The LORD Is His Inheritance

This morning we're going to be studying back in Deuteronomy where Moses describes the Levitical responsibilities, the priests, what they were supposed to do while they were in the wilderness. There were three things that they were tasked with. The first was to carry the Ark of the Covenant. The second was to serve the Lord, to stand and serve the Lord. And the third was that they ought to bless people in his name. These three things, that's what the Levites were supposed to do. We're going to focus on these tasks. It's not the whole of our text. That's probably the first half of our text. But the other things that come later in the passage are explanations of these tasks or just concluding remarks, and we'll deal with those in turn, but the majority of our time is going to be dealt with looking at those three tasks that were given to the Levites. As we study this passage, my hope is that God will use this sermon to help us to be grateful for those that fulfill these duties. It's necessary work.

And I also pray that he would convict us to be about this work ourselves, that it's not just other people's work, but ours. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord? From Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 8 through 11. At that time, the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to serve him and to bless in his name until this day. Therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God spoke to him. I, moreover, stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, like the first time. And the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was not willing to destroy you. Then the Lord said to me, Arise, proceed on your journey ahead of the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

And so verse 8 was a part of our text last week, and we just very quickly saw it. And what we noted last week was that the Israelites were not, or the Levites were not set apart because of their righteousness, because they were better than their brothers. They were chosen, and God basically just, according to his own providence, just decided he was going to draw a line and say, these people will do this work, and none of the rest of you will. And it was meant generally to teach them obedience. a little more fully at this appointment of the Levites to carry the ark and to do these other things. As we've noted already, the Levites were set apart from the rest of Israel for these tasks. And so the first lesson we draw from this passage is that God does set apart certain people to do certain things. Not everybody is interchangeable, okay? Men and women are not interchangeable. Husbands and wives are not interchangeable. Levites and...

and the rest of Israel are not interchangeable. This was actually their work. They were set apart to do this holy work. And it wasn't because they were more holy than the rest of the people. It wasn't because they were more suited to it. It was God's provident, providential choice that they would be the ones to do it. And he says yes to them and no to the other. There's a certain authority and a certain responsibility that comes along with this work. And it was God who conferred that responsibility and that authority on them. And so we see that men don't decide for themselves that they have authority to do things. Okay? It's appointed to them. This is a thing I've said. I feel like I say it all the time, but I don't know how often I actually say it. I think it a lot. This idea of who has responsibilities and with those responsibilities, the authority to...

perform them is something that people don't just grab and take to themselves. Okay? It's something that is conferred to them. It's something that's given to them or they are appointed to that work. You understand it in the work world. You couldn't just decide, I want to go work at the tire shop. And so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to show up and I'm just going to walk into the back of the tire shop and I'm going to start pulling tires off of cars or tires off of rims. What would happen if you did that? Pretty quickly, someone would be like, hey, what are you doing? Right? If someone walked into your workplace and sat down at the desk next to you or strapped on a tool belt and started doing things, you know, your job next to you, you'd be like, what are you doing? Why are you here and what are you doing? None of us would be like, oh, hey, great. This stranger's doing my job for me. You'd call the boss and you'd say, hey, did we hire a new guy? Is he my boss? Is he my subordinate? Is he?

My peer, like, what's he supposed to, you know, we'd want to know all the details. Because we understand that responsibility and the authority to execute that responsibility is something that those in authority delegate. You be here at this time. You do this job. And that's what's going on here with the Levites. They were appointed. And so when you see men, I give you, you know, it's a silly example to say that someone would walk into a place where they don't work and just start doing the job. It's kind of, you know, laughable. But I use that example to say men don't, make these decisions for themselves. The Levites didn't decide they would carry the ark. The Israelites didn't decide that they would carry the ark. The text tells us that the Lord set them apart to do this work. And so if and when someone takes up the work of teaching and preaching and exercising spiritual authority without an appointment, they are usurping and undermining the authority of God, okay?

Not everybody's a pastor. If there's some correlation between a pastor and a Levite, not everyone's a pastor. And you ought to be careful who you listen to. Because if you give spiritual authority in your life to someone who's never been appointed, called, or trained to that work, you're probably putting yourself in danger. That's not to say that someone who's not appointed, trained, and called to the work can't be right in the things that they say. I think a lot of times today, what we evaluate based on whether we take a statement and we say, well, if it's true, then yes. And if it's wrong, then no. But we never consider who's saying it and whether it's their place to say or do it, right? If someone just walked up here and decided they would start preaching to you, like if...

