Beneficial Boundaries

Well, if you are new, welcome.

By the way, my name's Justin.

I probably should have said that earlier.

We are doing something this year called the whole story.

We are going through the entire story of the Bible in a little bit less than a year.

What we've done is we've broken the Bible down into 14 different series, and you can see all of those here.

We finished the first three, and we've only got, well, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Eleven left.

So I should have done the math in my head, but I counted anyway.

So we've got 11 left.

Last week we actually started series four, which is called Figuring Out Freedom.

That's what we're talking about for the next few weeks, this idea of figuring out freedom.

Now, don't worry if you haven't been here.

If you're like, I'm way behind, I don't know what's going on, every single week is designed to stand on its own.

And that's actually how scripture works.

It's kind of amazing because you can be someone who's totally oblivious to the context of scripture, to the backstory or what's coming up next.

And you can open up to any page, and because it's inspired by God, you will find something powerful, profound, practical, you name it.

Every single page is jam-packed with it.

But if you do know the big picture, if you do know the context, if you do understand what's happened before and where the story is going, it helps you see it in even greater detail and understand it even better.

And that's sort of the heart behind this year is we want all of us to be able to open up scripture on our own and know the story and understand the moving of God and what he's setting up and what he's working toward because it has major implications for us.

The Bible, it's got two main characters: God and human and human beings, humanity.

That's us.

This is your story.

It's a story that you're part of, and we want to know it.

And right now, in this section, figuring out freedom, we're dealing with this interesting time in the history of the people of Israel, where they have escaped slavery in Egypt.

God had made a promise to their ancestor Abraham that they would become a nation.

But that promise took a long time to come to completion.

In fact, it seemed like it was never going to happen, like things were moving in the opposite direction, because for several generations they were completely and totally enslaved by Egypt, the most powerful empire at that time.

It's kind of hard to become a nation when you're enslaved by a more powerful nation.

But God shows up in a big way.

He hears their cries, he remembers his promise to Abraham, and he picks this guy named Moses, and he says, Moses, I'm gonna raise you up and I'm gonna have you lead my people out of slavery and into the freedom that they've been promised.

And Moses protests and he's like, You've got the wrong guy, I don't want to do this.

But God wins that argument, and Moses leads the people out of slavery, and now they're free.

It's like, yeah, we have finally we're free.

Now what?

A few years ago, we we had a guy named Jason Jaggard come in to share at a men's event that we had.

He did a great job.

About a year before he came and spoke here, I heard him speak, and he said something in this conversation that I've thought about so many times in the years since.

It's something that actually plays in my head pretty often.

He said that we often spend more time in life thinking about what we want and even working toward what we want than we spend thinking about what we would do if we actually got what we wanted.

We spend more time thinking about what we want than figuring out what we would do if we actually got what we wanted.

And you can see that in a variety of different ways in life.

Different examples.

Um, retirement would be a great example.

Right?

A lot of people want to retire.

And you work really hard and you're you're saving up money and you're working at a job, and maybe the only reason you're there is because you're gonna retire in a few years, and finally you get that, you retire, and this happens to a lot of people.

They retire and they go, Finally, I got what I wanted, and then like two weeks later they go, now what?

Because they find a lack of purpose and they're they're bored with many of the things they thought would just fill all their time, and you'll find people that actually come out of retirement because they find that this isn't what I thought it was gonna be.

Another great example that won't be a pain point for anyone is marriage.

Um, marriage is one of those things that you just you want it so bad.

I I have been married for almost 20 years, and I married my high school sweetheart.

I I just wanted a prom date.

I'm gonna be honest.

I was looking for a prom date, it was my senior year.

There was this girl who was awesome, smart, funny.

We had we had been we'd been friends for a while and beautiful, and I thought, you know what?

She would be an amazing prom date.

I'm gonna ask her to prom.

I was going to college a thousand miles away, no interest in a long-term relationship.

I asked her a prom, and the rest is history.

I've been with Megan since I was I was 18 years old.

She was 17, and I turned 40 this year.

So it's like the majority of my life has been spent in a relationship with this person.

And there was a time when we were so excited about getting married.

It was like, we gotta get married.

What does it take to get married?

And then we got married.

And it was hard.

And it was a lot of unexpected things.

And the truth is, we often spend way more time and energy and money preparing for the wedding than preparing for the marriage.

And marriage is tough, it's hard.

So a lot of people get married and they're like, we're married, and they drive off in a little car and it says, just married, and it's like, woo! And then a year later, you're like, this is not what I thought it would be.

It's hard, but that's how life goes.

Sometimes we get the very thing that we want, but then we realize we're not ready for it.

Or it's different than we thought it would be.

Maybe it's more difficult, and that's what the Israelites find themselves in.

They are free, they are no longer slaves.

But now what?

See, freedom has to be figured out.

Freedom is messy, freedom is difficult.

You gotta figure out freedom.

And so God takes these people.

And if you read, you know, the tail end of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, it's the story of this 40-year period of time where God is helping them figure out freedom before they're ready to actually become the nation that they're meant to be.

They've got to figure out freedom.

And last week we said we're gonna look at three components to freedom.

Confidence, you gotta be confident, you have to have the right kind of confidence to really experience freedom.

We talked about that last Sunday.

Next Sunday, we're gonna talk about patience.

Because freedom requires all kinds of patience.

It doesn't always come all at once.

