Sunday 09 • 16 • 18

Turn our attention to God's word and I'm gonna invite—we have three people reading scripture today because, yes, we're reading a lot. So I apologize. We're gonna read the book of Leviticus this morning. Not the whole thing. I'm just kidding. But it's up on the screen behind you as well as in your worship folder. Please follow along. Do I have two other readers up here? I don't want to do this alone. Alright.

Leviticus 1:1-17

The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting saying, "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, 'When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Then he shall fillet the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. And the sons of Aaron, the priest, shall put the fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron's sons, the priest, shall arrange the pieces, the head and the fat on the wood that is on the fire on the altar. But its entrails and its legs, he shall wash with water and the priest shall burn all of it on the altar as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. If his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, from the sheep or goats, he shall bring a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the Lord. And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar, and he shall cut it into pieces with his head and its fat, and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar. But the entrails and the legs, he shall wash with water, and the priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. If his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtle doves or pigeons, and the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall remove its crop with its contents and cast it beside the altar on the east side in the place for ashes. He shall tear it open by its wings but shall never sever it completely and the priest shall burn it on the altar on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.'" — Leviticus 1:1-17

Leviticus 2:1-3, 11-16

"When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it and bring it to Aaron's sons, the priest, and he shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and oil with all of its frankincense and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons. It is a most holy part of the Lord's food offerings. No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven. For you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the Lord. As an offering of first fruits, you may bring them to the Lord, but they shall not be offered on the altar for a pleasing aroma. You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering. With all your offerings, you shall offer salt. If you offer a grain offering of first fruits to the Lord, you shall offer for the grain offering of your first fruits, fresh ears, roasted with fire, crushed new grain. And you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it. It is a grain offering. And the priest shall burn as its memorial portion some of the crushed grain and some of the oil with all of its frankincense, it is a food offering to the Lord.'" — Leviticus 2:1-3, 11-16

Leviticus 3:1-5

"If his offering is a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offers an animal from the herd, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord and he shall lay his hand on the head of his offering and kill it at the entrance of the tent of meeting and Aaron's sons, the priest, shall throw the blood against the sides of the altar and from the sacrifice of the peace offering as a food offering to the Lord, he shall offer the fat covering the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys.'" — Leviticus 3:1-5

Then Aaron's son shall burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering which is on the wood on the fire. It is a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Would you join me in prayer? Father, would the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight? You are a rock and our fortress and our redeemer. Amen.

I apologize. Some of the verses didn't appear on the screen, but they're right in your worship folder if you want to follow along as I go through this.

So last week we're continuing our study in the book of Leviticus. And last week we looked at all this glorious and beautiful art. We talked a lot about the Tabernacle and the construction of the Tabernacle to be replaced by the temple, and the Tabernacle was this place of glory and everything about it was made to be beautiful, was made to reflect God's beauty. And by contrast, today's passages—these first couple of chapters from the book of Leviticus—may feel anything but beautiful to you. They may feel confusing and grotesque. What we read today sounds like slaughterhouse terminology. And if you pay attention closely to the sacrificial system, you're right if you feel that.

Can you imagine the scene from the dedication of the temple being recreated today? After Solomon built the temple, which replaced the Tabernacle, we're told that there was an enormous amount of sacrifice: 22,000 cattle, 120,000 sheep. If you can imagine a modern church service where we've had anything close to that—a pastor with a knife, cutting animals' throats, pulling out entrails and livers, the smell of burning flesh. I mean, this is to modern sensibilities as horrific and grotesque as we can imagine. And so a lot of people really stumble over this.

For example, the atheist writer Richard Dawkins writes this about the God of the Old Testament: "He is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous—and proud of it. Petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, and vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser, misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential megalomaniac maniac." Wow. And there are a lot of people—Christian writers and Christian thinkers—who have struggled reading this. One writer says of these first chapters of Leviticus, "We read through Leviticus, it's kind of like a B-grade slasher movie, but without a plot. Just lots of blood."