You know, they tied me up in a back room. I don't know how many of us they'd have to tie up. But just presume that some stranger just walked up and said, I'm going to preach to you this morning. What would your disposition be toward that? Oh, okay, sure, yeah. What do you have to say? You'd be like, wait, who are you? I don't think I'm going to listen to you. And that would be a right impulse. When we have guest preachers or someone coming in that you don't know, We make a point of introducing them, who they are, where they're from, what their experience is. And really what we're doing is making the case that you ought to listen to them. There are people we wouldn't let come and be preaching our pulpit because we think, no, they're not who we want to be caring for, feeding you guys, right? And so this work is a work that God does. He sets apart men to this work. And so we can see it in the work world. We can see it in the church.

The Levites were set apart by God for this work. And the first thing they were supposed to do was carry the ark with them. I noted in a previous sermon that the first lesson we ought to learn is that that means that God's word ought to travel with God's people and be honored among them. Whenever the Levites or whenever Israel would break camp and go through the wilderness, there was a very deliberate and specific procession. certain tribes were to go first, certain tribes were to go second, certain tribes were to go third. There was five groups. And the third group was the Levites. That's where the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant and all that was supposed to travel. It was supposed to travel in the middle, in the heart of the people. And so since God's word was to travel with his people in the Old Testament, in the heart of the people and to be honored among them, so it ought also to be with us. They were to honor that word.

They were to be governed by it. They were to be surrounded, surrounding it. It was to be their nucleus, their core, their foundation. And it's kind of a strange thing if you were to think about what kind of access they had to it. Though it traveled in this box, none of them were allowed to touch it. Upon pain of death, they were not allowed to touch the Ark. They weren't allowed to open it up. They just carried this box on poles. on their shoulders. And when they built the tabernacle and the sanctuary, eventually this box goes into the very heart of the sanctuary. And who can go in there? Basically nobody. Nobody except one man once a year. That's it. And so their access to the word, the law of God, was restricted.

They couldn't get to it. They couldn't open it, touch it, see it, taste it. It was kept away from them. That's not the case with us today. We have much more access to Scripture. And so do we have more knowledge of it? Earlier in Deuteronomy, Moses told, this is in Deuteronomy 6, he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and you shall talk to them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on your doorposts of your house and on your gates. God's words were supposed to saturate the lives of his people. Now they couldn't have access to the literal tablets. It was all...

come through the mouth of prophets, often by direct revelation from God. But they were to listen and they were to remember and they were to hear and they were to orient toward the word of God. It was supposed to be supreme in their lives. And insofar, that's the same with our lives. Our lives are supposed to be oriented around the word of God. What can you point to in your life where you say, I would not do this. Or I would not be inclined to do this. Or I wouldn't have done this in this way if God hadn't said to do it. Maybe you've got something in your mind. You're like, I do this thing because this is what God says. And it doesn't make sense. In the world's eyes, it's actually counterproductive or backwards or inefficient. Some of you guys love efficiency. It's inefficient. Here's an example. Having kids. Why do you have kids?

Why do you have a second kid and a third kid? It's because it's easy. It's because it's no disruption. It's because they're cheap. It's because the government pays for them. It's because you're just a really, really good parent. Why do you desire these things? What makes you different than the world who says, well, we don't want any of that? Why do you want that? It's not because it's easier. It's not because it's cheaper. It's not because it's convenient. It does not bolster your pride, at least as your kids get older, it will not bolster your pride. You do it because God says to be fruitful and multiply. Why don't you fornicate before you get married? Why don't you live together before you get married? Why do you give 10% of your money to the church? Why do you pray? Why do you ask for forgiveness? Why do you acknowledge your faults? These are all things Christians do on a fairly common basis that are not, the world doesn't do that stuff.

They don't say they're sorry. Now, I realize some people say they're sorry who aren't Christians. But as a general rule, people don't say, hey, I'm sorry, I was wrong what I did. Why do you do those things? You do those things because God tells us that we ought to do those things. And so what I'm trying to explain to us this morning is that God's word ought to be a foundation and a guiding light and a filter for all of our lives. The things we do ought to be built on what Scripture says. Well, I don't know how anyone can do that. Okay, but if God says that we ought to do it, then we ought to do it. We ought to find a way to do it. When we have priorities in our lives, well, I want to make a bunch of money. Well, I want to have a fancy house. Well, I want to be a millionaire. Maybe you're young enough, you realize, I want to be a multimillionaire. Because being a millionaire won't be good enough by the time you're old enough. Why? Why do you want that?

