This Sunday we begin a new series in the book of Leviticus. What has a book that is full of animal sacrifices and some obscure rules got to say to us? Much - in many surprising ways. And this week we'll see how it tells us that God is a God who speaks to us and lives among us.

You can download sermon summary notes in English here and in French here.

Or you can read them below:

The God Who Dwells Among Us

Leviticus 1:1-2

Today we begin a new series in Leviticus. Because Leviticus can seem alien to us it can become a graveyard of Bible-reading. But although we may struggle with this book, the Psalmists delighted in it and the apostle Paul said that all Scripture (including Leviticus) is God-breathed. So what did they know that we don’t?

The book tells us that God is dangerously holy, and how God’s people can live in relationship with him. But to understand the book we need to understand when it was written – which was after God had saved his people from Egypt. He did not save them, or make them his people, because they had kept the law in Leviticus.

This matters for us because sometimes we can think that we can save ourselves, or earn God’s favour, by living moral lives, or keeping his law. But salvation is always by God’s grace, through faith.

The God Who Speaks

Verse 1 tells us that it is God who initiates and calls Moses. For us to know him we need him to reveal himself to us. Leviticus tells us God is a speaking God – it is God who breaks the silence.

This also tells us that God controls the relationship: it is on his terms. Leviticus tells us that we are not God. We are not the one speaking from the tent.

But unless we hear God speaking to us we die spiritually: we need to hear his voice speaking to us. So where can we hear it?

John 1:1 tells us that Jesus was the Word of God, and Christ calls us to come to him and find rest. He is God’s voice calling to us.

The God Who Dwells

The Lord speaks to Moses from the Tent of Meeting. This was like the covenant king’s palace, from which he would issue his laws. But before that, he filled the tent with his presence. So this book comes from a time when God lived among his people. But where can you and I meet with God like that?

John tells us that in Christ, ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ Jesus ‘pitched his tent’ among us. In Christ, we can meet with God in even deeper ways than Moses did. But also, because of Jesus' life and death, when we put our trust in him, God’s Spirit comes and dwells in the tent, or the temple, of our lives.

The God Who Redeems

Verse 2 tells us that God expects the people will bring him sacrifices. As a result of his saving them, and living among them, they will live differently. God redeems his people, but not to stay the same. It will impact the way they live. The same is true for us.

The apostle Paul tells us that in response to God’s mercy we are to offer our selves as living sacrifices. No other sacrifice but our whole lives is worthy of the God who sacrificed everything to save us.