Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Hey good morning, everyone!

My name is Dan Osborn and I serve as the pastor here at our Forest Glen location.

Like Lindsey said, we are continuing in our series today, Set Free to Live Free.

If you’ve got a bible with you, open up to Exodus chapter 21. .

It’s on page 62 if you’re using one of the blue house bibles from the seat in front of you.

Introduction

In 2006, popular author and speaker A.J. Jacobs took up an interesting task.

He grew up in a secular Jewish home, often saying it was a Jewish home in the same way that Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant, meaning he was somewhat familiar with stories in the Bible, but had never given much thought to them and they didn’t have much baring on his day to day life.

But he got this idea for his next writing project, as he was getting more and more interested in the role Religion plays in American society, he decided he would spend an entire year living out the literal commands of the Bible.

Which, as he approached it was not going to be an easy task!

He spent 5 hours a day for 5 weeks reading the bible, cover to cover, and writing out every ‘Thou Shall’ and ‘Shall not...’ he could.

Every commandment and code of conduct that was brought up…he’d write it down—and at the end of this, he had 72 pages of things was either supposed or not supposed to do according to the Bible, from the Old and New Testaments!

And you can imagine, part of his intention was to publically demonstrate, what was in his mind, the absurdity of some of the statements in the bible—particularly in the Old Testament.

And so he went on to do OR NOT do these.

He recorded in his journey in the book, The Year of Living Biblically…and the book has been wildly popular ever since, even being picked up by CBS last year for short mini-series to re-enact some of his experiences.

And you can imagine, part of his intention was to publically demonstrate, what was in his mind, the absurdity of some of the statements in the bible—particularly in the Old Testament.

And if you pick up the book, he’s got a bunch of crazy stories of things that happened, and he often finds himself in these absurd situations, but I think the reason the books so fascinating is because he takes a very close look at a part of the Bible that even many Christians are not super familiar with—and even if we know and have read these parts—as I’m sure many of us have—I think we’re often left with a lot of questions, right?

Like are there parts of the bible we are supposed to obey and just don’t?

Or what about some of the harder claims that are found there, particularly in the Old Testament…statements about capital punishment…sexuality…marriage and divorce…slavery…and the list goes on.

Broadly, the question comes up…what do we do with commandments in Old Testament and what do they mean for us today?

This is the question I want us to look at today because we are moving into a new section of Exodus—where the first has been all narratives, now we are getting to commandments.

So here’s how I want to use our time today—I want to take a closer look at the part of the Old Testament called, ‘The Law’.

And we will be asking 3 questions that will help us not only understand these particular passages we’re looking at today, but really ALL of the passages in the Bible like this.

So here’s how I want to use our time today—I want to take a closer look at the part of the Old Testament called, ‘The Law’.

And we will be asking 3 questions: What is the law?

Should we obey the Law today?

What is the value of the law today?

Three questions.

Here they are: What is the Law?

Should we obey the Law today?

What is the value of the law today?

I’ll say from the get go that some of our time this morning will feel a bit more like a lecture—because we are going to work through THREE big questions that I think naturally come up from this section of scripture.

But I’m gonna ask you to stick with me because at the end of our time together, it’s my hope that we will walk away with an invigorated idea of WHO God is and how He calls and empowers his people to live today!

So if you’re not there yet, open up with me to .

Good?

Alright, let me pray and we’ll get started.

PRAY

Recap

Let me remind you quickly what we looked at last week.

Geoff Ng was here and he did a great job walking us through a very familiar section of Exodus; the 10 Commandments!

And chances are, even if you don’t really see yourself as a particularly religious person or not super familiar with Christianity, you’ve at least heard of the 10 Commandments at some point.

Covenant

In many ways, they are like a BROAD summary statement for much of the Old Testament covenant.

Geoff talked about this idea of covenant last week—it’s essentially the terms of the relationship between God and His people; the Israelites.

God was going to be their God.

He would provide for them, care for them, love them…in fact, the first half of the book of Exodus is really one long demonstration for the Israelites of who God is and what He is like!

That’s what the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea are showing right?

God’s incredible power not just over an individual; Pharoah, but over the universe itself.

But in the 10 Commandments, God begins to explain what it will look like for the Israelites to be His people.