None of us, does anyone aspire to be poor? Does anyone say, you know what? I want to, I sure hope social security works out because that's my plan. No, we all kind of recoil at it. We say, no, no, that's not Christian. Okay, go make your money. Go be wise with it and go be a good steward of it. When is it enough? When is it enough for you? Is it ever enough for us? Do we ever say, you know what? We're doing fine. We're going to make more money so that we can give it away. I mean, not like just a tithe, but we're going to give away a lot of money. When I first started going to church years and years ago, there was this guy who was in my small group, this black single guy. He was probably, I was in my early 20s. He was probably in his early 30s. He wasn't married. And he worked, he did something with computers. He made good money. And what he did was live on a third of his income. Like disciplined himself quite, I mean, that was not a comfortable living for him.

He lived on a third and he gave a third to his church, a third of his income. And he gave the other third away to other things that he thought were worthwhile. And this was a Christian church, like, you know, Christian church, baptismal regeneration, mega church type place. And somehow this guy decided that he was going to live like he, that it was enough for him that he had other priorities. And it's like, do we know anybody like that? Now, maybe we do and we don't know that they're like that because they're humble and they don't tell us. I don't remember how that man, his name was Charles. I don't remember how I found that out. He was probably telling me I needed to be generous and used his self as an example. But it's incredible. I mean, think about your own life and your own priorities and where you hope to get. Like, how far behind would Charles be compared to what you plan to do? Why did he do that? None of us would say it out loud. And we say, well, because he's foolish.

I don't know if I've told you guys about the Blue Letter. Have you guys heard of Blue Letter Bible? I know some of you have. Blue Letter Bible. That's what I use. Eric uses Logos, so he's fancy. But you use the free or cheap version, though. Anyway, I use Blue Letter Bible. I really like it. The guy who underwrote that project goes to church at Andrew Dion's church. And he just paid for it to get up and off the ground. He was a computer guy. He made a bunch of money in California back when, I don't know when. And he just decided that that was a good resource. And if you haven't gone on there, you should go on there. There are cross-references and the commentaries and all. There's a ton, a ton of resources. I think it's better than Bible Gateway and all these other things in terms of its usefulness.

He just had the money and so he just underwrote it. And it wasn't a business venture. The story is he's actually pretty poor now. He's pretty cash poor. All of his money's tied up in his foundation. Millions and millions of dollars that they work to give away to things. But as far as he's concerned, he made his money and he doesn't have a whole lot of it left. His money's actually pretty tight. And so he stopped by here a few weeks ago. No, I didn't know he was coming. I don't think Eric knew he was coming. We're both here. I was in a meeting and he stopped by and said, I want to take the pastor out to lunch. I was like, well, I never actually met him. I was in a meeting. So he and his wife took Eric out for lunch and Eric got to get to know him and had a good time. Very interesting guy from what Eric tells me. Do you have any taste for being that? If you have ambition to go make a bunch of money, do you have...

any taste for doing that kind of thing with it. I'm going to go make millions and millions of dollars so that I can give away millions and millions of dollars and actually go without myself so that I can give to other things. Now, we seem like we're far afield, right? We're talking about the Levites carrying the ark. But what I'm talking about is that the word of God was treated as holy. And that their lives ought to have been governed by it. And I've given you a few examples with regard to money of how some people set out to do this thing. To have their lives governed by the word of God in this area. And I use money because it's dear to all of us. And we're all very private about it. And we're all very sensitive to it. And I admire people who are generous and who give away. And who give away not just out of their abundance, but it cuts into their life.

It cuts into their futures for the sake of building the kingdom. And so the Bible ought to be preeminent. The scriptures ought to be preeminent in our thinking and in our priorities in our life. It will cause you to do things that are out of step with the rest of the world. You'll do strange things that no one will be able to make any sense of, whether that's getting married young or having a bunch of kids or being crazy generous. Our personal lives, our public lives, our political ideologies should be governed by the word of God. Does God's word ever offend you or cut across what you think is important personally? It does for me. It cuts across me personally. It cuts across my view of society and my place in it. It cuts across what I think politically. There are things that I read and I go, I don't know how to reconcile that with what I think would be wise.

