What is the Purpose of the Law?

I do want to pick up where we left off last week.

We were talking about the Exodus, and we we talked about how the nation of Israel spent 430 years in Egypt.

So much of that was in bondage, in slavery.

They built the supply centers of Pithum and Ramses, and they did it under the heavy thumb of Pharaoh.

And at some point, you know, one point God leads them out and into the uh ultimately the wilderness, but they're heading to the promised land.

And we talked last week about the Exodus, it's really about God's ability to deliver and deliverance, and you would think that when the children of Israel got out of Egypt and were no longer physically there, that they would have been delivered.

But what you see is this 40 years where there's just like a psychological bondage that they're under.

They're out of Egypt, but Egypt has made its mark on them.

And so now they have these very specific attitudes and things that have formed that have caused them, no matter where they are physically, to still be in bondage emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

And so we took some time to look at that and uh what it means ultimately for us to be fully delivered.

You can be out of the bad relationship, you can be out of the toxic work environment, you could be in a whole nother state and still in a state of bondage if we don't work through a total and complete deliverance.

And so that's what we see, and we looked at there, we see that theme, and so we talked about that.

Where we left off was now starting to look, you know, we're using this uh pattern that we have here, right here, by the way, where we look at an event in the Bible and we reach back to Genesis 1 through 3.

We we reach back to Eden because that helps us understand God's will.

What is God's will?

God's will is that human beings who He loves would live in a state of shalom, not utopia, it's not a pipe dream, it's real.

You can have conflict and still end up with peace.

You can make fleshly fallen decisions and still work your way through to redemption and restoration and not have the fall or the failure be the last chapter of the book.

God expects us as human beings to have flesh and to make mistakes.

And so a lot of what we learn in the Bible uh we see is God's way of working us through that process of fall through redemption and new opportunity and new beginnings.

And so um so we see that uh when when when you take from the story of the Old Testament, we go and then into the New Testament, you reach back to Eden, we reach forward to Jesus, we see that in the Gospel of Matthew, which we spent the better part of last year in Matthew.

The Gospel of Matthew, he's a gospel writer whose agenda, his his target audience were Jewish people.

So he doesn't he doesn't explain his insider Jewish language and he references symbols that until you kind of learn the stuff we've been looking at the last six weeks, you it might have gone like straight up over your head, but we're starting to look at those symbols.

So go ahead and bring this up.

We see in um in uh Matthew 2 through 4 that we see that uh Matthew is showing Jesus as the fulfillment of the purpose.

Why did God create the nation?

I want to bless the world through you.

I'm gonna create a community where shalom exists, even in humanity, even in flesh and imperfection.

I want to show you how this works, and so I'm gonna set you apart as a nation so that you don't live according to the flesh, that you don't just follow the culture of the world, that you don't live for the love of power or the power of fear, but you ultimately operate the way that I want to give you, okay, and operate in this way.

And so Israel, although the nation didn't ultimately fulfill that, we see Jesus fulfills it.

So Matthew is using these Old Testament symbols to then point us all, all of our eyes, to Jesus and how he fulfills what humans weren't able to do.

So you see, Jesus is the new Israel, the Son of God is the new children of Israel.

Um we see a reference of Pharaoh and Herod, right?

So you remember Pharaoh is jealous of the of the growth of the nation, and so he orders the massacre of the boy, the little Jewish boys.

Well, the same thing happens.

Herod is jealous when he hears there's a new king of the Jews being born, and so he orders the death of the Jewish boys, and both Moses and Jesus escape, right?

This isn't an accident.

Matthew is showing us this.

He's drawing these parallels.

Um, the Red Sea and then baptism.

So the so the nation goes through the Red Sea, Jesus crosses through the waters of baptism.

Even think about um the very good from the creation story that when God creates every day, he says it is good, it is good, and then he makes mankind in his image, he says it is very good.

So it's a divine affirmation.

