11-30-25 - The LORD Is His Inheritance

This morning, we're gonna be studying back in Deuteronomy where Moses describes the Levitical responsibilities, the priests, what they were supposed to do while they were in the wilderness. There were three things that they were tasked with. The first was to carry the the Ark of the Covenant. The second was to serve the Lord, to stand and serve the Lord. And the third was that they ought to bless people in his name.

These three things, that's what the Levites were supposed to do. We're going to focus on these tasks. It's not the whole of our text. There's that's probably the first half of our text. Passage are, explanations of these tasks or just concluding remarks.

And we'll deal with those in turn. But the majority of our time is going to be dealt with, looking at those three tasks that were given to the lie. As we study this passage, my hope is that God will use this sermon to help us to, As we study this passage, my hope is that God will use this sermon to help us to be grateful for those that fulfill these duties. It's necessary work. And I also pray that he would convict us to be about this work ourselves, that it's not just other people's work.

But if you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses eight through a tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord, to serve him, and to bless in his name until this day. Therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers. Just as the Lord your God spoke to you. I, moreover, stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Like the first and the Lord and the Lord and the Lord was not willing to destroy.

Last week was that the Israelites were not or the Levites were not set apart because of their righteousness because they were better than their brothers. They were chosen, and God basically just, according to his own providence, just decided he was going to draw a line and say, these people will do this work and none of the rest of you will. And it was

meant, generally to teach them obedience.

And it was meant, generally to teach them obedience. But today, we're going to look a little more fully at this appointment of the Levites to carry, the arc and to do these other things. Pass is that God does set apart certain people to do certain things. Not everybody is interchangeable. Certain authority and a certain, responsibility that comes along with this, this work.

And it was God who conferred that responsibility and that authority

on them. And so we see that men don't decide for themselves. And so we see that men don't decide for themselves. And so we see that men don't decide for themselves.

And so we see that men don't decide for themselves. And so we see that men don that men don't decide for themselves that they have authority to do things. Okay? It's pointed to them. This is a thing I've said.

I know I feel like I say it all the time, but I don't know how often I actually say it. I think it a lot. This idea of who has responsibilities and, with those responsibilities the authority to, perform them is something that people don't just grab and take to themselves.

And

so and so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna show up and I'm just gonna walk into the back of the tire shop and I'm gonna start pulling tires off of cars or tires off of rims. What would happen if you did that? Pretty quickly, someone would be like, hey, what are you what are you doing? Right? If someone walked into your workplace and sat down at the desk next to you, or strapped on a tool belt and started doing things, you know, your job next to you, you'd be like, what are you do?

Why are you here and what are you Oh, hey, great. This I strangers doing my job for. And

peer?

What's he supposed to you know, we'd want to know all the details because we understand that that responsibility and the authority to execute that responsibility is something that those in authority delegate. You be here at this time. You do this job. And that's what's going on here with the Levites. They were appointed.

And so when you see men, I give you you know, it's a silly example to say that someone would walk into a place where they don't work and just start doing the job. It's kind of, you know, laughable. But I use that example to say men don't make these decisions for themselves. The Israelites didn't decide that they would carry the arc. The text tells us that the Lord set them a to do this.

Exercising spiritual authority without an they are usurping and undermining the authority of Because if you give if you give spiritual authority in your life to someone who's never been appointed, called, or trained to that work, That's not to say that someone who's not appointed, trained, and called to the work can't be right. And the I think a lot of times today, what we evaluate based on whether the the we take we take a statement and we say, well, if it's true, then I then yes. And if it's wrong,

then then, yes.

And if it's wrong, then to say or to say or

to say or to say or to say or

to say or it. Right. If someone just walked up here and decided they would start preaching to you. Like if, if, if, you know, they tied me up in a back room and air I suppose if I don't know how many of us they'd have to tie up, but just just presume that they could they could that some stranger just walked up and said, I'm gonna preach to you this morning. What would your disposition be toward that?

Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah. What do you have to say? Who are like, who are you and what why like, am I I don't think I'm gonna listen to you.

