jesus showed a focus on the heart and what comes out of that.
Jesus continued and said: What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts (Mark 7:20-21a, CSB)
By evil thoughts, Jesus meant sin. And sinful thoughts lead to sinful actions. Where is our heart? How hard do we really try to avoid what makes us unclean? We may be faced with temptations, and they may even pull us into places that we really shouldn’t be in. But is it really the situation we’ve stumbled into? Or is it that we put ourselves in a situation, that we KNEW would pull us into sin? Where DOES our heart lead us?
Jesus wants us to follow Him in everything that we do, not just when we attend church, not just when people can see what we’re doing. The inward priorities, purposes and intentions, may not be seen by those around us. But God can see what’s in our hearts.
Jesus confronted a similar situation in the Pharisees who made it appear as if they were honest and upright, but held something different inside. Jesus said:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish,
but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean.” (Matthew 23:25-26, CSB)
Out of the heart can come every form of evil. Leading clean lives starts with what’s inside, and that leads to what’s outside. But we need help to change our heart, and to clean up our act.
How Do We Get Clean?
The Hebrews, relied on the priests to offer sacrifices. When we’ve gotten dirty in sin, we can’t become clean on our own either. In fact, there’s nothing, that we can do on our own to remove the stain of sin from our lives. So, In the time that we have remaining, I’d like to look at three ways, that the Levitical laws pursued cleanliness, that have similar ways, to make us acceptable in God’s eyes.
First, Like the Israelites, we can use water and get clean from our sinful selves through the sacrament of baptism. In Matthew 28, just prior to Jesus ascending into heaven, He gave us the command to baptize. He told us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, CSB)
The Apostle Peter, who preached often to those around him, also spoke of baptism. He spoke to many during a festival known as Pentecost. To that crowd, Peter said:
Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38, CSB)
Water, applied with God’s Word, gives us the precious gift of forgiveness of sins, and the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is something that we celebrate in the church. It’s how we welcome people to God’s family. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Saved from our sins, and cleaned from all of our faults.
Second, time helped Israel get clean, but Jesus was the Savior for all time. Throughout the Old Testament, we find many examples where scripture was looking forward to a messiah who would save the people. God’s people expected a savior to come thousands of years before He appeared.
Following the fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve talked with God. They had just eaten the forbidden fruit and God chased them out of paradise. But He gives them hope that a savior would come to defeat the Devil.
Later on, the prophet Isaiah spoke to those who refused to listen to God’s warnings of judgement. Yet, he also spoke a message of salvation that came from a servant who would suffer in our place. Isaiah wrote:
He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5, NIV 1984)
The New Testament speaks of fulfilling this prophecy in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus. Many other predictions were made generations before His birth. The Bible often describes what Jesus did, with the phrase “to fulfill what was written” or “as spoken by the prophets”. He fulfilled, what they foretold.
Jesus was that messiah that God promised. He was that savior that the prophets preached about. Jesus Christ was the savior not just for A TIME, but the savior for ALL TIME. The Old Testament pointed towards His coming, and what He would accomplish. We look back, on what He’s already done.
Third, the Levite Priests offered sacrifices on the altar, but Jesus was the final sacrifice on the cross. John the Baptist recognized that Jesus was the sacrifice that the world was searching for. The one that the world really needed. As John saw Jesus approaching on the road, he announced to those around him “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, ESV)
This phrase is one that describes who Jesus was in a very short and memorable way. He was the final sacrifice for us, and shed His blood on the cross, to suffer the punishment and death, that we deserved.
He was sinless, and blameless. Without blemish like so many of the Levitical sacrifices. He was innocent, yet suffered the weight of the sinful world on His body. Much like the perfect lambs that were sacrificed as a sin offering, Jesus was sacrificed too, to take away the sins of the world.
Paul described this, in words that sound much like the offerings in Leviticus. He was writing about all the things that sinners do, and the ways that we commit terrible things in the world. He had this to say about, what our Savior did for us. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote:
You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11b, CSB)
That really sums up where we are in our cleanliness. We are washed and sanctified too, and that happened through God’s grace. Not from anything we did.
Conclusion
When we look back at what God was doing with the Israelites, we can see that God wants us to stay pure and spiritually clean.
When someone was found to be unclean, Levitical law required washing with water, purifying by waiting a period of time, and justifying with sacrifices that God ordained.
We do something similar. Today, baptism replaces the washing with water from the days of Moses. It still washes us clean.
The sacrifices of blood are now gone. Jesus shed His own blood to make us whole, to sanctify and redeem us with the final sacrifice, for ALL TIME. Prophets pointed toward a future savior. Today, we look back to that same Savior, and what He’s already done for us.
Through Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are now CLEAN, and washed white as snow. The final sacrifice has been offered. And there’s nothing we can do, to replace what He’s already done for us. There’s nothing left to do. Redeemed, justified, forgiven. We are clean in the presence of God.
