Alright, we're going to be looking at Leviticus chapter 24 today. Just a reminder, next week all the leaders are headed out to the gospel coalition for the conference, so we don't have a normal Bible study. You may have been contacted or at least talked to your small groups. You might have some sort of activity or dinner or something going on next week, but we don't have normal Bible study next week.

Just to kind of give you a heads up. Okay? Alright, let me pray for us and we'll jump right in. Heavenly Father, we pray that the study of Leviticus would open our eyes, Lord God, to all the things that you have implanted even before Christ ever came. That all of these things, Lord, that ultimately to help the Jewish people, Lord, to know who you are and for us to look back, Lord God, and to see your sovereign hands in every little detail, Lord, how you prepared, predestined, elected, and we pray that you give us insight, help us, Lord God, to understand, help us, Lord God, to have a greater grasp of, Lord, the new covenant because of the things that you've done in the old covenant.

So we ask, Lord God, you would give us understanding by your spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, so today's text, you know, we only have about three or four more chapters left in Leviticus, but chapter 24 is at least the three parts that are, it's actually in two main parts, but the three parts, if you wanted to break it down and be technical, the first part is about the lamp and about how keeping that burning, and the second part is about the bread and the 12 cakes that were commanded to make, and then the third part is about the punishment for blaspheming the name of God.

And all three of it, it conveys or teaches to the nation of Israel the seriousness of the command of holiness. And so all of these things are ultimately the same thing that's been taught all throughout the book of Leviticus is to teach that God's holy presence requires that people need to be holy.

And so that's a running theme in everything that he does, whether it's the sacrifice of animals or sacredness of the priesthood, even the garment that they wear, every part of it points to the fact that a holy God cannot simply dwell among sinful people without consequences. So today, the first part of it talks about lighting of the lamp.

Okay, let me get into this. I'm going to jump through it real quick. So this is a really bad picture on the computer. Looked pretty good, but okay, so I don't know if you can, you see this light? Okay. So here's the obvious lamp stand, and this is the veil of the curtain.

It's kind of opened up so that you can see what's inside, but obviously normally this whole thing would be covered. And this is the table where the bread is held. So everything that they're talking about is talking about in this room. So this is called, what room do you call this?

Holy of Holies, and the outer one is just called Holy, right? This is the Holy Chamber, and this is the Holy of Holies. So the priests, they can only go as far as this room. This is as close to you are able to get before you get to God.

Holy of Holies, again, obviously all of this is in some sense symbolic, but only the high priest is able to enter here on the Day of Atonement once a year, and even that, you have to kind of hurry up and do your duty and come out. So normally, only the priests can enter into this area, and again, on a regular basis, and this is as far as God allowed them to come.

And so what is happening today in chapter 24 is about what is supposed to be lit and made into this room, so that every time they've entered into this room, these light and the bread was to symbolize something. So the primary thing that these two things, the light and the bread or the cake symbolize was the presence of God.

So I'm going to jump into that. The lamps were to be kept burning through the night, and again, verses 1 through 4, and the word continually used four times. So if you notice that over and over again, it says continually, repeatedly, day and night, right? It is to be lit morning and night.

It is to be a perpetual statute throughout the generation. So if you notice, if you study through 24, you'll notice that that language, at least the first part of it, verse 1 through 9, he repeats, do this, repeat it over and over again, continuously, continuously, morning till night. It is an everlasting statute.

So if you've read it, you probably already picked up on that, that the intent of this is to teach the nation of Israel of an ongoing presence of God in the nation of Israel, right? So the light represented the Lord's presence. And again, this was, the Lord's presence among the nation of Israel wasn't, he just showed up to perform a miracle and disappeared, or he spoke to them and disappeared, but all of this pointed to the fact that God's presence was with the nation of Israel nonstop, continuously, over and over and over again.

So every time a priest would enter into the holies, he would be reminded, oh, the Lord is here. The Lord is here. We see that in the Old Testament, Israel is often portrayed as the light of the world. We see that Jesus says that he is the light of the world in John 8, 12.