And so today we're going to look at the sacrificial system, because there has to be more going on here than just gore with no plot. There has to be meaning here, and there's a lot to be found. I want to invite you into what is probably really foreign material for modern church people, and yet there's a lot of gospel grace to be found in these passages.

Understanding the Context

I want to start by looking at the context. There's a whole range of biblical scholars and critics who look at the Old Testament sacrificial system and think, "I'm glad we're past that. Nothing to see here, please move on." But I think it's really helpful for us to think about this within the context of what happens in the larger ancient Near East. The Israelite people were not the only people who made sacrifices. This was a practice that many nations all around Israel had. And studying those can tell us something about what Israel was doing and why.

It's important for us to think about the other nations around this and what was going on. There are two kinds of theories about why people—sociologically speaking—started sacrificing.

The first one was simply this: divine food. The way this idea goes is like, "Okay, the gods—whatever they were—were kind of like larger-than-life people and, like us, need to be fed on a regular basis." Picture larger-than-life Marvel characters who are in charge of various aspects of life in the world and need to be fed in order to do what it is that they do. And so you please them—you please the gods—by feeding them.

Nothing in the Bible particularly hints that this is at all what's behind any of what we read this morning. The Bible doesn't picture a God who is ever in need, who's ever hungry or tired or cranky, or who is like, "I lack something." So that's clearly not in view here.

The second kind of theory about how sacrificial systems came to be in all these different nations is this: the idea of pleasing the forces of nature.

At a certain point in human history, people began to wake up to the reality that in a farming system, they were heavily dependent on the forces of nature in the right amounts. For example, if you realize that you need rain but not too much rain—we know about too much rain or not too little rain like a drought. You need sun but not too much sun that burns your crops, or not too little. You need the Goldilocks zone for both of those.

Then the early gods in lots of cultures are these: the rain god and the sun god. And so you can't control the amount of rain. You can't control the amount of sun. So you try to do things to keep the god, the forces behind nature, to be happy with you.

Over time, people began to make sacrifices of their crops to please the gods so that they would continue to provide good things. Anytime there's a good crop, I'm not going to eat all of it. I'm not going to use all of it. Some of it I will lay aside for the forces, right? For the gods, whoever they may be. This is sort of a broad picture sociological study of ancient near-ancient culture. This is what they were doing.

But here's the glitch in the software. My kids play video games and they always talk about the glitch. You know about glitching? So the glitch in the software is this: What happens if you offer the rain god an offering and there's still a drought? What happens then? Maybe you'll say, okay, I didn't offer enough. So now I need to offer more.

But let's try this another way. Let's say it rained just enough and you have an abundance of crops. Then you're like, well, okay, now I need to offer. I probably in my gratitude should offer the rain god more.

And here's what happened. Over time, whether it was we didn't offer enough and therefore we need to offer more, or things turned out great and I need to express my thanks and offer more, the system created this kind of anxiety. There's always more that needs to be offered. Whether things worked out well or things worked out poorly, it always feels like I don't know where I stand with this god and I don't know how much is enough.

The psychology of the system is this feeling that somebody somewhere needs to be pleased with me. I need to make sure that this God is pleased with me, and I need to offer more. So if your animals get sick, if a woman can't get pregnant, if a child dies in childbirth, you would always be wondering: What do I need to do to get the forces on my side? What do I need to do to get the gods to be happy with me?

I'm talking about this as if this is ancient religion, but we all know it's not. There's a version of this that is in the subtext of a lot of the Bible belt. And there's a lot of anxiety in people's religion much of the time. Is God mad at me? Have I done enough? There's a lot of that sometimes behind the serving and the giving of lots of good people. Have I done enough? Is God somehow mad with me?

If you look at the bestseller list, especially in the religion section, a lot of them operate on the anxiety principle: Have I done enough?

