Monite Fepueli 9, 2026

LEVITIKO 24-25; 2 KOLINITO 8:1-15

We see the beauty and tenderness of God in his kindness toward the poor.

‘Oku tau mamata ‘i he faka’ofo’ofa mo e manava’ofa ‘o e ‘Otua ‘i he’ene tokangaekinga ‘a e masiva.

Because I live in the heart of the city, I walk everywhere. I am on the sidewalks almost every day, walking to meet someone for lunch, to pick up something at the store, or to go out to dinner with my wife. As do so many big cities, Philly has a heartbreaking homeless problem. We see people living and begging on the streets every day. Sometimes we literally have to step over someone to get to where we are going. It is easy to get used to diverting your eyes, to act like you didn't hear that cry for assistance, to harden your heart. It's easy to get mad at someone who is messing up the sidewalks or intimidating tourists. I admit that it is often hard to look upon a street person with eyes of love, remembering that, like me, he is made in the image of God, and, because he is, he has value and dignity.

This is why I am struck by the directives in Leviticus on how to treat the poor: 

If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. (Lev. 25:35-38) 

God's words here are touching and important. He is instructing his people to take in and provide for the poor in the community. This is a call to loving, radical hospitality. Then God addresses the motivation for such self-sacrificing kindness. God tells them, "Don't do this for personal gain, but because you fear me." God's children should remember how he responded to them when they were poor, needy, and unable to change their circumstances, and then show that same kindness to others. If you live in fearful awe of God's mercy to you, then you will be an agent of his mercy to others. Gratitude is the soil in which kindness grows. God makes the invisible mercy of his kindness visible by sending people of mercy to respond with kindness to people who need mercy. God calls his children to represent his character and will wherever he places them.

Now think about your life. The Bible says that Jesus became poor so that through his poverty we might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). He looked on us with love and, in the mercy of kindness, did for us what we could never have done for ourselves. May God grant us the grace to show kindness to the needy people we encounter, with gratitude for the mercy we have been given.

 Sapate Fepueli 8, 2026

LEVITIKO 22-23; HEPELU 4:1-13

The Sabbath is more than a religious duty; it is a gift of grace from a God who knows us and loves us.

Ko e Tauhi ‘o e Sapate ‘oku ‘ikai ko ha fatongia faka-lotu pe; ko ha me’a’ofa ‘o e kelesi mei he ‘Otua ‘oku Ne ‘afio’i mo ‘ofa’i kitautolu.

It is tempting to live beyond your limits. It is tempting to work harder and longer than God has designed you to do. It is tempting to evaluate your life by how much you have experienced or achieved. It is tempting to exhaust yourself by working to acquire, and then working to maintain what you have acquired. But there is no limitless human being. God has created all of us with limits of time, energy, wisdom, and righteousness.

Think about time, for instance. You and I will never get ten days in a week or thirty hours in a day. We'll never have fifty days in a month or five hundred days in a year. We all have to live inside of the limits of time that God has set for us. This means that if something in your life commands more and more of your time, it will begin to eat into and take away time from some other area of your life. If you work eighty hours a week, it will encroach on your familial and spiritual callings. The same applies to physical energy. No person is an endless fount of energy and strength. It never pays to deny your body the need to rest and rejuvenate. Think of human wisdom. No human being is wise all the time and in every way. It is unwise to leave no time in your life to grow in wisdom and knowledge, to act as if you know it all.

So God, knowing the limits he has set for us, says, "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places" (Lev. 23:3). In loving wisdom God calls us to stop each week for one day. Stopping is hard for some of us, because we have attached our identity, meaning, and purpose to always being in motion. God says, "You need to have a day when you do no work." I love the words "solemn rest." Here is a call to be serious about rest, because the one who made you and called you to himself is serious about it. But there is more. This stop-day is also a day of holy convocation. It is a time, because of sabbath, that God's people can gather for worship and remember who we are and what we have been given as the children of God.