And that would be a right impulse. When we have guest preachers or or someone, coming in that you don't know, we Make a point of introducing them. Who they are, where they're from, what their experience is. And really what we're doing is making the case that that you ought to listen to them. There are people we wouldn't let come and be preaching our pulpit because we think, no, they're not, they're not who we want to be caring for.

And so this work is a work that God does. He sets apart, work world. We can see it in the church. The Levites were set apart by God for this. And the story they were supposed to do was carry the arc with them.

I noted in a previous was carry the arc with them. I noted in a previous sermon that the first lesson we ought to learn is that that means that God's word ought to travel with God's people and be honored among them. Whenever the Levites or whenever Israel would break camp and go through, to go through the wilderness, there was a a very deliberate and specific procession. Certain tribes were to go first. Certain tribes were to go second.

Certain tribes were to go third. There was five groups. The third group was the Levites. That's where the the tabernacle and the the ark of the covenant and all that was supposed to travel. It was supposed to travel in the middle, in the heart of the people.

And so since God's word was to travel with his people in the Old Testament, in the heart of the people, and to be honored among them, so it ought also to be with us. They were to honor that word. And And it's kind of a strange thing if you were to think about how how what kind of access they had to it. Though it traveled in in the in this box, they weren't none of them were allowed to touch it. Upon pain of death, they were not allowed to touch the arc.

Of the sanctuary and and and who can go in

there.

And so there are access to the word, the law of God, was restricted. They couldn't get to it. They couldn't open it, touch it, see it, taste it, was away from them. And so do we have more knowledge of it? One.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your might. These words, teach them diligently to your sons, and you shall talk to them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign in your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You You shall write them on your doorpost of your house and on your gate. God's words were supposed to to to saturate the lives of his people.

Now they couldn't have access to the literal tablets. It was all come through the, through the, the, the mouth of prophets, often by direct revelation from God. But they were to listen, and they were to remember, and they were to hear, and they were to orient toward the word of God. What have you What do you What can you point to in your life where you say, I would not do this. Or I

would not be

inclined to do it. If God hadn't said to do

it.

It's maybe you've got something in your mind. You're like, I do this thing. This is what God says. And it doesn't make sense. It's in the world's eyes, it's actually counterproductive or backwards or inefficient.

Some of you guys love efficiency. It was inefficient. Here's an example. Having kids. Why do you have kids?

Why do you have a second kid and a third kid? It's because it's easy. It's because it's it's it's no disruption.

Why

do you have why do you, why do you desire these things? Like what, what makes you different than the world who says, well, we don't want you. Why do you want convenient. It does not bolster your pride, at least as your kids get older, it will, it will not bolster your pride. And dwarvenicate before you get married.

Once you live together before you get married. Why do you give 10% of your money to the

Why do you give 10% of your money to the Why do you give 10% of

your money to the ask for forgiveness? Why do you acknowledge your faults? Now, I realize some people say they're sorry who aren't Christians.

Why do

you do those things? You do those things. Because God tells us that we ought to do those. Guardian light and a filter for all of our lives. How anyone can do that.

Okay. But if God says that we ought to do it, then we ought to do it. Well, I have to find a way to do it. When we have priorities in our lives, well, I wanna make a bunch of money. Well, I wanna have a fancy house.

Well, I wanna be a millionaire. Maybe you're young enough you realize I wanna be a multimillionaire because being a millionaire won't be good enough by the time you're old enough. Why? Why do you want that? None of us does any does anyone aspire to be poor?

Does anyone say, you know what? I wanna I I sure hope Social Security works out because that's my plan. Okay. Go make your money. Go be wise with it and go be a good steward of it.

Us? Do we ever say, you know what? We're doing fine. We're going to make more money so that we can give it away. I mean, not like just a tithe, but we're gonna give away a lot of money.

When I first, first started going to church years and years ago, there was this guy who was in my small group, this black single guy. He's probably I was in my early twenties. He was probably in his early thirties. He wasn't married, and he worked he did something with computers. He made good money.

