The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Leviticus pt. 3
Ever wonder why an ancient book like Leviticus still matters today? The answer lies in how God's cleansing rituals for leprosy perfectly foreshadowed our spiritual journey to salvation.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
Welcome to the Extra, a podcast from Crosspoint Christian Church. We take Sunday's message a step further.
Speaker 2:Let's jump into the conversation today taking it one step further, ken pierce. Just one step, though only one. Yeah, I get too winded if I take two steps, so let's just keep it at one.
Speaker 1:We're not there yet oh, this isn't a workout. Ken pierce on mic number two mic number two and on mic number three Mic number two and on mic number three today.
Speaker 2:Hi boys, Hi Kurt Zahner, Hello there youngsters Keeping us in line.
Speaker 1:You know it feels odd for me to announce your name because I grew up you were always announcing my name at high school basketball games. That's true At the home games. You were the voice of the Eagles.
Speaker 2:So a team got the pleasure of your voice at their game.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, man, we had to put up with our principal. I got into the Michael Buffer thing. Oh, that's good, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I wrestled in high school and I was known as the human cannonball. Really yeah for our principal. He thought I was the best thing because I was a decent student, but not a behavior issue. Yeah, and that's what principals want Just be a good student and not a behavior issue. So he was like, oh yeah, you're going to be my guy, I'm going to announce you like you're a professional wrestler.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and he had fun with everything because he was always the smartest guy in the room, so he didn't. He was just like I'm just going to have fun.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:So he didn't, he was just like I'm just going to have fun.
Speaker 1:The cannonball, the human cannonball Ken the human cannonball P-P-P-P-Pierce. Exactly Good enough yeah.
Speaker 2:And he would draw it out like Michael Buffer. It was great. And then he would announce the baseball games later that year and do the same thing. That's perfect. So he followed me around, hilarious.
Speaker 1:Having a dad that worked in radio was like having my own personal announcer everywhere.
Speaker 2:I went yeah.
Speaker 1:I made him announce me when I walked into the living room.
Speaker 2:Here he is.
Speaker 1:Announce me Coming in to watch cartoons.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do that with him. Maybe you should do it. Yeah, I'm going to do that with Vivian the next time I see her. There you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 1:Well, we had a great Sunday continuing our study in Leviticus. Leviticus is a hard book. We've said that so many times from stage. It's hard not just because it feels ancient, but it's hard to connect with in your personal life. The writing is ancient, it's hard to understand, but it's hard to make that personal connection, and so I think this past weekend was a great example of how we do fit into the Leviticus story, because parallels are called a salvation and the steps of salvation, as we might say it, and part of that process. So, kurt gosh, that feels weird. Yeah, dad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why don't you?
Speaker 1:tell us a little bit about how you came to that conclusion.
Speaker 3:Well, you don't mind if I tell them that you asked me midweek to take Sunday and I was really glad you did. I didn't know where I was going to go, honestly, but I remembered a lesson that I had learned years ago and it was a thrill to go back and visit it again Because, honestly, you know, everybody thinks that when a preacher preaches, that all that stuff just stays in there. I mean, you spend a week and you're pouring in and you learn new things as you go and, honestly, sometime later it's going to leak out again. But to go back and visit it again was a real thrill for me.
Speaker 1:What's crazy to me is those preachers who are like four and six weeks ahead on their sermon writing. I don't know how they possibly do that. They must not have all the responsibilities that most small church senior ministers have? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I envied those people who could over the years, but I couldn't.
Speaker 2:That's similar to playing an instrument, because I won't play the same song the same way twice.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not like I'm memorizing the song, but you have all this body of knowledge that you can call upon, like a lot has stuck, but not individual sermons are going to stick. So, yeah, that's good to know that.
Speaker 3:I think some people think that preachers just have all that up there all the time.
Speaker 1:Let me go grab that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:Maybe some of them do, but not us.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you and faith will say something like just because I was an English teacher doesn't mean I know every book.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and I don't know everything about psychology. It's something like that. You almost get burdened with the entire culture or industry that you're in.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can't do it.
