John 8:34-36 “Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

There are few things worse than living in a state of denial. Not only do you have the harm and damage caused by some problem in your life. You have the additional obstacle of not being able to see it. You can’t start to fix it until you recognize it.

For example, the “bump” you feel keeps getting bigger and more painful. Maybe there’s even more than one now. But cancer isn’t an option, and you won’t see the doctor.

You insist that you only drink to relax a little. It’s not really that much, and you can stop any time you like. But you can’t imagine a day, much less a life, without it, and the empty bottles are overflowing your dumpster on trash pick-up day.

Do you sin? Every hand has to go up. If we think we are free, then why don’t we just stop? Sometimes people may muster all their strength and courage and manage to put a stop to one sin in their life. They will get past their addictions, clean up their language, stop sleeping around, or put a stop to some other vice. Then pride grows in place of their vice–I mean the ugly arrogance that is full of oneself. Love may still be lacking by and large. Sin runs deeper than the bad behaviors we see on the surface.

Some people will even redefine sin in order to avoid Jesus’ diagnosis. A visitor to a Bible insisted that she had stopped sinning years ago. A little exploration of the subject made clear that she was not willing to consider any bad thoughts or attitudes as sins. Anything we might classify sexual sin was “just some people’s interpretation.” It’s hard to lose the game when you get to change the rules as you go along.

If we are honest, we can’t duck Jesus’ diagnosis: we are slaves to sin by nature. Don’t we find ourselves in the same struggle as the Apostle Paul, “The good that I want to do, I don’t do. The evil that I don’t want to do, that is what I keep on doing.” People speak of “free will,” but it would be better to say we are “self-willed.” Our “self” has been twisted and bent by sin. We are all inclined in a certain direction. That’s not real freedom anymore.

Here’s the problem with our slavery: “Now a slave has no permanent place in the family.” What is Jesus’ saying? What does it mean to lose your place in the family of God? It’s the same as losing your place in heaven. It’s Jesus’ gentle way of saying, “Your sin has earned you a place in hell.”

Thankfully, there is more to the story. Jesus promises: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Earlier, Jesus promised this freedom through the truth he teaches. Sometimes people say “The truth will set you free” as an encouragement not to lie. Everyone knows how one lie has to be covered by another. Soon you can’t remember exactly how your own story goes. Each new lie adds a bar to the cage you have built around yourself. But the truth, however painful, will set you free. This observation may be true, but that’s not what Jesus is means in this case.

The truth Jesus has in mind teaches about where we stand with God. It starts with the truth that we sin, and we are slaves to sin. But it is so much more than that.

Jesus teaches us the truth about God’s grace. Even more, “…if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus makes grace possible. He made our freedom happen. Mere months after he spoke these words, he was going to return to Jerusalem. The city would welcome as a King, but in less than a week they condemned him as a criminal. They crucified an innocent man whose only crime was that he loved them enough to tell them the truth.

On the cross, he loved us still more. He carried our crimes with him and the sins and crimes of the whole world. He let his heavenly Father forsake him, as though he was the one who needed to be banished from the family for his sin. He let death take him there as though he was the world’s one and only sinner. By his suffering and death, he satisfied all the debt we owed because of our sin.

That means we are no longer spiritual prisoners sitting on the devil’s death row. We are restored sons in God’s everlasting family. Here is Jesus’ truth: the Son has set us free.

Luke 6:22-23 “Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.”

If you had lived in Jesus’ day, would you have sided with the conservatives or the liberals?

On the conservative side were the Pharisees. They were the ones concerned about upholding the whole Bible. They were concerned about promoting good morals. They worked hard at teaching people how to live a godly lifestyle.

On the liberal side were the Sadducees. They were the ones who were progressive in their thinking. They were in tune with the culture. They had a vision for a better society through creative thinking and an acceptance of people and ideas from other cultures.

Does it surprise us that Jesus didn’t become cozy with either one? To be sure, Jesus once said of the Pharisees, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything tell you.” But in the next breath he continues, “But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:2-4). The Pharisees may have gotten the moral issues right much of the time, but theirs was a burdensome and graceless religion. It lacked the power to help people do the right thing. It was devoid of love—either God’s love for us, or true love for one another.

