Clothed for His Glory

Grace Covenant Reformed Church

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As we begin this morning, I would like to briefly recall back to your thoughts our time together last week and the seriousness and weightiness of that which was revealed to us in God's word.

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And so last week, as we gathered together, we talked much about God.

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We talked much about his holiness. We talked much about even our best acts in his side.

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And so if you recall this, we need to do so firstly, because it has some bearing on our message today, but also, and secondly, because it informs our time together as God's people, not just this

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Lord's day, but every Lord's day, as we enter into the presence of the almighty, because this truth, which can only be comprehended when we have a right understanding of who

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God is, the full holiness of God, the full reality is that even though we have been justified by Christ, that we are righteous in the eyes of God, we are still sinners.

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And that sinful flesh still continues to cling to us and taint even the things that we set apart as holy, such as our worship and our participation in the elements of worship.

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The beauty of the gospel, however, is that because of this continual work of our great high priest, we can stand in the presence of God, our imperfect worship, our imperfect prayer, our imperfect study, all of these things are deemed acceptable in the eyes of God because of the work of Christ.

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Now, if you'll recall all the way back to the very beginning of chapter 28 in Exodus, we read the following words in verse one.

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Now, as for you, bring near to yourself Aaron, your brother and his sons with him from among the sons of Israel to minister as priests to me.

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Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons.

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Now, coming out of this first, out of this verse, and in the verses to follow, we get two images.

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The first of those is that the garments of the high priest and how each one of those garments, as we've studied through it, points us forward into time when the temporal priesthood instituted by God here in Exodus would pass away and give way to the great high priest, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And the second image that we see here in verse one is that the priesthood, it consisted of both a high priest and other priest or ordinary priest.

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And we'll talk more about that in a few moments. These particular priests identified in verse one as the sons of Aaron were also called by God to minister to him in the tabernacle, but their role was different.

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Their efforts were not the same. Even though their roles were not the same, it was the high priest together with these other priests that would make up the ironical and later

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Levitical priesthood. Regardless, they were both called and set apart by God for his glory.

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Now in our study today, we are actually going to take a look at the clothing of the ordinary priest, the types and shadows that we see in those articles of clothing, and then one final garment that the text will describe.

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So if you will turn with me to Exodus chapter 28 as we look at these final four verses, beginning in verse 40, reading down through verse 43, stand for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, complete, authoritative, and sufficient word.

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In Exodus chapter 28, beginning in verse 40, we read these words. For Aaron's sons shall you make tunics.

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You shall also make sashes for them, and you shall make caps for them for glory and for beauty.

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You shall put them on Aaron, your brother, and on his sons with him, and you shall anoint them and ordain them and set them apart as holy that they may minister to me as priests.

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You shall make for them linen undergarments to cover their bare flesh. They shall reach from the loins even to the thighs.

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They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they come into the tent of meeting or when they approach the altar to minister in the holy place so that they do not incur guilt and die.

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It shall be a perpetual statute to him and to his seed after him.

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Most gracious and holy, heavenly Father. Lord, we are so thankful for your word by which we gain our knowledge and understanding of you.

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Lord, as we study the truths that we find in your word together this morning, we ask simply that your spirit would testify with ours, revealing to us our desperate need for our great

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Savior. Father, as we come together in worship of you, may we bring both glory and honor to your name.

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Father, we are thankful that because of Christ's work, we can enter into your presence with our praise and thanksgiving.

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We ask now that those with ears to hear do so, and we ask all of these things in the name of our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. We have spent much time of late, both as we have worked through the book of Exodus and more recently in our study on Wednesday night, discussing worship, and it would be remiss of me if we did not take notice of how

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God's instructions that we find here inform our worship.

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John Currid, a theologian, writes this. Again, we are struck by the highly detailed nature of God's commands to Israel regarding the tabernacle and the priesthood, or even statutes about the type of underwear that the priests are to wear.

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We have already commented on how these details reflect the character of God. However, they also have much to teach us regarding the way man is to act towards God when it comes to worship.

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And indeed, this is true in all areas of life. We are to surrender to God and to his ways.

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J. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, once said, let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into his hand.

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And then, when we have given all over to him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about or to make trouble about.

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God knows well the human heart, and that, given freedom in worship, it would devise all sorts of apparent practices.

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God protects his people by laying out in detail the means by which he will be worshiped and obeyed.

