ACTS – The Body of Christ
“Because the story of Jesus is so impressive–God among us! God speaking a language we can understand! God acting in ways that heal and help and save us!–there is a danger that we will be impressed, but only impressed.” Eugene PetersonAs the spectacular dimensions of this story slowly (or suddenly) dawn on us, we could easily become enthusiastic spectators, and then let it go at that–become admirers of Jesus, generous with our oohs and ahs, and in our better moments inspired to imitate him.
Dr. Luke, writer of Acts, tries to prevent that, to prevent us from becoming mere spectators to Jesus, fans of the Message. Of the original quartet of writers on Jesus, Luke alone continues to tell the story as the apostles and disciples LIVE IT into the next generation. The remarkable thing is that it continues to be essentially the same story. Luke continues his narration with hardly a break, a pause,perhaps to dip his pen in the inkwell, writing in the same style, using the same vocabulary.
The story of Jesus doesn’t end with Jesus. It continues in the lives of those who believe in Him. The supernatural does not stop with Jesus. Luke makes it clear that these Christians he wrote about were no more spectators of Jesus than Jesus was a spectator of God–they were IN on the action of God, God acting IN them, God living IN them. Which also means, of course, IN us.
What a glorious thought! God with us! Christ in me! His Holy Spirit guiding me to fulfill God’s purpose and plan for me!
In Acts, chapter one, we recount the last visit of Jesus on earth, His witnessed ascension back to heaven and then the disciples and other followers back to their “meeting room”.
I love this verse, “They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus’ mother, Mary, and his brothers.” Acts 1:14 The Message Some of Jesus’ brothers did not believe he was the Son of God, Savior, until after the crucifixion and resurrection.
AGREEMENT. What a beautiful, cherished thought, to be in unity and agreement with each other, with God’s plan forming, as you help others find and follow Jesus.We move along from agreement in Jesus’ church to the forming of purpose and mission. This passage, one of my other favorites, shows us what Jesus intended for the Body of Christ. It is simple really, but over the ages of time, has been filled with traditions and man made laws of behavior. (Mm, just like the Pharisees did). He sends, as promised, His Holy Spirit to come in power, giving believers power with gifts to speak the message of Jesus clearly, so clearly in fact that the people gathered (thousands) are convicted and asked, “What shall we do?”
Peter, (assigned by Jesus to be “the rock” upon which Jesus will build his church), gives the answer. This former fisherman, now filled with God’s Holy Spirit, stands and speaks with authority and passionate clarity with his new gift of powerful persuasion for Christ. (Wow! Wrap your head around that! This is the same man who denied Jesus three times, out of fear, when Jesus was arrested!)“Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.’” Acts 2:38-39, NIV
Peter goes to say…“With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” Acts 2:40-41, NIV
Did you get that? THREE THOUSAND clamored to be saved by Jesus–some of the same people who shouted, “Crucify Him” a few weeks before.Now a gathering, a crowd, who believes in Jesus, is forming. What is next? Luke tells us exactly what happened. This is how the “church” began to take shape, driven by the leading of His Holy Spirit. Luke strips it all down to the basics. This is what the church, the Body of believers with Jesus Christ as the Head of the Body, believes AND this is how the Body of Christ behaves…
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 42-47, NIV
Do you see the four purposes of the church? (Acts 2:42)1. Devoted to the teaching by those who have been called.
2. Devoted to fellowship.
3. Devoted to remembering, The Bread of communion.
4. Devoted to prayer.
Teaching, Fellowship, Communion, Prayer–the basic tenants of the church of believers in Christ.
These fabulous four, I call them, are fleshed out in the succeeding verses. Here are descriptors that stand out to me…
“Filled with awe”, “together with everything in common”, “give to anyone in need”, “continued to meet”, “broke bread and ate together”, “glad and sincere hearts”…AND the Lord honored this new church by adding to their numbers…DAILY…those who were being saved!
Can this still happen today! YES! A million times YES!
God honors hearts who are sincere and glad to be with Him and with others who believe. God loves it when His children love each other! I love it when my kids get along and love each other, so I get it!