Jesus insisted on sticking with the truth, even if that meant that he was taking a very lonely position. It made him unpopular with the major movements of his day. Eventually, it led to his crucifixion.

Those who follow Jesus still find that sticking to the truth can put one in a very lonely position. More and more, confessing what the Bible has to say brings the disapproval of those around us.

When Bonnie Witherall was murdered in Lebanon for her missionary work fifteen years ago, even fellow Christians criticized her for evangelizing. One Christian leader compared her to a terrorist, complaining, “She was in the habit of gathering the Muslim children of the quarter and preaching Christianity to them while dispensing food and toys and social assistance” (Christianity Today, Feb. 2003).

Is telling people that Jesus is the Way to heaven a form of terrorism? The churchman quoted wasn’t alone in his evaluation. Similarly, the book titled When Religion Becomes Evil lists five signs that religion has become corrupt. Among the five signs: “absolute truth claims.” Apparently the one who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth…” was starting a corrupt religion.

We should not be surprised if faithfulness to our Savior’s words meets with the same kind of disapproval. Jesus warned that those who disturb the peace by defending the truth of the gospel would be unpopular. But then, he promises that those who do so enjoy some fine company. “That is how their fathers treated the prophets.” That’s how they treated Jesus, too.

Ephesians 5:8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”

Every proud parent has high expectations for his offspring. In the Disney movie The Lion King there is that scene in which the hero Simba is confronted by the ghost of his father Mufasa. Mufasa tells him that he is disappointed in him, because “You are more than what you have become.” The point is: Simba is living his life as a goof-off instead of assuming the responsibilities he should be performing as the rightful king.

Perhaps your parents played on a sense of family-pride to get you to live up to their expectations. “A Jones doesn’t give up when things don’t go your way.” Or maybe you’ve seen parents try to blame the other side of the family tree when Junior started showing character flaws.

Our Lord also has high expectations of us when we become his children and members of his family by faith. But he doesn’t rely on New Age psychology, or guilt trips, or family pride to encourage us to reach toward his goals. He takes us back to his grace. He helps us understand who we are, what he has made us.

At one time you were darkness. For the Christians in the city of Ephesus, people who grew up Gentiles worshiping the ancient Greek and Roman gods, this had been their condition for the majority of their lives. They grew up worshiping the wrong god. They grew up learning to excuse or accept behaviors that were sinful and destructive. They grew up in fear, never certain that their gods cared for them now, or where they were going when they died.

For some of us, our time in darkness may have been relatively short. But all of us were once darkness, if only from birth to Baptism. Even now, the darkness lurks within. And so today, things that should be condemned and fill people with disgust or horror are insisted upon as rights. Filthy talk is called a sense of humor. Greed is called healthy ambition or a good work ethic. Self-righteous, self-promoting busybodies are described as pious or devout. God condemns it all as darkness.

And that is what we were. But now, Paul says, you are light in the Lord. Now the light of God’s love, and the light of God’s truth, is shining on us and shining in us. The light of God’s word has shown us that God is not some moody, vicious monster we must constantly pay off to make him like us. He is the God who freely gives. He freely gave his own Son in payment for our sins. He freely gives forgiveness no matter how great the sin, no matter how poor the sinner. He freely makes us his own children. He freely invites us to receive and enjoy all the blessings of our home with him. The light of such love and truth change the way everything looks to us. That light pierces into our own hearts, making them the home of our Savior and his light by faith.

That truth has highest importance for eternity. It means that after we die, we will rise again to live with God forever. We will ever bask in the beautiful, warming, joy-giving light of his love in heaven.

But it also means something for us right now, which is more to Paul’s point in these verses. You are light in the Lord. That light of God’s love and truth, light which showed you how all your sins were taken away and why God considers you holy and precious, that light also lives in you. You have something new that you didn’t have before. You have the power of God’s love in Christ living in you, a new source of life and strength, so that you can live as children of the light, starting today.

Deuteronomy 1:29-31 “Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

Moses spoke these words to Israel when God led them to the Promised Land the first time. They were afraid to go in and take it because the people who lived there looked like giants to them. So long as we are fixated on the giants in our way we will be afraid to move forward. But following our God is not a reason to be afraid. It is a reason to trust his promises.

