Sacrifices Pay Off

Ex. 22:20   “Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the LORD alone, shall be devoted to destruction.

Read Exodus 22:16-23:9

This past month we have seen nations and teams in floods of joy and floods of tears as their hopes at winning the World Cup either seemed to materialize or vanish before their very eyes.

President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil encapsulates what many other people felt as they watched the game, “My nightmares never got so bad.” Argentina’s Javier Mascherano, who kept his team’s hopes alive with a heroic, last-ditch tackle on Arjen Robben during the semifinal against the Netherlands, said that the pain of losing was “immense.”

Every team that lost a match during Brazil 2014 made great sacrifices just to qualify for the World Cup. This small vignette gives us a window into every human soul. We all have things we desperately want. We ask these things to grant us validation and appreciation.

We hope that the sacrifices we make will eventually pay off.

This law in Exodus 22 and 23 is sandwiched between a host of random laws. We find this law directly in the middle of these laws. It is the centre point on which all the laws hinge. Martin Luther, the 15th century German reformer, stated that all commandments hinged on only one: worshipping anything other than God. We all make sacrifices. We sacrifice our moral integrity, we sacrifice our character, we sacrifice anything and everything for a central goal in our life, a dream.

Exodus tells us that one day these things we sacrifice to will be unable to deliver the very thing they promise. Four years from now Germany will have to hand on the World Cup to another team. Their sacrifices for glory and fame will become impermanent. They will lead to a sense of loss, frustration and failure.

The Christian life is a life of sacrifice. It is a life marked by the very sacrifice of God Himself on the cross.  His sacrifice is what saves us from loss, frustration and failure. We find the only validation and glory that will never fade. We were worth the very life of God. We no longer sacrifice for redemption, we sacrifice because we have been redeemed.

You Could be Mine

“If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.” Exodus 22:1

Read  Exodus 22:1-15

Some years ago, the Church of Scotland was having a great meeting (one of its great assemblies) in the city of Glasgow. The mayor of Glasgow came to address the body, and he got up and said something pretty interesting.

He said, “You spend an awful lot of time debating as theologians about whether there is a God or what he’s like, and you spend an awful lot of time talking about God.” He said, “I’m not a theologian and most people aren’t. With all due respect, let me tell you what we really need from you. We do not need a lot of speculation about God and about theological discussions and such things and doctrine. Those things really don’t matter to the modern person anymore, and they don’t matter to us. Here’s what we need from you. How can we love our neighbor? How can we get along? How can we treat each other with kindness and with respect? We desperately need an answer to that question, and that’s what we’re looking for the church to give.”

I mention this not because you should be interested in Scottish politics but because it’s very common everywhere in the Western world. The opinion is, “What you believe about God is not critical. It is social problems that are critical. Whether you believe in God at all is not critical. The important thing is how do we get along? How can we treat one another with respect?”

These laws deal with the respect of personal property and stewardship. What Mr. Mayor missed was that Christ did not come to make us moral, but to rescue us. Morality is simply the by-product and not the end goal of Redemption.

Mr. Mayor, on what basis should I treat other human beings with kindness and respect? Mr. Mayor, on what basis should I be unselfish? Why should I deny myself anything? On what basis? If there is no God, the only reasonable answer to the question, “What are we?” is there is no difference between a human being and a bag of chemicals, our feelings to the contrary notwithstanding. If there is no God, we are all results of the accidental collision of molecules.

Christianity holds the view God created the world. It is his. Treating anything as “fully and completely” as our shows that we do not understand how gracious our Creator is in sharing his world with us. The cross shows us that even though God had everything, he gave it all up to die on a cross with us. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that sthough he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9)

God’s grace make us generous. It makes us honest in not stealing hours from our boss, not over billing hours to our clients. “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” (Eph 4:28)

Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a great Scottish preacher, put it this way. He said, “To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its lifeblood than its money.”