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So, if you'll notice, just briefly in chapter, in verse 43 of Exodus chapter 28, the final clause here states that it shall be a perpetual statute to him and to his seed after him.

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Now, there are some who argue that this clause follows the instructions regarding the undergarment and would limit its scope to that particular garment, but the reality is, is this follows all of the priestly clothing and teaches us that these items are absolutely necessary.

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They command the certainty to wear them. Similarly, when we look at verse 42 of our passage, excuse me, verse 41 of our passage, it says you shall put them on Aaron your brother and on his sons with them.

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It is including all of the clothing that has been mentioned up to that point. So, it is all inclusive of what we see in the chapter.

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That particular verse, verse 41, does not include the undergarments because they have not yet been mentioned, but they do include all of the priestly, ordinary priest clothing and all of the clothing of the high priest.

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What this demonstrates for us is that in this system, these articles of clothing were absolutely necessary for the worship of God, for the right worship of God.

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Now, you may ask, well, what has that got to do with us today because we are no longer under that priesthood?

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But what it shows us, what it demonstrates to us is a principle. If you'll notice in verse 41, the final clause,

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Moses is also commanded to anoint them, to ordain them, and to set them apart.

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Now, we will deal with those actions as Moses responds to God's command as he fleshes this command out in chapter 29.

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We will get into much more detail, but all of these things deliver for us a principle regarding the worship of God.

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And so as we study these truths, they demonstrate for us the right way to worship.

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And so even though the priesthood is no longer a necessity since that priesthood has been replaced by Christ, it is still proper and it is still right to worship

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God according to the manner in which God prescribes in his word.

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And when we use that term prescribes, what that means is it is the way in which God commands that he be worshiped in his word.

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So when we turn up to verse 40, and we look specifically here at the commands regarding the fabrication of the clothing that is to be used and worn by the ordinary priesthood, the first thing that is necessary that we do is that we define this term ordinary.

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Now, this is not a term we see in scripture. It is a term that I am using, but we need to understand what is meant when we hear this word.

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Oftentimes, ordinary gets a bad rap because it is seen as something less than, something not as desirable.

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We don't want an ordinary thing or event to occur. We want extraordinary things to happen to us.

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But the truth is is that when we use this, we are simply using them in the sense of means customary or usual in practice.

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Similarly, in the church, we talk about the ordinary means of grace, proclamation of the word, prayer, the ordinances.

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All of these things are items that we refer to in church life as ordinary means of grace.

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These are the things given to us by God in his word that we are to use every day in our lives to receive and to be reminded of the grace that we have been given by God.

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And so in no sense of the way are we detracting from any of those items, we're also not detracting from the ordinary or from the priesthood by distinguishing.

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We are simply seeking to distinguish between that which is ordinary and that which is extraordinary.

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You're gonna have to excuse me. I don't like to sit down, but I got to. So over the past few weeks, as we have been discussing

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Christ's role as our great high priest, what we have been looking at is the work of God that is extraordinary.

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In other words, it is not the typical means by which things happen. For us, it is the work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We read in verse 40, it becomes clear, not just with this statement that this is being done for Aaron's son, but also with the lack of detail that we see regarding these items of clothing that we are moving from something that was extraordinary to something that was ordinary, something that was to be used in a normal fashion every day.

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It is the priest who would still labor before God on behalf of the people. They still carry responsibilities that were part of the calling and the role that God had given them, but it did not carry the same weighty responsibility as that of the high priest.

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If you'll remember, the high priest enters into the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies, bearing the burdens of all of the people.

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And so those of the ordinary priesthood would not enter that far. Now, later in scripture, we see specifically in Luke's gospel, when he's talking about the introduction to the coming of Christ, we see that there is this other way of dealing with this method of high priest that has been instituted by that point that is not what

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God originally intended. God originally set the high priest apart as chosen and identified by him and him alone.

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Later, it was actually done by Lot. Now, when we look at these three specific items of clothing, beginning in verse 40, the first thing that we will note is that we have very little told to us about them.

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When you compare it to the items or articles of clothing that we are given for the high priest, it becomes very obvious, very quick, that these items don't receive the same level of detail.

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But what we do know are two very important truths, that they were made for the purpose of beauty and glory.

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And we could retranslate those two words into dignity and honor or weightiness.