Speaker 3:Well, what was interesting Sunday is Curtis had asked me as well to include the communion message somewhere within the body of the sermon, at the end or at the beginning, and I'll be honest with you, I forgot. I probably shouldn't admit that Nobody else would know except for me, but 15, 20 minutes in front of the sermon I remembered oh no, well, I was with Grace and we were going over what the sermon was going to look like and I realized you know what? This is what I want to do. I want to pick up communion and the Passover and make a connection. How the Old Testament gives us the Passover, but Jesus made it communion and it's based on the same thing and so it's connected. And the reality is that it's all connected. We know that and we learn that. The more we study, the more we know that. And so Passover became communion, and likewise this idea of being cleansed, the instructions for cleansing infectious skin diseases. That's the way it reads as a header in the NIV Bible.
Speaker 1:What a riveting sermon passage.
Speaker 2:That does make the book difficult. Right, there it makes it difficult Because you can't make that personal connection to it. It's like, okay, more laws, Right right.
Speaker 3:And so in Leviticus what we get is a picture of leprosy, and one of the things that is most important to know about leprosy is it was God's way of showing us what sin looks like to him. Leprosy was a horrible disease and back in the day and if you've ever watched oh, I don't know any of the ancient old Bible movies that were out there you know leprosy, stay away.
Speaker 1:What did they say to them? Unclean.
Speaker 3:Unclean, unclean, and it literally was that way that they were put in leper colonies. I mean, there were all kinds of diseases, just like today there's all kinds of diseases. Leprosy is still hanging around, to a smaller, much smaller degree, but back then if you had leprosy you were sent to a certain place so that you wouldn't have contact. Nobody would be able to catch it from you, and it is infectious, but not to the degree that they exiled people to this life among the other lepers. And so leprosy being the idea or the picture of what God sees when he looks at sin in us, you can almost translate that visually. That that's what God sees.
Speaker 3:You see a leper. Their face is deformed, their fingers. What happens to a leper is they lose sensitivity, they lose the nerve endings on virtually everything, so that they don't feel things. They'll have a skin problem and they won't know it. They'll break a bone and they won't know it, and so they're walking around on bones and they, you know, just you can imagine. And so digits begin to fall off because of the deformation that happens with that.
Speaker 1:Various parts In these colonies. They were outside of the cities, right, so they had to live on the outskirts of the cities and in those places often was where, like the garbage and the refuse you know, would go. And along with that are vermin. You know rats and mice, and if you can't feel things you're you know they would come along and like gnaw on your fingers.
Speaker 1:And then now you have more disease that's spreading in your leper colony. So it's not just the leprosy that that was horrible, but all the other things that come with just living in filth.
Speaker 2:So the root of it is a lack of sensitivity.
Speaker 1:It's a neurological disorder. Yes, okay, neuropathy.
Speaker 3:Right Neuropathy. Right Neuropathy is a better word. Yeah, gotcha, definitely.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes so much sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because usually you think of leprosy as just basically a leopard of spots. Well, it is that as well. Yeah, but the root cause being a lack of sensitivity, being like, okay, something happens to like an ingrown nail or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I take care of it because I can feel it. Right, I don't feel it, I'm not going to take care of it. Exactly so that's good.
Speaker 1:When in doubt, ask ChatGPT. Describe leprosy like I'm dumb.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Leprosy is an old disease that mostly affects your skin, nerves and sometimes your eyes and your nose. It's caused by bacteria. It spreads very slowly and you don't catch it easily. Most people are naturally immune to leprosy. Didn't know that when someone has leprosy they might get spots or bumps on their skin and they don't feel pain. That's because the disease damages the nerves underneath and they can't feel things properly anymore.
Speaker 2:The rest of it. We've already said I've had shingles before. It's similar to shingles. It sounds like.
Speaker 3:Well, just getting back to the point that God sees sin the way we see leprosy it disfigures.