God honors those who understand that all they have is God’s in the first place! We do not have anything that God has not provided for us. All things belong to God! We, who are made in His image, are mere managers of God’s stuff. We do not covet the stuff of others, we gladly share what we have because we do not think like the world thinks. To give a person leg up in troubled times is a good thing. Even better is to teach how to work alongside you and others. (“Common”) We are in this together indeed.
God’s Holy Spirit gives us skills and abilities beyond our own talents to serve others in unique ways to help them find and follow Jesus, too! Faith boils down to what Jesus said are the greatest of all the commandments: Love God. Love Others. Don’t love your goods, love and seek God. (Matthew 6)
All of us labor and work, for God worked. We are to be compassionate and generous in giving others the opportunities to work and give as well. “They all worked together” for the common good.
I could talk for days about this passage, but we will close with a further explanation of Acts 2:42 by Warren Wiersbe, one of my favorite commentators;
The Church Walking in the Spirit (2:42–47)
“The believers continued to use the temple for their place of assembly and ministry, but they also met in various homes. The three thousand new converts needed instruction in the Word and fellowship with God’s people if they were to grow and become effective witnesses. The early church did more than make converts; they also made disciples (Matt. 28:19–20).”
“Two phrases in Acts 2:42 may need explanation. “Breaking of bread” probably refers to their regular meals, but at the close of each meal, they probably paused to remember the Lord by observing what we call “the Lord’s Supper.” Bread and wine were the common fare at a Jewish table.” “The word fellowship means much more than “being together.” It means “having in common” and probably refers to the sharing of material goods that was practiced in the early church. This was certainly not a form of modern communism, for the program was totally voluntary, temporary (Acts 11:27–30), and motivated by love.” (Wiersbe)
HOLY PAUSE
Do you attend an Acts 2:42 church?How do you know it covers all the basics of Acts 2:42?
What gifts do you feel the Holy Spirit has given to you for contributing to the mission of helping people find and follow Jesus?
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank for stirring my heart this morning with this powerful passage, telling about the beginnings of your church. Help us to know You, know each other better, love you and love each other like you love us. Help us to encourage each other. Help us to truly be more Christ-like in our fellowship with each other. Help us to behave like we say we believe.
In Jesus Name, Amen
In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God is presented as speaking creation into existence. God speaks the word and it happens: heaven and earth, ocean and streams, trees and grass, birds and fish, animals and humans. Everything, seen and unseen, called into being by God’s spoken word.
The Word is Jesus, God’s One and Only Son, a part of God. This time God’s word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. Jesus speaks the word and it happens: forgiveness and judgment, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. Everything broken and fallen, sinful and diseased, called into salvation by God’s spoken word.
Keeping company with these words, we begin to realize that our words are more important than we ever supposed. Saying “I believe,” for instance, marks the difference between life and death. Our words accrue dignity and gravity in conversations with Jesus. For Jesus doesn’t impose salvation as a solution; he NARRATES salvation into being through leisurely conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, passionate prayer, and–putting it all together–a sacrificial death. We don’t casually walk away from words like that.
“This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. John 1:15-18, NIV
Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. He wants a close, intimate relationship with us that is above all other relationships. It is the most important relationship you will ever have, for this relationship extends into eternity. Jesus died to save us. How can we deny His love for us?
God’s specific plans for worship which include the place and furnishings that all have special significance are revisited in these chapters. God has forgiven the “holy cow” experience which brought out evil’s worst in people and caused a broken relationship with Him. The relationship is restored because of Moses’ mediation on behalf of God’s people and the remorse of the people. “We will do what God says”, repeat God’s people. So God repeats his commands for His Tent of Dwelling. 
Repeatedly we read, “Moses and the people did exactly what God said”. For now, they have learned very important lessons about who God is and what He longs to have with us–a loving, trusting, forever relationship with Him.
20-26 So everyone in the community of Israel left the presence of Moses. Then they came back, every one whose heart was roused, whose spirit was freely responsive, bringing offerings to God for building the Tent of Meeting…
Chapter 39 
Moses and God’s people finished the work. Moses finished the work God gave Him to be and do.
