PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

There are a couple of chapters that literally repeat the same phrase over and over again. If you take Numbers 7 you will find the offerings that each tribe presented is identical to what the others tribes have given, and yet it is repeated 12 times. That reminds us that what the Lord requires, he requires of all of us. There is not a generational pass that goes with those who have served longer or those who have served shorter. The Lord requires devotion, full devotion, from all of us.

Don’t get lost in the details and miss the beauty of Numbers 6:24-26. The priestly blessing is very applicable to us today and is not something that we can relegate to the past. Probably if I had to do it over again, I would close all of my services with this benediction, but as it is I close with the benediction that my father used and which we can find in the New Testament. But this one is definitely solid. At the end of Numbers we see the people of Israel moving out for the first time after the Lord has given them the tabernacle and all of the instructions on how to move and how to take care of it. They begin moving and they begin to leave Sinai. This is before God becomes angry with Moses and relegates the entire nation of Israel to the wilderness for 40 years. That is coming up.

What can we say about Jude? It is a warning to beware of those within the church who are imbuing the community with false teachings. They can be hard to distinguish. There are false teachings on both side of the political aisle. There are those who would completely separate the authority of Scripture and say that our experience has the power to overrule Scripture. There are also those who see safety and security within our nation as the overriding goal and so seem to silo their faith from their patriotism and the two shall never meet. It is quite an old sin to establish gods within our lives that seem more important than our relationship with God and that relationship which is based up on the Scripture that we read.

This is arguably the most difficult section so far of what we have read. It is the beginning of the listing of names which God commanded Moses to number. But keep in mind that he only counted those who were of military age, which made sense because you needed to know who was going to be able to defend the people when war came, and was was bound to come. There were over 600,000 fighting age men which was not an insignificant number. I can’t help but think of the 360,000 who have been mobilized over these past few days in these hostilities that we see taking place over this past week. But it really isn’t much of a war, it will be more of a slaughter, a classic eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Jesus had a different way.

When we get to III John we see the words of It is Well repeated in vs.2. What does it mean when we say that it is well with our soul? I see it as a defiant statement that no matter what is surrounding us, no matter the difficulties and the trials and the tragedies that we may face, it is well with our soul because we know that Jesus will carry us through no matter what. That is an encouraging statement to me.

Are there any more powerful five chaptes in the Bible than what we find in I John. It all comes down to one idea: Love one another. There is absolutely no excuse for us to hate, there is absolutely no excuse for us to hold a grudge, there is absolutely no excuse for us to target people with our scorn or look down on them as if God somehow has placed us on a higher category than others. Love one another simply put means that we would treat a person exactly as we would treat our sons and our daughters. What a tragedy is happening in Israel because people on both sides are not able to love one another. For generations this has been true and for generations Israelies and Palestinians have been killing each other. None of this is an example of the commandments that we see in this Scripture.

The author’s goal is that our joy would be complete. Our joy can only be complete in Jesus Christ. He makes that very clear. We cannot experience the full joy of life without Jesus as our Savior. Jesus allows us to live without sin, and yet if we say we are without sin then we are liars. Wow, what a powerful statement that applies to all of us. We are all sinners. As a result we need Jesus. Look at I John 3:18 where we read: Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Doesn’t this fit into our PSA? What a great phrase.

Focus on I John 4:16b where we read: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” What a reminder for us that not only is God love, but we are called to abide in God and so abide in love. There is no stronger common denominator among Christians other than we are called to live in love. There is no wiggle room there and no what ifs like what if someone doesn’t love me back? Well, that is addressed. You are to love them, period. I hope we are able to keep this on the forefront of our minds as we decide what actions to take in life.

We have to start with the last words of Psalm 19.  We see in 19:14 – “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”  This is how I pray before every sermon as I begin.  This is a real prayer that God would take my Words and make them His words so that what I might say would not only track with what God would want me to say, but that it is actually consistent with God’s Word in every way shape or form. 

There is more in Leviticus that should be discussed, such as the year of Jubilee.  Did you catch that?  Every 50 years the land is to go fallow, the slaves are to be set free, and things revert back to where they were before people took out loans and sold things to keep afloat.  What a wonderful example of bringing everything together in a family so that no one person suffers and no one person takes advantage of another, ever.

Guess where I am starting again today? In Hebrews, which contains the foundation of our faith…again. We begin with a definition of faith, look at 11:1 – “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What a great defintion. But wait, there is more. Each chapter, it seems, begins with a classic verse. Look at 12:1-2a – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 13 contains the following in vs.8 where we read: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” What a way to end this book of the Bible that provides us with rock solid theology on our Savior. If we can spend more time in this book we would be well served. Now to Leviticus.

We just have a few short readings but we do have the three primary religious holidays laid out. We see directions on how the people of Israel are to celebrate: the Sabbath, Passover, and the Feat of Unleavened Bread. A commonality in this Scripture is that there is a command to take a day in which no work is done and in which what we do we do unto the Lord completely and without fail. I’ll just leave you with a thought. What day is your Sabbath and how do you dedicate the entire day to the Lord. I don’t mean just Sunday worship, for you do well in attending that but how else do you dedicate that day to the Lord in its entirety?

Let’s start in Hebrews because once again it lays out for us the building blocks of our faith. Look at 9:22b where it states: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”. You may ask, why not? I would answer because that is the way that God instituted it. All of our readings in Leviticus point to the shedding of blood as being efficacious for the forgiveness of sins. Here it is Jesus’ blood once and for all that forgivess us of our sin. Look at 9:26b where it states: “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Is there anything more fundamental to our faith than the truth that Jesus’ blood was shed for our sins once and for all as an eternal sacrifice so that our sins could be removed. This Scripture lays it out.

