Scripture referenced
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Revelation 12:11 they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony
11 They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.
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1 John 1:5
God is light, in him there is no darkness at all
5 This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
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Leviticus 11:44-45
you shall be holy for I am holy, consecrate yourselves
44 For I am Yahweh your God. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any kind of creeping thing that moves on the earth.
45 For I am Yahweh who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
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1 Peter 1:15-16
be holy in all you do, for it is written be holy because I am holy
15 but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior;
16 because it is written, “You shall be holy; for I am holy.”
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2 Peter 1:2-4
his divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life, participate in the divine nature
2 Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue;
4 by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.
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Acts 17:27-31
in him we live and move and have our being, God has set a day to judge by the man he appointed
27 that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28 ‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
29 Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.
30 The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”
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Exodus 32:1-6
Israelites worshipped the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain
1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.”
2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.”
3 All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
4 He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molten calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh.”
6 They rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
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Leviticus 1:4-5
lay your hand on the animal's head, slaughter the bull, priests splatter the blood on the altar
4 He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5 He shall kill the bull before Yahweh. Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall present the blood and sprinkle the blood around on the altar that is at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
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Matthew 11:28-30
come to me all who are weary and burdened, my yoke is easy and my burden is light
28 “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.
29 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.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
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Leviticus 1:10
goats and sheep used for the burnt offering
10 “‘If his offering is from the flock, from the sheep, or from the goats, for a burnt offering, he shall offer a male without defect.
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John 1:29
look, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
29 The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
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Genesis 22:13-14
Abraham saw a ram caught in a thicket and sacrificed it, named the place Yahweh Yireh
13 Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
14 Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh Will Provide. As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.”
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Luke 3:22
the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove
22 and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”
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Matthew 13:24-30
parable of the wheat and weeds, enemy plants weeds among wheat, burn the weeds at harvest
24 He set another parable before them, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field,
25 but while people slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds also among the wheat, and went away.
26 But when the blade sprang up and produced fruit, then the darnel weeds appeared also.
27 The servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where did these darnel weeds come from?’
28 “He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them up?’
29 “But he said, ‘No, lest perhaps while you gather up the darnel weeds, you root up the wheat with them.
30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First, gather up the darnel weeds, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
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1 Thessalonians 5:18
give thanks in all circumstances
18 In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you.
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Hebrews 13:15
offer up a sacrifice of praise
15 Through him, then, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.
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Revelation 5:8
prayers of the saints described as incense to God
8 Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
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Revelation 8:3-4
prayers of the saints as incense before God
3 Another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer. Much incense was given to him, that he should add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.
4 The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.
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1 John 3:2
we are called God's children
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.
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Revelation 1:6
we are called priests
6 and he made us to be a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
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Revelation 5:10
we are called priests
10 and made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign on the earth.”
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John 6:25-59
Jesus referred to as the bread of life
25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”
26 Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled.
27 Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”
28 They said therefore to him, “What must we do, that we may work the works of God?”
29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
30 They said therefore to him, “What then do you do for a sign, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you do?
31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, it wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven.
33 For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”
34 They said therefore to him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”
35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But I told you that you have seen me, and yet you don’t believe.
37 All those whom the Father gives me will come to me. He who comes to me I will in no way throw out.
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
39 This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the last day.
40 This is the will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
41 The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.”
42 They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven?’”
43 Therefore Jesus answered them, “Don’t murmur among yourselves.
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father, and has learned, comes to me.
46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father.
47 Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life.
48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews therefore contended with one another, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves.
54 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he who feeds on me, he will also live because of me.
58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven—not as our fathers ate the manna, and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
59 He said these things in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
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Hebrews 4:15
Jesus described as the great high priest
15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.
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John 1:29
ultimate sacrifice, lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
29 The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
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Romans 5:12
sin entered the world through Adam
12 Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.
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Romans 3:10
there is no one righteous, not even one
10 As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one.
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Romans 3:23
all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
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Matthew 23:25
woe to you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup but inside is greed, first clean the inside
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Brian and Lissa were on vacation, so Renee, a Tribe member since the church began, brought the message. She picked up the Leviticus series the congregation has been working through and traced a single question through it: where is Jesus in this book, and what is God saying to us through all of it? Her answer was that Leviticus, even in its most detailed and unfamiliar regulations, is a love letter.
What was said
Renee opened with her own story. She grew up in a strict Lutheran home in Partyville, Wisconsin, where faith was mostly memorization without life in it. When her parents divorced she spiraled into depression and suicidal thinking, until a friend invited her to a youth group where she felt scripture speaking directly to her thoughts in real time. She gave her heart to Jesus at sixteen, burned her secular music, and devoured her Bible. Years later a drift into sin left her empty again, and a stranger on a bus repeated the same experience, scripture meeting her thoughts as if he could read them. Both moments pointed her to the same conviction that God is always trying to speak to us.
She set the stage for Leviticus by asking the room to define holiness. The conversation settled on the idea that holiness is perfection, but a perfection none of us can produce on our own, which is exactly why we needed Jesus. The congregation also worked through the words sacred, consecrated, and divine, arriving at the point that consecration in Leviticus, the priest splattering blood on the altar, was a symbol of what Jesus has now done to our hearts. The altar is no longer a physical structure somewhere in a tent.