I don't know how to reconcile it. And so at that point, I have a choice. I have to say, okay, so I'm either just going to go with, I have to go with what Scripture says and sort that out and say that's going to be the guiding light, or I have to say this is what makes sense to me, and Scripture's going to have to get in line behind it somewhere. The question is, do we filter our lives and build our lives through Scripture, or do we filter Scripture through our life's priorities and our own logic or expediency? I kind of chuckle sometimes when I see people use the Bible to justify some point they're making, and then at another place where it's like the Bible doesn't agree with them. It never disciplines them. It always encourages them. And I'm like, you're a dishonest fella because you're using Scripture to suit your own means. You're not submitting yourself to it and being governed by it. It's only important to you when it serves your purpose.

So God's word is holy and God's word ought to govern our lives. It ought to go with us everywhere. That was the Levite's job. So who does that work belong to today? All of this has been the Levite's work. Like they were to carry it. They were to possess it. They were to teach it. They were the ones, if there was any access to it, they were the only ones who had access to it. Is it that way today? Do you view scripture like that? Why come to church to get taught what the Bible says? I hope not. You have access to it, right? You all have Bibles? You all read your Bibles? You all have questions about Bibles when you read it? This work that the priests were given to exclusively has been opened up to all of us now. Isaiah prophesied this way in Isaiah 61. I'm going to read you verse 1 and then the beginning of verse 6. Verse 1 is probably familiar to you. He says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners. Now that is a text that we read in reference to Jesus Christ. He is the fulfillment of that prophecy. And in the intervening verses, verses two through five, it just gives more of what that prince is going to do. And then we come to verse six. And he says, but you, he changes in verse six from talking about what that priest, that That Messiah will be like. And he says, but you, but you will be called the priests of the Lord. What's that mean? Well, that means that all this stuff we've been talking about that belonged to the Levites, that Isaiah was prophesying that there would be a time when all of that stuff that they're supposed to do would be the duty, not just of the Levites or not just of the pastors, but of all the people. That it's not just the pastor's job and responsibility to know these things and be governed in this way.

that each one of us would fulfill these duties. 1 Peter 2.9 argues this way. It says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood. And that royal priesthood is him quoting Isaiah 61. A holy nation, a people for God's own possession. And who's he talking to? The pastor? No, he's talking to the people. He says, you are these things. And then he says, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And so Peter teaches us, That Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled in Christ and that the duties that belonged to the priests in the Old Testament now belong to them, to us. And so if you're lazy spiritually, if you go, well, I'm not a theologian. Okay, that's fine. Be a priest. It's a sorry excuse to say that you don't understand scripture. If you said that you don't understand scripture and you're content to not understand scripture, that does not commend you well.

I realize you're busy. I realize you've got responsibilities. I realize that you've got your excuses. But you should know scripture. And it should govern your life. It should restrain you. It should guide what you think. You should sit outside of yourself and examine your heart's intentions. And you should evaluate and judge whether they're good or not. Because the Bible says that your heart is deceitful and desperately sick. And so you should read that and go, okay, doc, you've told me about my heart condition. Now I shouldn't trust it, right? So I should get above it and I should say the thing that makes the most sense to my heart that like really seems appropriate, I should question whether it is. And I should evaluate whether it is based on my knowledge of scripture, not based on how strongly I feel the feelings.

You know, when you get mad, you yell and raise your voice and lose your temper. You know how passionate you feel, how necessary it feels? It's wrong. It's wrong. But it feels so necessary in the moment. You can't conceive of doing anything else. What did Jesus do when he was accused, when he was slapped, when he was beaten? He was silent. You mean? That I might need to be silent when my blood is boiling so that I don't sin? I'm not saying that it necessarily will have any effect on the other people. Jesus' silence didn't change his outcome, did it? But like a sheep before his shears going to the slaughter, he was silent. And so I'm not saying you should always be silent.