The Logical Conclusion

Let's trace this to its logical conclusions in the ancient Near East. If the drought continues, you can see where this begins to go. Because you've offered the grain, and you've offered as much grain as you can really afford and still eat and have seed for next year. So you begin to say, okay, what can I offer that's more valuable? Well, I'll offer an animal. I'll kill an animal for the forces and make sure the forces are happy. Well, drought continues. And you're like, okay, I need to offer a more valuable animal.

Drought continues. What do you do? And you can see where this goes, can't you? You can feel where this is headed? Because this is where it was headed. It was what's creeping sort of at the dark edges around a lot of the nations surrounding Israel in the Old Testament. What do you offer next? A child. You offer a child.

The god Molech, one of the gods of the nations surrounding Israel, that's what the practice was. And this is why—just kind of an interesting side note—when Abraham is told by God, "Offer your firstborn," he's not like, "No way, I've never heard of that before." He doesn't need instruction. He knows that's what the surrounding nations do, and so he knows exactly what's being asked of him in that moment. That's a different sermon.

But this is why I want to show you. This is the context for Leviticus. This is the context for these opening chapters, and it's filled with anxiety and "Where do I stand?" and "Have I done enough?"

And this is why here's the punch. This is why I want to say to you: Leviticus by contrast is so revolutionary. That's a phrase you haven't heard someone say before.

Leviticus by contrast was so revolutionary and full of grace. See, this is what we're going to cover today. We're going to look at the first three sacrifices. We're going to look at the Olah, the Minha, and the Shyamalim. Next week, James is going to take us through the last two, the Hathat and the Ashram. And we're going to look at these five sacrifices because they are not what you may think they are.

This book contains these first chapters. These first five chapters contain all this information, all this priestly material about sacrifice. And the word for sacrifice in Hebrew is Korban, which means literally to draw near to. So think about what's being said here in the Old Testament, in the book of Leviticus, this priestly manual. You're being told: here is a god who wants to draw near to you. Here is a god who's giving instructions on how you can draw near to him. You can almost read between the lines of this passage, these passages over and over again like, wow, it almost seems like God can't wait to get in human flesh and come here and draw near to us. It almost feels like that.

Voluntary Sacrifices

Let's look at these. The first three sacrifices in chapters one through three are voluntary sacrifices. They are not something you have to do. This is about gratitude and joy and peace and contentment. They're not requirements. Nobody's required to bring these. The last two offerings that James is going to cover next week are about sin and guilt and they describe what happens when you realize you've done wrong—how do you make things right? But the first three, you decide if you want to do this. You decide if you want to go out of overflow of joy and peace and contentment and grace and come to God. That's what's being described here in Leviticus.

So I just want you to hear this really loudly and really clearly. Leviticus doesn't start off with law, judgment, condemnation. It begins with: if anyone wants to come near God, if you want to come and offer an Olah or a Minha or Shyamalim, here's how you come. Here's how you come near. Wouldn't that be great if you drew near?

You can offer a burnt offering, a grain offering, a fellowship offering. Let's think about this. Why would these first sacrifices be voluntary? Think about the history. We've gone over the history. The book right before this is the book of Exodus, which describes how God delivered these people from four hundred years of slavery. Is it surprising then that people who've been delivered from four hundred years of slavery by this God would suddenly be like, yeah, I do want to draw near, and in my joy and in my contentment and in my gratitude, I want to draw near to him. Is that surprising?

The Olah Sacrifice

Let's look at these first three. The Olah—O-L-A-H. This is chapter one. Write them down: chapters one, two, and three break down really easily.

The first one, O-L-A-H, Olah, is the Hebrew word for ascending. What's described here is the person bringing the sacrifice would bring a whole animal and that entire animal would be burnt up, would be consumed on the altar, and the smoke rising up, ascending, would ascend up to God. And we're told over and over again: God is pleased. God is pleased.