God’s grace makes us generous. Today be generous with your boss, with your clients, with your friends, and with your family. It is the only appropriate response to the Grace of God giving his life for you on a cross.

Man’s Best Friend

Ex. 21:33   “When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,  34 the owner of the pit shall make restoration…

Read Exodus 21: 28-36

This is part of Exodus, Levitcus and Deuteronomy we normally skip over. Boring laws… More Boring Laws… Boring Laws about animals…

Have you ever wondered why some human beings keep pets? Is it just because we are lonely? Bored? Needy? The Bible gives a reason why this is jus a smaller illustration of the theological term, “cultural mandate.”

The cultural mandate is the belief that we are to bring God’s truth to bear upon every area of human society, from arts and literature, to politics, to government, to economics, to the schools, to scientific progress, and so on. It is based in Genesis 1:28 which says, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

We are to create God honouring culture. Even the way we treat animals is to be regarded as part of this sacred trust. Often we read passages like Genesis 1:28 and Exodus 21:28-36 and see them as only applying to animals. The bigger picture is actually realizing that this world is a “tale of two cities.” One is the the city of God and the other the city of man—either a God-honouring culture or a humanity-centred culture.

As Abraham Kuyper says: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”

Laws about animals are more than that. They are laws which at the very heart ask, “Who are you centring your life around? What does your culture look like? Are you creating God-honouring culture? Or are you creating Self-honouring culture?”

Today remember Christ has declared you His. Live life as a steward and creator of culture.

 

 

 

 

Smashing Artwork

Exodus 21:23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life,  24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth…

Read Exodus 21:12-27

This passage is one of the most well known and least well quoted in the Bible. Context is very important. Examine these identical paragraphs but put see that the punctuation makes their context utterly different. Which letter would you prefer to receive.

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy–will you let me be yours?

Jane

—- or —-

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Jane

These verses in Exodus are not primitive verses urging violence and vengeance. They urge the exact opposite. They are an indictment of the very desire of the human heart for revenge. These verses speak of restraint compared to the unmitigated, unmeasured revenge that Ancient Near Eastern cultures and even our modern cultures sometimes espouse, “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.” (Gen. 4:24) No more can men avenge themselves sevenfold, for this law imposes a strict limit of justice (Exodus 21:23).

It is difficult to understand all that is going on in Exodus without understanding the context of the first five books of the Bible. Life is important. God created it.

These “Laws on Life” are a declaration of the sanctity of life. All humans are made in the image of God. An assault on someone made in the image of God is an assault on God himself. If one were to deface MichaelAngelo’s statue “David,“ the stone would not bear the moral outrage of the offense, it would be the artist.

God is stating to his people, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made. I have given you life; it is a precious gift. Guard it.” In upholding human rights, we declare that God is the Lord of Life.

On the Cross, the Lord of Life shows us the true meaning of these verses in Leviticus, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” (Lev. 17:11)

Every single one of us has committed cosmic vandalism at one point or another, whether in thought, word, or deed.  The penalty for cosmic vandalism is death, but the beauty of the Cross is that God pays out of his own pocket, out of his own flesh and blood the penalty for vandalism.

Lord, today we want to honour your image found in all humanity. We have marred it and disfigured it. Lord, would you transform us and renew us into the image and likeness of your Dear Son, we ask this all in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Common Interests

 

Ex. 21:1   “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.

Read Exodus 21:1-11

Grady Smith the writer for Entertainment Weekly “came out” recently. Yes, he admitted to his colleagues that he is a Christian. Tattooed on his arm are the words, “and that is what some of you were.”(1 Cor 6:11)

He is humorously illustrating how we find it nearly impossible to identify with anyone who has not shared our experience. As a Christian we are all part of this beautiful mess called humanity. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “You used to be just like your colleagues. You still needed redemption and grace.”