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And so the idea here is that the wearer was still made acceptable for service in the eyes of God.

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That although they were not performing the work of the high priest, although they were not taking upon themselves the burdens of all of the people, what they were doing was still performing the acceptable acts of service on a daily basis.

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The ministering before him, as we saw in the last verse of this chapter, there is still this danger.

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Notice it says that they shall be on Aaron and his sons when they come in to the tent of meeting or when they approach the altar to minister in the holy place so that they do not incur guilt and die.

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So it's necessary that they continue to wear these clothing in order to be acceptable.

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Now, the understanding of these types is two things. First is that it is tied to the righteousness of Christ.

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Secondly, it helps us to understand that an ordinary priest, well, that these two types that we are gonna identify are interconnected.

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That literally, at the end of the day, they should almost be indistinguishable from one another.

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But there are two specific types that we see. The first of those is that the righteousness of Christ is put on by these priests.

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Only by wearing these clothes were they allowed into even the reduced presence of God by entering the holy place.

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Only by putting on these clothings were they allowed to approach the altar to begin to make atonement, to do the work that God had set forth for them.

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And so just as they are necessary for them, it is also the same as the righteousness of Christ being imputed to believers.

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Notice in verse 43 again, they will wear these at all times so they do not incur iniquity without these clothes.

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In the presence of Almighty, the iniquity would be exposed. The second understanding of these types depends, however, on an understanding of the priesthood as a whole unit.

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And so what we need to understand as we look at the priesthood as a whole unit is that the ordinary priest, together with the high priest, form a unified priesthood.

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And so we see that Aaron and his sons are called into this priesthood. We see that in verse one of this chapter 28.

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And we see that as they are called into this priesthood, we see that they are commanded then later to wear these clothings in the presence of God.

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The high priest wears his, taking on the responsibility for all the sins of all of the people and the ordinary priest who are doing the daily labor for the kingdom.

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Now, it's necessary as we take a look at this type that we labor here for just a moment.

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And the reason for this is because we simply cannot afford to misunderstand this truth.

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One of the things that has happened in the Christian circle is that we have this opinion, and you can test me in this if you disagree with me,

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I'd invite you to go poll a few churches and ask this question. We have developed the idea that God's work, apart from God's people, will not be completed.

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In another way, what we have determined in our mind is that God can't do it without us.

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Now, let me elaborate just a little bit. Previously, we have spent much time and talked much, and we continue to talk much about the sovereignty of God, first in all things.

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And secondly, in salvation. But the Holy Spirit moves in the life of an individual, creating with them a new being, that this new being now has a new set of desires, one that enables them to desire

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God, to hear the proclamation of the gospel, and to have faith. And this faith given to us by God through grace then leads to salvation.

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And as the redeemed of God, we are given the righteousness of Christ, and then we enter into this process of sanctification by his power, and his power alone, we are sustained to the very end.

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This is what scripture teaches. However, as we are probably all very much aware, there are those camps out there that would vehemently disagree with us on one or more of these truths, even though technically when they disagree with us, they are not disagreeing with us, but with the very word of God.

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And ultimately what they would do would be to place the responsibility for salvation back on the shoulders of the individual.

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In other words, it's your responsibility to get yourself saved. Now they will camouflage this with certain language that makes it appear as if we are accepting or believing the way that scripture entails, but at the end of the day, that belief is solely based on them and nothing of God.

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If you follow that, however, to its inevitable conclusion, one of the major effects of that is what

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I will call the effect of forceful evangelism. Now, to be clear, so that there's no misunderstanding, we are absolutely 100 % as the people of God called to proclaim the gospel, to share the truth of scripture, to evangelize.

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We are called to do this. However, there is a difference between being obedient and obediently sharing the truth of God's word and doing what

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I am talking about when I say forceful evangelism. In my mind, this term forceful evangelism shifts the responsibility of evangelism, shifts the purpose of evangelism to Christians.

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It shifts the entire purpose of us as individuals. Let me give you an illustration.

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If we were to ask the question, we were to just go out today and we were to talk to several different individuals and we were to ask them to define what our purpose is, what is the purpose of individuals?

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We would get a lot of different answers. However, when we turn to scripture and when we diligently study the word and when we humbly pour over and seek honestly, intently to answer this question and we allow

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God's word to give us the truth, what we find is that our purpose as humanity is to glorify

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God and enjoy Him forever. Now, forceful evangelism tends to switch our focus away from bringing glory to God and enjoying

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Him forever. It changes our purpose and makes our purpose to be that of a singular task.