Well, when Jesus comes out of the water of baptism, the voice from heaven, this is my dearly loved son, identity brings me great joy, divine affirmation.

So again, it's a parallel.

Um you have then when they come through, the nation comes through the Red Sea, they go into the wilderness for 40 years, and they're lost in their again, their lostness, their bad bad decisions, they give into temptation.

And Jesus, we see when he comes through his water of baptism, he goes 40 days in the wilderness, but he is faithful in temptation, and it's the same sorts of temptation, but what is Matthew doing?

When they hear wilderness 40, boom, their brain goes right back to significant moments in their nation's history.

He's connecting it, going, look, you need to latch on to Jesus.

You you've held on to your history, you've held on to the law and the prophets, and now Jesus is doing something fulfilling, and you need to be a part of it.

This is what Matthew's convincing people that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, and he's showing these parallels of the Old Testament.

So it starts to make a lot of sense now.

And we see again they they were so focused on nation, but in Matthew 4, Jesus says, Hey, I bring you good news of the kingdom of God, which is gonna be beyond anything national, it's gonna be beyond even anything cultural, into ultimately the purpose of why God created the nation to begin with, is is that the you know, to be able to reach everybody, to reach everybody, to bless the whole world through this.

So that's what we have there.

Today we're gonna focus on Matthew 5 through 7.

We see that after they go to the wilderness, a couple months in, they get to Mount Sinai, they're there for about a year, and Moses goes up on Mount Sinai and receives the law.

Okay, so that's what we're gonna talk about today.

That's the event.

We're gonna reach back to Eden forward to Jesus and then up to us, okay?

So so the uh Moses goes to uh Mount Sinai, goes up on the mountain, receives uh the law.

It starts with the Ten Commandments, but throughout the what we would call the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Some of you maybe heard it called the Pentateuch, okay, but it's the first five books.

You have now what accumulates from Ten Commandments to 613 laws, okay?

And then eventually, again, following sort of the pattern and the path, once Jesus um, you know, comes through his 40 days in the wilderness, he then goes to not Mount Sinai, but he goes to the Sermon on the Mount.

And in chapter five uh chapter 5, verse 17, he says, Hey, I came not to abolish the law, but I came to fulfill the law.

In other words, he's saying some of the things I'm gonna say are going to seem kind of new, and it might be different than you think about the law, but understand, you're thinking about something old.

I'm gonna tell you about something original.

I'm gonna tell you what was in God's mind and heart the whole time, the spirit of the law that God created, and help you think differently about it.

All right?

Okay, so let's go back to Mount Sinai for a minute and let's think um, let's look at these 613 laws, and we're not gonna look at all of them, but what we're gonna do is look at the spirit of the law and the why behind the law.

So if you took the 613 laws and you put them in three categories, okay, three buckets.

They would they would fall into three categories.

The first one is the ceremonial, the ceremonial law.

Okay, the ceremonial law essentially defined different uh acts or activities or things that people would do as acts of worship to God.

Okay, so if we think about Shalom, we think about Eden, we reach back, what was God's will?

That you we would be in right relationship with Him, right relationship with ourselves, and right relationship with each other.

Okay?

So when you think about ceremonial law, this is starts with really getting our relationship with God in order.

When you look in the book of Leviticus, in the first seven chapters, you're gonna see they lay out five different sacrifices that are made.

And half uh a few of them, a few of the sacrifices are related to basically saying, I'm sorry, or repentance.

And then some of the sacrifices are saying thank you.

So think about this, right?

We are humans with flesh, we're gonna fall.

Sometimes it's like, man, I knew better, and I did it anyway.

I just wasn't strong enough, I didn't have enough fortitude to make the right decision, and I feel bad, and I need to go make this right.

I gotta go say I'm sorry.

Other times we make a mistake we didn't mean to make.

I was an accidental messmaker.

I thought I was doing the right thing, I did the wrong thing.

I thought I was just telling the truth, and I said something hurtful, and I wounded somebody, and I created distance in our relationship, or whatever it is.