There are three different categories of Olah here. Look at verse three. The first one is from the herd—that's cattle. Then you go down to verse ten: from the flock—that's sheep or goats. And then finally, verse 14 is birds.

Here's what's going on. If you are pretty well off, you can bring a cow from your herd and offer that as an Olah to God. If you're not as well off, you can go to your flock and find a goat and bring that in and offer it to God. And then if you don't even have that, if you're very poor, you can bring in birds. Because anybody can get pigeons, right? Anybody can get those and bring those in to offer to God.

What's interesting about that? We've just talked about thousands of years of ancient Near Eastern context around them. And what is God saying that's different from all the nations here? He's saying the access to God here is everybody. Everybody come in. Everybody can have access. Everyone draw near.

This is what's fascinating here. You already see income disparity in the Old Testament. Isn't this wild? These are people who have just been freed from slavery. They grabbed whatever they could on the way out of Egypt, and already there is a spectrum. There are those who have a lot and those who have a little. And God says, I don't care. I want to make a way for all to come in. I want to make a way for everyone to have access to draw near. Come and draw near to me. Everyone is invited. Everyone has the all-access pass. Everybody can come near.

They bring the animal to the tent of meeting, and we read there about how the priest lays it out, kills the animal, lays it out, and then it's consumed. And here's the message. The message of this is really clear: you want to come near God, follow this ritual, draw near in this way, and it will be pleasing to the Lord. Did you hear that repeated in every instance?

So if you bring a cow from your herd and you burn it in this way, the refrain is, it will be pleasing to the Lord. If you bring a goat and you burn it this way, it's pleasing to the Lord. If you bring a bird and you kill it in this way and burn it this way, it's pleasing to the Lord. What is the message? It's pleasing to the Lord.

Compare this again to the other nations where it's the glitch in the system. Remember, it's built on anxiety: "I don't know where I stand with the god." This is a God who's saying, you can come and you will know exactly where you stand. There's no anxiety—pleasing to the Lord, pleasing to the Lord. This is a God who's saying: "I liberated you from your enslavement. I brought you out of that. There's a whole new way of being human that I'm welcoming you into. You can come near in your joy and gratitude, in your expression of that joy and gratitude. The divine is pleased with you." I mean, who knew, right? Good news of Leviticus chapter one.

The Grain Offering

Let's look at the second offering. This is the Minah—chapter two, M-I-N-H-A-H. Minah is how you say that. Incidentally, I used to get in trouble with my Hebrew professor because I took Spanish in college and I said everything with a Spanish accent. So just give me a pass, okay? My Hebrew is not very good.

The Minah in chapter two—this is the grain offering. It is similar to the first offering, except it's with grain.

So let me give you some context for this. Minah is a word that means gift. In Deuteronomy chapter 26, we read:

Now you will go and bring the first fruits of your soil that you have given to me as a minah — Deuteronomy 26

Ehud, the judge, takes a minah—a gift—to the king of Moab. In Judges six, Gideon, as a sign of respect, prepares a minah for God.

Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and took flour and made bread as a minah to the Lord — Judges 6

It just means gift. It's a gift to the Lord, and this again is an expression of joy and gratitude: "God, you are so great. You have been so gracious. You have been so welcoming."

Let's look at the ingredients of the minah. I think this is very instructive.

When anybody brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering should be made of fine flour — Leviticus 2:1-2

That's the first ingredient here: finest flour. We like fine flour, right? You've probably got some at your house. But in the Middle East at this time, finest flour was not something that people had in abundance. It was incredibly scarce. The flour that you would cook with on a regular basis was coarse and rough because it had to be ground by hand. Nobody's taking this to the mill down the street or buying it in a bag. No, this has to be processed by hand at home. Finest flour required an incredible amount of work. It required a ton of labor-intensive grinding and crushing for it to be really fine flour. That's the first ingredient.