Speaker 3:It kills eventually, and so there was a remedy for that, and that's what was written about in Leviticus 14. And so I don't know if I want to pick it up. It says this is the regulation of the person afflicted with a skin disease at the time of his cleansing, and so there was cleansing available, but there was a certain procedure that got you there. There's some things in here that I think are really interesting, and I want to go backwards. Actually, I want to go towards the end of the verses. I had people read all the way, 1 through 32 in chapter 14, but the first nine or so verses are really where a lot is happening. In fact, I really focused on verse 9. Where did it go? Here it is.
Speaker 3:And then, on the seventh day, that whoever has come to the priest to be cleansed of leprosy, I added that Then, on the seventh day, he must shave off all his hair. He must shave his head and his beard and his eyebrows and all the rest of his hair, and then he shall wash his garments and he shall wash his body in water. Thus he will be clean. Now, this is the end of it. This is the end of the procedure that gets rid of leprosy. There's some more I want to tell you about in a minute, but I want you to understand that this is a call to, first of all, to change everything about who you are, to change your look, to leave the past behind. You're moving into a new day for yourself, a new kind of life, and you want other people to know that you've been cleansed as well. And so shaving yourself of all hair everything is gone is a sign that you have been to the priest and you've received this kind of cleansing.
Speaker 3:And so that's number one is the shaving of the hair. And then the second part is to go and to go into water and let's see, and he shall wash his body in the water, thus he shall be clean. And so they had the name, for it is a mikvah. Mikvah is a large pool, a bath. It's the size it's maybe twice the size, typically of our baptistry in the church, and they had hundreds of those around Jerusalem and probably hundreds more out in the wilderness and wherever the priest might've been stationed. And so, people, that was part of the ceremony of cleansing, that you would walk into this mitzvah, this baptistry of sorts wouldn't be called that, obviously, for many, many more years, but this mitzvah and you would cleanse yourself and come back up and ceremonially, spiritually and physically be cleaned. It's so pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:There's a number of parallels that I'm seeing pretty interesting. There's a number of parallels that I'm seeing we're just thinking of, like having to shave the hair off your body and the baptism, the going through the mikvah, the water. This is a picture of new life. It's not just leaving life behind, but it's like you're being born again. Babies come into the world hairless and they pass through the birthing waters. I mean the water breaks and then the baby comes next and it's a brand new life that you're getting when you're being cleansed of this disease. Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, think about it. God doesn't do anything without some thought. Everything is connected. But when a woman gives birth, we know that birth is about to happen because the water comes. Everything is connected. But when a woman gives birth, we know that birth is about to happen because the water comes. The water happens, after the water, the baby's coming. That's the physical birth. That's why, when we may be going in some wild direction, but this is all free form, right? Yes, everybody said amen, yes, amen.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen, yes, amen.
Speaker 3:Okay, oh gosh, sorry. So anyway, when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus what do I have to do to inherit this eternal life? What do I need to do? You must be born again, born of the water and the spirit. Born again. And so this idea of being spiritually born was even talked about three years in advance of the day of Pentecost. Jesus is just about, or just starting, I think it's on the front end of his ministry, I know it is, but it's roughly three years before the day of Pentecost, and the idea of baptism is introduced as a way to become a Christian as well. And so he told them plain and simple you have to be born again. That's a beautiful illustration that you just gave. It ties into everything, absolutely. Romans 6 also ties into it that we have a new life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I know I talked about that on Sunday a little bit as well, but that's really what it is that we are buried and those who have been baptized like this in him are raised to walk in a new life, and that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Do you think Christianity is attractive because there is that sense of newness that comes with being baptized or asking Jesus into your heart? Do you think because there's so many people out there that want to leave their old cells behind? No, doubt. Do you think that's part of the attraction? I think it has to be Okay, it's necessary.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I say, if you don't know that you need a Savior you'll never seek one.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And so at some point you have to know that you need a Savior. You can't do it on your own, and so, yes, absolutely, and so this new life is a big part of it. But the picture that's given here in Leviticus was one that I also drew on in the message. Let me see exactly where it is Okay the skin's diseased infection is healed. See exactly where it is okay the skin's disease infection is healed.
