Possessed by God
Notes
Transcript
My Aim: I desire for you to set yourself apart for the LORD.
My Aim: I desire for you to set yourself apart for the LORD.
Introduction
Introduction
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord,
In the book of Numbers, we have seen God instruct His people through Moses His messenger. He has instructed them as to who will hold various roles within the camp. He has instructed them in the way they should organize the camp with God’s tent in the middle with the priests camp around His tent, and then the other tribes camped on the perimeter. He has instructed the priest in their special duties. And as we saw last week, God instructed the people how to respond to uncleanliness and sin.
One of the central themes so far has been the role of the priesthood. Much attention has been given to this group, and as we read through the text we begin to naturally come to the conclusion that in the camp, in the people of God, there are two classes of people the priests and then everybody else. The priests serve God. The priests live near God. The priests are used of God.
We are almost led to believe that there is this special class of people within the people of God - the priests. There are the priests and then there are everyone else.
Numbers 6 pushes back on this. It does so by introducing us to a strange passage on what we learn is called the Nazarite Vow. If you looked at this text ahead of time, you may have been left confused with all the weird and some times strange details. But, if I may for a minute push those details into the background and just consider Nazarite Vow as a whole for just a moment, I believe the point of the Nazarite vow - although never really stated in the Scriptures - can be seen.
To do this I’ll first state what I believe to be the significance of the Nazirite Vow and then I will give you a couple of proofs I hope will support what I claim in a way that convinces you I am right.
The Nazarite Vow provided an avenue for each of God’s people to set him or herself apart as the Lord’s possession.
The Nazarite Vow provided an avenue for each of God’s people to set him or herself apart as the Lord’s possession.
Each of God’s People:
Men and Women - The priesthood was reserved for men only. But the vow was available to women and men. In most cultures women were seen as less significant, yet here we find something strange. God welcomes women to serve alongside men.
Inexpensive Sacrifices - Even the poor could have provided the sacrifices required at the end of the vow.
All could be set apart for the service of God. God was not confining His use of servants to just men or just women, just rich or just poor, just educated or just uneducated. No one was excluded from the service of God on the basis of their condition. The lines of demarcation we tend to draw across humanity have not been drawn by God.
As the Lord’s Possession:
If I have been successful, I have shown that the Nazarite Vow was an option for the non-priests in Israel. It was available to all of God’s people. It was an “avenue for each of God’s people.” But why? Why take the vow?
We see it in our text in Num. 1:2
“to separate himself to the LORD.”
What does that mean “to separate himself to the LORD”? This is the reason we are given for taking the vow. The men and women, the rich and the poor, they take the Nazirite Vow to separate themselves to the LORD. Here in lies the why.
In my statement:
Statement: The Nazarite Vow provided an avenue for each of God’s people to set himself or herself apart as God’s possession.
I defined this separating of oneself to the LORD as being God’s possession. It is submitting to the ownership of God
I’ll give you just a couple of examples:
Samson: If we fast forward in the unfolding story of the Israelites, we will find a man named Samson. Samson’s parents set him apart for the Lord by placing him under the Nazarite vow not just for a short period of time but for life. As a result, Samson held responsibility to serve the Lord. He was to do the Lord’s beckoning. He was to serve God by serving God’s people. God used him to deliver His people from the Philistines on many occasions. To be set apart to the LORD means to enlist in his service.
Amos: In the oft neglected book of Amos we get another hint of the Nazarite role as servants of the LORD. There God spoke to His people. In Amos 2:9-10 God recounts His bringing the people into the land he had promised. In Numbers 6, the people are preparing to enter the land. In Amos, the people are in the land as victors. They came into the Land by God’s might. And while there in the land we are told that God raised up for the people two types of servants: Prophets and Nazirites. The mentioning of the Nazirites alongside the prophets allows us to safely conclude that these Nazirites were raised up to serve the people of GOd. We do not have much details about how they did this. Perhaps it varied. But we can safely say that Nazirites were set apart to serve the LORD by serving the LORD’s people. In other words they served the LORD by serving His people.