The second ingredient was oil. Oil in the Bible is always symbolic of someone who's got God's presence on them, someone with whom God is pleased. For example, in First Samuel, God comes and speaks to the prophet Samuel, who is grieving because the king of Israel is a bum and his administration has been a complete train wreck, and he's like, "What do we do?" God comes to him and says:

Go and fill your horn with oil. Go to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem and there you will anoint one of his sons to be the next king — 1 Samuel 16

Putting the oil on David's head was a sign: "This is the person I'm choosing. This is the person. God's presence is with this person." You put oil to show God's blessing and His presence. But again, how do you get oil in the ancient Near East? Oil comes from olives. What do you have to do to olives to get them to render oil? You have to crush them. You have to press them. For them to give their gift, they have to be crushed.

The third ingredient we read here in verse three is frankincense. And frankincense—the way that you obtain it, the way you get it to give off its aroma—is by crushing it. That's how it gives off the smell that comes with it.

So can you see something here? Can you see why the early followers of Jesus, after watching their rabbi be beaten, be crushed, would look at these kind of sacrifices and go, "Crushed, crushed in order to give it its fruit"? See, do you hear the repeated pattern in that brokenness?

The priest then would season the grain offering with salt. Salt was always used whenever two people would make a covenant with one another. Salt was a sign of the covenant, and so the sign of the covenant is put on the Minchah, again symbolizing, "God, this is how you draw near to God. This is how you come near him." The priest then would take the flour and the oil and the incense and burn them on the altar. And what do we read again? What's the refrain? It is what? Pleasing to the Lord. Again, God is happy to draw near. He's happy for you to draw near.

See, this just needs to be said. This is the opposite of the sacrificial system of the pagans. This is a God who is like, "I'm the God of the underdog. I'm the God who hears the cries of my people. I am the God who is all about coming near and wanting you to come near." Leviticus is not the anxiety-ridden manual. This is the anti-anxiety manual. You know where you stand. And followers of Jesus look at this like, "I know where I stand. He was crushed for me. He was crushed so I could have access."

The Peace Offering

Look at the third sacrifice here. This is chapter three. This is the Shelamim—S-H-E-L-A-M-I-M. This is the third sacrifice. The Shelamim was the sacred meal of God, and you can hear this in the word. You may not know any Hebrew, but maybe you know the word "shalom." You can hear this: Shelamim. Shalom. Shalom. Right? Peace. A peace meal, a peace feast, a peace dinner with my God. That's what's being described here in chapter three. This is all about communion with God. This is about peace and wholeness and well-being, and everything's right between us and all things that were wrong have been made right.

In the ancient Near East, this was the goal. This was hands down the goal of life—to have a meal with the gods. And you see this just being displayed for us in this beautiful picture here. Again, we don't have a god who needs to be fed. This isn't "I come and offer what I have and God eats some of it and I eat the other half." We know we have a God who is proclaimed over and over in the Old Testament. We have a God who is the source of all things, who doesn't need anything, who's never hungry, who's never tired. He comes and he is the provider of the feast. And you come, bring part of the feast, and you just enjoy it in his presence. That's what's being shown here.

The purpose of the Shelamim was to reaffirm, "Me and God, we are at peace with each other. We have fellowship. We enjoy being together. We enjoy each other."

The gospel in Leviticus. Let's just say this for the joy of saying it one more time: This book doesn't start with a long list of commands from an angry God that you're trying to appease. This begins with clear, straightforward instructions on how to enact these rituals that remind you, that give expression to your joy, expression to your gratitude, expression to your contentment, expression to your peace. They remind you, "This is how you're brought near to the divine. This is how you can enjoy his presence. This is how you can be with him. This is how you celebrate wholeness and vitality."

Can you see how this would have been so radical and so beautiful in the surrounding cultures where people were sacrificing their children? Do you have any idea how jarring and revolutionary this is?