But I am saying there are times when you should be silent and times when it really doesn't seem like silence is the right answer. You go, you know, but scripture and Jesus did this thing and the Bible says, and like, I have to wrestle through this. That's what, that's just an example of what it looks like to be governed by scripture. Things can feel really right, really good. You can have a lot of people saying, yes, yes, no, that's right. No, it's okay for you to be upset and angry and disappointed and it's good to fight. And it can all be wrong. So we should be careful to carry the word of the Lord along with us into every situation. Because we're priests who've been entrusted with this privilege. Not to govern what we say and what we think and what we do. That's the first task. They were to carry the ark. And so are we. The second task was that they were to stand and serve before the Lord. We just saw how God opened up the priestly responsibilities to all of us. But it's worth noting that he didn't abolish the priesthood when he did it.

It's not that there weren't priests anymore. It's not that there aren't pastors now. We still have particular men who stand and serve us. We still need pastors and elders and deacons to do their work. We need them to teach us. We need them to instruct us and to keep us from sin. We need the gospel to be proclaimed by men who've been set apart for that work in particular. So we have this responsibility and this need. We're to be students of scripture. We're to be priests in our understanding of the word. And we still need those to instruct us. Why do we still need men to instruct us? I don't know. Because we're not as good at the things that we're supposed to do as we might hope. We still need to be taught. The difficulty of young men and young women of youth is that they lack life experience. And therefore, they think that they know a lot more than they do.

And you don't just outgrow that with age. I've seen young men who are wise beyond their years. And I've seen old men that teenage boys would put to shame. You don't just outgrow that sort of immaturity. You outgrow that by being taught. You outgrow that by submitting yourself to the discomfort of being trained, of being corrected over and over and over again. Do you ever get tired of being told the same things? You're fearful. You're lazy. You're controlling. You're selfish. You're bitter. You're anxious. You're proud. We all want a gold star for how far we've come. But we want more than a gold star. We want to be treated as though we have arrived. Not just that we've made a little bit of progress, taken a step. We want to cross the finish line as though we have gotten there.

And so we need people to cheer us on, to discipline us, to push us, to correct us, to guide us, to encourage us along the way. Mark Twain once said that he could live for two months on a compliment. And it's true. I was talking to a men's group yesterday morning. They said there are times when encouragement, not rebuke, but encouragement comes to you and you weren't expecting it. And it gets through all your defenses and it just lands right in your heart. And you're like, really? Because you know they meant it. They weren't saying it because they had to say it, you know. It's part of what pastors are for and elders. It's not only our job to tell you you're wrong. We'll come to the part about blessing the people in God's name, which is more of an explanation of this work. But we are not meant to live and pursue God and live our lives in isolation or alone. And when we're young and we're strong and our bodies don't hurt and we haven't got the perspective of our foolishness yet,

We think, I'll live on my own. I'll do the things my way. But what's going to become of all the people who haven't had kids when they're 50 and 60 and 70 years old? Who's going to go to their Thanksgivings? They're going to have Friendsgivings the rest of their life. And who's going to come to their funeral? No one, because they have not made anyone to love them. So Israel still needed instruction. They needed to be taught. They needed to be guided. They weren't just set out into the wilderness with a map and an arrival date and go. God guided them, the pillar of cloud and the pillar of light. And he gave them Levites to expound and teach them the word of God. Just as we have pastors and elders and deacons to do that for us now. Have you ever wondered why the Levites weren't given land? I've always kind of wondered why the Levites weren't given land. Our text actually answers it. It says, therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers. And it comes after these tasks.

And what it says is that you need these people and that they need to not be all holed up in Jerusalem or wherever, but they need to be dispersed. So they just have to go and live with you. They have to go and live among you so that they can do these things for you. We need this instruction. And so they don't get land of their own where they can be concentrated, but they're spread abroad for the benefit of all the people. And so that teaches us that God wants his people to be taught his word regularly. So the Levites had to go live among them. The third task for the Levites was to bless the people in his name. What does it mean to bless the people in his name? I want to read to you from Numbers 6. It's a benediction, but it talks about blessing. Numbers 6, 22 to 27, it says, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. So we want to know, what does it mean to bless the people? Here we are. Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them,

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance you and give you peace. So they shall invoke my name on the sons of Israel and then I will bless them. This is a benediction. It's a good word. It's a blessing. It's a proclamation of the goodness of God, but it's also a prayer because the Lord says at the end, so they shall invoke my name and then I will bless them. And so this blessing was tied directly to the things that the priests would have said and the things they would have done in teaching and instructing the people. Do you struggle to see the blessings of God in your life? Come at it another way. No, I do. I can see some of them. If you ask me what the blessings, I could list off a dozen of them. But do I live like they're there? Do I take them for granted?