I was I was thoughtless or I was careless.

In some way, your flesh leads you into some kind of mess to be able to go and apologize.

Let's clear the air, let's get this right.

The thank you sacrifices and part of the ceremonial law was designed to put our hearts and our minds in the best state they can be in, which is in a state of gratitude.

Being in a state of gratitude, being grateful in life, it's the best place that you can possibly be.

It's one of the reasons why in the Ten Commandments, the tenth commandment is don't covet your neighbor's house or spouse or stuff or anything.

Like, don't covet.

Because if you do, what it does is it takes your focus into what they have that you don't have.

And while I'm thinking about what they have that I don't have and how much I wish I had what they had, now I don't appreciate what I do have, and it puts me in a bad frame of mind.

I really don't think God personally is all that harmed Himself that you're coveting.

It's really more God setting up a law for you so that you would have the best quality of life possible, which is to be grateful for what you have.

And if I'm sitting around coveting and I wish that I had your relationship and I wish I had your job and I wish I had your house and I could live in your neighborhood and I had a better car, and if I had better stuff, and and I'm coveting all the things that you have that I don't have, that is the worst possible headspace.

It really wouldn't matter how nice your stuff was if you're coveting other people's stuff, but if somehow you could get to this place where you are just overwhelmed with gratitude for the relationships you do have, for the stuff that you do have, for the things that have been provided.

Okay, now that frame of mind, that really is your best possible state.

So what we're seeing here is in the ceremonial law, it is it is an opportunity to clear the air with God, to deal with my guilt, to be able to have some regrets without carrying shame and guilt with me, to be able to move on in wisdom, and then also to be able to have habits and disciplines that bring gratitude into my life, so that really I've got a better life, right?

So this is what it's designed to do.

Also, when I think about God's holiness, so the idea that He is set apart, that God is unique, right?

There's a lot of places in the Old Testament, in the Torah, that says, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

Okay, well, what is it talking about?

Remember, why did God set them apart?

Why are they consecrated or set apart?

Because I want to do something special in you, not so that you think you are better than everyone.

Actually, I want to bless the world through you.

I want to do something that's rare and it's unique, and it doesn't just happen every day, and it definitely doesn't happen because of the flesh and impulses and just doing what feels right.

It's going to be you trusting me to live the way that I've showed you to live, and it's a better way.

So I want you to not just fall into the peer pressure.

I don't want you to just be conforming to the world.

Be ye holy as I am holy.

So the ceremonial law is designed to get this relationship right, to remind me of God's image, which then puts me a piece here because I'm made in his image.

So this is good stuff.

And this is what the whole point that this is here.

Let's get this right.

The next one is the judicial law.

And the judicial law is designed.

Did I spell that right?

I probably didn't, did I?

Did I?

I'm blaming on the Sudafed.

Is that close?

Judicial.

I probably got a judge in here.

Y'all are judging me.

Civic law.

The civic law is reflects the character of God's justice.

Alright?

So think about it like this: you you're gonna live in a community, you're gonna live in a world where you don't know everybody by name, you don't know everyone's backstory, and frankly, there's no time.

It's not, you know, you can't do it.

You can't know uh everybody and what's going on, you can't care about everything and every uh all the time.

But in general, we know that that person who you don't know their name and you don't know where they've been and you don't know what they've been through, we still show them respect because number one, they're made in the image of God, right?

And that matters.

And so, how are we gonna treat each other with mutual respect?

And when we do have bad decisions that are made or mistakes that are made or fall in the world, how do we in terms of uh create justice?

How do what how do we get the right punishment that goes with the right crime?

How do we have this in a way where we can you know legislate and we can make some rules that we all agree to live by?

Because if we don't define it, what's gonna happen is you fall into me, and now in my moment, frankly, probably while I'm in my feelings, I'm going to take justice into my own hands.

So I'm going to do what I think is just based on what you did, based on my judgment.