Speaker 3:The affiliate, then the priest, shall command, and he shall take two living clean birds and cedar wood and crimson thread and hyssop for the one who presents himself for cleansing.
Speaker 3:Then the priest shall command someone to slaughter one bird over fresh water and a dry vessel.
Speaker 3:I think it says I lost my place but slaughtered over fresh water, okay, living in the bird's blood, slaughtered over the fresh water.
Speaker 3:And he shall spatter the blood seven times on the one who presents himself for cleansing from the infectious skin disease and he shall declare him clean and he shall send the living bird into the open field.
Speaker 3:And so just to paraphrase it and make it more sensible here is that you take the bird and you kill it, you put its blood into the clean water and then you begin to disperse that water with blood in it on the person who wants to be cleansed, and you symbolically take the bird, the living bird, and you dip it in the water as well, and then release it into the wild. It's free. And so, to me, what a beautiful picture of what baptism, I believe, really tells us that we're washed in the blood of Jesus, and so it may not be physical blood the physical blood is not available anymore but it's symbolic that the physical blood is part of the water that we're going down into and that we are then lifted up and set free at the same time, and this is the connection between the old and the new. It's as plain as the leprosy nose on my face.
Speaker 1:I would have to think that there were individuals afflicted with leprosy who would come to the tent of meeting and say to the priest do I really have to do all this? Like, if the glory of God can heal me, the God who is in the tabernacle right the smoke is rising Can't he just heal me? Do I have to have blood splattered on my face? What would you say if you were a priest in Israel and somebody asked a question like that to you? Do I really have to do it this way?
Speaker 3:Well, I know what I would say to them now. I would speak of my own struggle that I had when I became a Christian and, having grown up in another faith and not been baptized on my own, christened as a baby but I never made a decision for myself to be baptized. I struggled with the idea of do I really need to do this again? You know, isn't it enough that my parents did this or that I was sprinkled with water? And I just kind of boiled all that down into one single question which was in my mind. What I was asking was what's the least I can do and still be okay? And if somebody came to me and said the same thing do I really need to do that?
Speaker 3:I would say are you telling me what's the least I can do and still be okay with God? What's the least I can do and inherit eternal life? And so I had a revelation at that point. I was 27 years old and I realized what's the most I can do? What's the most I can do? And so there was no question about it any longer. I decided to be baptized and I happened to remember the day, december 8th 1985. So I think it changed a lot of things for me.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, it's not amazing. You can remember that date because it makes total sense you can remember, but I, it makes total sense, you can remember, but I've said here before I can't Not much of a date person, not a date person.
Speaker 3:But what it was is this. This is why it's so important. Emotionally it sticks with me for such a long time. I did struggle with it so much, and then, I realized what total surrender was Right. You know, yeah, I want to do the most, what's the most I can do, and I realized at that point that I was surrendering everything.
Speaker 2:The fact that I don't remember the date means in that way? It means that I must not have been prepared to do it. It must have just been another day. Oh, I don't know about that In a way.
Speaker 1:I don't know about that In a way, I don't know, maybe I don't remember the date that I was baptized, but I do remember everything that happened. I remember the feeling. I remember the conviction I had.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I remember being eight years old and understanding what my dad was doing when he dunked me under the water and I came back up. A lot has changed since then and I don't remember the exact day. Well, I guess I do. It was on a Sunday, but I don't think remembering the date has anything to do with how convicted you were over it or how well you understood it. Some people are just good at writing things down and remembering, and other people maybe not so much.
Speaker 3:Well, people ask me if they're considering baptism and, in some cases, re-baptism, because they just don't remember where they were emotionally, spiritually, when they decided to say yes and surrender. And I tell them the reality is, you're always going to be learning more things about baptism and the beauty of the entire salvation plan, that it was all laid out thousands of years, even before Christ was here, and so it being laid out, we're just following the pattern that God gave us. There's nothing different than that, and so you're always going to learn more. So some people go to the baptistry, and I will say this that some people go to the baptistry and I think all that they did was get wet because their mind is not there.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you the number of people who have come to me and said you know that my friends were baptized and so I just jumped in the water with them. Or grandma was coming into town and we were waiting for this day for a long time, and so we got it done while they were in town. Yeah, it wasn't a spiritual decision, it was a convenience, right, and so they did it for that purpose, and in that case, I think there is a legitimate argument that you can go to the water and just get wet and there's no real spiritual meaning to it at all. But for the most part I tell people you know you're always going to learn more about the richness of God's plan for you, and so it's always going to mean more as you get older.
