This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day three together of our look at the book of Exodus, week five. This
is chapter 23 we'll be looking at. We've been looking at principles of freedom
throughout this book.

And one of the principles we've come to again and again in these later chapters
is you've got to watch out for the little things. If you're going to live in
freedom, you've got to watch out for the little things. It could be the little
irritations of life, but it also can be the routine of life.

That's often where we lose our freedom in Christ because we depend on ourselves
rather than depending on him. And this chapter, chapter 23 actually, it's a
chapter of the law, but it has some awesome and powerful direction for you and I
about how to live in freedom day to day. The law teaches us here how to handle
the little things, how to handle your day, how to handle your week, how to
handle your year, how to handle your life in such a way that you're looking
forward to freedom on a regular basis.

Let's look through those. Number one, how to handle your day. Jesus told us that
the most important thing you can do with your day is to love God.

And the second greatest thing you can do is to love people. And there is a lot
in the law about how to do both of those. Practical truths about what it looks
like to love God, what it looks like to love people.

For instance, the law tells us that you love God by not having idols, other
things that are more important than him. You love God by not using his name in a
meaningless way. I mean, these may seem like little things or big things to you,
but this is God's direction for what works to keep us loving him in a day by day
by day way.

That's how you handle your day. There's also much in the law, starting in the
last chapter we saw some of it, there's much in the law about how to treat
people, what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Let me read for you
Exodus 23 verses one to nine.

And listen, just hear with me all that it says about how to love people.
Beginning in verse one, "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man
by being a malicious witness.

Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do
not pervert justice by siding with the crowd. And do not show favoritism to a
poor man in his lawsuit.

If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it
back to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you falling down under
its load, do not leave it there. Be sure to help him with it.

Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do
with a false charge. And do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I
will not acquit the guilty.

Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twist the words of
the righteous. Do not oppress an alien. Do you yourselves know how it feels to
be aliens because you were aliens in Egypt?

What a list. We talk about love your neighbor as yourself. The law has a lot
about how to do that.

Here, just in this few verses, don't spread false reports. Don't be a gossip.
That's how you love your neighbor as yourself.

Don't follow the crowd in doing wrong. We tell that to our kids. Don't do what
everybody else is doing.

This is a reminder to us as adults. Don't side with the crowd. Don't follow the
crowd.

Think like Jesus instead. That's how you love your neighbor as yourself. It says
here, even help people who hate you.

The donkey of somebody who hates you is a burden under its—even help them.
Don't deny justice to poor people. Don't accept bribes.

Bribes blind you. Don't oppress an alien. I love that word.

It makes us feel like a Martian, somebody from Venus, an alien to them with
somebody from another country. These are the actions of integrity, actions that
express the character of God in my relationships with people. That's how you
handle your day.

However you feel, you love God. You love others. And here's some directions for
how to do it.

This chapter also talks about how do you handle your week. In verse 10 to 12,
"For six years you're to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the
seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your
people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave.

Do not do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days do your
work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may
rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well may be
refreshed. " This is about the Sabbath.

How do you handle your week? Take one day for a Sabbath. And notice it says
here, not just for you, but for those in your household.

Those of you that have a family, not just for you, but for everybody else in
your family. Those of you that run a business, not just for you, but everyone
else in your business. In fact, as we started, there's a kind of a Sabbath even
for your fields.

One year out of seven, just let the field lie foul, don't let anything grow on
it. Let it have a Sabbath. Now we know now that agriculturally that's good for a
field, but that's also the way God designed things to remind us that personally
that's good for us.

One day out of seven we rest. Now why? Is God's reasoning here just merely
natural?

Is it just about botany and biology? There's a spiritual reason here too. To
rest was a sign of trust.

Trust in the work of God. Now unless you've been a farmer or herdsman as most of
them were that first read this, you can't appreciate what trust it takes to
celebrate a day of rest. What if the Sabbath were on the only clear day that you
had that week but you couldn't work in your fields?

What if you've allowed a field to lie fallow for a year and yet you've got a
hungry family and you think how much more food could I get out of that? Until
you've done those kinds of things, you can't appreciate the trust it takes to
rest. But you have other things.

You have work that needs to get done. You have projects that need to get
finished. You have dreams that need to get realized.

