This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two together of our look through the book of Exodus, week five. That
means we're in chapter 22, and in these chapters we're looking at the law, the
Old Testament law, that familiar law of the Ten Commandments, then also those
very detailed laws about how people were to treat one another and what to do in
the case of an ox falling in a ditch and everything along with that. There are
great truths in this law.

We looked at some of them yesterday and we'll see some of them today and
throughout the rest of this week, but there's also great danger. The greatest
danger is trusting the law instead of trusting the Lord. Trusting the law to do
something that it was never meant to do.

Trusting the law to save you. I can keep this list of rules and regulations and
then I'll be in God's good graces. The only way to be in God's good graces is
through grace, through the gift that God has given us in Jesus Christ.

The law is meant to teach us that we need a Savior, not to be our Savior. Let's
just admit it. It's tempting.

It's tempting to think that you can save yourself by doing good things. It just
seems simple that way. I keep this list of rules, got it done.

It's also tempting. In fact, it may even be more tempting to think that you can
keep God loving you as a believer by doing good things. Neither of those is
true.

It's not by the law, but it's by grace. So what about the law? What about the
law in our lives as believers?

Today I want to read for you some examples of the law in this chapter, just as a
reminder of the kinds of things that are in the law, and then talk with you
about what our relationship to the law is to be as followers of Christ. We don't
just erase it. Jesus said, "I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

" Well, what does that mean for me? What does that mean for you? Let me read
some sections of the law here from chapter 22, just as a reminder of what we're
talking about.

There are very simple laws about what to do in the case of certain kinds of
accidents or certain kinds of actions that happen. Chapter 22, verses 1 to 3,
"If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay
back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. If a thief is
caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of
bloodshed, but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed.

A thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he must be sold
to pay for his theft. " And then down verse 20, a different kind of law,
"Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed. Do not
mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.

Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me,
I will certainly hear their cry. " Down in verse 31, "You're to be my holy
people, so do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts.

Throw it to the dogs. " All kinds of laws and very detailed laws to the point of
if you hit somebody who's robbing your house in the dark, then you're not
guilty, but if it's in the light where you could have avoided it, then you are
guilty. You have laws here that are very straightforward.

If you sacrifice to another god, that's worthy of the death penalty. But right
alongside of that are these laws of compassion. Don't mistreat an alien.

Don't take advantage of a widow. So you have all of this in the law, laws even
about what kind of meat you're supposed to eat. What does this have to do?

How does this fit with my life as a believer today? In verse 31, "You are to be
my holy people. " The reason that all these laws were given to the people of
Israel was so that they could be holy.

The word "holy" means separate, set apart, so they could be different from the
people around them, acting in integrity, acting in love, acting in a way that
worshiped God and God only as the Lord of the universe. But if you and I are to
understand this today, we have to understand it in a different way. We live in a
different day.

Let me say it this way. In order for you to understand your relationship with
Christ, you must understand your relationship with the law. In order to
understand your relationship with Christ, you have to understand your
relationship with the law.

If you don't, you'll find yourself drifting towards the law. Churches everywhere
are filled with Christians who are struggling with this. A major problem.

We haven't learned how to handle the law. And because of that, we're tempted. We
still want regulations and instructions to follow so that we can be set free
from our problems.

In one word, our relationship with the law as believers, in one word, this word
might surprise you, is freedom. As a believer in Christ, your relationship with
the law is to be a relationship of freedom. Galatians 5.

1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore,
and don't let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. " And that yoke
that Paul is talking about there is the law.

We're to live a life of freedom in relationship to the law. Now what does that
mean? If you're to understand what that means, just a little bit different turn
today, I want to share with you four pictures that we get mostly in the New
Testament of our relationship to the law as believers.

And when you understand these pictures, you also understand the freedom that we
have from the law and within the law. What is our relationship to the law? In
the New Testament, we read that the law is a guardian.

The law is a debt. The law is a shadow, and the law is a prison. That's my
relationship to the law, but I have to understand the freedom that comes within
each of those.

First, the law is a guardian. You can read about that in Galatians 4. 1-5.

The law is a guardian like a teacher that you had before you became mature, and
it was a guardian for the followers of God before Christ came, for an immature
Israel. If you think about a guardian, the truth is small children need rules.
Can you imagine leaving kindergartners in a room alone for eight hours and
saying, "Just do whatever you think best, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Not a good idea. " The point is, the more immature you are, the more rules you
need. The law is for immature people.