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I can remember it being rephrased to me this way when I was younger. What if the whole reason

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God put you on this earth was to share the gospel with little Susie and you didn't do that?

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You failed to do that. Now, I want you to think about the implications of that statement.

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Now, my singular purpose, at least in this illustration, is to tell little Susie the gospel.

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The one thing that I have been put on this earth to do and I failed. Now, if I failed at the one purpose that I was put on this earth for, number one, that makes me absolutely useless.

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And secondly, although it is not spoken of in this way, it makes me absolutely responsible for Susie's entrance into the gates of hell.

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Because by failing to share the gospel with her, which was my sole job, the work could not be accomplished.

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And so, we are experiencing a massive guilt trip.

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The guilt trip that says, well, if your purpose here was to tell them the gospel and you didn't do it, you failed.

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That's not our purpose. Our purpose is to glorify God. That's what scripture teaches. Now, we do, because we glorify

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God, because we are obedient to God, because we're doing what he has commanded in his word, because we are submitting to him faithfully, we do evangelize, we do share the gospel.

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But we do so not because it is our purpose, but because our purpose is to bring glory to him and in evangelizing, in sharing the gospel, in teaching others about Christ, we bring glory to his name.

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So, how does that bring us back to an understanding regarding the type? So, when we look at this type, this means we say that the clothing of the ordinary priest demonstrates the righteousness of Christ and is given to the people of God and the effect that that righteousness has on us.

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We're told in Romans chapter 13, verse 14, put on the

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Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regards to us.

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When we take a look at what scripture teaches us in regards to this putting on of Christ, what we see is that the high priesthood and the ordinary priesthood coming together for a singular priesthood, we as believers are part of this because here's what happens.

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There are some events that occur in the life of a believer. And so, as we put on Christ, three things tend to happen in our lives.

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First of all, our hearts engage with his.

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As we put on the righteousness of Christ, as we are born again in this life, as we are regenerated, our hearts engage with him.

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Now, multiple times in the New Testament, we are told that we are all now priests.

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This means that we have all, as believers, been set apart for divine service.

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Consider the following passages. Revelation chapter one, verse six. And he made us to be a kingdom, priest to his

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God and father. To him be the glory and the might forever and ever. First Peter 2 .5,

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you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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Verse nine of the same chapter, but you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellences of him who has called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

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Hebrews 10, verse 22, let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

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Verse 19, therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. Chapter 13, verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no authority to eat.

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Verse 15, through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

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That is the fruit of lips that confess his name. Each of these verses speak directly to believers being priests or to us entering places where only priests were allowed to go and only after they were appropriately clothed.

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And for us, that appropriate clothing are the righteous robes of Christ.

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Properly clothed, the first thing that happens again is our hearts engage with his. His mission becomes our mission.

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His desire to glorify and honor the Father becomes our desire to glorify and honor the

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Father. As this continues to happen in our life, we understand that we are to walk as Christ walked.

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First Peter 2, 21, for to this you have been called since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.

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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, one, be imitators of me just as I also am of Christ.

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The model is Christ. Paul never says be imitator of me because I'm awesome.

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He said imitate me because I am imitating Christ. So ultimately we are to imitate Christ. Now most of us, if we've been around church very much, we've heard this statement before or one similar to it.

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We'll hear to be Christ -like. But as we grow and move through the process of sanctification, that one of the things that happens in the life of a believer is that we become more

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Christ -like. Often wonder though if we have ever stopped and truly understood what it means to be an imitator of Christ.

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In his letter to the church at Philippi, in the beautiful song that we find,

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Paul writes that Christ was obedient even unto death.

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How many of us are willing to be obedient unto death?

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Now we have the blessing and fortune to be at the moment here in the

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United States in an area where we are at the moment free to worship.

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Free to believe, free to serve God without the threat of death. Sure, we can pull up and watch videos all day long of Christians being persecuted verbally by the world.

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We can see all kinds of things that are happening on our streets in America, but we don't understand what it literally means to stand with a sword to our throat and the command being renounce

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Christ or die. One of my favorite stories that I have shared many times comes from a book that I read many years ago that talks about individuals who have given up their life.

