It was beautiful.
Below is a diagram of the tabernacle so you can follow along with the thought process.
http://ojgraham.com/images
This is what we discussed: Two major things are in the outer courts. The Brazen Alter and the Laver.
The Brazen Alter represents The Cross on which Jesus was crucified. He died for all of our sins, representing the bloody sacrifice necessary for the atonement of our sin. There, we can give God our junk. Crucify ourselves, daily, and follow Him.
This brings us to the Laver. The Laver is the basin in which we cleanse ourselves from the junk of this world. Since we are not slaves to sin anymore, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. All we must do is go to the Laver, wash off the remnants of the evil of this world before we can pass into the Holy Place.
I'm not going into great depth with any of this, but the Laver is especially significant to me.
Ravi Zacharias once stated that to try to describe purity from a secular sense would be the same as trying to explain nothingness. Purity for most means the absence of something. People who don't think certain things, say somethings, or don't partake in certain acts. This isn't all of it though. Christianity, more importantly, what Christ did, was die so that His blood could wash the sin off of us. Therefore, its not the merely the absence of sin, its the PRESENCE of something greater. Gods blood. The Laver is the cleansing presence of Gods forgiveness and grace, and the absence of evil in the midst of a perfect God.
Summing up the outer court: The Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is the Brazen Alter, this is the payment for our sins. The Laver is the cleansing PRESENCE of Gods forgiveness and grace and the ABSENCE of evil in the midst of a perfect God.
This leads us into the Holy Place.
There are three main points in the Holy Place: Table of the Shewbread, The Golden Lampstand, and the Golden Alter of Incense.
I don't know too much on the Shewbread and the Lampstand at the moment but I'll be speaking on the Golden Alter of Incense because its DIRECTLY related to the Outer Courts and what I'm going to be getting at.
When we are cleansed, walking in right standing with God, walking in righteousness, we can then begin to have intimacy with Christ, the Great High Priest who's name is Love, who pleads for us before the throne of God. THIS IS SO GOOD!
When we are clean, we can offer our prayers on the incense table, laying down our offerings which smell good to Him now, in the ultimate form of worship. This is intimacy with God as well.
People always wonder why they can't worship God all the time, they ask why they don't feel close. They feel dead. Its because of this: THEY ARE GOING ABOUT IT IN THE WRONG ORDER.
We cannot worship in spirit and truth if we're dirty in the presence of God. We must crucify ourselves, give up our idols, wash ourselves of our sin and the crap in the world, humble ourselves before Jesus Christ, who is PLEADING with God on our behalf, while we also pray to move Gods heart. That is the ultimate form of worship. Praying along side with our Great High Priest BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD offering ourselves, living sacrifices, sweet smelling to our maker.
This is beautiful. The fact that Jesus is pleading our cases to God the Father.
When we crucify ourselves, give up ourselves and our problems, wash ourselves and go into the presence of God in purity, and are next to our advocate Jesus Christ, how can we NOT worship.
This is worship. I hope this made sense, I'm stoked on this tho. I need to pray about this a lot more, but this blew my mind. SO I will leave you with this.
Our lives should be modeled on the Tabernacle.
Die to self. Wash. Walk in purity. Humble yourself. Offer yourself a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord. Worship with Jesus Christ who pleads for us in spirit and truth before the Throne of God.
Thought you would like to know this :)
Love,
-Josh
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