Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20020508.htm

NUMBERS: ON SPIRITUAL CASUALTIES AND VICTORS
Part XXXII: Basing Our Life And Service To God Upon Our Relationship With Christ
(Numbers 28-29)
  1. Introduction
    1. As Christians, we may wonder what is most important to God -- our life for Him or our service unto Him.
    2. Both living and serving God, as critically important as they may be, are less significant to God than is our relationship with Him, and Numbers 28-29 reveals this in typologically prophetic fashion as follows:
  2. Basing Our Life And Service To God Upon Our Relationship With Christ, Numbers 28-29.
    1. As Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land and defeat its godless inhabitants, God caused Moses to REPEAT His required sacrifice and festival ordinances, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, ftn. to Numbers 28:1-2.
    2. Thus, in God's view, Israel's SERVICE of conquering the Promised Land followed by her LIVING in the Land was to be BASED UPON her attention to these SACRIFICES and FESTIVALS.
    3. If we discern the significance of these sacrifices and festivals, we see God wants us Christians to make our relationship with Christ's Person and Work the BASIS of our life and ministry unto Him:
      1. On a half-daily basis, the priests were to offer up the burnt offering of a male lamb yearling, one in the morning and one in the evening, Numbers 28:1-4. As we learned in Leviticus 1:1-17, the burnt offering represents Christ's divinely acceptable sacrifice on the cross in man's behalf to satisfy God's wrath against man's sin; thus, we must live for God and serve Him based on faith in Christ for salvation and cleansing from sin via confession, cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Jn. 1:9 with 2:1-2. So, THROUGH each day, we must confess the sins we do for cleansing for acceptance to God IN life and service!
      2. On a daily basis, the priests were to offer grain and drink offerings, Numbers 28:5-8. As the grain offering previewed Christ as perfectly acceptable to the Father, and the drink offering the believer's fellowship with God and one another (Ex. 24:11), each DAY, we must lean upon CHRIST'S credentials as our BASIS of acceptable living and service to God, and look to CHRIST for peaceful FELLOWSHIP with God and FELLOW BELIEVERS in life and service.
      3. On a weekly basis each Sabbath, in addition TO the half-daily burnt offerings and daily grain and drink offerings, there was to be performed another burnt sacrifice of two lambs and another offering of the grain and drink offerings respectively, Numbers 28:9-10. Thus, at our WEEKLY meetings, we must EMPHASIZE our need for confession of sin and dependence on Christ's acceptability to the Father as the basis for EVEN being ACCEPTABLE to God in our GROUP life and service.
      4. On a monthly basis each new moon, besides the regular daily burnt offerings, two young bulls, a ram and seven male lambs were to be sacrificed as burnt offerings coupled with respective greater amounts of grain and drink offerings respectively, Numbers 28:11-15. Hence, at GREATER group meetings, even GREATER EMPHASES are to be made on our need for cleansing from sin, and our need to depend upon Christ for FELLOWSHIP with Him and one another in life and service!
      5. Then, in the annual feasts, there were even greater amounts and kinds of sacrifices offered to focus on the believer's need for the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, Numbers 28:16-29:38:
        1. The Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread used extensive sacrifices to predict the death of Christ for the sins of the world, Numbers 28:16-25.
        2. The Feast of Pentecost had extensive sacrifices to predict God's worldwide salvation outreach with Christ's Gospel in the Church era, Numbers 28:26-31.
        3. The Feast of Trumpets utilized extensive sacrifices to predict Israel's final ingathering, 29:1-6.
        4. The Feast of the Day of Atonement included extensive sacrifices to predict Israel's latter day repentance at Christ's Second Coming to the earth, Numbers 29:7-11.
        5. The Feast of Tabernacles used extensive offerings to predict Christ's Messianic reign, 29:12-38.
Lesson: MORE important than living for the Lord and serving Him is our RELATIONSHIP WITH Him THROUGH Christ, for ALL we have that equips us to live and to serve God ACCEPTABLY, both NOW and in ETERNITY, is found in the PERSON and WORK of Jesus Christ on the CROSS!

Application: We must CONTINUALLY make our MAIN FOCUS our RELATIONSHIP WITH Christ!