It is only apt that God would begin His commandments for communal living to his people with laws concerning the treatment of slaves. God’s desire for humanity is that they practice justice. “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.” (Deut 15:15)

What God is basically saying is, “You used to be a slave. Now you are redeemed. Now you are a son. Treat everyone else like a son.”

The basis for dealing equitably and justly does not spring from a sense of moral superiority, it springs from a shared sense of family in the beautiful mess called humanity. We humans are capable of great acts of kindness and at the same time such acts of barbarism.

The realization that “once we were slaves, and now we are free,” should fill our hearts with compassion to those who are still enslaved by fear, worry, doubt, and stress. Paul puts it this way “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1Cor. 6:11)

The degree and measure that you give Grace to others directly shows how much Grace “think” you have received from God. If everyone in the world owes you something, it inherently stems from the fact that you actually believe God owes you something. If everyone in the world is deserving of grace, “or goes free for nothing” (Ex 21:1), then you may actually have grasped that you received a salvation that was extremely costly to God and extremely free to you.

Here Is Where the Magic Happens

Exodus 20:25 “If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.”

Read Exodus 20:22-26

In the Mid-2000’s MTV featured a show called “Cribs.” It highlighted the extravagant lifestyles and houses of celebrities. Often these celebrities would bring the camera to this or that room and use a phrase, “This is where the magic happens…”

God is showing his people “where the magic happens.”  It is at the Altar that true forgiveness happens. It is at the altar God’s people would learn that a lamb died instead of them.

There is a portion of C S Lewis’ “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” where Lucy and Susan are distressed by Aslan’s death on the Stone Table blurt:

“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?” “Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.”

“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

The Altar is not about man building a staircase to heaven. It is place where heaven comes down and touches earth.  God rescues the people of Israel before he ever gives the Law. He provides atonement for their sin before they ever try to earn his favour. Even the instructions for the building of the altar are meant to convey grace. “Don’t fashion the stones, I have already provided them. Don’t build a staircase to heaven, you will only expose how silly it is to try to climb to divine heights. I am the true altar and the true sacrifice.”

It is at the true altar, the Cross of Calvary, that we find the place of divine exchange. Our shame for his glory. The Exodus story itself is a story of death working backwards. John Stott put it magisterially when he said, “Sin is  Man substituting himself for God, Salvation God substituting himself for man.” Let God’s Resurrection course through you today.

Today pray: Lord work your Deep Magic in me.

Perfect Score

And God spoke all these words,

Exodus. 20:1

Because lawlessness shall abound, the love of many will grow cold.
Matthew 24:12

Read Exodus 20:1-21

Throughout the world many will be tuning into Brazil to see many nations competing on the fields of friendly strife of football. With the World Cup kick off the very thing that makes football understandable and enjoyable is that there are rules in place to turn it from a gaggle of 22 players into a beautiful sport. Without laws governing football, the game would be impossible to be played.

Have you ever wondered what the purpose of the Ten Commandments was? What is the purpose of the Law? Is it simply to impose a heavy burden. Is it a way to show us how to achieve a 10 out of 10 Score? Are they 10 ways to be perfect?

The Law serves three purposes. An easy way to remember this is SOS . 1. The Law Shows us Our Sin. 2. The Law Shows us Our Savior. 3. The Law Shows us Sactification.

SOS Shows us our Sin

The first aspect of the Law can be described as prohibitive. It tells us what not to do.

1. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3). If this first Commandment received the respect it demands, obedience to the other nine would follow as a matter of course. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” means, Thou shalt have no other object of worship: thou shalt own no other authority as absolute: thou shalt make Me supreme in your hearts and lives. How much this first commandment contains! There are other “gods” besides idols of wood and stone. Money, pleasure, fashion, fame, gluttony, and a score of other things which make self supreme, usurp the rightful place of God in the affections and thoughts of many. It is not without reason that even to the saints the exhortation is given, “Little children keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). (Arthur Pink, Exodus p. 146)

SOS Shows us our Saviour

The second aspect of the Law prophetic. It tells us who God is. It tells us how he rescues us.