Jesus says we are the light of the world in Matthew 5, 14. And then we go to the book of Revelation, and it says that the church is the lampstand, Revelations 1, 12, and 20. So the light symbolizes God's presence. The people of God, the church, our very selves, and all of it, and ultimately God says that his light that dwells in us was meant to be the light for the world.

And that's what that light in the holy place was to symbolize, that this light among the nation of Israel was to be continuous and constant, and it was a perpetual statue. This was not a statue that God made, and then for a period of time, once it's done, that God withdraws his presence.

In other words, it was teaching the nation of Israel, as long as the light was lit, God was with them always. And this ultimately, obviously, points to what? Who is in us now? Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in us, and as a result of the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, we've become the light of the world.

And when does this stop? When does the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us stop? Tuesday? Next month? Next year? Eternal, right? That's the difference between the state of Adam and Eve before the fall, and our eternal state. People say, "Well, Adam and Eve fell when they were in the Garden of Eden, what's going to prevent us from falling when we are in eternity?" The distinction is, we in eternity, our state will be elevated above Adam and Eve, because the Holy Spirit will indwell in us.

So all of this lighting, this symbolism of continual presence of God, ultimately pointed to the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, and us becoming the light. And this is the table, and those are the cakes, and again, this is all educated guess. No one knows what that cake looks like.

We don't know if it was round. I don't know if it was round, and even the size of it, no one knows for sure, and I'm going to get to it in a little bit, but they believe that it most likely was stacked up because they couldn't, the reason why they stacked it up is because they didn't think it would fit this way.

Right? They put six, six on each side, so they think most likely it was just stacked up that way. On here it looks like donuts, but it's an educated guess. The second part of it, to make the twelve loaves representing the twelve tribes of Israel. It was a memorial portion, it says in verse seven, meaning it not only served as a token of offering to God, but it was also a request, like a prayer offered to God for his favor.

And so that was, it was kind of what they call a meal offering, where they bring it to the Lord, and it's something that they ate, but it was also an act of offering to God as a memorial portion. That's what a memorial portion usually means. It's to be done every Sabbath day as a lasting covenant between the Lord and Israel.

So every Sabbath, the priest came in, and they presented this, and then afterwards they would eat of it. So this was part of their worship. They would give this sacrifice, meaning they were to eat it in the holy place. In other words, they weren't allowed to pack this up and then put it in a bag and then go outside and eat it.

It was part of the Sabbath ceremony, that they would come, present it, and they would eat it. And then only the priest would eat it in that room. It was given to them as a portion, considered to be most holy, so it wasn't meant to be just a regular meal.

It's like, "Oh, I didn't eat breakfast, so let me go to the holy's and get some cake today." Right? It was meant to be a part of a sacred ritual. It was called a most holy to the Lord, because it was, one, right in front of the curtain, meaning that symbolically God is there on the other side, and this is as close as they can get.

That's why this event was considered very sacred. So just to kind of give you an idea, a tenth of an effa is about four quarts, maybe a gallon. That's why no one knows how big a cake would be. Actually, I did bake a cake a long time ago in high school, but I don't remember how much flour it took.

So those of you guys who bake, how much would, I don't even know what to use, like an effa, or four quarts of flour, four liters of flour? I don't know what the measuring thing is, I don't even know. How much, what kind of a cake would come out of that?

How big of a cake do you think? Huh? It'd be huge? How huge? Like this table huge? Huh? I was trying to read to find out how big this cake would look like, and I think all the commentators are like me. I don't think they bake. It'd be a pretty big cake?

Yes? Give me an idea, like how big is big? Huh? Yes, huge, I know what huge means, but what is huge? There's no 11. Yes, but when you bake that, how big does that come out? All right, okay, about this big? This is just for me personally, because I was just curious.

This isn't going to add to your Bible study at all. About this big? About that big? Okay, that's a pretty big cake, right? I mean, it's supposed to feed a lot of people, so I would assume like, you know, there's a lot of it, but that's a big cake.

This has nothing to do with Bible study. I was just curious. I was trying to find out like how much cake could they make with that. So that picture is inaccurate then, right? Anyway, I was just curious. The 12 cakes represented 12 tribes, which I already mentioned. The table which the cakes were put on was called the table of Shupra, and I apologize, I used the word Shupra in your study question, but that word comes from Numbers 4-7 and also in Exodus 25-30, and it literally means the bread of presence.

