Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace: How to relate to one another.

It is my pleasure to welcome you now to Abounding Grace. We're going to return to our series in Exodus today and concentrate again on chapter 21. Have you ever taken a look at your state penal code? If you have a copy, it most likely is the biggest book on the shelf.

Needless to say, we have a ton of laws which serve to help maintain law and order, and we need that. Well, today in Exodus 21, God lays down a number of laws for his people to follow, knowing that they needed structure and guidance as well. Here's Pastor Ed Taylor to point them out to us.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Take your Bibles, open them. Exodus chapter 21 is where we are. Exodus chapter 21. I heard I titled the message, but then I heard it today in our staff meeting because we go over the week and what the week's going to look like and the different services. So the title was there on our minutes for our staff meeting today, and I titled it, "Laws for Living Together."

Then I thought that could go a lot of different ways and it's not the idea of living together in your home, but rather these are laws we're going to see God give the nation of Israel on how to relate to one another. It probably would have been better to name it "Laws to Live Among One Another" as they begin to live their new lives. If you're reading through the Bible, you notice at about chapter 21, things change.

Up to this point in Genesis and Exodus, there's been a lot of interesting narrative, very easy to follow, compelling true stories about a great God interacting and leading men and women, even a nation looking to him, his miraculous hand, his faithfulness. The chapters have been really easy to understand, even though there's a few things along the way, easy to process, very exciting, very interesting, and then chapter 21 comes on the scene.

God shifts a little bit in chapters 21, 22, and 23. He begins to drill down for the nation through Moses the social order or the boundaries that are to be lived within as a new nation. So we'll be looking at different laws that are relatable to the nation of Israel. Remember the context: coming out of Egypt, coming out of the identity as slaves, answering to the heavy-handed taskmasters, but now moving in and moving toward the Promised Land.

At this point, the nation doesn't know yet that they'll be wandering. They're in great anticipation of what God has up ahead. These laws would be laws that would govern their daily lives. Remember, God has revealed himself in ways that are different than anything they've ever experienced. You could say that following the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt mirrors a lot of how you and I as new believers live. We came out of a life of darkness and a slavery to sin, and we're just learning all kinds of new things.

I was praying for the men again and I'm always struck when I think of 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, David, Saul, Elijah, Elisha. I'm really taken back as I am anticipating all that the men are going to be learning because when I was studying through Elijah and Elisha and really back into David and little Samuel and what God did through Hannah and all that section of the Bible for the very first time, it was like one thing after another.

The phrase that kept coming up in my life was, "I didn't know that was in the Bible. I didn't know that was in the Bible. I didn't know that's how you're supposed to live. I didn't know God could." It was amazing to think, if you put yourself in the shoes or the sandals of the children of Israel, they're getting the same thing. I've never experienced this before, never heard this before, never lived this way before, never thought about that before as God gives direction both to guide their lives and to guard their hearts.

Why? Why would God give rules and regulations and laws to you and me? Why would he say yes to this and no to that? Why would he give direction for our lives? It's a very simple answer. It's not as complicated as you might think. God has laid out for us his best for us, his will for our lives because of this singular problem: sin is so destructive.

Some of you don't need a pastor to say that. You could describe it back to me. You could tell me of the nuclear bomb of sin that exploded in your life and the absolute destruction and long-term consequences that come. Because sin is so destructive, God is so gracious to define this relationship with us. He tells us how to relate to him. The Ten Commandments were given. Now they'll be broken down into segments, different aspects of the Ten Commandments.

Here in chapter 21, 22, and 23, I want you to step back for a moment and consider this as you read through. Before God gets into the latter part of Exodus, which will be the Tabernacle—and we'll spend a lot of time looking at this portable tent worship structure and how it points to Jesus Christ, that's coming soon in Exodus—so before the Tabernacle, but after the glorious revelation on the mountaintop with all the thunderings and all the clouds and all the light, everything, all the activity up on the mount.

After that, but before the Tabernacle, we have a very ordinary set of laws, just really ordinary living, what we might call mundane. Like much of our lives. Much of our lives are just pretty ordinary. We get up in the morning, brush our teeth, take a shower, get ready for the day, go to work, be upset, come home, get happy again, eat, whatever. It's just a pretty same thing, different day, same thing, different day.