All the things, all the benefits don't happen all at once.

That's next Sunday.

Today, we're gonna talk about boundaries.

Because freedom has to have boundaries.

There have to be boundaries designed to protect and preserve freedom so that we can enjoy it.

We're gonna talk about boundaries.

About laws.

Yay! I got to think a lot about laws this week.

On Thursday, I got dropped off at my house by a police officer.

It's the first time I've ever been in the backseat of a police car.

I didn't get arrested.

I didn't do anything illegal.

Um, it's a I'll tell a story later.

It has to do, I'll just I'm gonna let you be like, what is going on?

Um, it's fine.

I just I re-rented another vehicle in such a manner that my car wouldn't go anymore.

And I got accident forgiveness with Allstate.

I I called Jake.

No, wait, that's State Farm?

No, I have State Farm.

That's no, it is State Farm.

Okay.

I couldn't remember if I was in good hands or if I had Jake from State Farm, but I I have Jake from State Farm.

No, so accident forgiveness, first accident since I was 16 years old, first accident since I've been insured on my own as a driver, so that was all good.

Um and you know, the car just wouldn't go, so the officer said, you know, you want to ride home.

And I was like, Yeah.

And so my neighbors all got to see me being let out of the back seat of a police car.

I never knew, I never knew that they don't have uh door handles on the inside of the back seat of police cars, but that makes a ton of sense.

So that was good.

I'm sure my neighbors were like, huh, like I'd had a bender and needed to sober up in jail before the police officer gave me a ride home.

I don't know.

But I got to learn a lot about law and experience that in a fun way.

Oh, uh also, this was great.

The police officer uh used to be a student of mine in the youth group, and uh that was pretty cool.

Also happens to be the nephew of Stephen Susan, who started his hands, so that's a fun connection.

It was great, it was wonderful.

Ah, the law.

And I know lots of us know the law.

I know that.

It's good.

If you've ever decided in a year you're gonna start reading through the entire Bible, you're gonna go like Genesis through Revelation.

You probably have experienced the feeling of getting stuck in like Leviticus, when it's just this endless list of laws.

And going, what even am I supposed to do with this?

It all begins in Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Moses leads the people to Mount Sinai, the very place that God showed up to him in the form of a burning bush and gave him this promise that you're gonna lead my people out of this out of Israel.

And on the mountain, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, the first ten laws that he gives his people.

And here's what it says: It says, God gave the people of Israel these instructions.

I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

You must not have any other God but me.

You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.

You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.

I lay the sins of the parents upon their children, the entire family is affected, even children in the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.

But, this is a big butt, by the way, I lavish my unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God, the Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.

On that day no one in your household may do any work.

This includes you, your sons, your daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them, but on the seventh day he rested.

That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Honor your father and mother, then you will live a long life in the land of the Lord, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You must not murder, you must not commit adultery, you must not steal, you must not testify falsely against your neighbor, you must not covet your neighbor's house, you must not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

And this is what we would call the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments.

Now, sometimes the Ten Commandments gets presented as this like harsh thing.

But if you read the list, I heard someone say this once, and I believe this fully.

It doesn't even say you have to be like a nice person.

It just basically says, don't do the worst things that human beings can do.

Like it's basically remember God and keep Him number one, and then just don't lie to each other and steal from each other and murder each other.

It's kind of like the lowest bar that human beings can be asked to live.

And yet, this pastor that I heard say this once is so true.

We all, all of us have found a way to slide under that bar.

We're all really good at limbo, right?

We find a way under that bar.

But this is the original Ten Commandments that God gives his people.

And what follows, if you keep reading, from this part of Exodus all the way into the book of Joshua, really, are some cool stories here and there, but lots and lots of lists of laws.

So many kinds of laws.

There's laws about property, there's laws about livestock, there's laws about religious observance and festivals, there's laws about sanitation, there's laws about diet, there's laws about appropriate sexual behavior, there's laws about everything you can imagine.

It's just law after law after law.

And that's why no one, no one goes, mmm, these are my favorite books of the Bible.

Like we joked last week.

I said, how many of you would say Revelation's your favorite book of the Bible?

Now two people raised their hand.

Anthony and James, James who led worship this morning.

And I gave you guys a little bit of a hard time.

By the way, James, I'm sorry.

I think Revelation's awesome, and I respect you a ton.

And so I was just joking.

It's totally awesome that you guys love Revelation, okay?

And I bet there's more than two.

I bet a few of you are closet like Revelation fans.

A few of you guys.

You just didn't want to share.

Let's play that game again, though.

Favorite book of the Bible.

For those of you very familiar with scripture, not all of us are, that's fine.

But for those of you like, oh no, I know it pretty well.

Um, Leviticus.

Anybody?

No?

Alright.

Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy?

No?

Well, that's good.

Mike and well, you said, but you didn't say it like you loved.

You said, well, I like Deuteronomy.

I'm not asking if you.

Is your favorite book of the Bible is Deuteronomy, Cindy?

Mike?

Now, Mike, you just raised your hand because your wife raised her hand.

You have to do that.

I get it.

Your favorite book.

Now, okay, interestingly enough, Deuteronomy, the second most quoted book of the Bible by Jesus.

Psalms is number one, but Jesus quoted Deuteronomy all the time.

So it seems like it was in his top two, and I'm cool with that.

So we got two, zero Leviticus, two Deuteronomy, numbers.