And we've all done that.

And then you woke up the next day and you got a good night of sleep and you ate a good meal, and you're like, oh man, I think I might have gone overboard.

I think I might have said too much.

I think I might have done too much.

At the time it felt totally justified, but now with a clear head, and when the dust has settled, I look back, and you know what?

I tipped the scales of justice the wrong way.

So, what God does is he orders them up, civic or judicial law that says this is how you live in your community.

Uh the spirit of the law is justice.

But obviously, judicial and civic laws are going to change with context.

There's nothing in the Torah about speed limits or gun laws or anything around those things because those things did not exist.

And so what you do is you look at what is the best way to bring justice into the world, and that's again a huge part of God's character.

The last is the moral law, and the moral law essentially defines how to display God's character of love in the world.

How do we love each other?

How do not just the people who you live in community who you don't even know their name, you don't know who they are, but we're gonna mutually respect each other and we're gonna bring justice.

But the people that are really close to you, the people in your family, the people uh that that that you know well, okay, how do we have those relationships?

So there's things as as you know clear and open and shut as like, don't lie, don't steal, don't kill.

That is a good way to prolong a marriage, don't kill.

My my my grand my grandmother, I remember somebody, uh one of my cousins asked her one time, they're like, So did you and grandpa ever think about divorce?

And she goes, divorce?

No.

Murder?

Often.

That's what she said.

She's a legend.

Okay.

Um, I think she was kidding, but um, you don't necessarily know with her.

Um, all that to say, the idea is in the moral law, it lays out how do we treat each other.

And the spirit of that is going, how do we earn trust?

How do we keep trust?

How do we, as Jesus would later say in Matthew 7, 12, do to others what you would have others do to you.

He said, This, by the way, sums up all the law, the whole law.

He goes, the spirit of the law could really be summed up into doing to others what you would have them do to you.

So it falls into these three categories.

By the time Jesus shows up, okay, you have a few dynamics between Moses and Jesus.

So when Jesus goes to the Sermon on the Mount, you don't need to bring it up, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7, which by the way, if you want to learn all about that, I preached on it for like four months last year.

So you can go back and watch all those and we just go straight through it verse by verse.

But what what you have with when Jesus um uh shows up, the dynamics between Moses and Jesus is that it's gone beyond 613 laws, which would be hard enough to keep.

But now it's become thousands of oral tradition laws, cultural laws, and a lot of times people didn't necessarily know where God's law ended and their grandpa's law began.

And so there was just a lot of also, I would say, conflict or loss of shalom, brother to brother, or even peace with oneself, around being able to keep the letter of the law.

Okay?

Did I break the rule or not?

So when Jesus says, I came not to abolish the law, I'm not throwing this away, I came to fulfill it, he drives them deep into a conversation about the spirit of the law.

In Matthew 5, he brings up what we call the Torah sampler.

He takes like four, he takes four case studies of the 613 laws, and he's not pulling them out to say these are the four most important.

He's like, here are four that sort of fall into these categories, but these are four, and I want you to think about the four in a unique way, and then I want you to go think about the other 609 with this type of thinking.

So one of the ones that he uses is about oaths.

Oaths in that day was basically like contracts.

So you'd make an oath, you would you would make a contract with somebody, you would say, Look, um, I swear by this that I'll do that for you.

And so now it's a contract.

You put your word on it, you set an expectation for that person, and you made an oath that you were gonna do it.

Okay, what's the spirit of the law?

Well, the spirit of the law is justice.

Do what you say you're gonna do.

Be a person of your word.

Don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat.

Okay, we get it.

So, within the law, though, at that time, you could find a loophole to get out of your oath if there was a different oath that you wanted to have.

So, so I made an oath to you and I swore by this, but if you swear by something bigger or something better, so I swore by something you thought that was good.

That my word was my bond, but actually I had something bigger over here in case something better came along.

