A major issue for believers is how to get close to God and how to stay close to God. Now, I think everybody would say it's good to be in the presence of the Lord.

However, as we see in Leviticus, it's also dangerous to be in the presence of God. In the Old Testament, animals were killed to get people into God's presence. Blood had to be shed. A high priest represented the nation, and he would approach the presence of God very, very carefully.

God's pure holiness is awesome, but if you get too close to it, you can't handle it.

It’s like the sun—we would all say the sun is good. But we can all agree that it’s also dangerous. Earth is 93 million miles from the sun. If you were to get within 3 million miles of the sun, you would burn up.

The solution was sacrifices, and someone to offer them—the priest.

Sin is awful. It destroys life. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). And blood must be shed to atone for sin.

We all sin. We were born sinful because of what Adam did. But we also do things that are disobedient to God, so that has to be covered, too.

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8-9). So we have to acknowledge that we have sinned and confess that sin.

“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

Our idea of sin must match God’s idea of sin. I've noticed that churches sort of soft-pedal this: “Don’t use that word. People are offended by the word ‘sin.’”

Good. Be offended by it. Be so offended you hate it like God hates it, and you want to forsake it.

God is very exclusive. If you want to hang out in His presence, you have to bring the appropriate sacrifice.

The Old Testament sacrifices were not just meant to repair things, to fix the problem of sin. They also foreshadowed better things. They were fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's why Jesus said to the Pharisees, “If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:46).

So, how can we approach God? Through sacrifice. And who can approach God for me? Only a priest can. So, we need a representative, somebody to offer the sacrifice for us.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is called our “great High Priest” (Hebrews 4:14). Jesus is both the sacrifice and the one who offers the sacrifice. So He is the sacrificial Lamb, and He is the High Priest who offers the sacrifice.

"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). But He's also our high priest. He offers it, so there is the fulfillment of that.

So the purpose of the law was not to show us how approachable God is, but exactly the opposite. You can’t approach God with good works. That's religion: Trying to earn your way to God, pray your way to God, sweat your way to God.

The gospel is simple: Trust your way to God. It's not by your works. It's by what He has done.