Jesus when walking with the two disciples on Emmaus taught us that all the Law and the Prophets speak about Him. Often we only want to see prefiguration of Jesus in the Old Testament where the connection is explicit. Jesus tells us that the commandment “You shall not lie”(Ex 20:16) is actually telling us something about His Character. It tells us that Jesus is the Truth, “I am the Truth”(John 14:16), When it says “You shall not murder,” the Law teaches us that God is the Lord of the Life, “I am the Life.”

The Law shows us the Redeemer. On the Cross Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the Law. “Do not think i have come to abolish the Law. I have not come to abolish the Law. I have come to fulfill it.”(Matt 5:17-19). The Law commands what Grace now empowers.

Jesus life and death gives us a perfect score and we did not even lift a finger to accomplish this. Just as the whole team benefits when one person scores a goal, so we benefit and receive the perfection Jesus achieved for us in his life, death, and resurrection.

SOS Show us Sanctification

The third aspect of the Law is Prescriptive. It tells us what a beautiful life and a good life looks like.

Just as we humans invented Football, the rules turn it into a beautiful game. Not following the rules makes the game impossible to play.  When the rules are followed camaraderie, joy, fun, and delight are unleashed.

God gives us ten ways to be perfect not so that we may attain perfection but that we receive Jesus’ perfection and then in response revel in it. Sactification does not earn us God’s love, it shows our response to God’s Love on the Cross.

The supreme test of love is the desire and effort to please the one loved, and this measured by conformity to his known wishes. Love to God is expressed by obedience to His will. Only One has perfectly exemplified this, and of Him it is written, “I will delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your law is within My heart” (Ps. 40:8).
(A. W. Pink. Gleanings In Exodus.)

Weight of the World

“What you are doing is not good. 18 You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.”

Exodus 18:17b-18

Read Exodus 18:1-27

One of the virtues western culture espouses is the idea of independence. We can live our life on our own. The novelist Ayn Rand captured this when she said,:

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” (Atlas Shrugged)

It has the ring of independence and of strength, but at its heart is unliveable as we will all wear out and run out of strength one day.

Moses now faces the arduous task of nation building. The people of Israel have gone from an idea and concept to a reality and entity.  Nation building requires planning, money, strength, integrity and justice to name a few things.

In this episode of the Exodus, Moses is meting out justice. Rather than gather a team and empower them, Moses sets out to do it all on his own.  He would rather bear the weight of the world than acknowledge that he may actually need help. He would rather rely on his own strength than ask God and the people of God for help.

We are very much like Moses, We may pay lip-service to our dependence on God, yet live life as though we were functionally independent from most everything. This way of living is exhausting. We will fulfill the words Jethro spoke to Moses, “You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out”(Exodus 18:18).

One of the aspects of sin is a desire for complete autonomy and independence. There is only one being in the whole universe who can be said to be completely autonomous and independent, God. If we try to be God we will place a burden too heavy for our souls to carry. Acknowledging our finiteness and our need for help is one of the aspects of repentance. Dependence is not a sign of weakness, rather it is a sign of strength. It is a sign of being empowered.

Paul writes, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”(Gal. 6:2). God calls us to relinquish our indepence and lean on Him. He calls us to lean on one another. We all have different gifts and are in need of our brother and sisters to complement and strengthen us.

Reflect on two things today: 1.What way will you rely on God today as a sign of dependence? 2. What way will you rely on someone else to remind yourself of your humanity and creatureliness?

Plead your case

So the people contended with Moses, and they said, “Give us water to drink!” Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me?’

Exodus 17:2 [NET]

Read Exodus 17:1-7

“You keep using the word inconceivable, but I do not believe you know what it means,” says Iñigo de Montoya to one of his companions in the film, “The Princess Bride.” How often have you used only to discover it had a different meaning than you thought?