You guys don't love genealogies?

You're not into that?

Okay.

No, here's the point.

This is often that part of Scripture.

I like Deuteronomy too.

This is often that part of Scripture that we get stuck in.

Because it's, for the most part, it's a lot of laws.

And what's the point of that?

What does that have to show us?

And very often it gets dismissed, but it shouldn't, because we learn so much about the heart of God.

One of the most important things for us to understand, if we're going to be people who live this life, this one life that we have connected to God, is we've got to know the God who made us.

What is he like?

What does he care about?

And we see the heart of God in the law in so many amazing ways.

You could actually sum up this whole section if you wanted to in Deuteronomy chapter 28.

Deuteronomy 28 · chapter mention

So here, Deuteronomy for you guys.

I got you.

God says, if you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I'm giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world.

You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God.

Your towns and your fields will be blessed.

Your children and your crops will be blessed.

The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed.

Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, you will be blessed.

The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you.

They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven.

The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain.

The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he swore he would do.

And then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.

This shows us the heart behind these laws that God gives.

He says, Obey these laws so that you will be blessed.

He has a desire to bless his people.

He has a heart for his people to succeed.

And he's telling them if you follow these, if you stay within these boundaries, you will experience the full measure of the blessings of freedom that I have for you.

And even though we aren't under that law anymore, as we're going to talk about in a moment, we still have the same God.

And he still desires us to be blessed, to experience the freedom that he's won for us.

And freedom requires boundaries.

So let's back up for just a second, because this is acting this whole section of scripture often gets overlooked, dismissed, or flipped past.

And in some ways I understand that completely.

But there's a lot of misconceptions that exist about the law.

And for us to really understand the point of this and what this shows us as we try to figure out freedom in our own lives, I want to explore some of those misconceptions.

Okay, so let's look at a few.

Misconception number one, it's boring.

It's boring.

And that is actually not really a misconception.

Yes, much of these sections of the Bible are boring.

But you have to understand that they're not there just to entertain.

When you read the Bible, there's a variety of different genres of literature.

You have poetry.

The psalms.

There's songs.

It's poetry.

It's beautiful language.

You have history.

I'm like a history guy.

Anyone else love history?

Like you find a history documentary and you're like, I'm in.

I could watch 17 hours straight of like World War I to World War II documentaries like all day long.

I just love I love history.

Roman history, love it.

Interesting stuff.

You have letters in the Bible, actual letters between people and other groups of people where they're corresponding back and forth.

That's a whole different genre of literature.

And you also have legal documents, like actual legal documents.

I don't know many people who read legal documents for fun.

And so the misconception is not that necessarily some of these things are boring.

It's to remember that the Bible's written to do many different things, ultimately to show us the heart of God.

But in that we have all types of different literature, some of it's more entertaining than others, and yes, long lists of laws are not there to entertain.

So maybe the misconception is that it ought to entertain us.

And that's not the point.

Another misconception, and this one actually has some merit, again, is that it's pointless.

That this part of Scripture, it's pointless because we've been set free by Jesus.

We've been set free by Jesus.

We're not under the law of Moses.

Now, later this year we're gonna get to a series called Figuring Out Freedom again.

And this one's gonna be all about how Jesus has set us free.

And so I don't want to go into too much detail about that now because we're gonna get there later this year.

But we are not under the law.

And if you're new to the whole Jesus thing, you're like, what does that mean?

It means that you, your status with God, where you stand in his eyes, is not determined by how good of a job you have done following the rules.

That's not what determines whether or not you are in with God at all.

And so we can look at Romans chapter 10, verse 9, that says, if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

Now that's an if statement.

And we just got done reading another if statement in Deuteronomy, right?

That if statement was, hey, if you do all these things I've told you to do, if you are careful to obey all of these regulations, then you'll be blessed.

And that has now been replaced with if you believe.

What a joy.

And see, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do our best to obey God.

Obviously we should.

But at our core, who we are as followers of Jesus, we are we are not obeyers.

We've never actually been called in history the obeyers, but we have often been referred to as believers.

And so the the if of if you obey me has been replaced in the New Testament because of Jesus with the if of if you believe in me.

Because Jesus obeyed the law perfectly.

We can't.

But he did, and he put that to rest once and for all.

Now we're not under the law, we're under grace.

This echoes what Jesus says in John 3.16, like the most famous Bible verse ever.

This is how God loves the world.

He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.

And so it's easy to look at the law in the Old Testament and say, well, this is pointless.

I'm not under the law.

That's been done away with.

I've got Jesus, so what's the point?

And the reality is there is a point.

Jesus was once asked, What's the most important commandment in the entire scriptures?

And he replied in Matthew chapter 22, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

This is the first and greatest commandment.

A second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.

So Jesus says, look, you can sum up the entire list of laws, and this actually really applies to the Ten Commandments.

The first half are about loving God, the second half about loving people.

And he says, No, love God with everything you've got and love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, I don't think any of us would say that's not important anymore.

Well, because I have Jesus.

He's forgiven me, he's freed me.

Now I can treat God like dirt and people like dirt.

It's amazing the grace of God.

No, none of us would say that, right?

In fact, it's it's like the opposite.

Because of what Jesus has done for us, because he's forgiven us, we have this different motivation and even a different equipping because of the Holy Spirit inside of us to love God and love people.