And what he did was live on a third of his income. Like disciplined himself quite I mean that was not a comfortable living for him. He he lived on a third and he gave a third to his church, a third of his income. Stories that he thought were worth

and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a

and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is a and this is

a and this

is a and and this place. And somehow this guy decided that he was going to live, like, he that it was enough for him, that he had other priorities. And it's like, do we know anybody like that? Now maybe we do and we don't know that they're like that because they're humble and they don't tell us. I don't remember how that man, his name was Charles.

I don't remember how I found that out. He was probably telling me I needed to be generous and used his self as an example. But it's incredible. But it's incredible. I mean, think about your own life and your own your own priorities and where you hope to get.

Like, how far behind would Charles be compared to what you plan to do? Why did he do that? I've told you guys about the blue letter blue have you guys heard of Blue Letter Bible? I know some of you have. Blue Letter Bible.

That's what I use. I Eric uses Logos, so he's he's fancy. But you use the free free or cheap version, though. Anyway, I use Blue Letter Bible. I really like it.

The guy who who underwrote that project goes to church at, Andrew Dion's church. And he just paid for it to get up on off the ground. He's a computer guy. He made a he made a bunch of money in California back when I don't know when. And, he just decided that that was a good a good resource.

And if you've ever if you haven't gone on on there, you should go on there. There are cross references and the commentaries and all there's a ton of ton of resources. I think it's better than bible gateway and all these other things in terms of its its its usefulness. And he just had the money and so he just he just underwrote it. And it wasn't a business venture.

The story is he's actually pretty poor now. He's pretty cash poor. All of his money is tied up in his foundation. Millions and millions of dollars that they're they work to give away to things. But as far as he he's concerned, he made his money and he doesn't have a whole lot of it left.

His money is actually pretty tight. And so he stopped by here a few weeks ago. No. No. I didn't know he was coming.

I don't think you, Eric, knew he was coming. We're both here. I was in a meeting and he stopped by. He says, I wanna take the pastor out for lunch. I was like, well, I'm gonna I never actually met him.

I was in a meeting. So he took Eric he and his wife took Eric out for lunch and Eric got to get to know him and had a good time. Very interesting guy from what what Eric tells me. Do you have any taste for being that if you if you have ambition to go make a bunch of money, do you have any any taste for doing that kind of thing with it? I'm gonna go make millions and millions of dollars so that I can give away millions and millions of dollars and actually go without myself so that I can give to other things.

Now, we seem like we're far afield. Right? We're talking about the Levites carrying the ark. Word of God was treated as whole by them and that their lives ought to have been governed by it. And I've given you a few examples with regard to money of how some people set set out to do this thing area.

And I use money because it's it's dear to all of us and we all have very we're all very private about it and we all have very we're all very sensitive to it. Generous and who give away and who sat who give away not out of their just out of their abundance, but out of but it cuts into their life. It cuts into their futures for the sake of building the kingdom. And so the Bible ought to be preeminent. The scriptures ought to be preeminent in our thinking and in our priorities in our life.

It will cause you to do things that are out of step with the rest

of

the world. You'll do strange things that no one will be able to make any sense of. Whether that's having getting married young or having a bunch of kids or or or being crazy generous. Our personal lives, our public lives, our political ideologies should be governed by the word of God. Cuts across me personally.

It cuts across like my view of society and my place in it. It cuts across my, what I think, political. Read and I go, I don't know how to reconcile that with what I think would be wise. I don't know how to reconcile it. And So at that point I have a choice.

I have

to say, okay, so I'm either just going to go with I have to go with what scripture says and sort that out and say that's going to be the guiding light. Or I have to say this is what makes sense to me. And scriptures Gonna have to get in line behind it. And scriptures

Gonna have to get in line behind it. And Gonna have to get in line behind it. And Gonna have to

get in line behind it. And

question is, do we filter

our lives and build our lives through scripture? Or do we filter scripture through our life's priorities and our own logic or expedience? I kind of chuckle sometimes when I see people use the bible to justify some point they're making and then in another place where it's like the bible doesn't agree with them, we never it never disciplines them. It always encourages them. And I'm like, you're a dishonest fella.

It's only important to you when, when it serves your purpose. So God's word is holy, and God's word ought to, to govern our lives. It ought to go with us everywhere. That was the Levites job. So who does that work belong to today?