"It is a Sabbath to the LORD." We don't belong to our material possessions. We don't belong to our achievements or successes. We belong to the Lord. By grace, he has made us his, and in living for him we experience life's greatest joys. And, finally, every Sabbath reminds us of the ultimate Sabbath of rest found only in our substitute and Redeemer, Jesus.

 Tokonaki Fepueli 7, 2026

LEVITIKO 19-21; TAITUSI 2:11-14

There is no higher, grander purpose in life than to accept God's call to be holy as he is holy.

‘Oku ‘ikai mo ha toe taumu’a ma’olunga mo fungani hake ‘i he mo’ui, ka ko hono tali ‘a e ui ‘a e ‘Otua ke ma’oni’oni hangee ko Iaa.

Although Leviticus is filled with God's insight and wisdom, many people find it difficult to read through this Old Testament book. Many have confessed to me that, when using a daily Bible reading plan, they quickly skip through Leviticus to get to "more interesting and more helpful" parts of God's word. But I have come to love Leviticus, and to love the Lord who is revealed in this book, more fully and more deeply.

Note the words of Leviticus 20:26: "You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine." This verse points us to the call of God. To love God's law is to live for something vastly bigger than the comfort, pleasure, or ease of the moment. God calls you to live for something dramatically more fulfilling than your personal definitions of happiness. He calls you to live for something greater than material affluence, personal power and control, or acceptance, respect, or fame. He calls you to surrender every desire in every situation of your life to the holy will of the one who created you and then took you for his own. The call to holiness enjoins you to always ask in every situation, oration, or relationship, "What is the will of God for me in this place, or what thought, desire, or response would

be pleasing to my Lord here?"

This verse clearly communicates what holiness is about. It's not first about what you and I do as the children of God. It is first about what God has done. Pay attention to these words: "You shall be holy to me... you shall be mine." In an act of divine sovereignty and grace God takes his children out of the mass of humanity and separates them for his own possession and purpose. Holiness is about being separated by God. It is about no longer belonging to ourselves but belonging to him. And it is about living, in every area of our lives, as if we really do believe that we have been separated by God for his possession and purpose. To be holy is to live in light of God's choice to make us his own.

Consider a New Testament passage:

The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11-14)

May we live as a people for God's own possession.

 Falaite Fepueli 6, 2026

LEVITIKO 16-18; PALOVEPI 7:1-27

God's laws are not only for his glory; they are for our thriving as well.

Ko e ngaahi lao ‘a e ‘Otua, ‘oku ‘ikai ngata pe ‘i hono fakae’a ai ‘a Hono langilangi, ka ki he’etau lelei foki.

You probably don't need me to tell you that we are living in a culture that has gone sexually insane. The anytime, anyway, and with-any-person culture of sexuality will not lead us anywhere good. The social philosophy of gender fluidity, based solely on spontaneous personal preference, must include the denial of biological and relational realities. Where we are as a society, when it comes to human sexuality, should remind us of the importance of God's wise and holy laws regarding sex. We should be grateful that God has spoken with such remarkable and memorable clarity about this important aspect of human desire and function. He has done so because he loves us.

Leviticus 18:5 introduces a list of laws pertaining to sexuality: "You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD." First, this verse reminds us that the laws of God do not get in the way of the good life but are the tracks upon which the good life runs. "He shall live by them" means that life - abundant life - is found in a careful, life-shaping submission to the wise and holy laws of our Creator Lord. Second, this verse tells us that God is not sex-negative; in fact, the Bible makes it clear that God is not pleasure-negative. He has placed us in a world of glorious pleasures wherever we look. And he has created us with pleasure gates (eyes, ears, nose, etc.) so that we can participate in, absorb, and enjoy the physical pleasures that he has filled the earth with. But as an infinitely wise Creator, God knows that pleasure requires boundaries. A whatever-you-want, however-much-you-want, anytime-you-want, with-whomever-you-want approach to pleasure will always harm yourself and others in some way. A life controlled by the unbridled love of pleasure is a life heading for destruction. God wants us to enjoy sexual pleasure, and he wants our sexual lives to thrive, but he knows this will happen only when we submit our sexual desire to his wise commands.