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And this particular story takes place in China. And as you're all aware, hopefully, that in China it is absolutely illegal to worship unless you are doing it according to the government's way of doing it, which is absolutely wrong.

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My dad visited there several years ago. It's been a long time now. And one of the instructions they gave as they got prepared to pack, he was going on a business trip, make sure you don't pack your

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Bible, you can be arrested. But the particular story that I am referring to deals with a small house church.

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And the Chinese military raided this house church with the purpose of arresting all of the occupants with inside or putting them to death.

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And they brought all of the people out of this small house church. There wasn't many, again, it's a small house church, you can't put so many people in a house.

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And they lined them up. And the commander of the troops that were there took a

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Bible and he threw it on the ground at their feet. And they were given the option, spit on the

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Bible, renounce Christ, and go free or die.

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One by one, the adults turned and walked away until they came to a young girl who walked over to the

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Bible, lovingly picked it up off of the ground, wiped the spit that had been accumulated on it off and paid with a bullet.

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To her head. You see, we don't understand that level of willingness because we're not confronted with that on a daily basis.

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What we are, however, confronted with on a daily basis is a willingness to die to self.

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I would venture to say that this is the great struggle of most Christians. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 16, verses 24 through 26,

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Jesus speaking, says to his disciples, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

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For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

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For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

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Deny self. What a contradiction to what society calls us to.

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A society that encourages us to be ourselves, to live how we are, to be who we are, to live like we won't.

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After all, it is your life. However, the truth is that we all will worship something.

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Our life will always be directed by something.

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If you want to know who you truly are, then you turn to God's word.

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Because who better to define you than your creator? A second mark of evidence of one that has put on Christ is that our service is active and that our testimony will be faithful.

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The second article of clothing that is mentioned in verse 40 is rather interesting. It is listed here in the

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LSB as a sash. But this word can also be translated girdle.

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Now, when I was a kid, if you'd have said the word girdle in church, everybody would have snickered, especially us kids. But when we study what the reality is and what the purpose of this particular item of clothing served in a normal, everyday aspect, we get a picture.

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So if you will recall, for just a moment, go back to the first Passover. Remember, the

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Israelites are still in bondage in Egypt. We have witnessed nine of the 10 plagues that God has poured out as he destroys the pantheon of Egyptian gods.

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And he commands Moses with the details of the first Passover. And one of the first things that he tells them is that as they eat the

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Passover, they should do so with their loins girded. Now, what that meant was that they were to reach down to the bottom hem of the long flowing robes that they wore, to grab the back hem, to pull it up, and to tuck it in the front belt or the sash that they wore about them.

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Now, in your mind's eye, if you will, picture this for just a minute, the resulting effect is something like a pair of breeches or pants, allowing them to move and shift more easily.

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It is a garment of service, of work. Luke's Gospel, we find

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Jesus speaking to the masses in Luke chapter 12, verses 35 and 36, just after he tells the parable of the virgins and the oil lamps.

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He says, and be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.

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Gird up your loins. Keep your lamps lit. Gird up your loins.

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Keep your lamps lit. Be prepared for his return.

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What does it mean to be prepared for his return? Well, it doesn't mean to sit around and wait.

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It means that we are to be active. One commentator wrote this, the hope of our

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Lord's return will not really abide in the heart unless we keep our loins girded as engaged in the master's work.

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And unless our light shines before men, an inactive believer is sure to become a worldly -minded one.

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He will have a companionship with men of the world whose intoxicating pursuits of avarice, ambition, and pleasure bend their hearts and consciousness to all the truth of God.

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Occupy till I come is another precept of the same kind as let your loins be girded.

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Later, Peter would also refer to girding when he writes in 1 Peter 1, verse 13, therefore having girded your minds for action, be sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Here, Peter describes the action of our minds being prepared for service. Pink writes this, two great motives are presented to them, the suffering of Christ and the glory that shall follow.

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Thus, in order to be constantly pressing onward, we must stay our minds upon Christ, ever contemplating him in his two characters as the victim and as the victor.

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A man who fails to use the girdle, allowing his garments to hang loose is impeded in his movements and progress.

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Loose thoughts and wandering imaginations must be gathered in and our hearts must an understanding set upon the death, resurrection, and return of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. If we would pursue our journey with less distraction.

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But no matter how hard we serve, the strength of our service depends heavily on the faithfulness of our testimony.