And so now I have a loophole in the law that I can come and actually cancel out this oath because I now I swear by this thing, which cancels out this thing, and so now you're left holding the bag.

But I'm cool legally.

You can't sue me, okay?

My contract is, you know, within the contract I found the loophole, okay?

So technically I've not broken the law.

Jesus brings this up and he's like, you know, let your yes be yes, let your no be no.

You go swear by this thing until it's not to your advantage anymore, and then you go find your loophole and swear by this thing and leave that person holding the bag and you think you're good?

You think you're good because you have kept the law?

He's like, man, listen, you've just proven it's possible to keep the law and completely desecrate the spirit of the law simultaneously.

And yet you're patting yourself on the back because you're within the law.

And he goes, Have you forgotten the spirit of the law?

This is why God gave the law to begin with.

It wasn't even about the letter of the specifics of the judicial law.

It was to bring justice and to be moral and to not harm shalom and to do what you say you're gonna do so people can trust you.

Because if you break their trust, they're gonna take that and probably not trust anybody for a while.

Is that the world you want to live in?

So he's driving them deeper into not just the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, the heart of the law.

What's the point of this stuff?

Right?

And so Jesus has, he has all kinds of law conversations.

He has another one later in Matthew 22.

Matthew 22, 35, uh, it says, an expert in the law tested him with this question Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

And Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind.

Alright, so to us we hear that, we hear the great commandment.

Jewish audience, they would have heard what's called the Shema.

That is essentially a remes.

It's a reach back into Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4 and 5, which says, Hear, O Israel.

Deuteronomy 6:4

By the way, when you're reading that in a from a literary sense, the word hear isn't just, it doesn't just mean simply listen, it means obey.

So listen and respond.

So when you hear hear, O Israel, you hear obey, O Israel, for the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love, and when it says love, it's not just talking about emotion or affection, it's talking about devotion.

It's talking about making a decision, a commitment.

So it's saying, be devoted to the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

And so would then Jesus back in Matthew 22, he says, this is the first and greatest commandment, verse 39, he says, the second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Now look at this next line, verse 40.

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commands.

So let's think about this now, based on our last six weeks of conversation.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, be devoted, be in right relationship with here, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Shalom with God, fullness, security, connection, peace with God, with yourself, love your neighbor as yourself and the world around you.

He's like, all of the law and the prophets hang on this.

In other words, the spirit of the law and the prophets really are designed to produce these things.

So if you're treating the law in a way that doesn't produce those things, you have misunderstood or you have not applied or thought through or stayed focused on the spirit of the law, therefore the letter of the law may be a false positive for you.

Um here's another one.

Genesis, I'm sorry, Matthew 23, 23, Jesus says, Woe to you, teachers of the law.

That's kind of interesting because he's cautioning, he's when he says, woe to you, it really is a it's a provocative thing to say.

It's a little shock to the system.

He's he's he's saying, Be be very, very careful.

And he's saying to the teachers of the law, these would have been the people who had the best technical grasp of the law.

These are the people that knew it so well they were teaching other people.

He says, Woe to you teachers of the law of Pharisees, you you actors, you hypocrites.

You give a tenth of your spices.

So what he's doing is he's referring, he's speaking shorthand with them to the ceremonial law, a sacrifice that they would make of gratitude.

Um, Dill and Kumin, and you have neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Some of you, if you have the English Standard Version or you have the King James Version, it says you've neglected the weightier, weightier matters of the law.

So if you think about the scales of justice, he's essentially saying, Yeah, all the law matters.

He said, but there are some elements of the law.

You've kept some of these elements, and maybe you've kept more quantitative than everybody else.

He's like, but there are certain weightier matters of the law that if you set them both down, this one's heavier.

And he says, so yeah, you've gone out and you've kept the letter of the law.

And by the way, this would have been a shock to the system because what he's talking about, justice, mercy, okay, are things you would extend to another person.

And when he's talking about ceremonial law, they're essentially going, No, I gave God the ceremony that he wants.