God promised to go with them. God always keeps His promises. The most important relationship we should have is with God, through Jesus Christ, His Son. Without Jesus we cannot see the Father, Jesus teaches his followers. (And us.)
The relationship between God and His people in the wilderness journey was restored through repentance, humble obedience (doing exactly what God told them to do in every detail), through sacrifice for their sins (animals with no flaws) along with willingness to give back to God (offerings and gifts) what was already His.
That was then. Today our relationship with God is restored by the blood sacrifice, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Telling Jesus I’m sorry for my sins with a sincere humbled heart brings us back into a profound, forever relationship with God, our Father, our Creator, the One who loves us most and loves us unconditionally. Believing in Jesus saves us from death to life forever with Him. Following Jesus brings new life to our being, full of His peace, a new way of thinking, a deeper way to love and be loved. 
“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 
TRUTH
HOLY PAUSE: Do you really believe what you say you believe is really real? 
God’s people are back in God’s graces after abusing every law God had written in stone the first time. But God has not forgotten the ease by which His people are distracted. So he makes it clear, once more, what they are not supposed to do so that their relationship with Him is made holy by His consistent love for them. 
1-3 God spoke to Moses: “Cut out two tablets of stone just like the originals and engrave on them the words that were on the original tablets you smashed. Be ready in the morning to climb Mount Sinai and get set to meet me on top of the mountain. Not a soul is to go with you; the whole mountain must be clear of people, even animals—not even sheep or oxen can be grazing in front of the mountain.”
4-7 So Moses cut two tablets of stone just like the originals. He got up early in the morning and climbed Mount Sinai as God had commanded him, carrying the two tablets of stone. God descended in the cloud and took up his position there beside him and called out the name, God. God passed in front of him and called out, “God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient—so much love, so deeply true—loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Still, he doesn’t ignore sin. He holds sons and grandsons responsible for a father’s sins to the third and even fourth generation.”
10-12 And God said, “As of right now, I’m making a covenant with you: In full sight of your people I will work wonders that have never been created in all the Earth, in any nation. Then all the people with whom you’re living will see how tremendous God’s work is, the work I’ll do for you. Take careful note of all I command you today. I’m clearing your way by driving out Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Stay vigilant. Don’t let down your guard lest you make covenant with the people who live in the land that you are entering and they trip you up.
13-16 “Tear down their altars, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their fertility poles. Don’t worship any other god. God—his name is The-Jealous-One—is a jealous God. Be careful that you don’t make a covenant with the people who live in the land and take up with their sex-and-religion life, join them in meals at their altars, marry your sons to their women, women who take up with any convenient god or goddess and will get your sons to do the same thing.
20 “Redeem your firstborn donkey with a lamb. If you don’t redeem it you must break its neck.
26 “Bring the finest of the firstfruits of your produce to the house of your God.
29-30 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying the two Tablets of The Testimony, he didn’t know that the skin of his face glowed because he had been speaking with God. Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, saw his radiant face, and held back, afraid to get close to him.
This is God’s response to Moses’ plea to reaffirm the covenant. In many ways this is a brief reenactment of The Law being given to Moses the first time. God miraculously wrote it the first time, but now it is Moses’ turn.
Jealousy (34:14) has an unsavory connotation in English. It is petty and possessive. That is not the case in Hebrew. It is the same word as is sometimes translated “zeal.” So it was because Jesus was jealous for the house of God that he drove out the money changers (Jn 2:17). 
Dear Heavenly Father,
Can you imagine making God so angry that He doesn’t want to be in the same place with you?
Anger comes from extreme hurt. It grieves God when we sin because He doesn’t want anything coming between our relationship with Him. We cannot continue to sin and have a relationship God at the same time. One has to go.
7-10 Moses used to take the Tent and set it up outside the camp, some distance away. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who sought God would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp. It went like this: When Moses would go to the Tent, all the people would stand at attention; each man would take his position at the entrance to his tent with his eyes on Moses until he entered the Tent; whenever Moses entered the Tent, the Pillar of Cloud descended to the entrance to the Tent and God spoke with Moses. All the people would see the Pillar of Cloud at the entrance to the Tent, stand at attention, and then bow down in worship, each man at the entrance to his tent.
