Num 3:13, For all the first-born are Mine; on the day that I struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to Myself all the first-born in Israel, from man to beast. They shall be Mine; I am the Lord." 
This morning’s reading deals with the fact of the choosing and the numbering of the Tribe of Levi. They were not numbered according to the manner of the rest of the tribes because they were specially chosen by God unto Himself. Due to their willingness to serve God at whatever cost, they were set apart as holy unto the Lord. 
Notice that all the other tribes were ordered to encamp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance. Their placement was very definite, but their duties were not so specified. The families of the Levites, however, were, specifically set close to the Tent of Meeting as a buffer and a safety cushion for all the rest of the nation of Israel. Not only that, but each family was given a precise task within the functioning of the holy things of God. 
This is something that presents to us a most elevated view of the work of God and His majesty in operation in His people. Never let us just read through His account and detailed manifestation without considering the fundamental reality so presented. As was indicated in the introduction, God’s glory is fully shown within the details of this Book, and the overall detail before us is that the people were ordered and were arrayed with such specificity. 
This was a throng of slaves who had just been released from their bondage. They were not a nation. They were a liberated rabble of desperate and disparaged human chattel that God was organizing into a people who would become a mighty nation in the land of His promise. They were organized and marched and ordered and counted as a nation which emerged from field hands and laborers and shepherds, only by the grace of God.   
Returning, then, to the distinction of the Levites from the rest of the nation, the census of the Levites was every male from one month of age and upward. All the other males of the nation were counted from 20 years of age and upward. The reason for the older age of the rest of the tribes was that these were the men who could go into battle as warriors. However the Levites were not so ordained. Rather, they were specifically chosen as the servants of Aaron for the sake of the religious duties required to keep all the sacraments and ordinances and obligations and necessities associated with the sacred and holy duties on behalf of the whole nation.
As well, choosing of the Levites by God was the redemption price for every first born of the rest of the nation. As we are told in this morning’s reading, God required the first born male of every womb, both of the people as well as of the herds and flocks. This was His stipulated requirement as signified by the final plague in Egypt which secured the release of the Children of Israel. While every first born of Egypt died, every first born of Israel was redeemed unto the Lord by the blood of the Passover lamb. For all the first-born are Mine; on the day that I struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to Myself all the first-born in Israel, from man to beast. They shall be Mine; I am the Lord." 	
This was so important in the understanding of what God had accomplished in the redemption of His Chosen people that it is emphasized in a number of scriptures including Ex 13:2. Ex 13:2, "Sanctify to Me every first-born, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast; it belongs to Me." 
God would have His own. He deserved nothing less for the manner in which He had caused the Egyptians to not only release Israel, but to load them down with all the gold and wealth they could carry. God’s tremendous Omnipotence was to be honored by the first fruits of the womb. However, God was not to be dealt with like the horrid aspects of humanity’s vile imaginations which resulted in the sacrifice of first born children to the idols and the demonic gods of the surrounding nations. The Lord God Almighty made the provision for the first born to be redeemed, redeemed as the nation had been redeemed from Egypt. It was through the Levitical tribe that this was accomplished. 
    	Accordingly, it was now the Levites who represented that redemption of the first born for the whole nation. The count of the Levites corresponded with the count of the firstborn males of the rest of the nation. For this purpose, those first born males were, as well, counted from one month upward.
While we do not want to get caught up in the numbers, it does represent something to consider when we look at the total of the Levites with regard to the total of the national census. There were 273 more males that were to be redeemed than there were Levites, so those excess males were redeemed by the payment of 5 shekels apiece, the cost of one boy slave. 
The suggested significance of this is that the number atoned for by the Levites represented the nation as a whole while the excess redemption price represented the deliverance of the individual. God’s redemption covers both the whole of His congregation of believers as well as the individual person. It is the glorious elemental, foundational, bedrock of our understanding of the grace and the mercy and the love of God. He cares for His corporate people and He cares for the very specific individual whom He has chosen unto Himself.
	All of this presents to us the truth of the eternal plan and purpose of God in the fact of His first-born and Only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything revolves around the reality that God had set into motion the manner in which He would ultimately bring into place His redemptive process that would establish a living relationship with His people, with His Church, with each individual member of His family.
	The Psalmist highlights for us, in Ps 89:1-5, the prophetic announcement that what was presented through the type of the Levitical redemption of the first-born would usher in, not only the Messiah, the Christ, the Redeemer, but that God’s work would stand for all of eternity. It would not be a temporary and fleeting familial monarchy, but one that would last forevermore. Ps 89:1-5, I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever; To all generations I will make known Thy faithfulness with my mouth. For I have said, "Lovingkindness will be built up forever; In the heavens Thou wilt establish Thy faithfulness." "I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed forever, And build up your throne to all generations." Selah. And the heavens will praise Thy wonders, O Lord; Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. 