And he's like, you know what?

God actually doesn't really care about all that.

In fact, you're gonna see in the prophets, and now I'm tempted to get ahead of myself a little bit.

We're gonna get to the prophets, priests, and kings in a few weeks.

But when the prophets, there's some of the most provocative stuff.

He's like, your ceremonies smell awful.

He's, I mean, it's it's all this prophetic language around, I can't stand.

I literally am gagging on your ceremony, like they are disgusting to me.

I don't want to hear another one of them.

And but they think this false positive.

Oh, but we're we're keeping the law.

And he says, No, you've neglected the weightier matters.

You've come in here and you put all this incense in the air, and you think that it's a great aroma in my nostrils, but you've neglected the spirit of the law and you don't give anybody mercy.

You look right over top of justice because it doesn't suit you well.

And he goes, the weightier matters of the law.

So he's actually saying that the interpersonal, okay, is is heavy.

It's heavy, it's important, it really matters to God.

Um, let me give you one more thing.

When we get into the epistles a few weeks after we talk about the prophets, priests, and kings, we're gonna look at the apostle Paul, and he's essentially writing to these churches, and every one of the epistles, some they have some similarities, but there's a lot of differences because they're each of those cities and each of those bodies and those groups of people are unique.

And so Paul's writing to the Corinthians, and 1 Corinthians he writes to this group of people, and to be honest, they're a little bit of a pretentious group of people.

They live in a very cosmopolitan area.

It's heavy commerce, it's heavy culture.

There's like 26 temples in Corinth, which when you think of temples, you think religious, but it's really it was really even more cultural than just like pure religious.

And so these people really had uh a high need to elevate themselves in the social strata.

Okay, they really cared about their image, they cared about you know how elevated they were above other people, and so there's this portion in 1 Corinthians where he says, look, you guys are really caught up in a false positive because you have this craving for knowledge and wisdom, which on the surface sounds so noble.

Like you read the Proverbs and it's like, be hungry for knowledge, chase after wisdom.

You know, without knowledge, people perish.

Like the idea of going for knowledge and wisdom on the surface, it's like, yeah, man, that's that's what you're supposed to do.

He's like, the problem is why you want knowledge and wisdom.

The right reason to have knowledge and wisdom is that if I know more and I'm wiser, I can create more maturity, shalom, and peace in the world.

It's a benefit to the world around me.

Okay, I can bring more harmony, I can help people work through stuff like a wise person knows what to do in a situation.

He's like, the reason you want knowledge and wisdom is because you want to be the smartest people in the room.

The reason that you're craving all this knowledge and wisdom is because it elevates you.

You're able to shut it down in a conversation, you're able to come with the hottest zinger, you're able to dominate people once it's a back and forth, you're able to have the best sound bite and the best moment and ultimately to be the big dog in the room.

You don't, you want the right thing for the wrong reason.

And he's like, and I'm gonna show it to you, and it's ugly, but I'm gonna rebuke, he rebukes them in first Corinthians.

This is where in 1 Corinthians is where he says, you know, I wish I could give you solid food, but I have to keep just giving you, feeding you like a bottle, you like a baby, right?

Which would have been hard to hear for these pretentious people, but it's like, whatever, dude, I'm gonna do what I have to do.

So Paul's talking to him and he says, Look, you you want wisdom and knowledge, but not because the wisdom and knowledge is gonna make the world a better place, or even to do God's will.

It's just to make yourself more important.

And he says, and let me show you, I'll prove it to you, because it keeps showing up like crazy.

And because it's knowledge and wisdom, you you don't think there's anything wrong with it.

But he's like, he says in chapter 11, he goes, you know what's happening?

He goes, uh watch this.

He goes, You're you're you're going into the Lord's Supper.

And the way they did the Lord's Supper wasn't like you pass out these communion things, it was like you go into homes and they would have a meal.

And they and the whole point is in the world there is a social strata.