Do I steal away God's glory thinking that I've earned them or deserved them? It's all kinds of ditches, potholes along the road. When something difficult happens in your life, some suffering, some burden, do you see the blessing then? We struggle to see the blessing then. And so we need men to come and to devote themselves to blessing us, to guiding us, to showing us, to... to opening up our vision to see more than what's right in front of us. We all get myopic. We all look at our lives through binoculars, through the one thing we're looking at. We miss all the context. And so we need those who are going to walk with us and help us to process through and see the blessing of God each day of our lives. In Acts chapter 6, this is one of the things that was in danger.

That's why they appointed deacons. There's all this physical need that was going on. The widows needed to be fed. There's tasks that needed to be cared for. And so they cast lots, and then they identified men, and they appointed them in deacons. Why? Why couldn't the apostles do it? They were preaching. They weren't fit to wait tables. It was beneath them, right? No. It wasn't beneath them. Their task... was to be devoted to prayer and to the ministry of the word, to blessing the people. Deacons were appointed at that time so that the apostles could be single-minded in that work. Do you know how many people pray for you every week? If you fill out, just leaving small group, men's group, and just organic conversation aside, if you fill out a connection card, do you know how many people pray for you in a week?

The email that I send out has so many people, so many of you on it. And if you don't get the email and you want to get the email, just tell me and I'll put you on it. There's a lot of people who pray for you. And one of my primary joys is getting that email from Bethany on Mondays because we have prayer meetings that start on Tuesdays. And so she faithfully sends me the, she compiles all the prayer requests and then she sends them to Eric and to me. And then I put it all together with prayer requests from the daycare. And I put it together with, sometimes I'm starting to get weekly prayer requests from Evangel Presbytery. And I compile it all together. And I read through it all. And I pray through it all. And I send it out to you guys. And then I go to prayer meeting. And we pray. And Eric goes to prayer meeting. And he prays. And then a few days later, Eric goes to another prayer meeting. And he prays. It's really sweet. And so the Levites were to bless the people. They were to interpret God's providence to them.

They were to encourage them and strengthen them and give them hope. And part of the reason we need this is because when we look for God's blessings, where do we look for them? We look for them in our daily life. We look at sickness and we judge whether God's blessing us or cursing us. If we get sick, we go, something must be wrong. God must be upset. If we have some sort of tragedy, if we have some sort of loss of... our jobs or these types of things. We go, where's God's blessing in that? But we forget that God's principal blessing is in forgiving us of our sins. And so the Levites were to instruct the people in this manner, to bless them, to strengthen them, to interpret God's working in their lives to them because they didn't see it on their own. We can get so sucked into our present circumstances that we can't see anything else. We forget that we're sinners.

We forget that Jesus came to earth. We forget that he died when he didn't deserve to. We just don't think about it. We don't set that on the other side of the scales of our sufferings and go, you know, he laid aside his glory and he came and lived among us. Like the situation that I'm in right now, he was in this type of situation worse than this. For me, he didn't have to go through it. And he went through it so that I could have life in his name and have joy. Sometimes we need to be reminded and told that because our circumstances get so big around us, we lose sight of it. How much has Moses reminded just in these first 10 chapters? How much has he reminded them of God's promises to them? Promises of blessing, promises of provision, promises of land, promises of wealth over and over. I mean, to the point where when I'm reading it, I'm just like, I can't preach the same sermon again. He said like,

It's again, and every time when I read the commentaries or read sermons, Calvin, when I read Calvin or Matthew Henry, they're always like, well, we've said this multiple times, but here it is again. And there's wisdom in God reminding them so often through Moses of his faithfulness because they were so prone to forget. And so that's how the pastors, the elders bless us. They strengthen us so that we can bear up under the trials that God sets before us. In Calvin's sermon on this point, he said this. He says, And in our very deed, by what? He says, we welter. So we just kind of sit and stew. Welter is an old word we don't use. We welter in our own dung, even till we do, as it were, stink in it without any care or regard at all. That's what happens when we suffer. We just get so stuck in it. And that is the cause of such contempt of the gospel and of such unthankfulness as is seen almost everywhere. So he's describing our condition and how easily we fall away.