You'll read through this and it's like, okay, it's interesting. There's a few things to wrestle with when it comes to property and slavery and we'll talk about that, but for the most part, just really ordinary laws governing daily life. I want you to consider something, though, something that even in the new covenant as a pastor I've been sharing over and over and over again, but it comes even from the old covenant, this principle of God.

Apparently in the mind of God, he knows our tendency to separate things. So we have a tendency to separate the spiritual from the natural, or the high and holy church and my relationship with God, but then work. What redeeming quality could work do? Or what could happen when I'm just driving? Or why should I follow this law or that law? We have that tendency to separate things that we think are really, really spiritual and things that we think are just ordinary that don't need that type of attention.

But God wants us to see something here: that his thoughts are not our thoughts, and his ways are not our ways. So while we may have a tendency to have this hierarchy of what's important and spiritual and what's normal or mundane, God doesn't see it that way. Here's how God sees it. Ready? Everything is spiritual. Everything is significant. No matter what you're doing, it can be done as unto the Lord. It doesn't matter.

As much of the attention that you give to God here in Bible study is as much attention God would have from you at work, or at home, or shopping, or driving through town. Everything is spiritual. Everything we do here, now fast forward to today, this is how you've heard it many, many times. Everything is spiritual because there'll be times where someone will come to me and go, "You know, Pastor, Pastor, I'm called to great things and so I want to be involved and I'd like to teach or I'd like to do this, I'd like to be on the stage, I'd like..."

All that is good and fine if that's what God's called you to. But maybe we don't know you yet. Maybe you're brand new to the church. We don't really have a need to replace me yet, right now. So I'm doing good. I don't know that you'll be here. And we don't really have a need on the worship team. You've got to be here for a while. But you know what we do have a need? Do you really want to fill a need here?

"Yes, Pastor. I really feel like God called me to this church and here I am. I'm ready to fill a need." Well, you know, can you just go around and take out the trash? "No, no, no, no. I don't take out the trash. You don't understand. In my last church and last church, I was a trash take-outer and then I graduated from that and I graduated. I don't take out the trash anymore because I have grown up from that and now I am in this realm of spiritual like teaching is more important than taking out the trash."

Now, I have to say, there is a sense where Bible study and teaching has a deep value and it's able to reach people differently than taking out trash. But I want you to consider something. What is unspiritual about taking out trash? I mean, what's so unspiritual about that? Somebody needs to do it. Otherwise trash is going to... somebody needs to do it. And if you do it with the right heart, with the right attitude, then what is taking out trash really do?

I'll tell you. It puts you in proximity with people. Your relationship is not with the trash can and the trash bag. Your relationship is with all the people. For example, you go, "Well, you know, Pastor, I come in here," because there's always people arguing in their head. They don't argue out loud, but they're arguing in their head. "Well, you know, I take out the trash and nobody's on the property."

Yeah, but now you're serving the people that put their trash in the trash can and you can start praying for them, and you can thank God for them, and you can say, "Hey, you know, maybe they threw it on the side, made a big mess," and instead of going, "I can't believe all these bunch of trash people, they don't take..." You just clean it up as unto the Lord. You go, "You know, Lord, we obviously have some people in our church that are careless. Maybe it's their kids. So I just pray for them."

"Maybe they're going through something, they were in a hurry, or they weren't thinking about the house of God. But I'm here to think about the house of God. So, God, I do this unto you. I'm taking out the trash." And if there are people on the property, because the trash can is on the way other end of the parking lot over here, so now you're going to wheel it out, you're going to carry it out, you've got a long way to walk.

But if you count the cars on the way out on either side as you're walking through the cars, there's 30 cars on the way out, and maybe just one of them has somebody in it. Or maybe just one of them has somebody come out. Or there's people on the other side across the street hanging out like they always do behind Safeway, or people walking down the street, and you see them. And now taking out the trash has put you close to people that may need you.

But I mean, if you're copping an attitude and you think everything is... one thing is spiritual and one thing is not, when in reality here is the baseline issue. When you're asked to take out the trash and you cop some spiritual attitude, it's just like Christianese. Let me interpret it for you. Ready? It's kind of like the same thing when you're asked to do something and your response is, "Well, I'll pray about it."

That's speaking in tongues. Let me give you the interpretation. "Let me pray about it" is really, "I don't want to do it and I never will, because I already know God's going to answer my prayer 'no.'" Instead of just being faithful. Do you think taking out the trash is unspiritual, church? Yes or no? Have I convinced you? Everything is about proximity. It's one of the reasons why I believe God created church to be together.

