Exodus 38:8 Bible Study | Episode 643

March 27, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Exodus 38:8  Bible Study | Episode #643

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you.

and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We're in Exodus chapter 38. I'm gonna do one verse today, but it's in a very important verse and it's important verse because really you don't know a whole lot about this.

And I'm quite sure anybody who studied the tabernacle would know something about this. But the truth is it's not talked about a whole lot. In fact, it's not talked about really any in regular Bible studies and things like that. Although picture wise, I think it is the most important as far as just daily living who we are as the body of Christ.

And studying this is it's important. I don't know if you know this or not, but. to the side at the temple and we don't know exactly where it was placed in the tabernacle where it was in the grounds of the tabernacle we don't know exactly where it was placed but we do know in the temple it would have been to the side hidden over in a corner away from well the altar where they were sacrificing animals There was what they call a laver and what it is it is a giant washing bowl.

It was a bowl that held water and that the priests used to wash themselves, to ceremonially cleanse themselves. So that they can be prepared to do they could be prepared to do the ministry that they were going to do, which would have been doing the sacrifices which would have been taking care of all the things that go wrong on the temple grounds.

And by the way the tabernacle and the temple were meant to be places where people gathered, where people came, where people assembled. Why? Because God wants to be with his people and it wasn't supposed to be a place where just a few people were there and it was very secretive. It was supposed to be a place of assembly.

It was supposed to be a place where people gather together much like the modern day church. It is supposed to be a place where people gather together and meet with God. And we go through all these pictures we go through in our worship services in order to in order to, in a real spiritual sense.

Enter into the throne room of heaven or enter into the holy of holies and meet with God. And obviously, this labor has a very important role to play in that. Now, like I said, the priest used it to wash off, to cleanse themselves and prepare themselves for service. That's an obvious picture if you've been studying with me along through Genesis and Exodus, that's an obvious picture.

Remember, we're all a royal priesthood, we all have ministries to do, we all have special ministries to do, we all have things that God has anointed us and prepared us to do, and then we have our own giftings, spiritual gifts, that God wants us to use. If you say I'm not a priest, you're just not, you're just not reading the New Testament correctly.

You absolutely are a priest. You're a royal priest, and You have an anointing. You have a call. Remember, that anointing comes from the Holy Spirit. Peter and Paul say in the New Testament that we have an anointing from the Holy Spirit. Talking about all of us, not just the disciples, not just the apostles.

All of us have an anointing from the Holy Spirit. You have a call from God, meaning God has called you to, to his service, to his special, place to work and to do. You all, every one of us has a, has spiritual giftings. Some of us have one major spiritual gift that we're really good at. And we are, It's powerful.

It's excellent. And some of us have multiple spiritual gifts and they operate together in a very unique way in us because we're very unique. Each individual being unique. So the ministry that you have to do is very unique to the person you are, to the giftings you have, and to and to the environment you live in and to the people you're ministering to, to the world you're living in, the places you go, the people we all have that. Yeah. Now, notice I want you, I want to get back to it and its base of bronze, meaning the base of this laven was bronze, meaning it was bronze being a picture of judgment. It is, it's important for that reason, but I want to read the rest and then come back to that. It says from the bronze.

Now, how did they get this bronze? The bronze came from the bronze mirror of the serving women who assembled at the of the tabernacle of meeting, which means they had these mirrors that they'd gotten from Egypt that they'd taken from Egypt when they plundered Egypt to leave they, they had taken mirrors as modern day, we have mirrors for putting on makeup was a thing in Egypt back then, you've seen All the pictures of the Egyptian women in their makeup, that was a thing back then, and they had mirrors.

Now, they're not the quality mirrors that we have today, but they were quality enough to, you could see what you were doing, and you could see what you were putting on your face. And the the encasing, the thing that they would hold And the mirror would be encased in was made of bronze. It was a metal that was that was used by the Egyptians as an expensive metal because they had to mine it and make it.

But that lavern came from the metal of the serving women. who assembled at the door of the tabernacle meeting. Now, remember, women are very important in Scripture, and in the New Testament, we're all women, because we're all now, we're not women in the sense of we're all female but we are all pictured as a woman, as the bride of Christ.

And whenever you see women in the New Testament serving that's the church. That's us. Serving women are The church were the ones who were doing that and notice what they were doing. They were assembling at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. They were there to serve. They were there to be a part.

They were there to commune with God. They were there to be in the doings that were going on. In the in the tabernacle, they were there to be a part of what God was doing. And they intentionally came of their own volition. Remember, they weren't slaves anymore. These were women who were a part of the Jewish people who wanted to serve in the tabernacle.

They are the church. They are the servants in the church. And what did they bring? They brought their mirrors so that they could quit looking at themselves and begin to look at God. And that's an easy picture you can draw from this. They the mirrors, they no longer needed those mirrors because they didn't have to gaze at themselves and worry about what they looked like.

They had to gaze at God. They wanted to see the the God who delivered them out of Egypt and to know Him. And so they gave their mirrors to to the workmen. Who the craftsman who made the laver, and they used the bronze from their mirrors to to make this labyrinth that was used for washing.