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We can gird our loins all day long and if we simply gird our loins and sit and wait, we do not labor in the way that we should and we do not strive in the manner that we should or we do all of those things, but yet our testimony is not true, it is not faithful.

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In other words, if we do not believe that which we proclaim, if we live in such a way as to fully demonstrate our lack of belief, our service is for nothing.

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Consider, if you will, the writing of Paul in the letter to the church at Ephesus.

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In the sixth chapter as we come to the 10th verse, a section of verses that's extremely familiar to most believers because it refers to what we love to call the armor of God.

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So listen to the words as Paul writes, finally, be strong in the

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Lord and in the might of his strength. Where does our help come from?

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It comes from the Lord. Where does our strength come from? It comes from the Lord. Finally, be strong in the

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Lord and in the might of his strength, not yours. Put on the full armor of God, his armor, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil for our struggle.

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It's not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the worldly forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

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And then Paul says, therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand firm.

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Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

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In addition to all, having taken up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

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Also receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times with all prayer and petition in the spirit.

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And to this end, being on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, as well as on my behalf, that words may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which

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I am an ambassador in chains, so that in proclaiming it may speak,

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I may speak boldly as I ought to speak, but if you look closely at this passage that as you are told to take up the armor and stand firm, the first thing that you have to do is gird your loins with your feelings, your opinion, your thought.

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No, the truth. We are never called to interject ourselves.

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We are called to interject the truth, to stand on the truth. Without truth, our testimony is false and our service is rendered useless.

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One final mark of a Christian who has put on Christ is demonstrated in the wearing of the cap.

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Now, typically within scripture, we see the wearing of a headpiece signifying submission and headship.

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We see an image of this in scripture when we read regarding the head covering that is defined for us in 1

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Corinthians chapter 11, as woman is defined as the glory of man.

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Now, we know these verses are challenging in our day, right? Because we wanna interject again our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas.

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We see them not through God's eyes, but through human eyes, and then through human eyes, these ideas become offensive.

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Yet in God's eyes, they are beautiful. The words of Peter in 1

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Peter chapter three, verses three through five, your adornment must not merely be external. Your adornment must not be merely external.

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In other words, the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold jewelry, the putting on of garments, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible quality of a lowly and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

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Submission to the order that is given by God is glorifying to God.

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Peter sums it up later in verse eight. He says, now, so sum up all of you, be like -minded, sympathetic, brotherly, tenderhearted, and humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil, reviling for reviling, but giving a blessing instead for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit, a blessing.

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That blessing that you inherit is the upward call in Christ Jesus to bring glory and honor to God.

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These truths bring us to the final garment. In the close of chapter 28, first notice again in verse 43 that this garment is commanded to be worn by both

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Aaron and his son. So this is a garment that is necessary for both the

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Levitical or Aaronical high priest and the ordinary priest.

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However, unlike all of the other garments, you will notice that this garment, there is no distinction given between the high priest and the priests.

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Notice it says in verse 42, you shall make for them, them here is Aaron and his sons, linen undergarments, to cover their bare flesh.

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They shall reach from the loins even to the thighs, from their waist to their thighs, to cover their midsection.

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Now, one of the things that this tells us about this particular article of clothing is that it does not prefigure

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Christ in the same way that the other articles have when it comes to the high priest.

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What it does, though, is it speaks to us of who we truly are.

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To begin to understand this, we must first turn to Genesis chapter three.

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And so in Genesis chapter three, hopefully you all remember, this is the story of the fall of mankind.

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And in verse seven of chapter three, we read these words. Now, this occurs after both

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Adam and Eve have partaken of the fruit of the tree of which they were commanded not to eat, but before the punishment has been meted out by God.

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And it says here, and the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked.

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And they sewed figs leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. The first result of disobedience to God was to recognize their nakedness as something to be ashamed of, and their first response was to hide it by covering it up from each other.

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We haven't even introduced God into the equation yet. When they hear

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God, they hide. So they seek to double cover things. But this is just between the two of them.

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They recognize their nakedness, their shame. And as a result, they cover.

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King writes this, the feeling of shame, a guilty feeling crept over his soul and his attention was immediately directed to some mode of quieting his confidence in this respect, that he might appear unabashed in the presence of his fellow.

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No thought of his fall as it regarded God or of his inability to stand in his presence even occurred.