Transition: Hopefully we can see now the role of the Nazirite Vow in the community of Israel. It was “an avenue for each of God’s people to set himself or herself apart as the property of God.
So what?
So what?
Have you ever studied a challenging text? Maybe something like Numbers 6? I have found that when we say something such as, “That text is hard!” And, “I don’t understand?” Or, “What in the world is that talking about?” We are not saying we do not understand the words. I can read the text and understand that the Nazarite had to offer birds as sacrifice upon completion of the vow. I understand he couldn’t cut her hair or touch a dead person. The difficulty is often, “So what?” Why does this matter? What am I suppose to get out of this?
In this particular text, if we will glean what I think we are suppose to see, we must acknowledge two things. First, the Nazirites, those who took this vow were not the only people used of God. We see time and again God using different people to serve him and his people that never took this vow. This was never meant to be a singular door into the service of the Lord.
Second, in addition to its practical function in Numbers 6, there is an underlying significance that only comes to light with the coming of Jesus and the sending of His Spirit after His death, resurrection, and return to the Father. As much of the OT, Numbers 6 - the Nazarite Vow points forward to Christ and His work both while he was here on earth and His work even now through His Spirit.
Truth: God Possesses His People
Truth: God Possesses His People
So what do we learn with the coming of Christ? We see the fulfillment of God’s plan. God through Jesus creates a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. This is weird language. It would have been for the OT Israelites. It was a hard concept for even Jesus’s disciples. They struggle to understand what God was doing in Jesus. But once they got it, they wrote weird passages like this.
In the OT, in the day of the Nazirite Vow, the Law made clear distinctions concerning the roles. To be a priests was extremely exclusive. As a matter of fact you had to have the right ancestry or you could not be a priests. Never.
Priests had great privilege. They walked and lived nearest to God. Do you remember our diagram. They got to be near the presence of God. They God to hold the very ark of the covenant where the presence of God hovered.
Priests also had great responsibility. Their business was serious and it affected everyone positively or negatively.
Priests had strict requirements. A whole entire book, the Book of Leviticus which precedes Numbers spells out all the rules by which the priests were to live and lead the nation to live by.
Now in the New Testament, the apostles do something really weird, they take this concept / office of priest and they apply it to all of God’s people. Everyone!
I believe what we see here in Numbers 6 is an arrow to the New Testament. It points us to this reality, that one day God’s work would expand outward to include not just one tribe but every tribe. And not just the tribes of Israel, but every tribe and nation in the world!
For those of us who are believers, notice how God speaks of us.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood
6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
We could list many verses beyond these two, to show that what God did back in Numbers 6 by bringing into His service people of all types he continues to do today. By His grace and mercy, if you are His, God has elevated you to you a role of great privilege, for in Christ you have access to God! You get to commune and fellowship with the Almighty. This is amazing. Christ has removed all the barriers. No longer is there a need for a human wall as in the day of Numbers 6 to keep out the common people. Nope, Jesus has removed that. He has brought each of us who believe into the presence of God!
Not only does God bring us into His presence, but he also enlist us in His service. This must be mentioned, especially in a day when we worship the idol of individual freedom. We value above all the ability to self-govern. I am the master of my own fate. We hate laws that restrict us from “being who we are.” We deem unloving any attempt by those near us to change us. We have be come so childlike that we cannot accept any form of critique or criticism. In our culture to instruct and require someone to do what they are not inclined to do is considered abuse.
But, that is not the way of God. While it is true that God brings His people into intimate loving fellowship with Him, we are fundamentally His servants. He has set us apart as His. As much as we might hate this idea, God says to you and me, “I own you!” Did you catch that in I Peter 2:9? God possesses us. We are “a people for his own possession.”
Do you remember being a young rebellious teenager? Did you ever have those moments when in the company of friends, you complained about your parents? If you were like me, you made statements such as, “Who do they think they are? It is my life, they can’t tell me what to do! I will do what I want with my life!”
To all of us that immature, arrogant attitude seems a little naive, but I think if we are honest, we all have this same posture of heart. We have just learned to express it in less obvious and less childish language. We say things like, “Ill let you live your life and you let me live mine.”