And the law helps us understand in many ways what loving God and loving people actually looks like.

In Ezekiel, God speaks through that prophet, and he speaks of a time that currently exists, and he says, I will give you a new heart.

And I'll put a new spirit in you.

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

Now, again, we're gonna get into all of this much later, but the reality is we are still called by God to love Him and to love people.

And even though we're not under the law, the law does help us understand some of those filters that God has in terms of what does it mean to love God and what does it look like to love people.

So it's not pointless.

Let's move on.

Let's move on.

There are other misconceptions.

One misconception about the law would be that it is like super outdated.

Okay?

And in some ways it kind of is.

Because it's 3,000 plus years old.

It's always really easy at this point in history to look at something really old and like take pot shots at it.

You know what I mean?

And so I've realized, guys, I've gone to this well far too often lately.

It's a bit of a bad habit, and I promise after this moment I will put this to rest for at least three months.

I have a son who plays basketball.

And uh it's just on the forefront of my mind a lot because that's where the stage of life we're in right now.

We're always going to a practice or a game or a tournament.

And uh a few weeks ago, we we stumbled on, we were hanging out together, and we stumbled on this YouTube video of footage from the early days of the NBA.

If you don't know this, the NBA was formed in the 1940s.

And oh my goodness.

Some sports, the old days, they they just they're better than the old days of basketball, right?

Some sports you can compare now to the old days, and it's better.

Like baseball is a good example.

The players are bigger, stronger, faster, throw harder, hit harder, but like at the same time, like the days of old, it's it's pretty comparable in many different ways.

Basketball is not like that at all.

Have you ever seen old basketball?

Like it's like the shorts are like, it's they're wearing underwear, essentially, you know, and it's just a bunch of dudes and they and they dribble like this.

Like they dribble like like a, not being mean, like the first grade kids that I have coached, you know, it's dribble, they do this, and they're the they're the guys in the NBA in the 1940s.

And I'm I'm half, I mean, I'm joking a little bit.

They're they're a little better than that, but not much.

And like my son, he's grown up watching like Stephen Curry, and they dribble behind their back 17 times, and they seem to like teleport in midair, and they jump 3,000 feet in the air and they shoot it from a hundred feet away and they make it.

Like he's grown up watching that.

So he watches this old footage from the 1940s, and he's like, they're horrible.

That's what he said, they're terrible.

And I was like, hold on, man.

Before you say that, understand that if not for those guys and what they did and the foundation that they built that was then evolved and iterated upon, you wouldn't have the guys from today.

So you're like comparing the old to the new and saying that the old is terrible compared to the new, but you don't realize that without the old you would never have gotten the new.

And so when we look back at the law, it's sometimes easy to go, oh, this part is so outdated.

And yeah, in some ways, because it has been replaced by a new covenant, but at the same time, we have to realize that this is the foundation that God uses throughout so much of Scripture to teach us what is right and what is good.

See, we have a tendency as people to define what is right and what is good ourselves.

That's what Adam and Eve did with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They said, Well, it looks good to me, so it must be good.

But only God has the right to define good and evil.

And through the law, we get to learn what that is.

So in some ways it's outdated, but understand it's a foundation.

And even the world we live in now, like all of our standards of justice and goodness, owe the scriptures.

Like they owe they owe it to that.

If not for the law of Moses, we don't have a culture like we live in today.

So it's outdated a little bit, but it's a foundation.

It shouldn't be looked at in that lens.

So that's a little bit of a misconception.

Two more, really fast.

We're gonna get to the point of all of this, because I can even tell some of you are like dying right now.

I get it, okay?

I get it.

Just bear in mind.

I told you we're going through the whole Bible this year.

Some of it's harder than others, okay?

Imagine my week.

So, next misconception that it's cumbersome.

This is something I've heard a lot.

Like, people, if you grew up in church, like they had, do you know they had 611 laws?

They had 611 laws that they had to follow.

Oh my goodness.

And I grew up being told that, like, can you imagine 611 laws?

Do you know how many laws we have in America?

I tried to research this.

You actually can't find a comprehensive list.

But we know that it's well over 30,000 laws.

We have 30,000 laws in America.

In fact, on average, Congress passes between 200 and 600 new laws every single year.

And so it's easy to look at the Old Testament and be like, oh my gosh, God, look at God.

He's just giving them all these laws, like he's laying this massive burden on them.

No, no, no, no, not at all.

Not compared to the world we live in at all.

We probably have more laws related to just driving your car than they had, period.

What you actually see here is the heart of God in an amazing way.

God gives them this incredibly comprehensive, revolutionary set of laws compared to the world around them for sure.

And it's about as simple as it could possibly be.

You see God's desire not to lay a heavy burden on people.

Even though sometimes it gets talked about like he just whew, he laid it on thick, and how could these people be expected to keep 611 laws?

We have to keep 30,000.

We see the heart of God, it's it's so simple.

And this is the last one, I'll spend a little bit more time on this one.

We often look at the laws in the Old Testament as barbaric.

Many people who who try to oppose our faith have cherry-picked certain laws from the Old Testament because those laws are so, from our perspective, barbaric and not not in keeping with the values of our world today, and have kind of done it in this sort of like gotcha, you know, like, oh, look at this.

Oh, if you believe the Bible, you believe this.

And it's so disingenuous, it's so intellectually dishonest.