So, as we read these chapters in Leviticus, I want to encourage you: if you have a rainy afternoon with nothing to do, go back and read these. Does this feel primitive and barbaric to you? Does this feel like a God who's angry and therefore we've gotta get it right? Or is this a God who draws near and offers reconciliation? It's about trusting him. It's about letting go of your anxiety in his presence and trusting. He is the provider of all, including full access to himself. Full access.

A Final Word on Leviticus

Here's my final point for today. My final point on Leviticus is: don't bottom-line Leviticus. Christians do this all the time. Sometimes in our desire to really understand the Bible, we make summary statements that are not always that helpful. We can be simplistic with the Old Testament instead of simple. You know the difference between those two words? Simple is beautiful. Simplistic is dumbing things down.

Simplistic is—and let me show my cards—the statement, "Jesus fulfills the sacrifice." Which one? One of the beautiful things about Leviticus is there are all these sacrifices.

There's a variety and each one of them has things to tell you about your God. Of course, we believe Jesus fulfills the sacrificial system. In Hebrews chapter nine, we read about Jesus—the one sacrifice of Jesus fulfills all the Old Testament sacrifices, which by themselves could not save anyone. But the diversity of all these sacrifices shows us that they're all different aspects and angles and ways of looking at what Jesus provided for us.

This is like a prism. When you look at a prism in the light, it takes regular light and explodes it into all the parts of the rainbow. I want to encourage you that when we look at this Old Testament sacrificial system, what it has for us is to refract the light into all these different colors for us to see. Wow, Jesus provides fellowship. Jesus provides access. Jesus satisfies for my sins. Jesus reconciles me to God. Jesus brings peace. Jesus brings forgiveness. It's all these things. It's not a bottom line. It's not simplistic.

So here's my question to you coming from this passage this morning. Are you overwhelmed by the grace of God for you as a sinner? Are you tired of looking at Jesus and what he's given for you in his sacrifice? Have you made it so simple as to be boring? Are you enjoying and celebrating and entering into all the access of a God who says, "I want to be near you. I've gone to great lengths to be near you and invited you to be near to me"? Are you celebrating that? Are you embracing that? Are you living in the fullness of that?

I find that a lot of Christians have sort of stopped engaging their hearts with those things. Leviticus says come in. There's more—way more than you thought. There's more for your heart to treasure and ponder and to enjoy of this God.

The Invitation of God

I want to close with this. Many of you probably have heard of Eugene Peterson. He was a pastor in the larger DC area and has written a bunch of books. He's the author of the paraphrase of the Bible called the Message. He describes a story about growing up in Montana in a very rural farm setting. When he was a little boy, he would often walk across the meadow behind his house to the adjoining property and watch his neighbor, a guy named Leonard Storm, on his tractor working in the fields. He wanted nothing more than to ride on the tractor. His family didn't have one.

So one day when he's five years old, he's standing beside the barbed wire fence watching his neighbor Leonard Storm about 100 yards away on his tractor going back and forth. Storm stops the tractor, sees the little boy, stands up on the tractor and starts yelling at him and making gestures. Eugene Peterson, who had never seen anything like this before—this gigantic burly man screaming at him through the wind so he can't understand what he's saying, making this giant gesture—gets scared and runs off.

Well, his neighbor goes to the same church, so that Sunday, Leonard Storm pulls aside Eugene Peterson and says, "Little PD, why didn't you come to me on the tractor when I waved to you?" Eugene admits he was scared. He thought Storm was mad at him. He thought he was sending him away. And Storm says, "Well, little PD, how do you tell people to come here?" And he goes like this—wiggling his finger, not the giant windmill motion—"Come here." And Eugene ran off because he misunderstood the sign of invitation.

This morning, don't be scared by this book. Don't be scared away by the welcome gesture from God coming in maybe a little different form than we're used to. The invitation gesture, the windmill arms of God in this book that seems kind of wow, this is kind of gross and weird and I don't know what to do with this. God is doing the same thing. He's inviting you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Shalom.