To be together as much as you possibly can. Not if you can, we shouldn't avoid it. If you can be together, you shouldn't avoid it. Why? Because of the people sitting around you. That's why. You just don't know what God wants to do and you'll never know if you're not around people. And that includes wanting to come in with a heart going, "Lord, here I am. I'm ready." Right when you get into the car, right when you're thinking, "I'm ready, Lord. Use me."

"I know I'm coming for Bible study. I know I'm coming to sing. I know I'm coming because it's midweek or it's the weekend and I need some time. I know that. But I want you to know, God, I'm here for you as well." What we studied just recently: God, you can have it all. I'm coming to receive, but I'm also coming to give. My life is valuable. I want to pray with somebody. I want to encourage someone. I want to seek someone out.

God, and you begin to pray for them and you watch what God does. God understands that we cop an attitude about what's spiritual, what's not spiritual, based on what we want to do and what we don't want to do. It's how the world trained us. But you're not in the world anymore. This is the church of Jesus Christ. And he, the Bible says in Mark 10, he came to serve and not be served—or he came to serve and give his life a ransom for many, Jesus said.

He came to serve, not to be served. He came to give of himself as an example for us. God's wanting to see that we want to learn to have his thoughts. The spiritual and the practical are one and the same. In the eyes of God, the most average, routine, daily mundane thing is something that he cares about because it's all spiritual, because you're spiritual and he's spirit.

And this is where the spirit meets the world that lives in the now, where somebody that's eternally minded comes to someone that's earthly minded and there is a clash of kingdoms, but there's also an opportunity to give someone a greater perspective of what the kingdom of God is really like. It changes our whole perspective. So with that in mind now, just keeping that in mind in these chapters. Verse one, chapter 21. Our goal is to finish two chapters. We'll get it. We'll make it. Watch.

"Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them: If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."

Now let's just pause here in this challenging section and remember that when you're reading the Bible, you have to discipline yourself not to read it in your current cultural context first. Because it wasn't written to you in your current cultural context first. We need, in order to have proper Bible interpretation or what's known as hermeneutics, we need to remember not only what it says, what the original language says, but who was it written to, the time period, and how did they understand it?

If we don't get that, then we won't understand it for today. The Bible is very relevant for today, but you'll never be able to use it for today until you understand, and this is the big word you hear it all the time, the cultural context of when it was written. And we're looking at a group of people coming out, slaves in Egypt to evil slave masters. And in order to understand it, we can't read something into it immediately putting our 21st-century Western mindset, which is where we've come from. Otherwise, we'll make great errors.

There is a relationship that existed among the Hebrews that was common. And the closest thing that we could relate to today would be the employer-employee relationship. An additional way of looking at it would also be the sense of paying off a debt, working like an indentured servant paying off a debt that you're unable to pay back money. This is their servant relationship, much of them. Now sometimes there were wicked slave masters taking advantage of people, but here we have a new relationship being formed.

For the Hebrew servant, there was a pattern: six and one. Six years the servant could work and then the last year they could gain their freedom. And God reveals to them how masters would take advantage and he demands that those who are working are treated well and cared for. Pick up in verse seven. "And if a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do.

"If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself"—the keyword "betrothed" here you see a relationship and the selling would be a dowry, and you can jot that down in verse seven. "If she does not please her master who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the customs of daughters.

"If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free without paying money." Now again, one way of this relationship of slavery was to pay off a debt or to work it off. Another type was voluntary. And you can see that if a slave decides he wants to stay and work with his master, he could be taken, as we read earlier, and he would be taken to the judges and he would have an earring put in his ear.

And that would show that he has voluntarily chosen to work in this home. This was a choice, not out of poverty but out of love. You would make a public commitment, have your ear pierced as a sign of your willingness to work, and I love again in verse six, I love that phrase in verse six, "and he shall serve him" at the end there, "forever." It's a beautiful type of Jesus who came to Earth as a man and voluntarily became a servant.

He didn't have to go to the cross, but he wouldn't leave without his bride, the church, willingly giving himself for our sins. Again, jot it down, Philippians chapter 2 in verse five. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation." Can we just pause there for a second?