12-13 Moses said to God, “Look, you tell me, ‘Lead this people,’ but you don’t let me know whom you’re going to send with me. You tell me, ‘I know you well and you are special to me.’ If I am so special to you, let me in on your plans. That way, I will continue being special to you. Don’t forget, this is your people, your responsibility.”
15-16 Moses said, “If your presence doesn’t take the lead here, call this trip off right now. How else will it be known that you’re with me in this, with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we’re special, I and your people, among all other people on this planet Earth?”
19 God said, “I will make my Goodness pass right in front of you; I’ll call out the name, God, right before you. I’ll treat well whomever I want to treat well and I’ll be kind to whomever I want to be kind.”
Jesus has the power and authority from God to forgive us immediately and completely. Yes, Jesus, who loved us so much He died and rose again in power, talks to God on our behalf! 
Remember Jesus’ prayer for His disciples AND for us just before going to the cross to exchange His life for our lives? 
HOLY PAUSE
Do you like continuing education courses provided by your company employer? Do you dread training presentations or get excited about what you could learn so you could do your work more productively? It depends on the timing of the training, doesn’t it? If you are not overwhelmed with the work at the moment, you are more likely to accept time out to learn better, smarter ways of doing your work.
“Make gods for us” scream God’s chosen to Aaron. We want to go back to what we knew. That’s easier.
When the people realized that Moses was taking forever in coming down off the mountain, they rallied around Aaron and said, “Do something. Make gods for us who will lead us. That Moses, the man who got us out of Egypt—who knows what’s happened to him?”
6 Early the next morning, the people got up and offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings and brought Peace-Offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink and then began to party. It turned into a wild party!
11-13 Moses tried to calm his God down. He said, “Why, God, would you lose your temper with your people? Why, you brought them out of Egypt in a tremendous demonstration of power and strength. Why let the Egyptians say, ‘He had it in for them—he brought them out so he could kill them in the mountains, wipe them right off the face of the Earth.’ Stop your anger. Think twice about bringing evil against your people! Think of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants to whom you gave your word, telling them ‘I will give you many children, as many as the stars in the sky, and I’ll give this land to your children as their land forever.’”
19-20 And that’s what it was. When Moses came near to the camp and saw the calf and the people dancing, his anger flared. He threw down the tablets and smashed them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made, melted it down with fire, pulverized it to powder, then scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
25-26 Moses saw that the people were simply running wild—Aaron had let them run wild, disgracing themselves before their enemies. He took up a position at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is on God’s side, join me!” All the Levites stepped up.
At the same time God was giving Moses instructions for meeting the people’s need for a tangible center for worship and guidance, the people despaired of having that need met by God and insisted that Aaron meet it for them. 
Close behind deification comes misuse of resources and the uninhibited expression of sexuality as the worship of the life force. In many ways this brief and poignant story teaches us the heart of the biblical drama as clearly as any other portion of Scripture. 
Reverting back to the old ways of life, they shout, “build us an idol!” When we don’t know what to do, we go back to what we knew. The idol was probably of a full-grown bull, similar to idols the Israelites had known in Egypt. The bull idol represented life, fertility, and power. 
Ex 32:24 is one of the great expressions of the human tendency to make excuses and deny personal responsibility. The results of Aaron’s inability to stand up to the people in their demand for a god to manipulate are threefold: brother set against brother, a plague, and the distance of God. God had planned for brother to serve brother, for health and abundance, and for his presence in their midst, but all that is jeopardized by the people’s efforts to achieve these things for themselves.
The most serious problem is the distance of God. Moses’ concern is seen in his attempt to maneuver God into an “or else” situation (32:31-32). God, in effect, tells him to calm down (v.33)
One of the results of the golden calf incident was a new level of intimacy between Moses’ and God (33:7-34:35). The central issue is whether God will go with the people to the Promised Land. Moses argues that without God’s presence for himself personally and with the people as a whole, the whole enterprise is pointless.