Once again we read in Hebrews 10:10 – “And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews is a book of the Bible that we can read and reread over and over again. If someone could remind me that I want to preach on Hebrews after we are done with Matthew. It needs to be preached because it is so fundamental to our faith. Now to Leviticus.

Molech was a god that the people of the land, not the Israelites, worshipped and who required human sacrifices. The fact that God speaks so strongly against it makes us realize that probably at some time the people of Israel did worship Molech and did need to be told not to do it. We also see a series of sins that were forbidden with death that dealt with nakedness and sexual immorality and impropriety. They deal with family, animals, and same sex relationships. None of these things according to Leviticus were allowed, in fact they were forbidden in the strongest of terms. It is interesting that many in today’s culture would agree with the prohibition against sex within the family and with animals, but not necessarily same sex. There is an inherent inconsistency there. I think I have said enough on this matter.

Leviticus takes us throught once again a series of laws, but this time they are focused on leprosy, discharges, and finally, the all important day of atonement. We cannot overlook this important day in which the people of Israel were forgiven. This dayof atonement was basically the precursor of the sacrifice that Jesus made upon the cross. In Jesus’ death and resurrection his blood was the blood that made us clean once and for all. No longer was a goat needed in order to be sacrificed and then one let loose as the scapegoat which carried our sins in the wilderness. This is the connection between the Leviticus and the Hebrews Scripture. As Hebrews 8:13 says the old covenant has become obsolete and the new covenant is now in its place. This new covenant was the one that Christ has brought.

We find the term scapegoat used in Leviticus in the word Azazel which literally means scapegoat. It is upon this goat that the sins of the people are placed and then released in the wilderness. When we go to Israel and we see where the goat is released to wander in the wilderness, the fear was that the goat might wander back with all of its sins upon its back. So, you can see that the release point tends to be a cliff that would make it pretty much impossible for the goat to survive as it makes its way out of town down the cliff. That scapegoat was not coming back.

God continues to give orders to Moses and Aaron about how to lead the people in religious worship while at the same time giving clear directives on diet and what can be eaten and what should be avoided. We have an unfortunate incident of two of Aaron’s sons who decided to go rogue and strike out on their own and create their own religious traditions. God was not pleased to say the least, to the point where Aaron and his sons who survived were not allowed to mourn at all.

The detail of what could be eaten and what could not be eaten is pretty extensive. But keep in mind these dietary laws were also in place to keep the people alive. Can you imagine the slaughter if people ate pork in a way that it was not supposed to be eaten? But fortunately we have Peter in Acts who has a dream which allows people to eat all that which God has created and basically makes these dietary laws null and void.

Hebrews continues to provide us super solid foundational Scripture. One section that caught my eye was 5:4 where we read that those who are called to ordained ministry shall not presume this “honor”, but only take it when they are called by God. What a reminder that we do not choose on our own whether we are called by God to ordained ministry, but rather God does the choosing and then the congregation affirms that this is indeed God’s call. Sorry, it caught my attention.

We find ourselves once again with the legalism of Leviticus which drives this section. It is interesting that the offerings were based upon how much you were able to afford. From a life animal, to a bird, to a wheat offering. Notice that when Mary and Joseph go to the temple they offer a bird which is kind of middle of the road. You can find that Scripture in Luke 2:24. It is curious how these Scriptures from the Old Testament have an impact on the New Testament and what we see happening in the life of people of faith.

When we get to Hebrews it once again is the depiction of the faith that we have in Jesus Christ. I love the fact that Jesus is consistenlty portrayed not just as one of many people who have had an impact on the Christian faith, like Moses, but goes far beyond anyone and is God himself. He is much more than Moses, he is the builder of the house while we are the houses. That is very different. You can’t read this Scripture without highlighting 4:12 which reminds us that the Word of God is sharper than a two edged sword. God’s Word strips us of pretension and the fake approach that we are beyond reproach. We are sinners in the hands of a loving God, but we are still sinners. No amount of grace will make us not be sinners. Now, our sin is washed clean, but we are still sinners in the hands of a God of grace. We can’t forget that or we risk inheriting cheap grace.

We begin today with two very, very different books of the Bible. Leviticus begins our journey through the many sacrifices which had to be made in order for the people of Israel to be made right with God. There are very specific guidelines on how these sacrifices are to be made and which animals are to be used for the sacrifices. Obviously we no longer make sacrifices before our God. Hebrews, in fact, explains to us why we no longer sacrifice animals to God. It is because Jesus was the final sacrifice and he was sacrificed for our sake once and for all.

Hebrews is one of those books of the Bible that doesn’t get a lot of notoriety and yet contains essential truths of our faith. The first concept that we find mentioned is that the author wants to make sure that we understand that Jesus wasn’t just an angel, or a prophet, or anything less than God Himself. There my be a lingering thought in some of us that Jesus was just a good guy whose example set for us the type of life we ought to live. No, he was more than that. Or maybe because he did not sin then God exalted him to a higher status than we are, similar to the belief that saints are on a bit of an upper echelon because of their lives. No and no. Jesus is God, was God from the beginning, as Hebrews states even as the Son had a hand in creation as part of the Trinitarian understanding of who God is. This is a crucial concept with which to begin and from that we can launch ourselves into understanding the sacrifice that he made as God.