Understanding Atonement and God's House Rules

In our small group, Sunday mornings, you've been looking at the idea of atonement. Now, I hesitate to use that word because I'd imagine that there's not any of you who've ever had a conversation with friend or family about the issue of atonement, it just didn't come up in our vocabulary. But the concept is real and a big important part of our lives because it really means that you have no barrier between you and another person. We use the word atonement, but it really is from a Hebrew word that simply says two people are at one meant, at one meant, or in a condition of being at one with each other. So all of this strikes at the idea that there are times and places in our lives where there are barriers that exist between us and other people, and primarily that there are barriers that exist between us and God. In trying to think about what atonement means or being at one with God, I was thinking about the fact that, you know, if you have a house, we have, in our home, we've taken people to live with us for different periods of time, and we had a couple of young ladies from Brazil that stayed with us. And we sat down with them and talked about what we wanted from them and what we'd expect of them and what we wanted them to do in our hours and how they, to treat the furniture and different things like that. And things went pretty well. One time we came home, and one of the girls was on the roof, the second story of our house, we have shake shingles, climbing around the side because she had forgotten her key. There was a barrier between us and her. We took her aside and said, don't ever, ever, ever, ever do that again. And she had kind of a rebellious spirit. So we looked at her all the time wondering what she was going to do next. We never felt like she said, whatever you want us to do, we will do. The barrier. If you look at the world as God sees it, the very beginning of the Bible, it says God made everything. This is his world. It's like his house. He has rules by which he wants us to live. Story of Adam and Eve. He set them down and said, these are the rules. They did this like the girl. They did whatever they wanted to do. When God started with his own people, he called the people of Israel out of Egypt. They were slaves, been slaves for hundreds of years, many generations of slaves. He came to them and said, I have a plan for you. I promised your forefather that I would give you a place that would be your own. So I'm going to take you there and I'll give you the ability to drive out all the people that are living there and this will be your place. I will provide for you. I will guide you. I will protect you and you will become a great nation. All I ask is you recognize that I am the ruler of all of this. This is my world and that piece of ground that I'm going to let you live on is my ground. I want you never to forget that. You'll remember he gave them ten very simple rules. These are the house rules. First he said, you're to make sure that you recognize that I am the supreme ruler of all this. There is no one else but me in ultimate control of all that goes on. Always recognize that. You're never to listen to anyone who says, you don't have to do these things. You don't have to listen to someone who says, there's other people that have better ideas. Never listen to that. Always listen to what I tell you to do. I am in charge. You're not to make any kind of other thing to be a representative of me, to take a piece of stone and make it into an image and say, this is our God, because I am the living God. I'm not a stone. I'm not metal. I'm not wood. I am the living God who talks to you and guides you and watches you. Never treat me like I don't exist. And then he said, I want you to take one day out of every week, I want you to sit down and remember that I am God. I made everything in the world. I gave you the land your house sits on. I gave you the cattle that you have. I gave you the children that you have. Everything you have, I've given to you. And I want you to remember who I am. And I want you to remember the rules that I've given you to live by. And I want you to ask yourself, am I doing what God wants me to do? One day, every week, 24 hours, nothing but reflection on who God is. And he said to them, I want you to understand what my rules are for you. I'm going to give you parents and I want you to obey your parents. They're your authorities. I'm going to give you governments and I want you to obey your government. They're your authorities. I want you to live in a way of order and structure. Then he said, I want you never to murder anybody because every human being belongs to me. Don't take something that's not yours. I'm going to give you husbands and wives and I want you to make sure that you never violate the promise that you make to them, that they alone are committed to you and you alone are committed to them. Don't ever steal anything because I'm going to provide your needs and when you steal something, you're saying, God, you haven't given me enough so I'm going to have to do it my own. I want you to make sure that you never lie. We're going to have a whole world where people tell the truth and you never have to worry if that person telling me the truth and the place that I'm going to take you to, everyone's going to live this way. And then he said, don't look around at your neighbors. They've got five cows, you've got three. You say, I wish I had there two. Trust me, I'm going to take care of you. These were the house rules for the people of Israel. But before God even left, let the people of