Because what you have to understand is that if you compare the laws that God gave his people through Moses to the laws that existed in the other cultures of the time, the law of Moses was more of a massive leap forward in terms of justice, in terms of fairness and goodness than you can possibly imagine.

You see the heart of God all throughout.

I don't want to read a few sections.

Deuteronomy 17.

God says to them, You are about to enter the land that your the Lord your God is giving you.

When you take it over and settle there, you may think we should select a king to rule over us, like the other nations around us.

If this happens, be sure to select as king the man that the Lord your God chooses.

You must appoint a fellow Israelite, he must not be a foreigner, the king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself, or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the Lord has told you you must never return to Egypt.

The king must not make many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the Lord, and he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.

When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives.

Then he will learn to fear the Lord, his God, by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees.

This regular reading will prevent him from becoming proud and acting as if he's above his fellow citizens.

It will also prevent him from turning away from these commands in the smallest way, and it will ensure that he and his descendants will reign for many generations in Israel.

So God says, hey, if you guys ever pick a king, he is not to accumulate wealth for himself.

He is not to like build up and amass all these horses and all this gold and all this silver.

In fact, he's supposed to read the law and remember that he's underneath God's authority just like everybody else.

So here you have in the law limitations placed on a king.

That did not exist in the ancient world.

And it kind of doesn't exist in many ways today as it should.

People in power accumulate so much for themselves.

And I'm not getting political, but it is interesting if you look at like the net worth of people when they enter Congress versus their net worth like ten years later, it's amazing.

It's so corrupt.

It's so corrupt.

It's just people accumulating all the wealth for themselves instead of representing the people they're supposed to lead.

And in the law, God puts limitations on the king.

No other nation had limitations on a king.

Kings did whatever they wanted to do, they had total power.

But you see that in the law.

There's a fairness there in God that's amazing.

Deuteronomy 24.

God says, never take advantage of poor and destitute laborers, whether they are fellow Israelites or foreigners living in your towns.

You must pay them their wages each day before sunset because they are poor and they're counting on it.

If you don't, they may cry out to the Lord against you, and it would be counted against you as sin.

So here we have in the law protections for poor people, protections for the oppressed.

That did not exist in the ancient world.

In fact, most ancient cultures have like a caste system, and if you were poor, you were never going to be anything but poor.

And here in the law, you see God's heart for those who are at the lowest point.

That they're protected.

Leviticus 25, in the year of Jubilee, each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors.

This is really random if you don't know the context.

Every 50th year was this year called the year of Jubilee.

And there were a lot of things that happened in the year of Jubilee.

It was supposed to be this amazing year of partying, basically, celebration.

But one of the things that existed in the law is let's say, let's say your grandfather or your father had made some really bad financial decisions and sold the land that belonged to your family.

And now it's gone.

And your entire family's future is now gone because of these bad financial decisions.

Every 50 years it had to be returned to the original family.

And this protected families from ever having to be ruined by mistakes made by a previous generation.

That's amazing.

There's nothing like that that exists today.

Like that doesn't exist in our world.

Deuteronomy 15, at the end of every seventh year, you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money?

Every seven years, all debts were canceled.

Can you imagine?

Like the kind of countdown we would all have if every seven years no more debt.

Can you imagine what you would borrow the sixth year?

How many cars you would buy?

Yeah, and he said, this is how it must be done.

Everyone must cancel the loans they've made to their fellow Israelites.

They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord's time of release has arrived.

There's so many laws like this.

There's protections for women who are so vulnerable in that culture and at that time, and there weren't laws like that anywhere else in the world.

And here's the point it's very easy for people to pick certain parts from the law and say, oh, look, you should be embarrassed as a Christian by this.

No, no, no, no.

That was 3,000 years ago.

Things have come a long way, and that's a good thing.

But understand that the law of Moses was a massive leap forward.

And compared to its time, it didn't make sense.

You have limitations placed on the powerful, you have protections for the powerless.

The most vulnerable people, the poor, women and children, they are protected in a way that they never were in other cultures.

If you had been alive at that time, there is not any other culture you would have rather lived in than that culture because of the goodness of the law of Moses compared with everything else from its time.

We see the heart of God in the law.

He limits the powerful, he protects the powerless.

He's for all people.

And so, yes, we're not under the law, but we still see God's heart in it.

Now, this is where we'll wrap up and close.

I imagine if I had given a schedule out, by the way, at the beginning of the year, a lot of us would have seen, oh, Leviticus Sunday?

Yeah, I don't know if I'm coming to that one.

But hey, you've almost made it through.

Give yourselves a round of applause.

You've almost made it through Leviticus.

Here we go.

And Deuteronomy and Numbers.

I didn't quote much from Numbers.

If there was a word that I could use to sum up the law and the boundaries that God gives his people, it would be this beneficial.

In order to experience true freedom and enjoy it and protect it and preserve it, you have to have beneficial boundaries.

Because there's a big difference between freedom and a free-for-all.

Like if we say freedom, that's a good word, right?

But if someone ever says, oh, it was a free-for-all, that's like, no.

That's bad.

And so, okay, I told you I was in the back of a police car.

Here's what happened.

So on Thursday, I'm headed over to a friend's house to do a Bible study on Revelation.

I mean, come on.

And I'm, you know, in traffic.

I'm in bumper to bumper traffic right outside of Avery Elementary on East Cherokee Road.

It was great.