God’s first promise in these words is one we may not recognize at first. It looks more like a command. “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid…” Those words are meant to do more than confront us. They are meant to reassure us. They say more than “Stop that!” They say, “You don’t have to be afraid. The Lord is on your side. He is going to take care of you. He has good things in mind for you.” He goes on to explain what those good things are.

“The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did in Egypt…” Did Israel think that they had gotten out of Egypt because of their own ingenuity? Was it the overwhelming force of Israel’s armies that persuaded the Pharaoh to let them go? Wasn’t Israel rather practically passive while the Lord sent the Ten Plagues, divided the waters of the Red Sea, and then drowned the armies of Egypt?

When in history have God’s People ever succeeded because of their own great strength? God’s power gave Abraham’s little company of servants victory over the combined armies of five kings. Gideon’s band of 300 achieved victory over 100,000 Midianites only because of God’s help. Only the Lord’s intervention made it possible for Hezekiah’s little group of defenders to break Assyria’s siege of Jerusalem.

When the Lord wanted to give us victory over sin, death, and Satan, he didn’t send us into battle by ourselves and tell us, “Go get ‘em.” He didn’t involve us in the battle at all. He made himself as weak as possible. He burdened himself with full responsibility for our guilt. He died in our place. Yet by his death he crushed Satan, completely obliterated all record of our sin, and then shattered death by rising to life once again.

It doesn’t work differently for us today just because a couple thousand years have passed. We can follow him confidently because we can still trust his promises to fight for us today. Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. Church history is a demonstration of this truth. Our personal histories are as well.  

The future will bear this out, too. His gospel, not our efforts, will be the power of salvation for everyone who believes. His Word, not our cleverness, will accomplish what he desires and achieve the purpose for which he sent it. So long as we continue to take the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, out of its sheath and let it speak; so long as we will not be ashamed of his Word, but preach and teach the whole counsel of God and let it do its work, our God will not be behind us cheering us on. He will go before us. He will fight for us. He will lead us as we carry his salvation to our world. We have every reason to trust his promises.

Matthew 11:25-30  “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

When something makes us very happy, we often have to show it with mouth or body. Maybe you have seen commercials for lottery tickets. The people in those commercials are dancing around because they are so happy they won. Maybe you have heard songs on the radio with lines like, “You make me want to shout,” or “You make me feel like dancing.” Sometimes people even say, “I’m so happy I could cry.”

Jesus tells us that people learning and believing God’s word makes him so happy he has to worship! That’s what he says in these words from Matthew’s gospel. You and I make Jesus praise the Lord, because we know things hidden from the wise, we know our heavenly Father, and we know Jesus’ rest.

During our school years we want to master mathematics, reading, history, grammar, and science, among other subjects. Those serve us well in adult life, though we may question the practical importance of some. But none of those things teaches us the most important thing we need to learn in our youth.

Many students have learned those lessons well across the years. It helped them become very successful in their careers. Some made lots of money. Some were considered very smart. But some thought they were so smart that they were smarter than God himself. They didn’t think they needed to listen to what God has to say anymore. They imagined they could make up their own ideas about right and wrong, where we come from, and where we are going when we die. God didn’t hide the truth from them. They heard about it, even read it for themselves. But the truth was so simple, so pure, and so clear that they wouldn’t believe it. It wasn’t “smart” enough for them. And God was not going to change the truth just because they thought they were too smart to believe it. It was hidden from them only because they refused to believe it.

I can’t think of any sin as dangerous as thinking that we are smarter than God. Once we think we are smarter than him about one thing, what’s to prevent us from thinking that we are smarter than him about everything else? Then we stop believing in him. Still, that’s what we do every time we sin. We think that we are so smart because we don’t believe what God has to say about some behavior, and we do what we want to do. That’s a good way to lose your faith.

God has kept us from falling so far in his grace. At church or reading our Bibles, we still hear him speaking to us in his word. Then we are the children to whom the Father reveals these things. Jesus praised the Lord because simple Christians like us know things from God’s word that have been hidden from the wise.

But what is it that we know? Jesus goes on to say, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

 Do you understand what he is saying? If we listen to what he tells us, then we will know our heavenly Father. Even more, that is the only way we can know him. Jesus must introduce us to him.