Israel leave this place of Mount Sinai where this was all given to him, he said to them, you're not going to be able to do this. I know it. You may not. But I do. But what's going to happen is somewhere along the way, you're going to do the things opposite of what I've asked you to do. And when that happens, a barrier is going to exist between me and you. You'll not feel as close to me as you once did in this moment. You'll feel like there is something wrong with you. You'll feel like something needs to be changed. And then you'll remember on that day that you set aside exactly what it is that God wants from you. How are you going to change this? What are you going to do that allows you to break down that barrier that exists between you and God? The word atonement used in the Bible has two different kinds of meanings. He talks about removing a barrier that exists between two people, a wall. Now, you know what that's like. You have family and some family members don't do exactly what you want them to do and you get mad at them. Or they get mad at you. I know a lot of people that say, well, I have a friend or family member that's mad at me and I have no idea what I did, but they won't talk to me. They won't call me. A barrier exists. It always happens because there's an idea that that person has not done what they should have done. They violated some relationship that you have with them. That's going to happen between you and me. Now, what I want you to do is to remember that you are my children and I am your Lord. Get that in mind. All the things he's talking about are not ways by which someone is saved. They're already his children. How do you keep the relationship between your children and the Lord? That's the issue. When you look at the gifts that, you look at the instructions that God gave, I want to take one of those from Leviticus chapter 1 and talk about what God intends, how God intends to be able to restore relationships between his children and himself. Now what I want to emphasize about this is, this, as you read it, sounds terribly complex and even bloody, but this is the high worship service for the people of Israel. In this story, he's saying to them, you will come to understand someday just how far you've strayed from what I want you to be and what I want you to do. And when you become aware of that, I am going to provide a means whereby you can reconcile or become one between yourself and me. I know people who have relatives and friends who won't talk to them, won't speak to them, won't have anything to do with them, and they never knew what happened. And no matter how hard they try, they can never restore the relationship that's broken. God never wants that to happen with his people. The people of Israel became his followers when they got of the age to make a pledge and a promise to God. We will live in obedience to you. We will accept your authority over our lives. We live by the rules that you've given us. And that brought them into a relationship where God was their Lord and they were his children. The children of Israel, the children of God. In that relationship, though, things get broken. So one day you're going to discover that my relationship with you is different than it has been in the past. And you miss the fact that you feel at one with me, close to me. Here is what I want you to do. Leviticus chapter 1, verse 3. If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. In the very beginning of this, God sets a premise for them. The relationship between you and me, when it's broken, is the most important thing that can happen in your life. So if you come to straighten this out, I want you to recognize that it's not going to be done easily. I'm afraid sometimes we look at forgiving people in sort of a narrow way. And we say, well, I forgive them. We even sometimes make our children, whenever they've done things wrong to their brother or sister, to say, I'm sorry, and the other one to say, I forgive them. But you can tell by what's going on that there's nothing taking place there at all. Words do not change your mind or your heart. It has to happen because there is something absolutely critical taking place. So he said to the people, far and small farmers all, you find the male in your herd, most important animal, and you bring that animal if it's perfect. The farmer brings his animal, which is his most prized possession, and he takes it to the Lord for a sacrifice, to be burned up, losing a significant portion of his wealth, losing his best animal to reproduce better animals. God does not take our rebellion lightly. In the remedy for what he wants us to do, to change, he demands very powerful and strong consequences. You bring me the male that you treasure, you bring me the one that's perfect, the best one you have, and you bring it to me for a sacrifice. You must present it, he said, to the tent of meeting. Now the tent of meeting was where Moses went to talk to God. God was seen to be in that small tent apart from the rest of the people. This is where God dwelt. The priest would be there when you came. He would take the animal, look at it, and make sure as he inspected it all over that there was no defect in it, wasn't lame, didn't have a bad eye, or didn't have any defects with it, to make sure that what was presented to God was absolutely the most precious treasure you have. Violating the instructions of God have serious consequences. Do not take them lightly. And to restore that relationship requires on our part a willingness to do whatever God asks. So the man who becomes aware that he's done something that God doesn't like