So why does God say to take a day of rest? That day you're saying, "God, I trust
you. I trust you more than my own energy and strength.

" A Sabbath rest is a Sabbath trust. To rest from your work is to trust in His
work, is to say, "God, I need your work in me just as much as I need to work for
you. " How do you handle your week?

Take one day out of seven and make it a Sabbath rest. That doesn't just mean a
day off, that means a day where I rest and I focus on who God really is. I
trust.

That's how you handle your day. That's how you handle your week. And then this
chapter also talks about how do you handle your year?

Verses 14 to 17. Three times a year, you're to celebrate a festival to me.
Celebrate the feast of unleavened bread.

For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the
appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No
one to appear before me empty-handed.

Celebrate the feast of harvest with the first fruits of your crops you sow in
the field. Celebrate the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, when you
gather your crops from the field. Three times a year, all men are to appear
before the Sovereign Lord.

He gives them here in their year three feasts to celebrate. First the feast of
unleavened bread. That's the feast where they ate the Passover.

Usually occurred in March or April. Then secondly the feast of harvest. This is
also sometimes called the feast of weeks.

That's where you would celebrate the day of Pentecost. And then third the feast
of ingathering. This is also sometimes called the feast of the tabernacles.

And it was the day of atonement that was celebrated during this feast. One
during March and April, one during May and June, one during September and
October. Feasting is a part of God's plan for people throughout the year.

It's important to note as you read through the Old Testament that both fasting
and feasting are part of God's relationship with his people. The fast of
commitment and the feast of rejoicing. You need both in your life.

And here we're talking about feasts. The feasts here foreshadow the joy that we
have in Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of all of these feasts that we've just
looked at.

He is our Passover. He is our harvest. He was celebrated on the day of
Pentecost.

He is our atonement. Even under the law though there was this joyousness in
God's relationship to his people. A shadow of what was to come in the joy they
celebrated in the feasts.

Today we have celebrations like Christmas and Easter that remind us of who Jesus
really is. And God's reminding us here you need those kinds of times in your
life. Just where you sit back and relax and celebrate who God is in your life.

Take time to do that. These feasts, most of them took about a week. Take some
time to celebrate.

Here it's three times a year, two, three times a year. How are you taking time
in your year to celebrate who God is? You build those times of celebration into
your year to remind you of who God is in your life.

And you don't do it legalistic. I've got to do it at this time, I've got to do
it in this way. But you do it because you know how God's designed you.

I need to celebrate who he is. How you handle your day, how you handle your
week, how you handle your year. This chapter also talks about how you handle
your life.

Listen to verses 28 to 30. God says regarding what's going to happen as they
take the promised land. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive out the
Hivites, the Canaanites, the Hittites out of your way.

But I will not drive them out in a single year because the land would become
desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will
drive them out before you until you have increased enough to take possession of
the land. How do you handle your life?

You realize this principle in these verses. God says I've got a promise I want
to accomplish in your life, the promised land. But it's going to happen little
by little.

One of the keys to understanding how we deal with the circumstances and problems
that seem to be in the way of our freedom, in the way of God's dream for our
lives, is recognizing that God will usually not deal with it immediately or even
quickly. It'll be little by little. Now why?

Why doesn't he do it just immediately? Well, for the Israelites, the land would
have become desolate. They weren't ready yet to take over the land.

For us, it's because he's working to set you free. He's not working to do
something immediate and microwave. He's working to change you at the deepest
core of who you are.

And in order to do that, it is a little by little lifetime process of growth.
Now that frustrates me sometimes. I'm sure it frustrates you sometimes too.

These verses remind me one of the ways to handle my life is to remember that
even when it doesn't seem to me that God is working, he is working, but it's
little by little because he's working for something greater than I could
imagine. Not the immediate, but the whole of what he wants to do in my life, in
your life. Let's pray together.

Lord, handle our day well, to love you, to love others. Help us to handle our
week well, to take that day, that day of rest, that day of trust. Help us to
handle our year well, to give ourselves those times of celebration.

And help us to handle our life well, trusting you for the little by little
growth. And Lord, we need patience, so we ask you for patience. We need grace.

We ask you for grace. Help us to see that you're working even when we don't see
that you're working. We pray this in your name, Jesus, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to look together at 7 Truths to refresh your experience of
worship.