Knowing the Father doesn’t mean we will know about him like we know about great men of history. He doesn’t mean that we will learn about him like we learn how algebra works, or what makes igneous rocks different from sedimentary rocks.

When we know God as our Father, when we pray to him as “Our Father who art in heaven,” then we know him like we know our parents, siblings, or best friend. We know him personally, intimately in a way that has nothing to do with how smart we are. Even little children who know God this way know more than many wise and learned people. Knowing God so makes us praise him just as Jesus praises him here.

When we know God so personally, we also know that Jesus gives us rest. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 Learning to know God in the Bible, learning to know Jesus, can involve hard work: studying, pondering, memorizing. But Jesus doesn’t invite us to know him to pour more work on us. He intends to lift something from us. He takes away the burden of our sins and our guilt. He shows us that God loved us so much he spent thousands of years making a way for us to be saved and go to heaven. Jesus did all the work for our sins to be forgiven with his perfect life and his death on the cross. In one way or another, everything we hear, learn, or memorize from the Bible helps us know and understand this better. We know that Jesus gives us rest, rest for our souls, and that is an easy “burden” to carry.

Knowing God this way is so simple that even a child can do it. It fills our hearts with his blessing, and Jesus’ heart with praise.

Mark 10:41-45 “When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus does not want his church on earth to be a rudderless ship. It needs leaders. He gives it leaders, like these 12 men he chose as apostles. In the book of Hebrews we are even urged to obey our spiritual leaders and submit to their authority.

That does not mean he wants us to take our model for leadership in his kingdom from the world around us. “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them.” The disciples understood this all too well from personal experience. They lived under the rule of the Gentile Romans, who did not ask the Jews whether they wanted to be governed. They didn’t work to win their trust or prove their capable and efficient administration. They simply invaded and took over because of their superior military might. It was purely a matter of who had the greater power, who had the ability to force others to submit to their will.

 Our world sees that as a kind of “greatness,” doesn’t it? When Jesus says, “their high officials exercise authority over them,” literally, “high officials” is “their great ones.” Think about the names of world leaders who have had “the great” added to their names: Alexander the Great, Herod the Great, Charlemagne (which is Charles the Great), Peter the Great. Generally, these were men of blood and war who expanded their influence by forcing their will on others. Their greatness came by way of power.

“Not so with you.” Greatness with God’s people is not about having the power to force your will and get your way. The Church throughout the ages has suffered far too much from such a caricature of godly leadership, and those of us who lead should repent for the times that we have tried to use our positions that way. But if not by one’s own force or power, then by what?

“Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Do you want to be great in God’s eyes, playing a key role in God’s plan to save people, being an important part of the work of his kingdom? Then be a slave to all, someone who has completely given up one’s own will, who has stopped thinking about what is best for me and makes me happy, to take care of the needs of others. This does not remove all authority or a godly chain of command from the church. But it does remove the self-seeking spirit of the sinful nature from that work. It follows the path to truly godly greatness, which comes not by power, but by service.

Doing so is following Jesus himself. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus is the very Son of God. Yet when he came into our world he did not throw his weight around. He didn’t use his divine power to control everything that everyone else was doing. He didn’t force people to agree with him or become his disciples. He didn’t expect people to wait on him hand and foot.

He served. He healed. He taught. He pleaded. He loved. He went without sleep. He went without food. He gave away much of the money he received. He won our trust. He proved his love.

Then he gave his life as a ransom for many. Just because God’s view of greatness is such a foreign concept to us, just because I want to bend everyone’s else’s life in service to myself, just because I am so obsessed with the respect and honor I believe are due to me, just because the one area of my life that truly deserves the adjective “great” has to do with my sin, Jesus traded places with you and me. His life given at the cross became the ransom, the price that pays for our sins and sets us free from them.

When we follow Jesus, we can follow him through serving other people. We can follow him in suffering for what we believe. But when we come to his cross, he stops us. “This is as far as you go,” he says. “In order for you to get up there, I will have to trade places with you. Give me your sins and your guilt. I will carry them up on the cross with me. That is the last you or anyone else will ever see them.”  

Then they are gone, forgiven, completely taken away. When God looks down on us from heaven, it looks to him like we have finally achieved greatness, because Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:38-40 “‘Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?’ ‘We can,’ they answered. Jesus said to them, ‘You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.’”