HOLY PAUSE
If Moses is to lead God’s people, then he must have an intimate knowledge of God and his ways. It is the experience and evidence of the presence of God that distinguishes biblical religion from all others. For believers today it is the encounter with Christ that makes the difference in our lives before God. In Christ, the cleft rock of our salvation, is our way out of the bondage of sin and whose protection we have as sinners saved by grace can come into the presence of God and live.
Great leaders look around constantly for those God has empowered and equipped with special gifts needed to do what God has given them to be and do. 
The words here in Hebrew are not just words for skilled labor but for divinely gifted craftsman so the work will be done beyond regular human skills. God always takes what we have and takes it to a higher level than we ever imagined or thought possible. That’s why we still pray Paul’s prayer of praise to God, 
Israel’s keeping of the Sabbath was a reminder of her very identity as a people liberated from slavery to the Egyptians and for a special role in the cosmic drama of human salvation. 
12-17 God spoke to Moses: “Tell the Israelites, ‘Above all, keep my Sabbaths, the sign between me and you, generation after generation, to keep the knowledge alive that I am the God who makes you holy. Keep the Sabbath; it’s holy to you. Whoever profanes it will most certainly be put to death. Whoever works on it will be excommunicated from the people. There are six days for work but the seventh day is Sabbath, pure rest, holy to God. Anyone who works on the Sabbath will most certainly be put to death. The Israelites will keep the Sabbath, observe Sabbath-keeping down through the generations, as a standing covenant. It’s a fixed sign between me and the Israelites. Yes, because in six days God made the Heavens and the Earth and on the seventh day he stopped and took a long, deep breath.’”
As the Sabbath is the only ceremonial observance mentioned in the Ten Commandments, it is the only one mentioned here in connection with the tabernacle instructions (31:12-17). Surely this is not accidental but speaks to the special significance of this observance. 
To KNOW that God is the LORD (31:13) it is necessary not only to experience his power and providence, but also to live in a state of covenant obedience with him. That truth is expressed here in the specifics of Sabbath obedience. The harshness of the punishment for Sabbath-breaking reflects the extreme importance of the lessons being taught here. It is important to God to remember Him and the love he has for them (us).
How shall we find peace with a holy God? 
Mm, just thinking out loud here…Paul said our bodies (sanctuaries for God’s abiding) are like tents on this earth. “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.”
HOLY PAUSE Batman, just feeling silly, quarantine, you know 
1-5 “Make an Altar for burning incense. Construct it from acacia wood, one and one-half feet square and three feet high with its horns of one piece with it. Cover it with a veneer of pure gold, its top, sides, and horns, and make a gold molding around it with two rings of gold beneath the molding. Place the rings on the two opposing sides to serve as holders for poles by which it will be carried. Make the poles of acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold.
The Atonement-Tax
Holy Anointing Oil
26-29 “Use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the Chest of The Testimony, the Table and all its utensils, the Lampstand and its utensils, the Altar of Incense, the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offerings and all its utensils, and the Washbasin and its base. Consecrate them so they’ll be soaked in holiness, so that anyone who so much as touches them will become holy.
Aaron was to burn sweet incense upon this altar, every morning and every evening, about half a pound at a time, which was intended, not only to take away the ill smell of the flesh that was burnt daily on the brazen altar, but for the honor of God, and to show that His people accepted their work to God with pleasure. 
OUR PRAYERS
When the priest was burning incense the people were praying (Luke 1:10), to signify that prayer is the true incense. This incense was offered daily, it was a perpetual incense signifying that we must pray always, that is, we must keep up stated times for prayer every day, morning and evening, at least, and never omit it, but “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). 
FINAL THOUGHTS (With the help of Matthew Henry, Commentator)
The ceremonial sacrifices for the sins of God’s people and the ordination process of His chosen priests is all made holy by God’s glory. Only God can ordain and anoint holiness in humans. We are made holy only by God and His righteousness brought about by the final sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. Believing in Jesus, we are made holy. Following Jesus, we follow Him in being holy and living holy lives. We are not perfect, but we are perfectly forgiven and strive to live to please God.