A lot of my friends live out that way.

A couple of them saw me and texted me in the aftermath.

It was awesome.

And, you know, I'm just not paying attention.

And out of my periphery vision, the cars in the lane next to me start to go.

So my brain's like just goes, it's time to go.

There wasn't time to go for my lane.

So I hit the gas into the car in front of me.

I can only imagine what it must have looked like for the person who was behind me.

Just sitting there, bumper to bumper, and for no apparent reason, the car in front of them just goes from a complete stop and slams into the car in front of them.

Right?

I was like, wow.

It's great.

Lady gets out of her car and she's like, what in the he, you know?

And I go, I'm really sorry.

I have insurance.

I will totally make sure this is all good.

Let's, I said, why don't you just go drive forward and pull over over there and I'll come meet you?

And then I hit the gas, but my car wouldn't go.

And so she's over there, it's raining, uh, it's school traffic, it's a wonderful day.

And uh and so this triggers a variety of like legal things that have to happen.

She calls the police as she should.

She actually told me, my husband's gonna want me to call the police.

And I'm like, makes sense.

Give him a call.

Police show up.

Police officer's like, hey, what happened?

I tell him what happened, right?

He looks strangely familiar, but couldn't quite place it.

Um, you know.

And so we talk, someone helps me push my car off to the side, tow truck is called, like that's part of the procedure.

Tow truck takes my car.

Um and by the way, if you've been here long, uh, you know that since 2009, I have driven a 2006 Toyota Scion.

Uh I've had it since that time, and it's it's that's that's it.

That's the end of the scion.

It's over, it's done.

I gotta figure out a new car.

I've had that car since 2009.

And I kind of love and hate that car.

So, and my son has been begging me to get a new car, and I was gonna keep it just to make that be his first car, and now I can't do that.

And I'm so, he's so excited.

I told him I got in a car accident.

He was like, yes.

That was his response.

I'm like, I'm okay, you know, whatever.

And so the tow truck comes and it takes the car, and we exchange insurance information, and all this is triggered.

And and like, I haven't, I have not been in an accident since I was 16 years old.

And so I didn't really, I it's like, I don't know what to do.

That's a good thing.

I'm not like super experienced in that, I guess.

And so the officer's like, oh, well, here's the case number, and your insurance company will get this and it will like trigger all these different things, and and here we go.

And then again, he says, Do you need a ride home?

And I'm like, Yes, I do.

And so I got to ride in the back of a police car to my house.

That was awesome.

I mean, I never knew that was gonna happen when I woke up on Thursday.

What a great day.

You know, it was wonderful.

And he was a former student of mine, and it was great.

So, there are all these laws, and and and that was not a fun experience, but it was nice to actually see how like quickly things can happen and can get taken care of when you have freedom, but also laws and boundaries that protect that freedom.

Now, I have also been in like Guatemala.

Some of you that just got back from the mission trip.

How many of you were on the mission trip in Guatemala?

I know a few of us.

Oh, okay, hey, what's up, Fries?

You're in the front row and I'm blind to the front row, so now I see you guys.

Traffic in Guatemala, like different than here?

Oh.

Just you should just go on a mission trip just to see the traffic.

I'm joking, it's a really big decision to make that should be prayed over.

Very spirit, okay.

But I've never experienced anything like it.

Like in Guatemala, there's no, like, there are rules, but you don't have to follow them.

It is a free-for-all.

It is chaos, it is crazy.

Like, to a level, I've never been car sick in my life, except when I'm in Guatemala.

And you're just like, don't look at the road, don't look at the road, I'm sure we're fine, don't look at the road.

Um, it's insanity.

In fact, when car accidents happen in Guatemala City, they just push the car off to the side of the road and leave it there.

And so the the side of major roads are just lined with abandoned cars.

They're like the guardrails now.

Like you hit the abandoned car, you've gone too far, right?

It's crazy.

And so several years ago when I was there for the first time, I asked, I asked uh one of our translators, I said, Hey, are there like traffic violations?

Are there like, can you get a ticket?

And he just laughed.

Because I'm like, how in the world would a police officer police this?

And he's like, oh no.

No, it's it they don't even try.

It's a free-for-all and it's terrifying.

And so I would much rather live here in terms of driving and traffic and how there's there's boundaries that everyone has to like go in the same direction, things like that.

It's really helpful.

It's really helpful than to live in a free-for-all.

Because real freedom has to be protected by healthy, beneficial boundaries.

That's why even though we've been freed from the law, we're not under the law anymore.

In 1 Corinthians 10, 23, Paul says, You say, I'm allowed to do anything, but not everything is good for you.

You say, I'm allowed to do anything, but not everything is beneficial.

God loves us so much, just like he loved the people of Israel, he loved them so much that he gave them beneficial boundaries to help ensure their success.

And we don't have the same boundaries that they had, but we have the same God, and he loves you so much, and he desires success for your life so much that he wants you to have beneficial boundaries in your life to help protect, preserve your freedom so that you can enjoy it.

Now, the interesting thing for us is that we actually kind of have the freedom now to choose many of those boundaries for ourselves.

And so I asked the question as we wrap up today in worship team, you guys can make your way up.

Are there areas in your life right now, today, that you need some beneficial boundaries added to?

As a big shift in tone.

We've been talking about the law and how it's all these other things, but now we're getting personal.