Now, notice, they're not taking a big ol bath. What they're doing is they're washing the dust and the dirt of the world off of them so that they'd be clean and prepared for service. Now, that's an important picture. We can draw it back to the New Testament also, when Jesus was washing his disciples feet and he had that interaction with Peter and Peter didn't want him to, And Jesus said, if I don't wash your feet, you can have no part in me.

And Peter said, wash my whole body. And Jesus said, you don't need your whole body washed, you just need your feet washed. And you go, what was that all about? Our feet get dirty, our shoes get dirty. If we're not wearing shoes, our feet get dirty when we walk in the world. And they would have been They've been wearing sandals and they've been walking on those dusty roads of the world and what happens?

The world gets on you. And this is really the important part of this Bible study. The world gets on you when you are interacting with the world. And by the way, that's your job. We're not to be of the world, but we're all to be in the world serving God. And doing the ministry that God has for us in the world that we live in.

We have a duty to do that. We have a responsibility to do that. It's important that we do that. And so if you're if you're in the world but not of the world you're a part of what's going on, but you are a unique part of what's going on because you are changing the world.

We'll talk about this Sunday morning. You are the light that Jesus was to me, and he is the light of the world. And then he says to us, you are the light of the world. And so us being the light of the world is it's an important role to play. It's what the church does is who we are, and we use our giftings and our service and our and the things that God has made us to do.

We do that to build the kingdom, to glorify God, and I'm going to tell you, if you do it and do it regularly, it's fun, it's exciting, it's filling. We try to fill ourselves up with the world all the time make ourselves feel good about the world, and the world just, it just isn't filling.

But you know what? That God sized hole in our heart when we serve God, it always gets filled with God. And when it's filled with God, you feel a contentment, a peace. A joy that only comes from being being a part of the work and the life that is in God, in, in his kingdom. And that's what John said this Sunday when we were going through verse 4 of chapter 1 of John.

He says he says, in him was life, and that life was the light of men. And we, you, if you really want to experience life, You've got to, you've got to serve God. And if you really want to serve God what do you got to do? You got to wash at the, in the bronze laver. You got to wash there.

And you've got to, and remember the water represents the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit cleanses us from the things of the world. And that has to be done on a regular basis. Now you go how do I do that? Maybe a little worship in your car on the way to work. That would be a really good way to do it.

One great way to do it is to join with other believers each Sunday morning and come prepared to sing and to worship God. That, that is the part of the worship service that's pictured by this. We enter his gates with thanksgiving, and enter his courts with praise, and then if you'll notice, the music usually moves toward a more worshipful time.

That time is the picture of washing at the labor because the Holy Spirit is beginning to remove the worries, the doubts, the fears, all the problems of the world from your heart and allowing you to be washed and cleansed so that you can be prepared for the service that God has for you, the things that God has for you to do.

And that's what's going on here. They're washing off so that they're not dirty with the world so that they can be cleansed and ready to do the big things God has for them to do in their lives, in the lives of others, in the lives of the church. You're the light of the world. And we went through The power of Jesus Sunday morning to raise the dead.

That power, that life that was in him is in you. And that life that is in you is the light to the world. He is the light of the world. And that light is now in you. And the best way for you to do it is to not have a window that's dirty with the world, but have a window that shows brightly the God that lives inside of you.

And you are that window, by the way. You're the medium by which the light of God's work and God's life shines out of. You're the medium. You're what God uses to to shine who he is. And this I guess piece of furniture, this, Item that was in the tabernacle is a very important one, and it's important, not for anybody else, but the church and the priesthood.

And that's us. And I want you to hear this today. If you've never heard it said to you, and you've never heard it said in power, I want to say it to you today. You are the priesthood. You are a priest. You have access into the Holy of Holies of Heaven, and that access is a continual access. You are you, your new human spirit exists both inside of you and eternally in the Holy of Holies right now.

It is the spirit that God has given you to commune with the Holy Spirit. Amen. And to be eternal, even though you live in these physical temporal bodies. And I would just say to you you, you be, be that. Realize that you're a priest. Realize that you do need to clean the world off of you sometimes.

That, and a lot of times God is using his his judgment. He's telling you, look, really, we need to get this out of the way and get that off and get this over here. And when he's doing that, he's doing big work preparing you to experience all of him. And the really, the only way to experience all of him is not to go to a great worship service.

It's not to to hear a wonderful worship song. It's not to listen to a great Bible study. To experience all of him is to be what he made you to be in his kingdom, using your gifts. Walking in your call, experiencing the anointing that you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and being a light to the world you live in.

And if you do that, and you've cleansed yourself at the washing labor, and you and you do that in the world you live in, I'll tell you this, there's nothing really better than that. Nothing better at all. You become the kingdom in this lost and dying world, and a lot of people around you need you to do that.

I pray that you'll take that on, that you'll think about that, you'll consider it. And that I know you're going to because you're listening. You're hearing what God's saying right now. You wouldn't have waited through 15 minutes to get to this point. And if you are, consider how the Holy Spirit might want to wash you.

Consider how God might want to use all that he's given you to be the kingdom of God in the day you're living in. I pray that will take place for you and I expect it will

as you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.