So again, the light and the bread represented God's blessing and presence upon the nation of Israel. So every time the Israelites came into the holy, or the priests came in, it was a reminder to them the Lord is here. They couldn't, but they could never get behind the veil, right?

And that's why I remember the significance of Jesus dying on the cross was when he was crucified. Remember what happens, that the veil is torn. But the Israelites would, the priests would constantly come in and they would be reminded the Lord is here, the Lord is here, but not beyond this point, right?

But Christ's crucifixion opens that door to go into the inner chamber of God, right? So this is what this offering represented, reminding them that God was here. We are told in the Lord's Prayer to ask for our daily bread. Jesus himself calls himself the bread of life. Okay, all right.

So all of that to remind us, again, to point to God's presence in the nation of Israel. Now we can get into a study of how often the Bible talks about the light and how it points to God and how often the Bible talks about the bread and points and fulfilled in Christ and our sustenance and how God takes care of us.

I mean, again, the whole study on that. But again, just for sake of time, it ultimately pointed to the presence of God in the nation of Israel. Okay? So if you remember, again, I didn't go into the study of the ingredients, but every ingredient that is mentioned there was to be the finest and the purest and the most expensive.

It was not to be made simply for food. It was an offering that was given to God. And those offering as a meal offering was made into a cake for the purpose of participating, right? So the only light in the holies would have been those candles. So if those candles were not lit, you couldn't see anything.

And then once you get in, you can see because of the light, which was the presence of God, and then you see the bread, which is God reminding them that God is the one who sustains them, and then you fellowship with God in that room by participating. And all of this as an act of offering to God, but never beyond the veil.

Okay? The third part of it reminds the Israelites to take seriously the command given to them by the Lord. On the surface, it kind of seems random because they don't seem connected, right? But all of this, ultimately, you have to see it in the bigger picture of God making sure that all the commandments given to them are taken seriously.

Remember the first part of the chiasm, right? The first part of the chiasm taught holiness where? In the tabernacle and the what? The priesthood. Remember that? Right? All the way up to chapter 16 and 17, the emphasis was that God is holy, and in order to approach him, there has to be blood sacrifice, and the priest had to be set apart.

Right? The second part of it, the second part of the chiasm, teaches about the holiness of God in the presence of the nation of Israel. So all the laws and commands are about the purity of the people themselves. So if you remember, in chapter 10, once the law is given and the priest comes to sacrifice, what's the first thing that happens?

The biggest chapter of 10. All the instructions are given, all the instructions about the animals are given, and then all the instructions about the priest and how they ought to approach God, and then the first thing they, first time they practice this, what happens? Nei Devin Nebihu is consumed with the fire, right?

For offering up a strange fire. So the first thing that happens is to teach them to take God's command seriously. Right? So we come to this side of the chiasm, and then now the commandments are given. We're not done with the commandments, but the general commandments to the nation of Israel about the purity rights, right?

And then they go to the community, and then the first thing that we are told that happens in the community is blasphemy. And as a result of that, capital punishment happens. But the distinction between the capital punishment of the priest and the capital punishment of this man is that the capital punishment was carried out by God in the first part of the chiasm, right?

And who carries out the capital punishment on this side? The community, right? So God purges the tabernacle and the priesthood, and then God calls the people to purge sin among its community, okay? So again, as I mentioned, as the first two priests in Leviticus chapter 10, and it serves as a warning to take the Lord's command seriously.

So again, it says in verse 12, "They put him in custody so that the command of the Lord might be made clear to them." In case anybody says, "Oh, I didn't know," right? He says, "It wasn't simply to punish. It was also for the purpose of educating the nation of Israel, what God commanded to make it clear to them, that what God says, He does.

God says He will save, He will save. God says He will punish, He will punish," right? So God's faithfulness not only points to His salvation, but it also points to His condemnation. The son of Israelite woman was not simply using the Lord's name in vain, but was blaspheming and cursing God.

It wasn't just, he just kind of blurted out the Lord's name. The language points to the fact that he was cursing God. And it's noteworthy that he is mentioned not as a pure Israelite, but his mom was an Israelite, but his father was an Egyptian. In Exodus chapter 12, 38, it says that when the Israelites left, there were actually a group of people who were mixed.