This attitude does not work with God. Those who would know God and His love, must obey his commands. They must lay down their lives and become the possession of another. Possess? Consider that for a moment. To possess is to have rights over. To possess is to do whatever one pleases with. To possess something means to have absolute freedom with. If you are a believer today, God owns you. You God’s property. Your eyes, your mouth, your hands, your mind, your heart, your whole being is God’s. He owns it. He has rights to His property. He can require of you what he will. He can provide for you what he will. He can judge you as He wills.
This is what I believe the Nazirite pictures or point forward to for us. God is doing this incredible work. He does not leave people out there at a distant beyond the barrier that separates Him from them. No he calls them near. He brings them close. At the same time, those who come come as His servants. They come as His possession. They are set apart for the LORD.
With this in mind, I believe that from the Nazirite vow we learn several principles concerning this being set apart or being owned by God.
Those Possess by God
Those Possess by God
Are Set-Apart
Are Set-Apart
Practically | They have one master
Practically | They have one master
3 he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried.
4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.
Publicly | They are known
Publicly | They are known
5 “All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long.
Deeply | They are distinct
Deeply | They are distinct
6 “All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall not go near a dead body.
7 Not even for his father or for his mother, for brother or sister, if they die, shall he make himself unclean, because his separation to God is on his head.
8 All the days of his separation he is holy to the Lord.
9 “And if any man dies very suddenly beside him and he defiles his consecrated head, then he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day he shall shave it.
10 On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two pigeons to the priest to the entrance of the tent of meeting,
11 and the priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned by reason of the dead body. And he shall consecrate his head that same day
12 and separate himself to the Lord for the days of his separation and bring a male lamb a year old for a guilt offering. But the previous period shall be void, because his separation was defiled.
The distinction is not just skin deep. It is not just merely we act differently. No those who are of God are fundamentally different. Holiness included life, lite, and prosperity. Death was the end of sin.
28 In the path of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death.
Those possessed by God our of a different breed. They are in the category of righteousness, life, and flourishing. The world on the other hand is of the pattern of indulgence of the flesh, brokenness, and death.
Earn No Merit before Him
Earn No Merit before Him
13 “And this is the law for the Nazirite, when the time of his separation has been completed: he shall be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting,
14 and he shall bring his gift to the Lord, one male lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish as a sin offering, and one ram without blemish as a peace offering,
15 and a basket of unleavened bread, loaves of fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and their grain offering and their drink offerings.
16 And the priest shall bring them before the Lord and offer his sin offering and his burnt offering,
17 and he shall offer the ram as a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord, with the basket of unleavened bread. The priest shall offer also its grain offering and its drink offering.
18 And the Nazirite shall shave his consecrated head at the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire that is under the sacrifice of the peace offering.
19 And the priest shall take the shoulder of the ram, when it is boiled, and one unleavened loaf out of the basket and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them on the hands of the Nazirite, after he has shaved the hair of his consecration,
20 and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord. They are a holy portion for the priest, together with the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed. And after that the Nazirite may drink wine.
In a way this is kind of offensive. The Nazarite gives himself to the service of the Lord. He denies himself all kinds of pleasures. He may even skip out on the burial of his mom all for the sake of God. Then, when its all over, guess what. He owes God. God requires of him payment. There is no reward. There is no celebration or honor. There is no banquet in his or her name. Nope. At the end of the service, God says bring me your sacrifices. Sin offerings, peace offerings, and more.
It feels wrong to question God, but I think if we are honest this seems a little bit off. Does it not. This is not how we would treat those who serve us. And this is certainly how we would expect to be treated by others. Could you imagine giving yourself to the wishes of another for 30 days and then at the end of it be required to pay them for the experience?
Involves Our Will and God’s Work
Involves Our Will and God’s Work
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord,
3 he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried.
4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.
11 And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
Unlike the priests, the Nazarite gave themselves to God of their own volition.
Example of Marriage / Parenting
Conclusion: Give Yourself to the LORD. Stop