Yet notwithstanding, it behooves the faithful Christians to consider of how great of a value it is that God received them, those who are sitting in their own misery, that he received them into mercy and shows himself to be a father to them. And that such as are appointed to preach his word are as witnesses to certify to us that God bears us such fatherly love. Truth it is that it was accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ, for he was the only priest. And that which we do is not to take his office upon us, but only to approve and ratify the thing that he did. And therefore let us mark well that it belongs only to our Lord Jesus Christ to assure us of the love of God his Father. But yet does he also witness it unto us by the mouths of such as are to preach the gospel in his name. And so there ought to be times when you're...

down and struggling. You all think you're struggling. It's so bad you can't get over it, but it's so small you can't tell anybody about it. And it's stupid. We're stupid in that. I do it. We do it, right? But when that's going on, it would not be inappropriate. In fact, it would be very appropriate for you to tell the people who love you so that they can bless you. Just tell your small group. Tell your pastors, call Eric, text me, let us know what's going on. Sometimes you guys do it, and it's an encouragement to us and a joy to us to be able to walk with you when you're having a real hard time. And if you've done that with us, you know that you don't always walk away. The problem's not solved. We haven't fixed what's wrong. Sometimes the sorrow or the suffering, it's still there, and it looks like it's going to be there. The point's not to fix the problem. The point is to bless you and encourage you and help you to press on.

That's what it means to bless in the Lord's name. Now I want to come back. There's two more points I want to make in just a few minutes. I want to come back to this idea that the Levites don't have any land. It says, therefore, a Levite does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God spoke to him. And I asked you, I don't remember if it was last week or two weeks ago or whenever it was. I said, do you think the Levites got a raw deal? Like, would you be excited if all of your brothers got land and an inheritance and you didn't? You probably think this isn't.

This isn't very fair. What does the Lord give the Levites? He doesn't give them land, but he does make sure that they're provided for through the tithes and the offerings of the people they serve. When he sets the Levites apart to this work, he frees them up from the normal cares and duties of all of the other people. He doesn't just take something away from them. He does provide for them. And he provides for them materially through those that they care for spiritually. The Levites are not supposed to spend their lives making a living off the land as everyone else was doing. Rather, they were to be sustained through the offerings of the people. If they had had to work in addition, if they had had to work the land in addition to preaching and praying, the work of preaching and praying would suffer. It wouldn't be done as well.

They wouldn't be distracted by serving the widow's tables like the apostles were in Acts 6, but they would be distracted by, where are we going to get the winter food? And so it ought to be that that relationship be honored on both sides. The Levites, you're told many times that the Levites, when they would go, the wicked Levites, what would they do with the offerings? They'd go and they'd take more than their portion. Right? They'd stick their fork into the pot and pull out the stuff that wasn't for them. They were greedy. And they were a burden to the people. And it was offensive to God. And so the Levites ought not to do that sort of thing. But the people ought also to make sure that the Levites were cared for. Because it was in their best interest for the Levites to be sustained. Right? And so there's a responsibility on both sides of the pastors not to be greedy.

And of the people not to be stingy. Presbyterians like to use fancy words, big long sentences. And they do things very formally. We do things very formally. And so I want to read to you an excerpt from a letter of call. So when a pastor gets called to a church, we don't just say, hey, hey, you want to be a pastor? Yeah, sure. And then it's done. In Presbyterian polity, there's this back and forth between the presbytery and the church, and there's votes, and then there's votes, and then there's confirmations, and all this type of stuff. Well, one of the things that the church has to do is they have to send a letter of call to the presbytery, and there's a form for it. Because you're like, well, what's a letter of call? This is what a letter of call is. It basically says, we want him to be a pastor, and we're going to take care of him because we think he'll be helpful to us. But they say it like this. They say, the church being on sufficient grounds, well satisfied of the ministerial qualifications of the guy,

and having good hopes for our knowledge of your labors and your ministrations in the gospel will be profitable to our spiritual interest, we do earnestly call you to undertake the pastoral office in this congregation, promising you in the discharge of your duty all proper support, encouragement, and obedience in the Lord, that you may be free from worldly cares and avocations. We promise hereby and oblige ourselves to pay you, and then they put in whatever they're paying, and they outline the call, the package. But that phrase, toward the end, that you may be free from worldly cares and avocations, is tied to what we see going on here with the Levites. The church, insofar as she's able, ought to want those who minister to them free of those cares. And the pastors ought to be working to be free of those cares. And so we both have to, everyone has to work together toward that end. And why do we do it that way? Why don't we just say, well, pastors can just...