And some people get a corner office and some people have to clean the office, and and we don't all the the the world doesn't necessarily put us on equal plane.

He's like, but at the Lord's table, it doesn't matter what you do for a living, it doesn't matter how much you got in the bank, it doesn't matter how broke you are.

We all sit at this table in community.

We are even at this table, we are equal at this table.

We all get the same mercy, the same grace.

Whether you work for me or I work for you, doesn't matter.

At this table, we are all the same.

He's like, well, but when you guys are doing the Lord's Supper, you're now seeing it as another opportunity to show up with better food and better wine.

And read 1 Corinthians 11.

He's like, some of y'all are getting drunk in the party while people are sitting over there hungry because they don't have any money for food and you don't even care.

You don't even care.

So now they showed up at the Lord's table to maybe be the one place on planet earth that they feel that they deserve to sit at the table with other people.

The whole world's been giving them a signal.

Now they show up to the Lord's Supper, and you drive the message further down.

It actually makes me think of when we moved when Shayla and I moved to town, we got here, we put all of our money in to start the church.

We were fighting and clawing.

I worked three jobs, she worked two.

At one point, I saved up a little money, it was our anniversary.

The church hadn't even started yet.

We're in the pre-launch.

I'm working the front desk at what was uh uh Urban Active Fitness.

I don't know, it's changed names like 17 times.

I don't know, they've been bought out so many times, I don't know.

But but it was it was urban active at the time.

Now it's Esporta or something.

I don't know.

I I still work out there, but I don't know what to call it.

I just say hi.

And so anyway, I was there at the front desk and a guy comes in.

I'm like, hey, it's my anniversary this week.

I'm gonna take my wife out.

He goes, take her to Hyde Park.

I was like, All right, sure, Hyde Park.

I didn't know anything about Hyde Park.

You know, I put it in uh uh GPS.

I get to Hyde Park, you know, I'm like, okay, valet can't afford that.

We go park three miles away.

You know, my wife's walking her stilettos down the sidewalk.

I got her hiking in stilettos, all right?

We get to Hyde Park, we sit down, we open up the menu.

I was like, yo, does that state come with a car?

Like, like, what?

Like, I mean, I had never seen prices like that, you know.

My wife opens it up, she's like, dude, what are you doing?

You know, I was like, I thought it was like Applebee's or whatever.

I was like, no, I'm remembering no Charlie's, you know, this is all.

I was like, oh my gosh.

Like, and I'm sitting there, dude, my heart went in my stomach, dude.

I didn't have the money.

I I couldn't afford it.

And so we literally, I don't know if we've ever had to do this.

It is, I I cringe right now remembering it.

Like, close the menu.

I was like, I don't think anybody's looking.

Let's get the heck out of here.

You know, and she gets up and like walks out, and I'm like walking out trying to avoid eye contact with the like, hey, we left something in our car.

Call the valet, you know.

We like walk out.

And I mean, honestly, like, all jokes aside, it was humiliating.

I remember feeling embarrassed as a husband.

I felt embarrassed for my wife.

I'm like, man, I'm an idiot.

I put her in this position.

I'm not a very good provider.

I can't even afford this meal, and now we gotta go take the walk of shame and go try to find something we can't afford.

And blah, blah, blah.

I just remember feeling like the low man on the totem pole in the whole stinking city, right?

And you know what?

Sometimes life gives you that, dude.

Sometimes they treat you like that at work.

Sometimes you're in a season, man, where you just don't even have much, and there's that reality.

And when you come into the body of Christ and you come to the Lord's table, this is the one place, dude, that we find our value.

This is the one, might be the one place you find your shalom.

And the apostle Paul is saying to these guys, Are you serious?

These people having to deal with this.

You came in, you got drunk at the Lord's table, you overate at the Lord's table to flaunt and to show off how elevated you are.

This guy's dying over here in the corner.

You didn't even notice.

And if you did notice, you didn't care.