comes saying, I am prepared to give you the most precious animal that I have to break this barrier that exists between us. Now sometimes the word atonement is used in the Bible to describe wiping something off. Like you write something on the board and you wipe it off so it's not there anymore. Like it says, okay, you lied to somebody, and you write lie up there where you can wipe it off. That would be atonement because it's not there anymore, it doesn't exist between you and God. It can also mean ransom. Sometimes it's used in the Bible and translated as the word ransom. But it's not like our word for ransom. When we think of ransom we think somebody steals a small child and takes him off and sends you a letter saying $10,000 and I'll give you your kid back. What the ransom was in the Bible was a payment that you would make to relieve consequences of what you've done. For example, if you stole something and you were convicted of stealing it, you might have to pay to the person some money to relieve the consequence of your crime. Even sometimes if someone murdered someone in your family, the family might get together and say, instead of killing that person, we would be satisfied with a cash payment for the life that they've taken. And then the payment would allow that person to reduce the sentence from death to a life in prison in a city that he would have to live in. So the ransom that he's talking about simply reduces the payment, I'll not be so hard on you because of what you've done. He brings the animal, the priest examines it, and then the person that brings it has to kill it. Now you can see how long this might take. We have a big cow. You've got to kill it, take the blood out of it. The blood represents the life of the animal. And when it's drained, it represents the life of the person bringing it. Because when you bring the animal, then he says, I want you to put your hand on the head of the animal. Now he's not talking about just this, it's not your fingers are lightly at it, but the word really carries the idea of pressing something down so that you take your hand and press on the head of the animal. This symbolism is very critical. My sin now travels from me through my hand to this animal. My life now travels symbolically through my hand to this animal. And then you kill the animal that has your life in it. Whenever we talk to God about asking for forgiveness, he asks us to kill a part of our life that's rebellious to him. There's a powerful symbolism in what takes place on that day. And so the worshipper then begins to kill the animal, takes the skin and gives it to the priest for their part of this, slays it, the priest cuts it in small pieces, then there's a fire there. He puts the pieces on the altar, every single piece of the animal. Every single piece of my rebellion is placed on the fire and burned up. I don't know how long it would take to burn a 500,000 pound animal, but I think it'd take a long time. We're not talking about somebody who goes into a church service for 30 minutes and gets energized and goes home. We're talking about someone who spent an entire day dealing with how he can come to find peace with God. Every piece of that animal is burned on the altar, his sins being consumed and taken to God, his life being consumed and taken to God. What happens in this event is the man who brings the sacrifice is seeing himself offered up to God symbolically by the animal that is there. What takes place in this event is a person who comes to say, I understand the depth and seriousness of what's taken place in my life. I understand that my rebellion against you has placed me at odds with you and now I want to tell you that I re-give my life to you as this animal is consumed as a gift to you. So my life from now on will be a gift to you. God looks at that person's heart and his gift and he says, you mean this. It's serious. I forgive you. Now I think as we read the stories about the sacrifices in the Old Testament, we think of them as just events that take place. I hope you can see that what the Bible describes here is one of the high points of worship that a person might have as they come to God's presence. As they literally give themselves to God to be consumed, possessed, and controlled. But also they see as the fire goes up that God is receiving them. He is really accepting their sacrifice as an act of their own change of mind and heart. Sometimes I think when we look at these stories, we think that it is the sacrifice that changes everything but it really isn't. This place in the Bible where God is getting on to the people of Israel, he said to them, I don't need your sacrifices. If I wanted something to eat, I could kill anything in the world and eat it. What I want is a contrite heart. There have been places in the Bible where God was angry with them for making the sacrifices because they made the sacrifices without a submission of their heart to God. You see, what's at the very heart of this sacrifice story is not the animal that's slain nor the blood that's there, but what it represents in the life of the person who's trying to come to grips with who God is. I have acted like God didn't matter. I have made my choices based on what I wanted, not what God said. I read his rules and I said, I don't care, I'm going to do what I want. Now I've come back to recognize God is in charge of the world. Who am I to say I'm going to do what I want? Who am I to say my life is my own? It is not. So I come and I give myself to you. I want a symbol that has no reverse to it. Once you've burned the animal, you don't get it back. There's no way