This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday, and I want to welcome you to week five, day one
of our look through the book of Exodus. Going a chapter a day, that means we are
in chapter 21 today. Exodus is 40 chapters long, and you can really divide it
very much into two parts.

Chapters 1-19 are deliverance directed, and chapters 20-40 are directions
delivered. Chapters 1-19, deliverance directed, it's how God directs the
deliverance, the freedom of his people, from slavery in Egypt. And all the way
up to chapter 19, we see how God's working and working and working to set them
free.

And then in chapter 20, we begin with the Ten Commandments, and we have the law,
and we have the tabernacle, and we have the priests, and much of almost all of
chapters 20-40 is directions delivered. God's saying here's what to do. And in
many ways, it's about how you and I can live a life of freedom.

In the law, he talks about the moral law, the law about how you are to treat
other people, the civil law. They were a theocracy in Israel, so how they were
to handle the fact that they were governed by God together, and also the
sacrificial law, the laws about how they would make sacrifices that we know now
look forward to Jesus and what he did for us. These chapters, as you look at the
law, as you look at the tabernacle, as you look at priests, they're really in
many ways all about holiness.

The law is a holy thing, a priest is a holy thing, the tabernacle is a holy
thing. But we're going to see as we walk through these chapters that they're all
about us in many ways, about the holy thing that God wants to do in your life.
And even more than that, this may shock you about the holy person that God wants
to make of your life, in your life, of you.

These are really chapters that are not just about getting your freedom, getting
to that place of freedom, but chapters 20 to 40 are about how you stay in the
place of freedom, how you live that place the rest of your life. In these
chapters, chapter 20, which we looked at last week, and now we're digging into
21 this week, we're reading some of the Old Testament law. And I want to remind
you, especially today in this chapter, that even in the law, there are shadows
of New Testament truth.

God's looking forward to what he's going to do in Christ. It's in the
tabernacle, it's in the priests, but it's even in the law. It becomes very clear
as you read through what God's doing here that the God of the Old Testament and
the God of the New Testament are the same God.

Because in the Old Testament, he's doing a lot of preparing. In the New
Testament, he's doing a lot of fulfilling, showing us the way. God, even in
Exodus, was preparing us to receive the truth that we have today in Jesus
Christ.

And so even in the law, there are these shadows of grace looking forward to
Jesus. It's sort of like if you're standing on a street corner and you see
someone's shadow before they round the corner, you know someone's coming. You
can see things in the law that are a shadow of Jesus who is coming.

In fact, we're going to look at three or four of those today, some shadows of
Jesus coming and what he's going to do in our lives. First, there is a shadow of
Jesus being a servant in Exodus 21, 32. There's a shadow of Jesus and the fact
that he would serve us.

Listen to this verse, Exodus 21, 32. It may not sound like it's about Jesus at
first, so just bear with me. If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner
must pay 30 shekels of silver to the master of the slave and the bull must be
stoned.

There's a lot of laws about what to do if this person gets killed and this
person gets killed and what happens here and about murder. In this case, it's a
law about accidental death and it's a law that even in the case of an accidental
death, if there's a slave involved, that there must be some kind of payment
made. And look at what the payment is.

That's what I want to focus on. The payment is 30 shekels of silver, 30 pieces
of silver, the price of the life of a simple slave. And you might remember from
the New Testament, 30 pieces of silver is the price that was paid for the life
of Christ.

In Matthew 26, 14 and 15, then one of the twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot,
went to the chief priests and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I hand
him over to you? " So they counted out for him 30 silver coins. Now these chief
priests obviously knew the law.

There was a reason they counted out 30 silver coins. They were trying to insult
Jesus, the person of Jesus. They were saying, "We'll pay the price of a slave.

" But this action brings into sharp focus for us an important fact. Jesus really
is our servant. He said it himself.

He said, "I did not come into this world to be served, but to serve and to give
my life as a ransom for many. " He chose to serve. He chose to serve you.

Jesus wasn't drafted into this. He volunteered. He chose to serve you with his
life because he loves you.

He serves you with his life for the purpose of giving you life. And there's a
shadow of that even here in Exodus chapter 21. There's a shadow of Jesus being
our servant.