All of this has been the Levites work. Like, they were to carry it. They were to possess it. They were to teach it. They were the ones if there was any access to it, they were the only ones who had access to it.

Scripture like that? Well, I come to church to get taught what the Bible says. I hope not. You have access to it, right? You all have Bibles.

You all have questions about Bibles when you read it. This work that the priests were given to exclusively has been opened up to all of us. Verse, six. Verse one is probably familiar to you. He says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflictive.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and freedom to the prisoners. Now that is a text that we, we read in reference to Jesus Christ. He is the fulfillment of that. Priest that messiah will be like. And he says, but you But you will be called the priest of the Lord.

What's that mean? About that belong to the Levites, that Isaiah was prophesying that there would be a time when all of that stuff that they're supposed to do would be the duty not just of the Levites or not just of the pastors, but of all the depots. That it's not just the and responsibility to know these things and be governed in this way. But that each one of us, No. He's talking to the people.

He says, you are these things. And then he says, so that you may proclaim the excellency is of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous. And so, Peter, duties that belongs to the priests in the Old Testament now belong to them. And so if you're lazy spiritually, if you go, well, I'm not I'm not a

theologian. Okay.

I busy. I realize you've got responsibilities. I realize excuses. But you should know and it's And I should evaluate whether it is based

You

know, when you get mad, you yell and raise your voice and lose your temper. You know how passionate you feel? How how how how necessary it feels? It's wrong. It's wrong.

But it feels so necessary in the moment. You can't conceive of doing anything else. And so I'm not saying you have to you should always be silent. But But I am saying there are times when you should be silent and times when it really doesn't seem like silence is the right answer. You go, you know, but scripture and Jesus did this thing and the Bible says in life.

I have to wrestle, wrong. And they can all be wrong. So we should be careful to carry the word of the Lord along with us into every situation, because we're priests who've been entrusted with this privilege. They ought to govern what we say and what we think and what we do. That's the first task.

They were to carry the arc. And so a We just saw how God opened up the priestly responsibilities to all of us. But it's worth noting that he didn't abolish the priesthood when he did it. Pastors now. We still have particular men who stand and serve us.

We still need pastors and elders and deacons to do their work. Instruct us and to keep us from sin. We need them the gospel to be proclaimed by men who've been set apart for that work in particular. So we have to we have this responsibility and this need. In our, in our understanding of the word, and we still need those to instruct us.

Why do we still need men to

instruct us?

I don't know. I don't know. Because we're not as good at the things that we're supposed to do as we might hope. We still need to be taught. The difficulty of of young men is and young women, of youth, is that they lack life experience, and therefore they think that they're that they know a lot more than they do.

And you don't just outgrow that with age. I've seen young men who are wise beyond their years. And I've seen old men that teenage boys would put to shame. You outgrow that by being taught. You outgrow that by submitting yourself to the discomfort of being trained, of being your

bitter.

You're anxious. You're proud. We want more than a gold star. We want to we want to be treated as though we have arrived. Not just that we've made a little bit of progress, taken a step.

We want to be we want to cross the finish line as though we have we have gotten there. And so we need people to cheer us on, to discipline us, to push us, to correct us, to guide us, to encourage us along the way. Men's group yesterday morning. Is that there there are times when encouragement, not rebuke, but encouragement, comes to you and you weren't expecting it. And it gets through all your defenses and it just lands right in your heart.

And you're like, really? Because you know they meant it. Part of what pastors are for. And elders. It's not only our job to tell you you're wrong.

We'll come to the part about blessing the people in God's name, which is more of an somewhat of an explanation of this. But we are not meant to live and pursue God and live our lives in isolation. And when we're young and we're strong and our bodies don't hurt and

we haven't it's got the perspective

of our of our foolishness yet. We can got the perspective of our, of our foolishness yet. We think I'll live on my own. I'll do the things in my way. But what's going to become of all the people who haven't had kids when they're 50 and 60 and 70 years old?

Who's going to go to their

Thanksgivings? Where what are they going to they're

going to have Friendsgivings, the rest of their life.