Speaker 1:So would it have been possible for a leper to show up and have the water sprinkled on his face and just get wet and for the ceremony not to take? I mean, I realize we're reading well between the lines here. We're kind of making an assumption.
Speaker 3:So this is maybe what I'd say to that is, that they were living under the law and so at that point they only needed to perform the law. Now, wherever their heart was, I don't know, but it wasn't a heart issue in the Old Testament, it was. You need to do it, because this is what it says.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're about to make a huge Jesus parallel here. Stick with me and help me explain it if I'm not putting it together. So, if they're living under the law and to be healed of this dangerous, scary disease that outcast you from society, you had to go and allow God to heal you through obedience to the law. Okay, which first of all blows my mind that in our day and age you get leprosy, you go to the doctor to get a remedy for it, a medicinal remedy. In biblical times, in Leviticus, if you're an Israelite, you don't go to the doctor, you go to God, you go to the priest. They were working on behalf of God, right, and there was a both spiritual and physical solution to your problem. You were literally healed of your physical ailment through a spiritual means. Okay, the law heals them. God heals them through the law. Am I saying that correctly? I want to be careful not to say that it's the law that healed them. God healed them supernaturally because of their obedience and adherence to the law.
Speaker 3:Am I saying that clearly enough? I think so.
Speaker 1:Okay. New Testament time yeah. Jesus says in my favorite passage of all time right, Matthew, oh.
Speaker 2:I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Matthew, chapter five. Matthew chapter five he says I haven't come to abolish the law, I've come to fulfill it. In fact, I've talked about it from stage a couple of times that Jesus says all that's in the law and the prophets and the writings have been fulfilled in me. So he is in his opinion, his radical opinion. Jesus is the law of Moses. He says it. And what was it? Luke, chapter four, or I'm sorry, where he stands before the people in the synagogue and he says today this has been fulfilled in In Nazareth. He said it yeah, yeah, yeah. Luke 4,.
Speaker 1:I think Okay. So Jesus made that claim that he was the law of Moses. He said it in that passage. Yeah, and Jesus went around healing lepers in Israel. So he went around the story of the leper who came to him and there were 10 lepers. All 10 were cleansed. Only one came back to say thank you and Jesus presumably would have forgiven him of his sin. I'd have to go back and read the whole thing Again. This is off the cuff here, but here okay. So the connection is blowing my mind. Right that in Leviticus, adherence to the law grants you healing from God. In the New Testament, jesus is the law and that's why he can heal these people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd go along with that statement.
Speaker 2:It becomes an instrument. But I would add this to it because I like it.
Speaker 3:But Jesus can do those things because he's God in the flesh and so he can do all things. But I wouldn't confuse that with what happens from the day of Pentecost forward. I don't necessarily want to go into a whole other place, but Jesus was making the way for the day of Pentecost. We've talked about that. Last time I was with you guys and so Jesus could heal, and it was still part of the law because God could do that. It was still under the Old Testament dispensation. That was an old whoever might be listening knows Bill Rollins. That was his big word. All the time he talked about dispensations all the time. And so he was under the Old Testament dispensation and so Jesus was able God's ambassador, god in the flesh, could do that.
Speaker 3:But on the day of Pentecost forward we didn't need a priest anymore, because where did the priest go? The priest went in here inside this temple. Right, we become part of the priesthood, right, exactly Now, that's huge. We say that and I think it's just kind of a throwaway line.