There's also a shadow in Exodus 21, 23, and 24 of Jesus being our sacrifice.
Listen to these verses. "But if there is serious injury, you are to take life
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for
burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

" Now this is one of the most familiar of all the Old Testament laws. An eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The only way to satisfy the demands of true justice
under the law was by this equal punishment rule.

Even today, this idea of he got what he deserved, she got what she deserved is
still the standard that many of us have for what's really fair in life. But
Jesus turned this standard upside down. And even in the law, there's this
foreshadowing of what Jesus was going to do one day.

The law here says that you are to take a life for a life. But Jesus turned that
upside down, and he gave a life for a life. He gave his life for your life.

So now we're no longer under law where you take a life for a life. We're under
grace where Jesus gave his life for your life. Jesus fulfilled the requirement
of the law for us.

We've committed sins against God, and the Bible says any sin that we commit is
an affront to God. It is deserving of death. It may not seem that bad to you,
but it's disobedience against God.

And that unholiness in our lives is deserving of death. Jesus gave his life so
that I wouldn't have to die. He fulfilled this requirement of the law by giving
his life for you.

There's something way above legal fairness here. There is grace. There's more
than revenge or restitution here.

There's restoration, the restoration of our life through his life. Jesus gave a
life for a life. But there's even more here than that.

Jesus gave his life for your life, and then he went on to challenge us to be the
same kind of people. Remember what he said in the Sermon on the Mount? He talked
about this law in the Sermon on the Mount.

In Matthew 5, 38-39, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye
and tooth for tooth. ' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

" Jesus looks back at this law, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and he
says, "Because grace has changed you, now you respond differently to people.
Grace fulfills the law. And because the law is fulfilled in me, now you respond
with love, even to those who are evil.

Do not resist an evil person. " He doesn't say, "Do not resist evil here. " In
fact, the Bible tells us to resist evil.

But we're not to resist the person. We're not to come against the person. We're
to recognize God loves that person, too.

So instead of seeking revenge in the life of that person, we seek restoration.
We seek forgiveness. We serve like Jesus served us.

There's this shadow of sacrifice. There's this shadow of the servanthood of
Jesus in the law. There's also a shadow of something else in our lives.

There's a shadow of servanthood in our own lives. What Jesus challenges us to.
Listen to what the law says in verses 5 and 6.

"But if a servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children, and do
not want to go free,' then his master must take him before the judges. He shall
take him to the door of the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he
will be his servant for life.

" So here you have an ear piercing, and it sounds sort of strange to us. What's
going on here? What's happening is this is a slave by choice, somebody who's
made a life commitment to be a part of a family.

And so they were marked as a servant in that family for life, a slave who served
by choice, whose service grew out of love rather than bondage. That's a reminder
to us, by the way, that the type of slavery that they encountered in ancient
Israel was nothing like the slavery that we encountered in early America. This
was more often an indentured servanthood, somebody who could not afford to pay
their debts.

Even today, I don't believe in that, but they had laws for those who wanted to
work in that kind of a way. And they also had a law for someone who wanted to be
part of a family the rest of their lives. This slave who was marked by choice,
who served out of love rather than bondage, they were called a bond servant.

They had bound themselves to a family. Here's the interesting thing. The New
Testament writers used that word to picture our relationship to Jesus.

Paul especially, in Romans 1-1 and Titus 1-1, again and again he says, "I'm a
bond servant of Christ. " James said it, Peter said it, when they started their
books they said, "I'm the bond servant of Christ. " What does that mean?

Servant by choice, servant motivated by love, servant committed for life. I
serve him not because he demands that I serve, but because love demands that I
serve. And so I choose to serve him for life.

Now all that's in Exodus chapter 21, this book that's all about, this chapter
that's all about the law, shadows for us, foreshadows for us what it means for
you and I to live by grace. Let's pray together. And Lord we ask, we ask that we
never forget to remember that you, Jesus, are the one who came and served us,
served us by giving your life for us in love.

And out of that, Lord give us the motivation to serve those around us. The
people in our family, people at work, people that we come just in contact with
throughout the day. Lord, instead of letting the motivations of selfishness
overwhelm us, I pray that your love instead would speak to us.

And that Lord, whether we feel like it or not today, that the decision to serve
would be the decision of our lives. Strengthen us to do that, Jesus, we pray, in
your name, Amen. Tomorrow we're going to talk together about the place of the
law in your life.