Where what

are they gonna they're gonna have Friendsgivings the rest of their life. And who's gonna come to their funeral? No one, because they have not made anyone to love them. So Israel still needed instruction. They needed to be taught.

Into the wilderness with a map and a and a and a arrival date and go. God guided them. Pillar of cloud and this expound and teach them the word of God. Just as we have pastors and elders and deacons to do that for us now. You ever wondered why the Levites weren't given land?

I've always kind of wondered why the Levites weren't given land. Our text actually answers that it says, therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers, and it comes after these tasks. And what it says is that you need these people and that they not they need to not be all holed up in a in Jerusalem or wherever, but they need to be dispersed. So they just have to go and live with you. They have to go and live among you so that they can do these things for you.

We need we need this and And so they don't get land of their own where they can be concentrated, but they're spread abroad for the benefit of all the people. And so that teaches us that God wants his people to be taught

his word regularly. So the Levites had to go live among them. And so

the Levites had to go live among What does it mean to bless the people in his name? Benediction. But it talks about blessing. Number six twenty two to 27, it says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and to his sons saying, thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. So we want to know how are you what does it mean to bless the people?

Here we are. Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance you and give you peace.

So they shall invoke my name on the sons of Israel and then I will draw This is a benediction. It's a

it's a

proclamation of the goodness of God, but it's also a prayer. Because he's the Lord says at the end, so they shall invoke my name, and then I will bless them. And so this blessing was tied directly to the things that the that the priests would have said and the things they would have done in teaching and instructing the people. Do you struggle to see the blessings of God in your life? Come at it another way.

No. I do. I can see some of them. If you ask me what the blessings, I could I could list off a dozen of

them.

But do I live like they're there? Do I take them for granted? All kinds of ditches, potholes along the road. When something difficult happens in your life, some suffering, some burden, do you see the blessing then? We struggle to see the blessing then.

And so we need devote themselves to blessing us, to guiding us, to showing us, to, to, to, to, to opening up our vision to see more than what's right in front of us. Look at our lives through through binoculars. Through the one thing we're looking at. We miss all the context. And so we need those who are going to walk with us and help us to process through and see the blessing of God each day of our lives.

In Acts chapter six, this is one of the things that that that that was in danger. That's why they appointed deacons. There's all this this physical need that, was going on. The the the widows needed to be fed. They need there was these there's tasks that needed to be cared for.

And so they cast lots and they and then they they they they identified men and they appointed them in deacons. Why? Why couldn't the apostles do it? They're preaching. They weren't fit to wait tables.

It was beneath them, right? No. It wasn't beneath them. Their task was to be devoted to prayer and to the ministry of the word, to blessing the people. Deacons were appointed

at that time so

that the apostles could be single-minded in that work. Could be single-minded in that work. Do you know how many people pray for you every week? If you fill out just just just leaving small group, men's group, and just organic conversation aside. If you fill out a connection card, do you know how many people pray for you in a week?

The email that I send out has so many people, so many of you on it. And if you don't get the email and you want to get the email, There's a lot of people who pray for you. One of my primary joys is getting that email from Bethany on Mondays. Cause we have prayer meetings that start on Tuesdays and so she faithfully sends me the the the she compiles all the prayer requests and then she sends them to to Eric and to and then I put it all together with prayer requests from the daycare. And And I put it together with sometimes we're starting starting to get prayer weekly prayer requests from Evangel Presbytery.

And I compile it all together, and I read through it all, and I pray through it all, and I send it out to you guys. And then I go to prayer meeting. And we pray and there goes a prayer meeting, and he prays. And then a few days later, Eric goes to another prayer meeting, and he prays. It's really sweet.

And so the Levites bless the people. They were to interpret God's providence to them. They were to encourage them and strengthen them and give them And part of the reason we need this is because when we look for God's blessings, where do we look for them? We look for them in our daily life. We look at the we look at the we look at sickness and we judge whether God's blessing us or cursing us.

If we get sick, we go, something must be wrong. God must be upset. And then And so the lieveites were to instruct the people in this manner, who bless them, to strengthen them, to We can get so, so sucked into our present circumstances that we can't see any. Jesus came to our present circumstances that

we can't see anything else. We forget that we're sinners.