They should, as a matter of principle, just go work, make their own income, and then come and pastor too. Why would that be less desirable? It happens in a lot of churches because the churches don't have money for it, and that's a separate situation. But why would that be less desirable? It goes back to what I said earlier. We need to be governed by what Scripture says, and Scripture says that a pastor ought to be free from those things so that he's able to give himself wholly to the work. Paul says in the New Testament, he who preaches the gospel ought also to make his living by the gospel. And it doesn't make, it makes things, it comes with prickles. Because whenever money's involved, there's prickles, you know, on both sides. And so why do we do it this way? Because we believe that that's the way God's ordained it to be. And so far as we're able to do it, we should. And so Levi doesn't have ground of his own. He doesn't get to build wealth.

on his own, but he's to share in the wealth and the abundance of God's blessing on all of the people he serves. And Moses ends, he says, I moreover stayed on the mountain 40 days and nights like the first time. And the Lord listened to me at that time also, and the Lord was not willing to destroy you. Then he said to me, arise, go on your journey ahead of the people that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them. You have to understand, this is a conclusion of an open question. Whether or not God was going to continue on with them, as the people of God was something that was being discussed. You remember that the Lord propositioned Moses and said, I'm going to wipe them out and I'll start over with you. You can be the new Abraham 2.0. And Moses said, no, if you have to destroy these people because of their sins, then blot my name out of the book too. And so these words, Moses says, well, I was up on the mountain and I was praying and interceding for you. I remember after they made the golden calf and he smashed the tablets and then he prayed and many of them were struck down. It's still an open question of whether or not

They're going to get the land or not. Or whether they violated the terms of the covenant so egregiously that God was going to destroy them. And so he says, the Lord was not willing to destroy you. Arise and proceed on your journey. That's a comfort to us. When you see their sinfulness and you see God's kindness in these words, he's not going to destroy you. Go on your journey that they may go in and possess the land. All that God had promised to give to these wicked, corrupt people, he was still going to give to them. And so it really is a failure to live your life thinking that your actions on a day-to-day basis, the way you sin or obey is influencing and directing how God's dealing with you. If those were actually the terms, you won't have anything good. But if you can look at these guys literally making a golden calf, bowing down and worshiping it, rejecting God days after they said they wouldn't. And at the end of all of this, God says,

go and give them the land which I swore to them. You see their sinfulness, you see God's faithfulness, and it ought to be a comfort to us that when we sin, all of the blessings of God are not so, what's the word? That's the word. That's the word I was looking for. They're not so tenuous that they just get swept away in a moment. They're not so tenuous that when he allows suffering into our life, that they are swept away. Do you think anyone at that time would have stood up and said, I think he's going to give us the land. If they could have bet on it, they would have said, you know, I bet he still gives us this land. After the Levites had just gone through the camp and killed 3,000 men, I bet we're going to get what he promised us. I can't imagine. I mean, we don't know, but I just can't imagine anybody thinking that way after what's just happened. And yet God is gracious and merciful to terrible sinners.

And so the final exhortation is when you sin, confess your sins and stop acting like you can thwart the will of God by the stupid stuff you do. Give glory to God, confess your sins. If there's retribution or if there's discipline or consequences for it, then there are. But God's discipline of us is assigned to us of our membership in his family. What son is there whom his father hasn't disciplined? The one who never says he does anything wrong. Well, then he proves that he's not a son. Jesus reasons that a father, even wicked fathers know how to give their sons good gifts. Who comes and asks for a loaf of bread and you give him a rock? And if wicked fathers know how to love their children, how much more so our father in heaven. And so confess your sins. Look at this and say, man, that's not what I would have done. I wouldn't have been that merciful. I wouldn't have been that.

forgiving, patient. I should be. Remember, we're back to like things Christians do that the world doesn't do. They read this and go, that's nothing like me, but it should be like me. Lord, help me to be like that, to be a dad and a husband and a wife and a mother like that. And thank you, Lord, for setting that example to me personally of love in the midst of my sin. Let's pray.