Speaker 3:I don't think we understand fully what being part of the priesthood means. It means you didn't have to follow what was in Leviticus anymore. You didn't have to have a mediary between you and God to do this magic. You know, magic trick over you, and all of a sudden you'd be healed. Now God came to live inside of you, and when he did, you became the priest, because you are the tabernacle, you're the temple. That's why the Bible calls it over and over again that you are the temple of God, and so you become the priest means that you can approach God and ask him for the things that Jesus was able to do when he was on earth, that the priest could do, because God appointed them to be able to take care of the people that way. And so the New Testament, from the day of Pentecost forward, and the fact that we became the priests, changed everything about it, everything.
Speaker 2:There is a phrase the priesthood of believers Is that. Right, yeah, all believers. It's better said the priesthood of believers Is that right, yeah, yeah, all believers.
Speaker 3:It's better said the priesthood of all believers, because there's some, you know, I don't want to get on anybody, but the idea that there is a class of people that's out there even today who call themselves priests I like them, a lot of them are my good friends but that it diminishes the idea of the priesthood of all believers that Peter talks about, that you have become a royal priesthood is what he calls us, and so when it diminishes that idea, in the faith that I came from, only the priest, for example, could go and give last rites in the hospital, as if there's something magical about what he can do, and he alone. A deacon, couldn't do it in that faith background. Another parishioner couldn't go and do it. Only the priest could do it. Only the priest could turn wine or water into Jesus' blood, wine into his blood and the bread that they take into his actual body. Transubstantiation is what it's called. Only a priest could do that.
Speaker 3:I'm just here to say and I love you, my Catholic friends that, that does not happen and he does not have any kind of hocus pocus that you don't have Anything he can do. You can do. You're a priest. You are a priest when you put your faith in God. When you became a Christian, you became part of the royal priesthood, and that's such an important thing to remember. Am I on my soapbox today?
Speaker 2:Isn't that hierarchy part of the Catholic church, though, like the Pope is the closest, followed by the cardinals, followed by the, the uh, priest there's.
Speaker 3:There's something between priest and cardinal in there bishop, maybe, yeah, archbishop, and there's all kinds of like the pope can do things the cardinals can't do, like he's closer to god than the cardinals.
Speaker 3:The cardinals are closer than you, so yeah and so I I just think it's important that we keep that focus, that we become the priest God always wanted us to be, the priest that was going to be the remedy for what happened in the garden. It was the remedy when we lost fellowship with him, when we weren't walking with him anymore, when we got kicked out. And then he had to create this law for us to learn from and to try to be perfect, knowing that we would fail over and over again, that we would need a savior that could rescue us from all that system that didn't work. And then, finally, on the day of Pentecost, when he came to live in here, we were reunited again. We have that fellowship that was lost in the garden all those thousands of years ago, and it's so important. Now, this is a whole different sermon. It was a sermon, actually, from a few weeks.
Speaker 1:Well, careful, because it's going to be my sermon this coming weekend.
Speaker 3:Okay, but we have to remember that we are of the priesthood and we don't need those guys in robes or who put themselves up on a pedestal and nice hats and nice hats and nice hats Great people and I love them, I love them, I love them. But I disagree with theologically where they took the priesthood away from the everyday Christian who becomes a priest when the Holy Spirit comes to live. God comes to live inside of us.
Speaker 1:And ultimately to be a priest. Your definition is you are an ambassador of God, you are the spiritual bridge builder between God and people. That's what the priests were in Leviticus. Leviticus means pertaining to the Levites, so what's written here is the law that the Levites should follow in order that the people of Israel could be close to God and in their proximity, they display the glory of God to all the nations around them as they enter into the land of Canaan. We become priests not for the exclusive ability to heal leprosy, not for the exclusive ability to heal diseases or pick up lame people off the ground, Not for the exclusive ability to heal diseases or pick up lame people off the ground. That's a whole other conversation of spiritual healing. We become priests for the original intention of bridging the gap for people to get to God.
Speaker 3:Man, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's it, you just said it perfectly, which anyone can do. Any believer, yeah, any believer.
Speaker 1:And not just can do, is called to do.
