Leviticus 4:14 and the sin they committed becomes known, the assembly must bring a young bull as a sin offering and present it before the tent of meeting.
The place where we do things is important. We eat in a restaurant. We shop in a department store or online. We stream a movie or enter a theater. We watch a sporting event in a restaurant while eating and buying team merchandise online. Oh, this is getting confusing. Maybe we do all sorts of things in all sorts of places!
When life was a little less complicated, we ate at home, shopped in the Woolworths, and watched movies at the movie theater. Now that feels better. But life isn’t like this anymore. The place we do things has changed, become more flexible.
But if you were going design a community, you might want to bring some order to where and when you did things. You might want cars to be brought to an auto mechanic rather than to an elementary school for repairs. You might want people working with food to wash their hands, rather than just walking in from spreading the manure and beginning to cook. Rules can be good things.
Our text for today comes from the establishment of a new community. And part of that setting up of this community is the process of how this new community will deal with sin. All communities deal with it differently. Ours tends to redefine sin right out of the public vocabulary. Personal responsibility is oppressive, they tell us. Freedom to do as one pleases has become the ultimate expression of being alive.
Even in ancient Israel there were rules about where you do certain things. When sacrifices for certain life events happened, they had their own location to which the sacrifice was brought. Sometimes it was to be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting. Sometimes in front of the tent, to the north side, or before the tent of meeting. Sometimes it is to be brought to the place of the burnt offering.
I hear some of this difference having to do with crowd control. If everyone coming for any reason all showed up at the same place, sorting through who was here for what would be more complicated. But by having different lines, things get simplified. Logistics are a wonderful thing!
But they are also indicators of small obediences. Would the people who are prone to rebellion listen to the small instructions, or would they go their own way. It is this ‘going their own way’ that has gotten them in trouble, and about which so many of these sacrifices exist.
“To obey is better than sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 15:22) Are there small areas of our lives where compromise has slipped in and taken over? We certainly don’t have to bring a sacrifice to a specific place for a specific sin, but we don’t want small rebellions to take over.
Remember the yeast! It takes over the whole lump of bread dough. There is no way to contain it. It will spread and affect every part of your life. Deal with the sin. Find a way to walk in the obedience of Jesus.
Jesus’ obedience was perfect. Walk in His obedience. Walk in Him. Your old life is gone; the new life has come. Live in that new life. Live as Jesus lived, obedient to the end.
Today we don’t need to worry about the place to bring a sacrifice, but we don need a way to confess on a regular basis, a place and time to deal with our own small rebellions. Do you have a place and time?
The Arnold Journey 