Keep this in mind as we struggle through this new, seemingly complicated system of atonement for sins and ordination of His priests. The last message from God declares who God is and what He will do. It was important to God that His people remember…
1-4 “This is the ceremony for consecrating them as priests. Take a young bull and two rams, healthy and without defects. Using fine wheat flour but no yeast make bread and cakes mixed with oil and wafers spread with oil. Place them in a basket and carry them along with the bull and the two rams. Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water.
9-14 “This is how you will ordain Aaron and his sons: Bring the bull to the Tent of Meeting. Aaron and his sons will place their hands on the head of the bull. Then you will slaughter the bull in the presence of God at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Take some of the bull’s blood and smear it on the horns of the Altar with your finger; pour the rest of the blood on the base of the Altar. Next take all the fat that covers the innards, fat from around the liver and the two kidneys, and burn it on the Altar. But the flesh of the bull, including its hide and dung, you will burn up outside the camp. It is an Absolution-Offering.
22-23 “Take the fat from the ram, the fat tail, the fat that covers the innards, the long lobe of the liver, the two kidneys and the fat on them, and the right thigh: this is the ordination ram. Also take one loaf of bread, an oil cake, and a wafer from the breadbasket that is in the presence of God.
26 “Now take the breast from Aaron’s ordination ram and wave it before God, a Wave-Offering. That will be your portion.
38-41 “This is what you are to offer on the Altar: two year-old lambs each and every day, one lamb in the morning and the second lamb at evening. With the sacrifice of the first lamb offer two quarts of fine flour with a quart of virgin olive oil, plus a quart of wine for a Drink-Offering. The sacrifice of the second lamb, the one at evening, is also to be accompanied by the same Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering of the morning sacrifice to give a pleasing fragrance, a gift to God.
42-46 “This is to be your regular, daily Whole-Burnt-Offering before God, generation after generation, sacrificed at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. That’s where I’ll meet you; that’s where I’ll speak with you; that’s where I’ll meet the Israelites, at the place made holy by my Glory. I’ll make the Tent of Meeting and the Altar holy. I’ll make Aaron and his sons holy in order to serve me as priests. I’ll move in and live with the Israelites. I’ll be their God. They’ll realize that I am their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I could live with them. I am God, your God.”
The work to be done was the consecrating of the persons whom God had chosen to be priests, by which they devoted and gave up themselves to the service of God. The Hebrew phrase for consecrating is “filling the hand”. This could mean that ministers have their hands full; they have no time to trifle, so great, so copious, so constant is their work.
Priests were distinguished from common men, sequestered from common services, and set apart for God, fully focused on doing what God told them to be and do.
“This is the secret”, ways Paul to the church, “Christ lives in you!” “This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.” Colossians 1:27
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9 NIV
Dear Heavenly Father,
How did the Israelites come up with all they needed to create, sew, craft the The Dwelling place and now the beautiful priestly garments? They are in a wilderness setting! And then another thought occurs to me. Because God is God, I remember that He told His people before leaving Egypt! God said to ask for these materials, the valuables from all their Egyptian neighbors! 
Exodus 28, The Message
Aaron’s vestments, to set him apart as holy, to act as priest for me. These are the articles of clothing they are to make: Breastpiece, Ephod, robe, woven tunic, turban, sash. They are making holy vestments for your brother Aaron and his sons as they work as priests for me. They will need gold; blue, purple, and scarlet material; and fine linen.
The Ephod
The Robe
That Someone was Jesus, The Messiah, whom the prophets foretold in the dark times. Jesus, our High Priest, above ALL earthly priests, took all our sin once and for all and nailed to a cross. Jesus, God’s Son, the only perfect One, who knew no sin became sin for us. This perfect Lamb of God, sent and set apart to be holy and perfect, had a mission from God “to seek and to save the lost”. Because He was God in human form, He willingly laid Himself down on the “altar of sacrifice” called a Roman cross of cruelty. 
Now, as believers, we are the priests, all of us, set apart by God, to tell others of salvation through Jesus Christ. How will others know who we are? Because of Jesus, there are no priestly garments that we wear on the outside to let people know who we are. We don’t need them.
“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”
WHAT TO WEAR…
“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”
HOLY PAUSE