Leviticus 18:5 reminds us of one final thing. As weak and wandering sinners, we have no power on our own to love God and his law more than we love the pleasure of sexual fulfillment. So our hope of thriving in this area lies with our God, who meets us by his grace and empowers us to desire and to do what is right in his eyes. Once again, we are pointed to Jesus. In Jesus, God not only reconciles us to himself, but he gifts us with his Spirit to guide, convict, and empower us, so that we can know the joy of living the good life, that is, living the way the Creator designed for us to live.

 Tu’apulelulu Fepueli 5, 2026

LEVITIKO 14-15; SAAME 139:1-16

No detail of your life is outside of the watchful and faithful care of your heavenly Father.

‘Oku ‘ikai ha mingimingi’i ma’e ‘i ho’o mo’ui ‘e ta’e ‘afio’i ‘e he fofonga tokanga mo ‘ofa ‘o ho’o Tamai faka-hevani.

Politicians on the campaign trail often communicate that they care for their constituents, but their care is distant and impersonal at best. They don't know you, they don't love you, and they have no idea what your personal life is like or what burdens you bear. So when a politician says he cares, you don't tell yourself you can let go of your burdens and rest in this leader's care. Because you hear his words of care in the most general sense, they make little difference in your emotional or spiritual state or in how you live your life.

But imagine what it would be like to have the most powerful person in the universe set his love on you, commit to unleashing his power to bless you, and deliver amazing promises of guidance, protection, and provision. Wouldn't the care of that person change the way you think about yourself, your life, your hopes and dreams, your potential, and the hardships and burdens of life? This is exactly what the book of Leviticus is about: it's about Almighty God, the Lord of heaven and earth, setting his love on his children and making covenant promises to bless them and, through them, to bless the peoples of the earth. What Leviticus pictures for us is how deep, detailed, and pervasive the care of God is for his children. The specificity and detail of God's laws for his children show just how much he loves them. In these laws we see how much he cares about every detail of what we deal with as we live in this fallen world. The one who created us cares for us, and, because he created us, he knows just what we need.

Leviticus 15 includes a series of laws about bodily discharges. Now, you may not have known that this was in the Bible, or you may be wondering why it is in the Bible. Perhaps you have never heard a sermon on Leviticus 15 and bodily discharges. But there is a reason for these laws, and a reason they were preserved for us. They remind us that no human experience, no matter how personal or embarrassing, is outside the Lord's care. God's care is so insightful and thorough that he even cares about our most intimate bodily functions. He knows what men and women go through, and he meets us with his loving care. I am glad for Leviticus 15 and what it communicates about the specificity of God's love for his children. If he cares so much about the little things in our lives, you can be sure he cares about the biggest danger to us: our sin. If he works in the little things, you can rest assured that he will deal with this big thing: he will send one who will conquer sin and death and reconcile us to himself forever.

 Pulelulu Fepueli 4, 2026

LEVITIKO 11-13; SAAME 51:1-12

By the loving miracle of God's grace, unclean hearts are made new and pure.

‘I he mana fakaofo ‘a e kelesi ‘a e ‘Otua, ko e ngaahi loto ta’e ma’aa kuo ngaohi ke fo’ou mo ma’a.

Leviticus 13:45-46 says, "The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp." These words remind me of David's prayer after committing adultery: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10). Although the laws surrounding leprosy had to do with God's lovingly and wisely protecting his people from a deadly infection, they also point us to something profoundly deeper.

Sin is the ultimate infection. No one escapes this disease. It renders us all unclean. It separates us all from our Maker. It cries out for the ultimate cure, one only the Messiah can provide.

Like a bad stain on white linen, like a black smudge on pure vellum, like wine spilled on a new dress, like paint drips on window glass, like mud on a new shoe, this stain won't just go away. It won't fade into nothing. You won't wake up one morning to discover it has suddenly disappeared. The deepest, darkest, most penetrating stubborn stains must be cleansed.