But now we live in freedom. The law is a guardian, but now I live under grace.
That's where the freedom comes.

And people who put themselves back under the law as Christians, that's called
legalism, saying I've got to keep this list of rules and regulations for God to
really love me, for God to really have his hand on me, I've got to do these
things. I'm not talking about living a life of integrity. I'm talking about my
own little list of rules that I come up with.

Now I'm under grace. The truth is, the more mature the relationship, the less I
need rules, and the more I just know the right thing to do out of love. The law
is a guardian.

The law can define the problem, but it cannot deliver us. It doesn't have the
power to deliver us. I need grace for that.

Second picture of the law is the law is a debt. You can see that in Colossians
2. 14.

It's an obligation to be paid. We're in debt to the law, and the truth is we've
all broken that debt. We've all broken the law, and so it feels like a weight on
us, an unpaid debt, and many people feel like they have to bear that weight.

The good news is that the weight has been lifted. Freedom is the debt has been
paid. Jesus paid that debt on the cross.

He paid the debt of the law for you. That's where freedom comes from. The law is
a guardian, but I'm free.

I now live under grace. It's a debt, but I'm free. The debt has been paid.

The law, third, is a shadow. You can read that in Galatians 2. 16 and 17 in
Hebrews 10.

1. It's a shadow. It's a shadow of things to come.

We looked at some of that yesterday, how it foreshadowed what was going to
happen in Jesus, especially the sacrificial laws. Our freedom is to realize you
don't need a shadow once you have the light. Jesus is the light.

He's the one that casts the shadow. Once the person is there who's casting the
shadow, you look at the person, you don't look at their shadow anymore. Wouldn't
that be a silly way to interact with somebody?

They're talking to me, and I'm looking at the shadow trying to talk to them. I'm
afraid that's sometimes how we try to interact with Jesus. We get caught up in
the rules, our rules, instead of looking at him.

The reality of the Christian life is found in a person, not a list of rules.
It's found in a relationship, not in a bunch of regulations. An overemphasis on
rules is moving back into the shadows in your life as a believer.

Do we ever need rules and directions from God? Of course we do. There's commands
all throughout the scripture, things he's told us to do.

And I do that out of the light, out of my love for the Lord, not out of fear
that I'm going to lose his love. I do it out of grace. The law is a shadow of
Jesus who is to come, and Jesus is the light.

Fourth picture of the law in the New Testament is the law is a prison. Galatians
3. 23 says, "Before this faith came, we were all held prisoners by the law,
locked up until faith should be revealed.

" Now that you have faith, you're not in the prison anymore. Now that you have
faith, depending on the law somehow to save you or to keep you saved or to keep
you in God's good graces, it's like going back into the prison. It's just like
the Israelites wanted to go back to slavery, to Egypt, because it felt safer.

Sometimes believers want to go back to the little rules and regulations that you
had between you and God before you were a believer, because it seems easier, it
seems safer. You can put check marks on a list and feel like, "Okay, I know God
loves me today. " But that's not how relationships work.

We live in freedom, and freedom is to realize I have been set free. Those of us
who get caught up in legalism, and we all do sometimes, trying to prove our
worth to God by our list of rules. It's like sitting in a prison with the cell
door unlocked, the door open, and your papers for freedom in your hand, but
you're staying in the prison cell, because you don't feel like you're really set
free.

You have been set free. You've been set free. So our relationship now to the law
as believers is a relationship of freedom.

Jesus fulfilled the law, and so now I live in a relationship of freedom towards
the law. And in that relationship, I can learn from the law. No longer is it a
burden.

I can see how it directs me, how it guides me, what laws might fit for me today
morally, how the sacrificial laws don't fit for me today because Jesus fulfilled
those. I can see all of that because I live in this relationship of freedom. So
let's pray right now.

Let's pray that we'd experience that freedom today. Jesus, forgive us for those
times when we try to make a list of rules, and we hope that those will set us
free. That's an idol.

You're the one who sets us free. Oh, you have things for us to do. You have
directions for us to take.

No doubt about that. But you're more than that list of things to do or
directions to take. You're the one that we love.

It's about following you, not following our list of rules. So today, I pray that
we could live in freedom because of what you've done for us, Jesus Christ. In
your name, we pray this together.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to see together what the law teaches us about how to
handle our day, our week, our year, and our life.