	Notice the emphasis on the fact that the assembly of the holy ones will praise God’s faithfulness. That assembly of the holy ones are all those whom He has redeemed and made holy by His awesome work. His faithfulness will be recounted and exclaimed and declared by those whom God has chosen unto Himself and made holy. These are those first-born who belong to Him Alone, first-born through the majestic working of His awesome power manifested in the very giving of His Only Begotten Son, the truly first-born of all creation. 
	In Ps 89:24-29, Christ is again in view through the declaration of His sovereignty by the psalmist. Ps 89:24-29, "And My faithfulness and My lovingkindness will be with him, And in My name his horn will be exalted. "I shall also set his hand on the sea, And his right hand on the rivers. "He will cry to Me, 'Thou art my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.' "I also shall make him My first-born, The highest of the kings of the earth. "My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him. "So I will establish his descendants forever, And his throne as the days of heaven. 
	This is such a glorious announcement and affirmation of what will be eternally evident for all of creation in Jesus Christ. It is in Him and by Him that all those, covered by His shed blood, will give Him glory and praise and allegiance and loyalty and reverence and honor and fidelity forever and forever. He is the first-born and we are brought before God as His own through the redemption that only the Lord Jesus Christ has established, so powerfully and fully incorporating us into the very family of God.
	The Gospel of Luke highlights this fact of Christ’s preeminence of first-born holiness in Luke 2:22-24. Luke 2:22-24, And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every first-born male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord"), and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, "A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." 
	Christ’s earthly parents followed through with the custom of their heritage in honoring God with the dedication of their first-born as holy unto the Lord. In their case, however, those sacrifices, indicating the holiness of the first son, was the means of the indication that the full measure of what this entailed had come into fruition. This was the First-born of God Who would redeem myriads upon myriads of people through His obedient death on the cross at Calvary.
	In Acts 20:18, there is the encouragement to all the overseers of the assembly of the redeemed to give constant and complete attention to the manner in which the Church is guarded and guided and taught because we are precious to God by virtue of the supreme cost of our redemption. Acts 20:18, "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 
  	As we are told in Heb 12:22-24, this, then, brings us full circle to the fact that in Christ, we are the first-fruits, God’s own people. We are holy unto Him, in Jesus Christ, covered by His own holy blood. We are sanctified and the price of our redemption is fully met by the True First-born. In terms of the Levitcal purchase and the price of our salvation and deliverance from sin and death, God has paid it for us and made us His own. 
Heb 12:22-24, But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. 
	We are the church of the first-born and we are enrolled in heaven. We are partakers of the new covenant of Christ’s blood which fulfilled and set aside the old covenant of animal sacrifice and blood which could do nothing more than temporarily assuage the wrath of God. All those who have called upon the name of Jesus and received the freely offered gift of salvation that is found only in the Beloved and first-born Son of God have free and unfettered access to the very throne of God as our Heavenly Father. We know that we belong to Him and that we are desired in His presence through the glorious work of Jesus. 
He knows our name. He knows our needs. He knows our every deed and action and thought and yet He so loves us that He has purchased us unto Himself without hesitation. As a matter of fact, even before we were born, He knew us and made this way of our salvation to be in effect, permanent and unhindered and unmerited. We can’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, and we can’t buy it. Only by grace, in the name of Jesus Christ, does He bestow it upon us, saving us from ourselves.
	Our Lord, Himself, expressed the joy that should be ours in the truth of our so glorious and miraculous salvation in Luke 10:20. Luke 10:20, "Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven." 
That rejoicing is what should be in evidence in our hearts and minds and thoughts and beings as we so consider the manner in which God claimed us as His own. Our names are recorded in His Book of Life because we are His and His Alone. Through the joyous wonder of His saving grace, we come before Him in love and rejoicing as He has saved us unto Himself.
	In James 1:17+18, Brother James reemphasizes this truth that we are the first-fruits of Jesus’ labor, meaning that we belong to God, holy and righteous through our redemption in Jesus. James 1:17+18, Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures. 
	We are the church of the first-born, the first fruits wholly belonging to God only by the exercise of His will in our lives. It can never be sufficiently nor fully nor emphatically proclaimed that our placement into His family, our redemption, our sanctification, our glorification is all and only by the gift of The Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus, Our Savior and Our Lord! He is the essence and substance of why we are so loved as God’s own people. So be it!
For all the first-born are Mine; on the day that I struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to Myself all the first-born in Israel, from man to beast. They shall be Mine; I am the Lord." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Deut 16:10+11. Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give just as the Lord your God blesses you; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is in your town, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst, in the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name. Amen.