Are there any aspects of your life, and maybe these are areas where you're like, I kind of struggle in this area, it's not going great.

And maybe, maybe what's needed is for you to have some beneficial boundaries put in place to better protect and preserve the freedom that God has given you so that you can enjoy it.

I'll give you some examples.

One super personal, and I bring this up every once in a while.

Um, that way people can point at me and go, ooh, gross.

Uh I used to have a real strong struggle with pornography.

And started when I was in the third grade.

And so because of that, I learned as I walked through having to get free of that, I learned how I need really beneficial boundaries in my life.

And one of those things, for example, is like my phone.

I have a super locked up phone.

Like it's super locked up.

And so me and some friends of mine, we have accountability and we have each other's phones, or we don't have each other's phones, that'd be weird.

Um, like you have my phone, I have your phone.

And people call me, they get you, it's awesome.

No.

Um, because you know, I just I don't want that temptation.

Even though I might say, oh, I'm I'm I'm at this point in my journey, I can handle it.

No, I don't need that temptation.

Why would I why would I open myself up to that?

That would be like an alcoholic having a flask of whiskey in their pocket, going, gee, I sure hope I don't take a drink.

You know, that's not smart.

And so we have each other's uh like codes on our phone, these pin numbers or whatever.

And and so, like, there's all kinds of locks, and I love it.

I love it.

It only gets embarrassing sometimes when I'm like at an event, and so like I have websites, like I you have to have an allowed website on my phone.

This is getting really personal and deep.

I didn't mean to do this.

Um so whatever.

I'm kind of an open book.

And so, like, there's only certain websites that I have allowed, and it's great because it means I don't go in anything else, and I don't even want to anymore.

Like, I don't want to, but it's it's still important for me to have those.

And so I've been at places before, and they're like, oh, here's scan this QR code and it'll take you to uh you know the website so you can purchase these tickets.

And I'm like, nah, that won't work on my phone.

And they'd be like, no, no, no, no, it does.

You just open up your camera app and you scan it, and it takes you right to the website.

And I'm like, nah, is there another way?

And then it gets real awkward.

And if it's a dude, I'll go, I used to have a real problem with pornography.

My phone's super locked up now.

And he'll go, you can just go in.

You know, it's pretty good.

It's pretty good.

I would never say that to a lady when I'll say it to a dude.

You know?

So there's benefits, but that's just it's a boundary.

It's a it's a boundary in my life where I say, you know what, either I can just live my life and struggle, or I can have some beneficial boundaries.

In ancient times, when kings would build a city, they would always build a wall around that city.

In fact, Proverbs says that a man without self-control is like a city with broken down walls.

No king worth his salt would have ever built a city without building a wall because you want to save your soldiers for the big battles.

And those battles come, temptation comes.

And I found that in my life I need to have some walls around my life so that every little temptation isn't a big struggle, and I can save my willpower for the big ones.

And so things like protections on a phone, they're just a beneficial boundary in my life that that exists to make it easier to obey the Lord.

And I actually love it, I like it.

That's not my only example, which is good.

You know, maybe maybe you've got some friends in your life and you love them, but they're just not good for you.

Maybe you're someone who I know many people in this place in life, you're trying to get like sober.

You maybe you have a problem with substance abuse, whether it's drinking or it's other substances, and you know, you have a strong desire to be free of it, but then there's certain groups of people, and when you're around them, it's just way harder because they're gonna do it and they're gonna be like, oh, come on.

And when you're with them, you just you're more likely to break those promises that you've made to stop.

And you might need to have.

Some beneficial boundaries put in place that say, you know what, guys, I love you, but I just I can't hang out with you in these contexts.

So if there's gonna be alcohol, I just can't be there.

Or if you guys are gonna go to a bar, I'm not, I'm not gonna go.

Maybe it's not something as obvious as that.

Maybe it's something like gossip or just negativity.

There are certain people that just you could be having the most positive day, and then you start hanging out with them, and they start talking about this person or that person, and it gets really negative, and you get sucked into it, and then a few minutes in you're like, How did this happen?

I was having a great day, my mind was in a good place, and after a few minutes, you're just like, oh my gosh, and yes, and you're talking about all this other stuff.

And you're like, I just got sucked into this negative place, and I don't want that anymore.

And I've actually had to have this conversation with people before where I've said, Hey, I love you, but when we're hanging out, can we not talk about this issue or this person?

It just needs to be off limits because I know that you have opinions about this, and I just don't want to be, and I have maybe even similar opinions, but it's not good for me to dwell on it, it's not good for me to talk about it.

So it's just when we hang out, when we talk, these are not subjects that we're gonna talk about.

And it's a beneficial boundary to protect your heart.

There could be there could be beneficial boundaries with with finances, maybe it's accountability with someone else that helps you make sure that your finances are in order.

You know, maybe it's your spouse so that you don't like secretly spend money and your spouse secretly spends money and then you not so secretly have no money because you're each secretly spending money and the other person doesn't know.

I know that has never happened to uh to anyone here, it never happened to my marriage.

So there is a a wisdom in recognizing that while we are under grace and everything is permissible and nothing you can ever do wrong changes the love that God has for you.

God loves you enough that he wants your life to go well, and you need beneficial boundaries in your life.

You need those.

You know, one of the big ones for me has actually always been just finances and giving.

And if you're new here, by the way, we don't talk about giving like at all.