We forget that he died when we he didn't deserve to. We just don't think about it. We don't we don't set that on the other side of the scales of our sufferings

and go, you know, he laid aside his glory. And go, you know, he laid

aside his glory. And he laid aside his glory. And he came and lived among us. Like the situation that I'm in right now, he was in this type of situation

worse than this. For me, he didn't have to go through it. For me, he didn't have to go through it. For me, he didn't have to go through it. For me, he didn't

have to go through it. For Sometimes we need to be reminded and told it. How much has Moses reminded just in these first 10 chapters? How much has he reminded promises of of provision, promises of land, promises of And over. I mean, to the point where when I'm reading it, I'm just like, I can't preach the same sermon again.

Commentaries or read sermons, Calvin when I read Calvin or Matthew Henry, they're always like, well, we've said this multiple times, but here it is again, and there's wisdom in God reminding them so again, and there's wisdom in God reminding them so Yeah. And so, yeah. And so, that's how the the pastors, the elders, blah, blah, blah, blah, as though we saw him in his own. And he opens up heaven, the heavens, to assure us that he loves us, even us, which make war against him. In so that he should utterly mislike us.

And vouchsafes nevertheless to take us into his favor. And make us to feel and in our very deed. By what? He says we welter. So we just kind of sit and stew.

Welter is an old word we don't use. We welter in our own dung even till we do as it were stinking it without any care or regard at all. That's what happens when we suffer. We just get so stuck in it. Such contempt of the gospel and of such unthankfulness as is seen almost everywhere.

So he's describing our condition and how easily we fall away. Yeah, not withstanding. It behooves the faithful Tristan, to consider of how great value, how great of a value it is that God received them, those who are sitting in their own misery. That he received them into mercy and shows himself to be a father to them. Preach his word are as witnesses to certify to us that God bears us such fatherly love.

Truth it is that it was accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ, for he was the only priest. Office upon us, but only to approve and ratify the thing that he did. And therefore, let us mark well that it belongs only to our Lord Jesus Christ to assure us of the love of God. His Yeah. He does this but yet does he also witness it unto us by the mouths of such as are to preach the gospel in his name.

And so there are to be times when you're down and struggling. You be you you all think you're struggling like it's so bad you can't get over it, but it's so small you can't tell anybody about it. And it's stupid. We're we're stupid in that. I do it.

We do it. Right? But when that's going on, it would not be inappropriate. In fact, it would be very appropriate for you to tell the people who love you so that they can bless you. Tell your small group.

Tell your pastors. Call Eric. Text me. Let us know what's going on. Sometimes you guys do it.

And it's it's a it's an encouragement to us and a joy to us to be able to walk with you when you're having a real hard time. And if you've if you've done that with us, you know that you don't always walk away that the problem is not solved. We haven't fixed what's wrong. Sometimes the sorrow or the suffering is still there and it, you know, looks like it's going to be there.

Bless

you and encourage you and help you to press on. That's what it means to be for to bless in the Lord's name. Now I wanna come back. There's two point more points I wanna make in just a few minutes. I wanna come back to this idea that the Levites don't have any land.

Says, therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance just as the Lord your God spoke to him. And I asked you I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago or whenever it was. I said, do you think the Levites got a raw deal? Like, would you be excited if all of your brothers got land and an inheritance and you didn't?

You probably think this isn't this isn't very fair. What does the Lord give the Levites? He doesn't give them land, but he does make sure that they're provided for through the tithes and the offerings of the people they serve.

When he

sets the Levites apart to this work, he frees them up from the normal cares and duties of all of the other people. He doesn't just take something away from them. He does provide for them. And he provides for them materially through those that they care for spiritually. The Levites are not supposed to spend their lives making a living off the land as everyone else was doing.

Rather, they were to be sustained through the offerings of the people. If they had had to work in addition if they had had to work the land in addition to preaching and praying, the work of preaching and praying would suffer. It wouldn't be done as as well. They wouldn't be distracted by serving the widow's tables like like the apostles were in Act six, but they would be distracted by where are we gonna get the winner food. Relationship be honored on both sides.