From there Renee began walking through the specific animals prescribed in Leviticus for sacrifice and showing how each one points forward. The young bull of Leviticus 1 stands near the calf Israel built in the wilderness when Moses was on the mountain, but Jesus in Matthew 11 takes a yoke, the tool of a bull, and says his is easy and his burden is light. The sheep and goat of the burnt offering point to John the Baptist's words in John 1, look, the lamb of God. The dove permitted for those too poor to bring anything larger becomes the image the Holy Spirit took at Jesus' baptism. The pagan practice of reading animal organs for divine guidance gives the burning of those same organs in Leviticus its meaning, God was closing the door on every false way of knowing him.
The grain offering in Leviticus 2 uses wheat ground into flour. Renee connected the grinding to the trials and pain that appear throughout the New Testament, and to Hebrews 13's call to offer a sacrifice of praise. She drew on a Bill Johnson message to make the point that a sacrifice of praise is something that can only be given here on earth, in the middle of suffering and questions, and that it is precisely this that God receives as the fragrant offering, the pleasing aroma that Leviticus keeps describing. Jesus as the bread of life, from John 6, holds the whole image together.
Renee then noted that the skin diseases and mold regulations in Leviticus 13 through 15 are not just sanitary rules. Sin allowed to run unchecked shows up in a community the way an untreated infection does, it spreads and affects everyone around the person carrying it. She made the application personal, asking anyone struggling with something to seek prayer and not carry it alone, and tied it directly to the congregation's shared life.
She brought it back to what the series has been calling the Thunderdome, the moment each person comes face to face with who Jesus is and has to decide whether to keep fighting or to let him win. She described that as not a one-time confrontation but something people re-enter whenever they are holding onto something he has asked them to release or avoiding something he has asked them to do. In the struggle, she said, if you win, you lose. But if he wins, you win. His victory is yours.
Touch points
Things you could actually do this week.
- Read through one of the Leviticus passages Renee covered and look for where Jesus shows up in it.
- If you are struggling with something, reach out to someone in the Tribe fam this week and ask for prayer rather than carrying it alone.
- Pick one moment each day to offer a sacrifice of praise, meaning thank God out loud even if circumstances make that feel hard.
- Keep your eyes open for the ways God is trying to say he loves you, through people, nature, or a word that lands at the right moment.
- Spend time this week with the congregation verses Renee listed, Romans 3:10, Romans 3:23, and 1 John 1:9, and sit with what they say about sin and forgiveness.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Renee shared how God kept reaching out to her even when she had drifted far from him, through people on a bus, through a youth group, through the words landing at exactly the right moment. When have you noticed God trying to get your attention in an unexpected way, and how did you respond?
- Several people offered their own definitions of holiness, including 'set apart,' 'humble and true,' and 'perfection we cannot reach on our own.' How do you personally think about holiness, and does it feel like something achievable or something given to you from outside yourself?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Resumen en español
El mensaje resumido, en español.
Brian y Lissa Hunter estaban de vacaciones, así que Renee, miembro de Tribe desde sus inicios, compartió el mensaje. Comenzó con su testimonio personal: creció en una familia luterana estricta en Wisconsin, cayó en depresión y pensamientos suicidas de joven, y encontró a Cristo a los 16 años a través de un grupo juvenil. Más adelante, después de alejarse de la fe, un desconocido en un autobús le habló de la Escritura de una manera que la hizo volver a Dios. Su punto de partida fue este: incluso en Levítico, Dios nos está escribiendo una carta de amor.
El hilo central del mensaje fue mostrar a Jesús dentro del libro de Levítico. Los animales del sacrificio, el cordero, el carnero, la paloma, apuntan todos a Cristo. El trigo molido hasta convertirse en harina habla de cómo los sufrimientos nos forman. La sangre rociada sobre el altar prefigura la consagración que recibimos a través de Cristo. El sacerdote que quemaba las entrañas del animal, en lugar de leerlas como hacían los paganos, señalaba que la presencia de Dios no se busca en rituales falsos sino en la adoración genuina. Renee también conectó el Espíritu Santo con la paloma del sacrificio y con el aceite que mantiene el motor en marcha, y recordó que nuestras oraciones y alabanzas, incluso en medio del dolor, son un aroma agradable a Dios.
Al final, Renee retomó la imagen que el pastor Brian ha estado usando en esta serie, la del "Thunderdome": todos entramos en algún momento a ese lugar con Cristo, y la pregunta es si seguimos peleando o nos rendimos a él. Quien gana esa pelea pierde; quien deja ganar a Cristo, gana. Llamó a la congregación a no esconder las luchas personales, a buscar oración, y a vivir como un sacrificio vivo, porque el avivamiento empieza con cada uno de nosotros.
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Pasajes bíblicos usados
- Apocalipsis 12.11
- 1 Juan 1.5
- Levítico 11.44-45
- 1 Pedro 1.15-16
- 2 Pedro 1.2-4
- Hechos 17.27-31
- Éxodo 32.1-6
- Levítico 1.4-5
- Mateo 11.28-30
- Juan 1.29
- Génesis 22.13-14
- Mateo 13.24-30
- Juan 6.25-59
- Hebreos 4.15
- 2 Corintios 5 (referencia general)
- Isaías 43.25
- Romanos 8.1
- 1 Juan 1.9
- Romanos 5.12
- Romanos 3.10
- Romanos 3.23
- 1 Tesalonicenses 5.18
- Hebreos 13.15
- Apocalipsis 5.8
- Apocalipsis 8.3-4
- 1 Juan 3.2
- Apocalipsis 1.6; 5.10
- Mateo 23.25
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