We have an announcement every week that says thanks for those of you who do.

Um, that's just our our culture.

But I'm talking about personally for me.

Giving is one of those things that I got really challenged at a young age to do it and to have it just be like a budget item.

And it is for us.

It just like automatically comes out.

And the cool thing about it is that that boundary, that boundary of setting aside a portion of my income to set aside to honor God, it's been so good for me.

On one hand, you're like, it's not good because there's less money in my account.

But what it's done for me is it's taught me this lesson that very few people learn is that you don't need all of your money.

You really don't.

Most people think they need all of their money and then some, and there are certain situations in life, 100% certain situations in life, where it's a crisis and you need more, and God is so good, and He that's but I'm saying, generally speaking, it's like taught me, oh, this is not what I depend on.

My money is not my God because I can let go of it.

And if you can't let go of something, you don't own it, it owns you.

And that boundary of just no, set aside this percent, it belongs to the Lord every single month.

It's actually freed me from like the fear of money.

To where like the the car thing that I had happened this week, like I made a joke, and I'm not really joking, I'm like, it's only money.

You know, and there's there's like a little pain there, because you know it's money.

But it's no, it's not, it's just money.

Who cares?

Who cares?

Thank goodness that God's gonna provide.

Thanks, thank goodness that I had comprehensive insurance on a car that's worth$3,000, which I found out on Thursday.

My car is worth three thousand dollars.

You know how bad a car has to be in today's economy to be worth three thousand dollars?

Oh, I learned that.

It's gonna be great.

God loves you and he wants your life to go well, and so he wants you to establish beneficial boundaries in your life to help ensure that success.

And so I want to, as we close, I want to encourage and challenge all of us to examine your lives, to examine yourself, and to recognize that maybe we're not that much different than the Israelites.

We're trying to figure out freedom.

We live in the most free society that's ever existed.

We have a freedom through Jesus that is unlike anything this world can offer us, but even that freedom will be attacked, even that freedom will be challenged, even that freedom will feel difficult.

And we've got to figure out freedom just like they did, and God needs us to have beneficial boundaries in our life.

So examine your life.

Like you know yourself better than I could ever know you.

The only person who knows you better than you is God.

But examine your life prayerfully.

Even ask the Lord to show you, Lord, are there any areas of my life where I need to put in some beneficial boundaries, some guardrails?

Is there one area of my life where that needs to be added?

And the Lord will be faithful to show you that.

And a great place to start is maybe the area of life that you're the most frustrated about.

You say, Lord, is there anything that I need to put in place?

Are there any walls that I need to build around that part of my heart, that part of my life, so that I'm protected, so that I'm able to walk in freedom and not in fear and frustration.

Because that's what God desires for you.

And I will say, as we really close, it's like the third time I've said that, as we wrap up again, it all starts with Jesus.

If you don't know Jesus, if you haven't given your life to Jesus, the simple truth of the matter is that there's another way to put this.

Without Jesus, you are a slave to sin.

And I don't say that to be judgmental because I know what it's like to live as a slave to sin.

Our culture would never use that language, our culture would never say, you're slaves to sin.

They would say that's offensive.

But our culture says things all the time, like you can't help the way you feel, you can't change who you're attracted to.

That's just another way of saying you're a slave to sin.

You're a slave to your urges.

You can't help yourself.

And there's truth in that.

Without Jesus, yeah, you're gonna be dominated by your desires.

And those desires are not always good, and they don't always lead to good places.

But Jesus will free you from that.

Jesus defeated sin and death.

And if you want to begin walking in freedom, it starts with Jesus.

He will free you, he will rescue you, he will change your life, and then he will empower you and equip you and teach you how to put the right beneficial boundaries in your life so that you can move forward toward the success and the freedom that God desires for you.

So examine your heart, have a conversation with God this week about that, and be willing, be wise and humble enough and willing enough to make whatever changes are necessary to experience the freedom that you're meant to have.

Does that make sense?

Alright.

Well, that said, I'm gonna pray.

So, Father, thank you for freeing us.

And Lord, I just remembered we're supposed to take Lord's Supper now.

So thanks for that reminder.

Hey guys, let's take Lord's Supper and we'll pray with Lord's Supper.

It's a professional church.

We know what we're doing, it's very organized.

Okay.

I mean, honestly, it's a perfect segue, though, because we're we're talking about Jesus and his free, like him freeing us from sin.

It happened on the cross.

And if you're new, we take this little meal every single week.

There's cups of juice and bread on the back.

If you didn't grab one, you can grab one now.

Everyone's welcome to take part in this.

But this is us every week stopping to remember what he did for us.

And in the context of today, he freed us.

He freed us from sin, from death.

He freed us from the law.

We're not under it anymore, but we can still learn from it.

And so let's take this meal together and thank Jesus for what he's done.

So, Father, we thank you for this piece of bread for what it represents.

Your body broken on the cross.

And we thank you for this juice and what it represents.

Your blood spilled for us on the cross.

Thank you for doing what you did to free us.

Lord, for anyone in this room that hasn't committed their lives to you, Lord, I pray that happens today so that they can know the freedom that exists because of you and through you and only through you.

And for all of us, Lord, I pray that you give us the wisdom to learn the lessons that you've given us in Scripture so that we can enjoy the freedom that you've won for us.

We pray this in your name of Jesus.

Amen.

Let's take the bread and drink the juice.