Denying that they're there never works. Doing your best to hide them doesn't remove them. Living with them is foolishness. Hoping no one will notice is vain. Worrying about them changes nothing. Whatever has been stained must be cleansed to be new again. So it is with the human heart. It is sad to admit, but no one has a pure, perfectly clean, unstained, pristinely beautiful, heart. No one. Every heart of every person comes into this world stained by sin.

Sin is immorality's permanent ink, sinking into the deepest regions of the thoughts, desires, motives, purposes, worship of the heart. This tragic sin stain is humanly unremovable. No matter what you try, no matter how many times you try, it is there to stay without something that has cleansing power. You can look at your stains with hope

because there is a cleansing stream. It flows through the righteous life, the substitutionary sacrifice, the victorious resurrection of Jesus. He came so that sin-stained hearts would have the hope of being clean again, new again, spotless in his sight again, ultimately pure again, forever.

If we confess that we are stained, he is faithful, he is righteous, he will forgive our sins, he will cleanse our hearts and thoroughly wash us from all unrighteousness. Step out from the shame of your stains. Refuse to put your hope in things that do not cleanse. Walk away from a life of denial. Confess that you have no cleansing power of your own. Quit blaming your stains on other people, other things. 

Humbly bring the garment of your heart to him. Put your stains in his hands. He will wash you in his grace. He delights in doing for you what you could never do for yourself. He delights in making you clean.

 Tusite Fepueli 3, 2026

LEVITIKO 8-10; LOMA 3:9-20

It is essential for us to take sin seriously, because Scripture makes it clear that God does.

‘Oku fu’u mahu’inga ‘aupito ke tau tokanga ki he mamafa ‘o e angahala, koe’uhi, ‘oku ha mahino ‘i he Folofola ‘a e mamafa ‘a e angahala ki he ‘Otua.

He was an angry, emotionally abusive, demanding, controlling, and physically intimidating husband. I have to admit that, when I sat with him in my counseling office, he intimidated me. He had destroyed all the sweetness, unity, peace, and joy in his marriage. His wife was emotionally broken. She had lived too long in fear of when she would anger him next. When she voiced her hurt, he mocked her for being weak and needy. The thing that struck me the first time I met with them was the smile on his face. His wife tearfully told me why she had begged him to come with her for counseling as he sat there with his arms folded and a grin of mockery on his face. He wasn't ashamed. He didn't feel guilty. He didn't think his behavior was that big of a deal. He surely wasn't in my office that morning because he thought he needed help. He was there to placate his wife, to get her off his back so that they could "move on." I wanted to think that he and I had nothing in common, but we did.

There are times when I too don't take my sin seriously. There are times when my pride and impatience don't seem such a big deal to me. There are times when I am defensive when approached about a wrong I have done. There are times when I work to make my sin look less than sinful to me. And I am sure there are times when you do the same. For most of us our problem is not that we take sin too seriously, feel its weight too much, or confess our wrongs too quickly and too often. No, for most of us our problem is that we often fail to see the seriousness of our sin and the gravity of its vertical and horizontal consequences. It is scary that we are able to call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, and yet we minimize the very thing that led him to the cross. The whole content and motion of the grand redemptive narrative is a result of God's unwillingness to close his eyes to the pervasiveness and gravity of sin, which has infected every one of us. To God, no disease that has befallen humanity is more significant and destructive than sin.

That's why, immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, our God promised that this dark thing would be once and for all defeated and eradicated (Gen. 3:15). Sin is so serious that it gets that kind of attention from the Creator Sovereign King.

This is why the story of Nadab and Abihu, who made an unauthorized incense offering, should get our attention (Lev. 10:1-3). A fire from the Lord consumed them, and they died. That's how serious sin is: "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). Because God saw sin as serious, he set in motion a process to give us a Savior. The grace of new life is needed only if sin is as deadly as God says it is. Do you take sin seriously?