Speaker 1:That's the mission Jesus told everybody to do before he left, that's Acts 1.8, that when the Holy Spirit makes you a priest, when it comes upon you and dwells within you, you will be my witnesses.
Speaker 1:Which is a priest, a witness of the glory of God in Jerusalem that's your closest areas of influence in and Judea and all Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, which means there are going to be priests all over the earth Right, because you and I can't be in every part of the globe. But to the ends of the earth means that man, this Christianity thing, is going to be populated everywhere at some point. And for those first century Christians, to think to the ends of the earth probably for them meant as far out in Asia as they could imagine, like as far as their enemies might be known of, like maybe the Mongol dynasty, I don't know how. Forgive me, chuck McCullough, for not remembering my history books, but the ends of the earth was nothing what we can think of in our heads today. I think of the earth was nothing what we can think of in our heads today.
Speaker 1:I think of the globe, I think of the picture of the earth from Neil Armstrong on the moon, I can see the sphere of the earth.
Speaker 2:Well, what you have access to yeah, exactly Like is it a horse ride or a donkey ride? Yeah, or is it a plane ride? Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And even today there are unreached people, groups who have no idea what we're talking about. Wow, and that's why I meant just to tie it back into kind of like who we are as a church. That's why we support, so as well as we can right, all these missionaries across the globe who are striving to reach unreached people with the gospel news of Jesus Christ. They're being priests all over the place.
Speaker 3:Man, you ought to be a preacher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two good parallels there. That was a good. I would call this sermon educational almost Okay. I would call this sermon educational almost Okay Just because it's about Leviticus and it's about laws and things like that, and you have to get it across somehow.
Speaker 3:I think there's a lot of teaching, straight up teaching. I think, if I was going to grab top tier on this, it's the idea of the priesthood. On this, it's the idea of the priesthood. God created the priesthood to do for us the things that later he wanted us to be able to do for ourselves.
Speaker 3:Approach him, you know, be one with him, be intimate with him again. He lives in you. How intimate is that? And I just think, after all those years of you know, god is above time, so he doesn't think like we do, but the thousands of years where he was disconnected from his creation was finally made well again when we each became priests.
Speaker 2:You waited for that day. Wow, I think teaching is necessary and not to get. I think I said two weeks ago not to get so romantic about it every week. But teaching is necessary because the Bible. You could look at the Bible and then look at Christianity and say, okay, how does the Bible teach me to be a Christian? You could say something like that and you can ask that question. But you guys did it today and in part, this is what you're called to do as a Christian. This is what the Bible calls you to do. This is what Jesus in the Bible calls you to do as a Christian in the world right now. Yeah, exactly, good point, and people need to hear that, yeah, I agree 100% If it's in every context.
Speaker 1:I mean, you can do it as a clinical counselor, can? You don't have to quit your job in order to do what Christ has called you to do Right. You don't have to be like the two of us who are, I guess what do you? Call us Professional Christians Better than everyone else.
Speaker 3:No no, no.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be preachers, you don't have to be ministers working at a church. You can do it wherever you are, including you can start your journey with Jesus wherever you are. So maybe here's my preacher rounded out on the podcast here. Maybe after this past weekend sermon, or maybe just this podcast alone has sparked your interest and you've learned something new about what it means to go all in with Jesus, full surrender, as Kurt would say, and we would encourage you. Don't wait another day. If that clicked with you, don't wait another day to get into the water and go all in with Jesus and become a priest. So you can contact me at 1-800-GET-BAPTIZED that's one. But the church is always open, the waters are always ready and we're ready for you. Man, great conversation today. Fellas, thanks so much for joining us on the Extra. What a pleasure. You guys are awesome, absolutely, and we only partially gave away my sermon for next weekend.
Speaker 2:There's still some surprises.
Speaker 1:I hope so, hey. Thanks for joining us on the Extra podcast. You can interact with us, send us a text message today. You can click it down in the description of this podcast, wherever you're listening. Click, send us a text. Make sure it makes me feel really good, right? No, no, bad text.
Speaker 2:My ego can't handle it. Yeah, we're fragile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time.