Jesus’ picture of drinking the cup and being baptized with his baptism are obvious pictures of suffering persecution for your faith. He reminds us that he was no stranger to that kind of suffering. You remember that in the Garden of Gethsemane he begged his Father to take the cup of his suffering and death away from him, if possible.

The difference between Jesus’ two pictures illustrates different features of the suffering and persecution we experience for our faith. Drinking a cup of something is an act in which we are active and willing. We take the cup and drink it. In the same way Jesus wants us to be willing to accept the persecution that comes our way when we faithfully hold to our beliefs and practice our faith. We feel the temptation to compromise, to make concessions, and in this way to avoid the ridicule and abuse our faith and Christian life invite. But there can be no godly greatness for those who try to win the world’s acceptance at the expense of Jesus’ word.

Baptism is a passive picture. It isn’t something we do. It is something that happens to us. So it is that we don’t have to go looking for persecution and abuse. If we live lives as Christians, if we give a clear and faithful witness, generous helpings of the world’s hatred and ridicule will find us without our help.

This is what James and John found as apostles of Jesus. The places at Jesus’ right and left hand were not open for them. But they did end up living lives of godly greatness as servants in Jesus’ kingdom. James was the very first of the twelve disciples to give his life for his faith. King Herod put him to death by the sword. John was the last of the disciples to die, but during his long life he was imprisoned at least three times, scourged, and exiled. According to legend, he survived one attempted poisoning.

Today these men are heroes of faith because they followed Jesus to godly greatness. Jesus suffered and died to win our salvation on the cross. These two brothers suffered and died to bring that salvation to the world Jesus came to save.  

Not every Christian will face the extreme persecution James and John suffered. But drinking Jesus’ cup of suffering and receiving his baptism of suffering are unavoidable features of following him. We don’t have to seek them. They will come to us. But we endure them as they did for Jesus’ sake, because they come with the saving grace only he provides.

Mark 10:35-37 “Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask.’ ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ he asked. They replied, ‘Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.’”

Are you into college basketball March Madness? Sixty-four teams, each one trying to survive seven games in a row with the best teams in the country, all for the honor of being crowned national champion. Those young men and women are playing their hearts out for a shot at college basketball greatness.

Do you have your sights set on climbing to the top of your field or perhaps running your own company? Titles like group leader, executive vice president, chairman of the board, chief executive officer mean that we are in a position to give the orders and call the shots. Maybe we slave away at work because we hope to achieve some measure of business and professional greatness.

There is nothing wrong with being a great athlete or businessman, but these fail to capture the kind of greatness Jesus seeks in his kingdom. As he did for his disciples, he sets us straight when we have delusions of grandeur. He shows us that the path to true greatness does not follow worldly standards of glory.

In their own pursuit of greatness with Jesus, James and John were not asking for positions in heaven, at least not primarily. They fully expected that Jesus was going to become a military and political hero in Israel. If Jesus was going to be an earthly king, then James and John wanted the glory of top cabinet positions in his administration. They wanted the earthly perks, luxuries and comforts that come to influential leaders in a human empire.

What did Jesus have to say about this? “You don’t know what you are asking.” The disciples didn’t understand what Jesus’ kingdom was about. At another time he explained to the Pharisees, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation. Nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” His kingdom is spiritual and invisible, not earthly and visible. It deals with matters of faith and salvation.

Maybe we aren’t shooting for first and second place positions as part of God’s kingdom, but we also face the temptation to turn the focus of Christian faith in a worldly direction. We want Christianity to be about enlarging my life here and now. We want it to make life easier, better, more “glorious,” if you will. If we follow what the Bible says about being parents, spouses, children, employees, or citizens we will live more faithful lives. That does not necessarily translate into happier families or more successful careers. Godly greatness does not guarantee us “glory” in our present lives.

The same applies to our service in the church. Faithful work does not necessarily gain us recognition and appreciation. If we are faithful to what God wants, we may even find as much resentment as appreciation. Our recognition and influence may shrink rather than grow.

One youth pastor in Detroit took over a youth program serving over 70 teens. It was obviously popular, but he noticed that there was little Biblical content. He started putting more emphasis on God’s Word, and the attendance went from 70 to 40 to 30 and finally bottomed out around 12– not much glory there.