The Levites, you're told many times that the Levites, when they would go the wicked Levites, what would they do with the offerings? They'd go and they'd take more than their portion. Right? They'd stick their fork into the pot and pull out the stuff that wasn't for them. They would they would they were greedy and they were a burden to the people and it was a it was an it was offensive to God.

Ought not to do that sort of thing, but the people ought also to make sure that the Levites were cared for, because it was in their best interest for the Levites to be sustained. And so there's a responsibility on both sides of the pastures not to be greedy, and of the people not to be stingy. Presbyterians like to use fancy words, big long sentences, and they do things very formally. We do things very formally. And so I want to read to you an excerpt from a letter of call.

Okay? So when a pastor gets called to a church, we don't just say, hey, hey, you want to be a pastor? Yeah, sure. And then it's done. In Presbyterian polity, there's this back and forth between the Presbyterian and the church, and there's votes, and then there's votes, and then there's confirmations, and all this type of stuff.

Well, one of the things that the church has to do is they have to send a letter of call to the presbytery, and there's a form for it. Because you're like, well, what's a letter of call? This is what a letter of call is. It basically says, we want him to be a pastor and we're going to take care of him because we we think he'll be helpful to us. But they say it like this.

They say the church being on sufficient grounds, well satisfied of the ministerial qualifications of the interest. We do earnestly call you to undertake the pastoral office in this congregation, promising you in the discharge of your duty, all proper support, encourage, and obedience and the law that you may be free from worldly cares and abacations. We promise here by and oblige ourselves to pay you and then they put in whatever they're paying and they outline the past the call. The avocations is tied to what we see going on here with the lie. And so far as she's free of those cares.

And so we both have to everyone has to work together toward that. Just say, well, pastors can just go work out they should they they should, as a matter of principle, just go work make their own income and then come and pass through. Why would that be less desirable? It happens in a lot of churches because the churches don't have money for it and that's a separate situation. But why would that be less desirable?

It goes back to what I said earlier. We need to be governed by what scripture says, and scripture says that a pastor ought to to be free from those things so that he's able to give himself wholly to the Paul says in the New Testament, he who preaches

the gospel and also to make

his living by the gospel. The gospel out also to make his living by the It makes things it comes with, prickles. Because whenever money is involved, there's prickles, you know? Both sides. And so why do we do it this way?

Because we believe that that's the way God's ordained it to be. And so far as we're able to do it, we should. He doesn't get to build wealth on his own, but he's to share in the wealth and the abundance of God's blessing on all of the people he serves. Moses ends. He says, I moreover stayed on the mountain forty days and nights like the first time.

Lord listened to me at that time also, and Lord was not willing to destroy. Zero. And Moses said, no. If you have to destroy these people because of their sins, then blot my name out of the book. On the mountain, and I was praying, interceding for you after, remember, after they made the golden calf, and he smashed the tablets, then he prayed, and many of them were struck down.

It's still an open question of whether or not When you see their sinfulness and you see God's kindness and these words, he's not going to destroy you. Basis, the way you sin or or obey is is influencing and directing how God's dealing with you. If that if those were actually the terms, you won't have anything good. A

You've been anyone at that time would have stood up and said, I think he's gonna give us the they could have bet on it. They were just

they could have

a

I bet he still gives us the sla after the leviets had just gone through the camp and killed 3,000 men. I bet he's gonna I bet I bet we're gonna get what he promised us. I can't imagine. I mean, it's I we don't know, but I just can't imagine anybody thinking that way after what's just happened. And yet, God is gracious and merciful to Terrible.

Family. What's son is there whom his father hasn't disciplined? The one who never says he does anything wrong. Well, then he proves that he's not a son. Jesus reasons that a father, even even wicked fathers know how to give their their sons good gifts.

Who comes and asks for a for a loaf of bread and you give him a rock? How to love their children, how much more so our father in heaven? And so confess your sins. Look at this and say, man, that's not what I would have done. They read this and go, that's nothing like me, but it should be like me.

Lord help me to be like that. To be a dad and a husband and a wife and a mother like that. And thank you, Lord, for setting that example to me personally of love in the midst of my sin. Let's pray.