Often we read this passage and it seems to have the ring of a bunch of spoilt children whinging to their older siblings and parents. Most translations lose the force of the word “contend” (vayyarev). The word means “strive, quarrel, be in contention” and even “litigation.” A translation “quarrel” does not appear to capture the magnitude of what is being done here. The people have a legal dispute — they are contending with Moses as if bringing a lawsuit.  But their lawsuit is not truly with Moses, it is with God.

At the heart of this episode is an intensely human desire for justice. We all desire to be treated fairly. We all desire to be cared for. The people of Israel are plaintiffs in a case asking for vindication. They feel like they have been wronged and misled. As we continue to read we see that Moses feels this same sense of injustice. “Why do you contend with me? It is unfair for you to litigate against me? It is God who has brought us to the wilderness.”

God is well aware of the children of Israel and their formal complaint.  The very language and structure of the Hebrew is one in which a a complaint is logically being laid out. They are all building a case against God. If God were who he said he were he would not rule this universe in the way it currently runs.

The people are ready to lynch Moses. They are taking justice into their hands. Before the end of the day Moses will be stoned if they can get their way. God, ever attentive of their cries for help, intervenes.

“Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.”
Exodus 17:6

Once again the vocabulary is lost on us. The word which God uses to say he will stand before his people is the same word used a chapter later to speak of the people of Israel standing before a judge. (Exodus 18:13).

In the midst of our misdirected sense of justice and outright unthankfulness, God himself intervenes. His honor and justice are at stake. He is a God who is both good and loving. The only way to satisfy their thirst for justice is for the guilty to be punished. God loves his people too much to allow them to stand trial. He stands in their place. The Just Judge is judged in our place.

Moses strikes the rock and the wounded rock bursts with living water.

Today reflect on his justice and drink deeply of his grace. Throw away any misperceptions of justice and embrace his righteousness.

Strengthen the Brothers

…Aaron and Hur held up [Moses’] hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady… Exodus 17:12b

Read Exodus 17:8-16

How do you recharge? After a long day or week of work how do you replenish your strength? Do you recharge being around people? Or you do you recharge by sipping a cup a tea by yourself? Both of these practices recharge us. One involves the spiritual discipline of fellowship and the other solitude.  Both of these practices remind us of God’s pronouncement, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Gen. 2:18).

We were built for fellowship. The purpose of fellowship is to feed us spiritually, emotionally and socially.  God designed the very getting together of His people on Sunday so that we do not have to travel this life alone spiritually. An intentional day of rest is only rest when it is right ordered worship.

Moses and the people of Israel are now sojourning in the wilderness of Sinai. A wilderness is a place of solitude. It is a place bereft of even the basics for sustenance. The wilderness and solitude remind us that we need more than ourselves to live and thrive.

Moses and Israel are faced with the implacable enemy of Amalek. Israel attempts to fight in their strength. Their efforts are feeble struggles at best. The only way to survive is acknowledge that they do not need to face their struggles alone. God instructs Moses to raise his hands to Him. Raised hands show that we come empty handed in surrender. It is an internationally recognised symbol of surrender.  God surrounds Moses with able helpers such as Aaron, Hur, Miriam, and Jethro just to list a few.

When Moses’ hands become weak Aaron and Joshua strengthen him. It is in weakness that the Helper comes. It is in weakness that we receive the Helper. We were built for community. We were built for Pentecost. As the hymn-writer William Booth put it, “Make our weak hearts strong and brave, Send the Fire!”

Today pray:

Father, I thank you that your Son faced the ultimate loneliness in the Wilderness of the Cross so that I could be brought into fellowship and strengthened. Thank your for the gift of your Church that I do not have to travel this world alone. Thank you for the gift of your Spirit ‘who helps us in our weakness.” May I live in community that reflects love, the essence of fellowship. May this reflect your very nature as Trinity: Love.

Amen