Sometimes a ministry of subtraction is okay. Jesus lost hundreds of disciples because of his teaching, too. Faithfulness to his word still brings his blessing. We get to live in his love and grace now and can be confident of heavenly glory in the life to come. But following him to godly greatness is not a path to earthly glory.

Leviticus 3:6-8 “If he offers an animal from the flock as a fellowship offering to the Lord, he is to offer a male or female without defect. If he offers a lamb, he is to present it before the Lord. He is to lay his hand on the head of his offering and slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides.”

How many times haven’t you heard faith described in terms of a relationship with God? But what does that mean? I have relationships with all sorts of people– some casual, some intimate; some happy and some strained. Even the devil has a relationship with God, although it isn’t a good one.

Christian writer Eugene Peterson noted that most people who speak of a relationship with God have a mystical emotion in mind. They forget that when we are close to another person, intimacy isn’t something you feel most of the time. It’s often a very ordinary life, a life that involves openness, honesty, sacrifice and giving. It’s a life of knowing someone and being known by them. But it’s not always a powerful experience.

One way the Lord taught his Old Testament people about the kind of relationship he had with them was by means of the sacrificial system. Like just about everything else in their life of worship, the sacrifices were pointing them ahead to the life and work of Jesus. From the sacrifices we learn something about the kind of relationship Jesus gives us with God.

The fellowship offering had two ways of communicating to God’s people that he accepted them. First, the offering dealt with the problem of sin. It is the biggest problem in anyone’s relationship with God. Should that come as a surprise? If love is the fulfillment of God’s law, then sin always involves lovelessness. Isn’t that what causes problems in every other relationship? We fail to love someone else, or they fail to love us, and the relationship is injured or broken.

It’s the same way with God. We fail to love him (he never fails to love us), and the relationship is injured and broken. Unlike a lover’s spat, our broken relationship with God can’t be fixed by an apology and a kiss. We have forfeited our lives. Only if we find a substitute can our own lives be spared.

No animal could serve as a suitable substitute for a person, but in order to impress this need upon his people the Lord set up a whole system of sacrifice. Each sacrifice had a different emphasis. One common feature was an animal giving its life for the worshiper. This transfer of guilt from worshiper to victim was dramatized when the one bringing the offering laid his hands on the head of the animal just before it was slaughtered. “He is to lay his hand on the head of his offering and slaughter it in front of the Tent of Meeting.” In this way God rehearsed his people in their need for someone to die to take away their sins.

 Then God demonstrated the peace and fellowship we have when sins are removed. When I was a child, I thought that most sacrifices involved the entire offering going up in flames. That is not the case. With some sacrifices most of the meat was simply cooked on the altar. It was given to the priests and their families.

With the fellowship offering the meat was also shared with the person who brought the sacrifice. In Leviticus 7, God commands, “The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning.” Does that strike you as significant? Do you sense the Lord commenting about our relationship with him? Unfortunately, the meaning of sharing a meal has been lost on many. Less and less do families sit down and share a meal, much less extend an invitation to others. In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning points out, “For an orthodox Jew to say, ‘I would like to have dinner with you,’ is a metaphor implying, ‘I would like to enter into friendship with you.’”

We seem unlikely candidates to share such a close relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth. In our sin we are worse than strangers at his table. We are enemies. But in the fellowship offering, the Lord of all was inviting sinners to be his guests. We pray in our table prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” But here God himself was saying to his people, “Why don’t you be my guests for a little while. Here, at my table, you can enjoy my peace, my trust, my friendship, and my forgiveness. You can share your lives with me, and I will share my love for you.”

As pointed out, the sacrifice of animals could not actually atone for sin. It only foreshadowed the peace and fellowship of the sacrifice to come. Jesus brought us peace and fellowship with God by taking our sins upon himself and dying for them.

 Then he takes his place with us at another meal in which he is not only the host. He himself is the feast. He doesn’t just sit across the table from us. His body and blood feed us, leaving no space, no separation between us and God whatsoever. How much clearer could it be that our sins are forgiven? How much clearer could it be that our God is our Friend? At the Lord’s Supper the fellowship offering finds fulfillment, and we see Jesus giving us fellowship with God.