that it can ever come again. It's gone. It is the most powerful picture of permanent commitment to God that you can find. It is the heart of the person who comes that is at stake here. It is the person who's recognized what happens to them that's led them astray. Now, in the New Testament era that we live in, we're not worried so much about the ten rules that are in there, even though they're still in effect. What we're really concerned about is that once you say to God, I give my life to you and I'm going to live my life in obedience to you, God miraculously does something that no one else in the world could do. He takes the very Spirit of God that created the universe, that lived in Jesus, that performed all the miracles that were in Jesus' life, and he places that person inside you. So now you are living in the world. And in your mind and in your heart is the person who wrote the Bible, is the person who created the universe, is the person who brought the message to every prophet in the world, is the person who guided Jesus step-by-step in his life. And when you say to God, I give my life to you, and you start living, and then one day you start drifting away. You make choices that are contrary to what God wants. You're not talking to him anymore, you're not reading the Bible, you're not doing the things you know you should do. And then one day, it occurs to you in your mind, my life is a mess. How do you know? Well, you're making bad choices. Remember, God says, I'll help you to make your good choices. You're making bad choices. You say, man, why is it I do the best I know how? I do everything I can, I try to make all the right choices, and it seems like everything turns into dirt. Clue, God is not helping you. You're not listening to him, he's not talking to you. And then it seems like everything falls apart financially. Everything you try to do seems like you're always behind and short and you can't make it. Why is it that my finances are always in a mess? Well, God said he would provide for me. Maybe I'm not listening to God about my financial life. You drifted away from him. And then you say, you know, it just seems like I'm constantly afraid of everything around me. And people seem to attack me and things are happening to me that are bad. I need help. It's in the moment like this that God says to you, you have strayed from me. The consequences of your life are that I've withdrawn my promise to you because you've left me. I told you I would guide you, provide for you, protect you, and make your life a great and powerful thing, meaningful to other people. But now you're living on your own, so it's your problem. I'm not going to help you make good choices, I'm not going to provide your needs, I'm not going to protect you, and I'm not going to make your life influential with other people. Those are all the signs that are there. If you're seeing those in your life, and you can point in your life to the past when you've made a promise to God to live for him, God is trying to scream to you, listen to me. Look at what's wrong with your life. What has happened? Am I still in control of all your choices? Are you still listening to me, reading the Bible, actively involved in Bible study and church? Are you putting into practice the things you know I want you to do? If you're trusting me with your life, I'll get you through this. If you're not, this is the consequence of your failure to trust me. Now what happens when you discover that? Well, you can say, well gosh, I'm so busy, I don't have time to do all that. Someday I'm going to get back involved, I'm really going to get started to what I know I should do. You can do that. Or you can say, well it's just coincidence I'm going through. You can say all those things, but there in the bottom of your heart, in the middle of your life, is God saying, wake up. Your life is not what I intended it to be. You gave it to me, and now you've taken it apart. We're no longer together in this deal. What he told the people in Leviticus is exactly what he wants us to do. Start by saying, Lord, I will give you anything. I will do anything you ask of me. Restore this relationship. You tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it. I bring to you my life, and I say to you, take anything of my life that you want out of me. Show me what you want me to do, and I'll do it. I acknowledge that I've violated the promise I made to you, but today I say that promise is more important to me than even my own life. If you're not serious about following God, it's not going to work for you. He's not an appendage you can put onto your life. He is the heart and the center of it. And so you come back to the place to say, you are my treasure. What he asked them to do was to take the most precious thing that they had materially and say, I'm willing to give it to you and just let it go. He doesn't ask us in the New Testament times to come and bring him the most precious treasure we have, our new car or whatever else we might value. What he asks is we say to him, I want you to know that you are the ultimate authority for my life. I want to make the choices like you tell me I should make them. And here's my deal, God. Whatever I need to stop doing, I'm going to stop. Whatever I need to start doing, I'm going to start. I don't care how much it hurts, how much time it takes, what I have to quit. You are the center of my life. You know, you've been in churches where invitation times people come and say they're ready to commit their lives to Christ and the same people do that all the time. You can feel bad about your sin, but until you're