You violated the spirit of the law.

Now in your head, you're like, I just want knowledge and wisdom, and we just had the Lord's Supper.

Wasn't it great?

Look how extravagant it was.

And you looked right over the head.

Right over the head.

This drives us into the spirit of the law.

All on the surface, everything the Corinthians wanted looked like it was within the law.

You get to 1 Corinthians 12.

All they want to talk about are the gifts of the Spirit.

Gifts of knowledge, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, speaking in the tongues of angels, all this miracles.

They want all the lofty gifts.

And Paul explains, okay, y'all want to talk about that?

Fine.

He gets to 1 Corinthians 12, then he gets to 1 Corinthians 13 and says, just so you know, make sure this thing's on.

If you can speak in the tongues of men, all the tongues on earth, you knew every language, and the tongues of angels, you could speak angel.

And you knew every mystery of the universe.

You were the smartest guy in the room, and you had the most wisdom and the most answers, and you have not love?

You're not only nothing, you're annoying.

That's what he says.

You're like a clanging symbol.

Let me go bang on that symbol in your ear for about 30 seconds and see how you feel about it.

He said, That's how your wisdom and knowledge sound when you don't know the spirit of the law.

So you have built this whole thing on this letter of the law, and it could be a false positive.

This isn't to make us perpetually paranoid, it's to make us perpetually humble.

It forces us to constantly come to the feet of Jesus and to go, Lord, search me.

To trust his grace, to know when to say I'm sorry, to maybe see something I haven't wanted to see, because I've been hiding behind wisdom, knowledge, gifts of the Spirit.

I've been hiding behind the Lord's Supper.

I've been hiding behind the letter of the law.

And in the middle of that, there may be something that I need rebuked for.

I need to repent of.

But if I look at the meta-narrative, my flesh and my fall are not the end of the story.

The whole thing, the whole thing of the law is to drive me to redemption and to restoration.

And so, church, we now are in a context where, yeah, I mean, civic laws are gonna change with context.

Ceremonial laws, we can never lose the spirit of the ceremonial law, but you're gonna, different ceremonies and sacrifices and worship sets and work ways of worshiping and instruments, all these things are going to change.

You see Paul talk a lot about what they would have, you know, circumcision, the Sabbath, some of these things that they had seen as sacred ceremonial laws.

He's like, those things aren't sacred.

The why is sacred.

A lot of those things are gonna change.

But he he continues to affirm the moral law because, again, a lot of these things about the way we treat one another, those things don't change.

And so, but it forces us to look beyond just what's on the surface to what's underneath.

And so we not only to find peace with ourselves, to find peace with God, to find peace with each other, I invite you to not just look at the letter, to not just look at the surface, but to have enough faith to look underneath and to ask the Lord to maybe show you something you've not seen.

Let's pray.

Lord, we come to you in Jesus' name.

We thank you, Lord, that the law was not given to us simply to slam a gavel of guilt.

It was ultimately designed, Lord, to bring your character to light with holiness, justice, love.

Lord, to help us actually to work through mistakes, to get to a place of redemption and restoration, to reconcile relationships, our relationship with you, our relationship with ourself, and our relationship with each other.

So, Lord, help us in the middle of being human beings and doing life and when these concepts become real stories and life situations, help us, God, to keep the spirit of the law in focus.

I pray, Lord, in this moment for maybe uh someone who's here today who showed up with a sincere heart, simply wanting to see the truth.

Or maybe show them something they've not been able to see.

Just like the the Corinthians who were pretty locked into some mindsets and behaviors because on the surface they look good.

Yet underneath, Lord, there was uh something pretty unhealthy that was not only doing damage to them, but it was doing damage around them.

Help us, Lord, ourselves to be that perceptive to you.

Lord, if there's anything in me, anything in me that violates your character, anything in me that's harming shalom between you and I or in myself or the people around me, bring it to light.

Bring it to light.

Help me walk it out in Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.