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The changes to the desires of the heart of men was instantaneous. When we look at the fall, one of the things that we understand coming out of it is that our desires are no longer in a natural state.

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They are no longer towards God. We see this happening immediately after the consumption, immediately after breaking the law of God, the desire, they're not worried about God.

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They're not worried about hiding from God, they're worried about hiding from each other. They desire to make themselves comfortable with each other in the presence of other men.

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Even when that means to compromise the gospel, we've not changed. We stand now all of these years later and the church still deals with the same problem.

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We are worried more about the opinion of other individuals than we are of a holy and righteous

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God. Just this week, one of our brothers shared a statement that he had written.

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Gentleman by the name of Virgil Walker, and he wrote these words, we tiptoe around sin like it might sue us.

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We've traded the Lion of Judah for a therapy dog. This is our interaction with one another.

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We don't desire to approach and understand, but the reality is, the reality is that you and I can hide our sins and our things from each other for a long time, but one entrance into the presence of Almighty God, of the one who is holy, utterly reveals it.

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Our conscience becomes convicted. We stand fully exposed.

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And then we turn the page and we read, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

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Soltal writes these words, it is here that a righteousness not our own becomes unspeakably precious to the soul.

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A covering that both blots out all the sin and forever clothes the sinner with spotless purity which conceals from the searching eye of God all iniquity and in doing so, completely justifies the sinner in the presence of Almighty God.

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The psalmist writes in Psalms 33, sing for joy in Yahweh, O righteous ones, praise his becoming to the upright.

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Give thanks to Yahweh with a leer, sing praises to him with a heart of 10 strings.

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We could continue on. But there are times when the simplest statement somehow has the most profound impact and carries the greatest weight.

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J. Vernon McGee wrote regarding the purpose of these undergarments. God wants no display of the flesh.

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Pink helps flesh this out by adding, all that is of the flesh must be kept out of sight in our priestly activities.

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That is what we do as believers. As another has said, that which is of the flesh is bad anywhere, but it is most of all out of place in the holy service of God.

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What could be more dreadful than for such things as vanity, jealousy, emulation, or desire to make something of oneself, to come into what should be a spiritual service, all that would be indeed the flesh of nakedness is not to be seen.

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As our time comes to an end, let us do so not lightly regarding these truths of the garments of the priesthood.

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Each of these delivers for us a reality. They are designed as reminders that we who serve a holy

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God, that we are set apart, that we are cleansed, that we are clothed in righteousness.

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It's not just history, it's truth, it's Christ. You and I, having been united by faith to Christ, have been made into a royal priesthood.

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Called not to self -expression, but to submission, not to casual worship, but to right worship, consecrated service to almighty

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God. We're clothed not in our own merits, but in the pure righteousness of Christ.

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But it is not merely here for our justification. It is also for our sanctification as well.

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We are called to gird up our loins, to be filled with truth, to stand firm on the truth, to be active, ready in service, to carry forth a faithful testimony, and to live in submission under the headship of Christ in humility.

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All flesh must be covered, all pride must be hidden, and all worship must be ordered according to his word and his word alone.

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So I'll leave you with this question. Are you clothed in Christ and in Christ alone?

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Are you still stitching together fig leaves, hoping your own garments will be enough to hide you?

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Will you this morning lay aside the garments of flesh and be found robed in the righteousness of Christ?

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Let us pray. Our gracious, holy, heavenly father, we come before you now in humility and in reverence.

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We give thanks to you for the clarity and the depth of your word.

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Lord, we thank you for revealing to us through these truths the weight and wonder of serving a holy

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God. Father, we praise you that in Christ, our great high priest, we are clothed with a righteousness that is not our own and that by his work, we may draw near to you, that we may minister and serve.

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Lord, we ask for forgiveness for the times when we have brought flesh into what is meant to be holy.

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Cleanse us from our pride, from our vanity, and from our self -reliance.

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Help us to remember that proper worship is not dictated by our preferences, but by your perfect prescription.

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Remind us anew each day of Christ, of his humility, his truth, his obedience.

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May we walk in his steps, girded with truth, ready for service, our testimony faithful, our hearts submitted to you in all things.

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Lord, let us be a people who worship purely, reflecting the glory of the one who has called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

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Lord, we ask that you seal these truths now to our hearts. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is our righteousness and in whom alone we find our redemption.