prepared to say, I'm going to change my life, nothing's going to happen. Until you're prepared to say, I'm ready to do whatever it takes, nothing's going to change. What God asks is you say, here is my life, like the man who put his hand on the head of the animal. This animal represents me, God, and you can burn me up if you want to. You can take everything I have if you want to, but I am yours. I am on the altar of sacrifice. Whatever you want from me is yours. When God sees a contrite heart, that is a people that are desperately sorry for the condition they're in, when he sees passionate people who want to have this relationship with him, he always says, I forgive you. It doesn't matter how serious it is, the world might not forgive you. You might go on a rage and run your car over somebody on purpose and they'll put you in jail for the rest of your life, but God will and can forgive you. There is not anything in this world beyond God's ability to say, I erase it. All that stands between that and you is the willingness to give everything to God. To give up the things that you've enjoyed, oftentimes the things that lead us away from God are enjoyable, oftentimes they're good, oftentimes they're nice, your job, your family, all those things can be great, but when they take the place of God, they become the enemy of God. Give me your life, God says, and I will erase any claim I have to punishment for you, and I will restore you to exactly what there was before. God does not always erase the consequences of our behavior. Sometimes those are still there, but the difference is you go through the consequences of our behavior with the presence of God right there with you, with all of his hope and his wisdom and his guidance and provision, or you go through it alone, and that's your choice. This passage about how to restore the relationship with God is one of the most important passages in the Bible, and though it's written in the Old Testament with the sacrifice of an animal, the principles are still there. Realize that you're not doing what God told you to do. Realize that your life is lived differently than you know God wants it to be lived. Come to God and be prepared to give him everything in your life, no boundaries, nothing hidden, and say to him, here is my life, I've taken it for myself, I've ignored you as my Lord, now you are in charge of me. Do anything you want with my life, I am yours. With this contrition and with this submission, God says you're forgiven. Then you and God are one. He's in control, you're doing what he tells you, and you're living in oneness with him. God desires a good life for you. He desires a life that is meaningful, powerful, and fruitful, but he cannot give it to you unless he's in charge of your life. Have you ever at any time in your life said to God, I know you made the world, I know everything in it's yours, you made me, I will live by your instructions, whatever it costs me. If you've never done that, then you don't know what it means to be close to God. He wants you to know that. Today you can do it. You can say to him, my life is like that animal, I give it to you and whatever you want to do with it, I trust you. Do you look back in your life and see that the most powerful spiritual times were in the past? When you sit down and think about the good things spiritually that have happened in your life, do you always look behind you? It's a pretty good sign that God is not in control of your life right now. God wants the best days of your life to be in the future. He can do that for you, but you have to come and say, here is my life. You can do whatever you want with it, through it, or to it, it's yours. And with that surrender of trust to him, he will change your future so that it's better than your past. God brings us together as one, but only when we want to give him everything. Could you bow your heads please for a moment? As I've been talking, the Holy Spirit's been talking to you. If you just listen to this and you say, well, that's for somebody else, then it probably is. But if in the process of all this you become conscious that there is a wall between you and God, that your life really isn't what you know it should be, and God has said to you, I want you to change. If you will give me your life, I will make it what I intended it to be from the beginning. Doesn't matter how big the mess is, doesn't matter how impossible it seems to you, someone who made the son can fix it. What he needs from you is trust to say, as in this story, my life is on this altar and it's yours to take. We'll change everything between you and God. I'm going to ask the pianist to play a song in just a moment. If God has been talking to you, you have to respond to him. And you are responding to him. You'll either say, no, I don't think I want to do that. I want to continue my course, which he'll let you. Or you can say, I think I believe what you're telling me. I'm ready to find life as I've never had it before. Or I'm ready to find again what I used to have. And see, it's hard, the sacrifice. What are people going to say? What my God may ask me to do? The cost could be big, but the rewards are greater. This is where that element of faith or trust in God comes. Do you trust him or yourself? If you want to make a promise today to God, I'm going to ask you to get up from where you are. Come at the front. I'll be here at the front. Ros will be here. And you just tell us the promise you think God wants you to make, and we'll pray with you. It is your sacrifice of yourself to God. If God has talked to you, you know what he wants. It's your choice.