Because when you and I choose, as close as we can, we choose to follow Jesus in this pattern, this pathway of making ourselves of no reputation, then we begin to let the significance of titles, the significance of being insecure or finding our weight and our value in what other people think of us or what we do for a living in life, we begin to see it fade away. And we just recognize if we make ourselves of no reputation, then we're really untouchable by this world.

Because we're only seeking to please our master. That's it. That's all we want to do. And this is an area where we have to fight it because reputation is so valuable, especially with the rise of social media and how somebody can just potshot you on social media, just write whatever they want anonymously, and they just attack your reputation. And remember, I forget who it was, I can't remember the quote, who quoted it exactly, but someone once said, "If you take care of your character, God will take care of your reputation."

And you can't really take care of, you can't really fight or do anything about what people say or how they say it, but you can do everything to take care of the inner man and the inner woman. That you can put your head down on the pillow at night and go, "I know what they said, I know what they said, but hey, I'm right with the Lord." And God will be your defender. And I love this, it's just, can I make myself of no reputation like Jesus?

And how do you do that? Very next phrase: "taking the form of a bondservant." This is what a bondservant is. He could leave and he could be free and he's worked it off. But he has a family and he loves his master, and he likes what he does, and he loves the environment in the home, he's like, "You know what? I'm staying. I am voluntarily committing myself." And for Jesus, coming in the likeness of men, he humbled himself. Being found in appearance, he humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross.

Guest (Male): This is Abounding Grace, and Pastor Ed Taylor is leading a study of Exodus right now. You can hear these radio programs on our website anytime at aboundinggraceradio.com, or listen to us wherever you get your podcasts. Another way to go and grow in the word is by downloading our app. Search for Ed Taylor. This is a great way for you to take in the word of God wherever you may be.

And now, Pastor Ed, some may wonder as they hear all of these laws that were given to the nation of Israel on how to relate to one another, are they applicable to us here in the 21st century? And on a broader scale, is the Old Testament relevant to us today?

Pastor Ed Taylor: This actually is a great question, Larry. I was just hosting our live Monday through Friday, I don't know if you guys knew this, but we have a live radio call-in show Monday through Friday on our local network here in Colorado called Grace FM, but also on the station you're listening to right now. You can tune in no matter where you are. It's 4:00 Mountain Time, so it'll be adjusted to wherever you are around the country.

We call it Calvary Live. You can even podcast it if you can't get it on your local station. But the question was asked today, this very question: why read the Old Testament? Number one, God has given it to us and so we want the whole word for the whole Christian. Number two, it is pointing us to Messiah. We would never know our need, we wouldn't know who God is, we wouldn't know how God operates unless we read the Bible from the beginning.

And from the beginning, we learned that God is a pursuing God to rescue those trapped and damaged by sin. So the Old Testament points us to Messiah. A third reason, and this is no particular order I guess, but a third reason is we would never fully understand the New Testament until we understood the Old Testament. They go together. They build on each other. I think it was Norman Geisler that I heard say this, where he said, "Within the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and in the New Testament the Old Testament is revealed."

They go together. So when we're reading these precepts, we want to learn, first of all, what did God say, who did he say it to, and what does it mean? Once we learn that, then we can come back and go, "Well, there it is. The Ten Commandments. God told the nation of Israel to have no other gods." Well, how does that apply to us today? Have no other gods. Singular worship.

So it's important that we know the whole Bible and that's why I appreciate the heritage of the church we're a part of. Verse by verse, chapter by chapter, the whole book. What a pleasure it is for me to stand in the pulpit and tell the church, "Okay, church, open your Bibles to 1 John chapter 2 and let's pick up where we left off last time." It's such a great way to go through the Bible.

Guest (Male): Very helpful. Thanks again. Do you struggle with anger as so many do? We'd like to recommend an excellent book on the subject from Tim LaHaye and Bob Phillips. It's titled *Anger Is a Choice*. Whether you're dealing with the rage of others or battle it yourself, you'll discover how to keep anger under control instead of it being in control.

Request a copy today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE, and I should also mention the book is available online at our e-store. Take a look at calvaryco.store. Again, the toll-free number: 877-30-GRACE. There are some costs that go with being on the radio like this, and we're looking to the Lord to provide for us.

If he's leading you to take an active role in the ministry through either a one-time gift or ongoing monthly support, please visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE. Well, that will do it for today. Come back tomorrow when Pastor Ed Taylor will pick up where we left off in Exodus here on Abounding Grace.

Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.