Faith Community Church - Sunday Sermons

The final section of Numbers weave together threads (topics) of army, land, and law. All of these point us to the faithfulness of God to preserve the people of Israel according to His promise. But that promise fits into the bigger promise of the Savior that goes back to Gen. 3:15 and Gen. 22:18. In the seed of the woman and the seed of Abraham, God will bless all the nations. Israel was a seed of Abraham, and out of Israel will come the one Israelite, the ultimate seed, who will save His people from their sins. This Savior’s mediatorial work is depicted in the man Moses. Moses was a self-sacrificing leader and shepherd for Israel, but he was not their Savior, for he himself was a rebel like them in need of the Savior. The true and ultimate mediator whose work Moses portrayed was the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who truly gave Himself up as a ransom for all who intercedes for His people is our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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After a period of arduous obedience, we see another side to the people of Israel. They were rebels at heart. Under the veneer of obedience lurked a wicked heart of rebellion. In this study, we consider the examples of rebellion and focus on one incident of rebellion and the unbelief that fueled that rebelliousness among this people. May we examine our own hearts that we not walk in the same example. May we seek Christ daily who is the perfect and sinless Savior who alone can save us from sin and hell.

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In these chapters of Numbers, we see a rare period of Israel’s history when they obeyed the LORD. This period lasted a couple of months until they left Sinai and began to grumble and doubt God. In the meantime, we once again see Israel’s shortcomings and the resulting hunger for the true dedicated man of God who will fulfill all the will of God and bring about the salvation of His people.

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Jesus is the fulfillment of the law of God. Whether it is the laws of purification (L11-15), the laws on worship (L17), the laws of sexual purity (L18), the laws of civility (L19), or the laws of appointed times (L23), Jesus is the exemplary keeper of God’s laws. He lived by God’s timeline. He loved neighbor as Himself. He maintained purity of body, heart, and mind. He worshipped and served the LORD God and Him only. By these shadows of the attributes of Christ the Old Testament pointed us to our awesome Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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In addition to holiness in worship with the sacrifice system, God required His people to maintain holiness in purity with the laws of purification and the holiness of leadership (consecration of priests and the day of atonement). Jesus is indeed the substance of the laws of purification and all that the high priest was meant to symbolize.

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God’s presence among His people requires holiness on the part of God’s people. This requires first and foremost the proper sacrifice to propitiate the wrath of God and be properly atoned for with a substitute with the soothing of God’s wrath. All of this looked ahead to Jesus Christ and the fury of God that His death would satisfy in the place of sinners. God gave a picture in the OT of the preciousness of this sacrifice, its efficacy, and its outcome of reconciliation and peace with Him. God is an amazing artist who has drawn for us an impressive portrait of Christ in the sacrifice system for Israel.

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With the tabernacle instructions, God reveals His stunning plan to have His presence to dwell among men. But all of this was jeopardized when Israel corrupted themselves and worshipped idols, thus, violating their covenant with Him. But even with this, the LORD was advancing His plan to bring His presence on earth through the Son of God incarnate in whom all His elect would become the holy dwelling place of God in the Spirit and in the end they will forever have God within and God without, His glorious presence inside and out.

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The LORD brought Israel, a seed of Abraham, out of Egypt to make them into His own possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They would enter a covenant for this privileged relationship with the holy God, and they would do so on His terms, the law. Although they entered this covenant with their eyes wide open (informed and aware of the solemnity of this covenant), they failed to be faithful. They violated this covenant and demonstrated that they needed a new heart by the grace of God (Deut. 30:6). Though they failed to be God’s true son (4:22), that holy and royal priesthood, Jesus fulfilled. He became all that Israel should’ve been and thus fulfilled the Father’s plan for the ultimate seed of Abraham who blesses all the nations as their priest and king, and how Peter applies this reality to the church is most stunning.

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Godliness is the need of the hour for the church of God. How does the Holy Spirit work godliness in His church, especially, among the fathers of our church? He does so through the means of self-discipline. In this passage, Paul identifies this trustworthy principle of Scripture that godliness is the product of discipline. Godliness does not plop down from heaven onto our laps. It is the product of spiritual discipline and exertion. In this Father’s Day sermon, we examine Paul’s exhortation to Timothy meant for the church that we would be a people of discipline. We must be men of discipline. Men bless their homes to the extent that they grow in godliness and thus become a conduit of divine blessing upon their wives and children.

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The LORD reveals Himself as the covenant keeper. He delivers His people just as He promised. He also displayed His power in the judgments upon Egypt. Even though the children of Israel deserved the same judgment, they escaped by the provision of a substitute, in the provision of the Passover Lamb.

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