He sets up the boundaries of their relationship with Him.

In other words, the covenant shows us how God’s people are supposed engage in the world around them.

Code of Hammurabi

I don’t know if I’ll talk about this, but I could put it up as an interesting point—that the Law Code of the Old Testament is not an utterly unique concept.

What is the Law?

Alright, ().

It starts this way, “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them...”

And this brings us to the first question I want to look at this morning, because the word used for the places in the Old Testament that explain the Covenant is ‘Law’.

So what is the Law in the Old Testament?

Covenant

Let me remind you quickly what we looked at last week.

Geoff Ng was here and he did a great job walking us through a very familiar section; the 10 Commandments!

And chances are, even if you don’t really see yourself as a religious person or you’re not super familiar with Christianity, you’ve at least heard of the 10 Commandments at some point.

In many ways, they are like the BROAD summary statement for much of the Old Testament covenant.

Geoff talked with about this covenant—it’s essentially the terms of the relationship between God and the Israelites.

God was going to be their God.

He would provide for them, care for them, love them…in fact, the first half of the book of Exodus is really one long demonstration for the Israelites of who God is and what He is like!

But now, God begins to explain what it will mean for the Israelites to be His people as he sets up the boundaries of their relationship with Him.

The Law (תורה and משׁפת)

You’ll remember that the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew—and the Hebrew word for Law is Torah (תורה).

Sometimes Torah refers to very specific statements in the bible, but it’s also used to refer to the first five books of the Old Testament, Genesis through Deuteronomy.

This whole section is considered the Law because it’s here where we find the specific things God has called the Israelites to do and NOT to do as part of His covenant with them.

Now the specific statements are not only called laws—sometimes you see words like: rules, commandments, statutes, regulations…things like that…but they’re all taking about same things.

Look at .

It starts this way, God says through Moses, “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them...”.

And starting in chapter 21, God begins to go into greater detail about what this covenant requires of the people by giving all of these laws.

Now if you were to add them all up, there about 613 individual laws in total…all talking about about what the Israelite were and were not supposed to be doing…how they were supposed to relate to each other, even how they were supposed to relate to God Himself!

They touch every aspect of life, which is an amazing thing to consider because that alone tells us the God profoundly cares about the way that we live.

It let’s us know life itself is not a free for all—that anyone can do whatever they want and what just makes sense to them.

No! What we do and how we live matters to God!

Look at .

It starts this way, God says through Moses, just after He has given the 10 Commandments, “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them...”.

And starting in chapter 21, God begins to go into much greater detail about what this covenant requires of the people by giving all of these laws.

If you were to add them all up, you’d get about 613 individual laws in total…all talking about about what the Israelite were and were not supposed to be doing…how they were supposed to relate to each other, even how they were supposed to relate to God Himself!

They touch every aspect of life, which is an amazing thing to consider because that alone tells us that God profoundly cares about the way we live.

The mere fact THAT God has set up a Law in the first place let’s us know life itself is not a free for all—that anyone can do whatever they want as long as it makes sense or sounds good to them.

No! What we do and how we live matters to God!

Now we’re not going to read all 613 laws this morning—but let me give you a few examples of the laws so you know what they sound like.

Exodus 21:

Exodus 21:

Again, these are just THREE examples of laws from the Old Testament and there are hundreds more we could look—but what is being communicated OVER and OVER again with these laws is that in order to maintain a relationship WITH God, you would need to obedient to all of them!

What the Law said NOT to do…you couldn’t do or else there would be consequence—sometimes the death penalty.

What the Law said TO do…you MUST do it!

But you see, what this was always intended to communicate to the people of Israel is that God is not just like them.

He pure…He’s perfect…He is HOLY.

And for the people to have any kind of relationship with Him, they needed to be holy too.

God says this in another part of the Law, in the book of Leviticus:

That’s what the Laws were supposed to bring about—they point us to the Holiness of God and provided a way for the people themselves to be holy through their obedience to Law—doing what it said.

To not obey the law was a rejection not just of what God had commanded—but because the covenant represented the terms of the relationship with God, it was a rejection of God himself!

And so the provision, love, care, and compassion, all of what was promised to Israel for their obedience to the Law are actually rejected by the people when they disobey the Law!