So during the time of captivity, during Egypt, while they were slaves, many of the Jews already compromised or are intermarried with the Egyptians. So when they were delivered and escaped, there was a lot of Egyptians who came out along with the Israelites. And then a lot of the children, just like this man, who had a father who was an Egyptian, a mother who was a Jew, was also mixed up in this group.

And within that group, obviously a lot of idols were brought from Egypt through those people because they brought their God from their home, because it was a lot of them who were mixed. And so this man most likely was one of those people, that he was an Israelite by his mother's side, but an Egyptian by father's side.

So maybe he didn't have this kind of loyalty to God that the other Israelites did. So when he got mad, he got in a fight, he cursed their God. Because his God from his father was probably an Egyptian God. So the son of the Israelites was not considered a native-born Israelite.

And this is the reason why the Israelites asked the Lord to make things clear in verse 12. So we know what to do with the Israelites because God made it very clear. But what do we do with a man who is not an Israelite, who is not completely Israelite?

Does the law apply to this man too? So the first thing that is taught, that the blasphemer was to be taken outside the camp. There are three things that God tells them to do. One is to take him outside the camp. The reason why they were commanded to take him outside the camp was because the execution was to be carried out and the dead bodies would ritually be defiling the camp.

So you couldn't have a dead body in the camp, so in order for him to be executed, he had to be taken outside. Second thing they were told to do, they were told to lay their hands on his head. And it was very specific for those people who heard him.

In verse 14, it says, "And let all who heard him lay their hands on his head." Meaning the people who are offended and people who are affected by this man's sin to lay their hands on him. And the laying under the hand signified that all the pollution from what he may have caused will be placed on him.

So that kind of reminiscent of Leviticus 16, the day of atonement, right, when the high priest would lay his hands upon the goat and it represented the sins of the nation, right, and it would be led and the other one would be slaughtered. So in the same way, the people who heard him, who was either offended or affected by what he said, his sin, would lay their hands on him and that their sins would also be expelled along with this man.

Third, the blasphemer was to be stoned to death by the entire assembly to teach that the sin was being expelled not simply from the person but from the whole community. So it wasn't just simply about that person. So if you, again, because you and I were raised in an individualistic society, right, we have to work toward understanding group mentality or community because we naturally think, well, sin is just between me and God, right?

And it was clear in the Old Testament that when an individual sinned, not only does it cause sin for him, it caused sin for his family, it caused sin for the community, and ultimately the nation of Israel, right? And that's why when sin came into the camp, they wanted to make sure that that sin was purged from the camp.

Does this apply in the New Testament principle? Very much so. And there's a lot of confusion in our generation where we think that any dealing with sin, right, any dealing with sin is not of God because God is gracious. God would never do such a thing, right? But principle is clearly taught that God, first and foremost, that his community, he calls us to be holy, right?

Now we have to be very, very careful how we practice that, but we have to be very, very careful that we do not not practice that. Does that make any sense? Yeah. Because we err on one side where God is okay with any kind of sin because he's gracious and loving God, and as we only say, "Hey, God, forgive me," like everything's okay.

And then the other end it is where we're examining everybody to make sure that they're doing and saying the right thing or we jump on them and discipline them, right? And that's not the case either. The scripture is full of commandments. First Corinthians 3, 16 to 17, "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?

If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are." He's talking about people who are being divisive in the church. He doesn't bring up the issue, he doesn't mention any particular sin up to this point, other than the fact that the church was divided.

They were divided because they were saying, "I like Paul, I like Apollos," and so that caused all kinds of chaos in the church. He says, "If you are the source of division in the church and you are dividing God's holy temple," he said, "God will bring judgment upon you." First Corinthians 5, 5, "I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." He's talking about a particular sin of a man who was having physical relation, possibly, with his mother.

It could be his stepmother, but it doesn't specify, it just says mother. Now are human beings perverted enough where that can possibly happen? Has that ever happened in human history? Absolutely. Right? I think most people would kind of rather think that maybe it's not the real mother, but the Bible doesn't qualify that.

He said the sin was hideous enough that even the people outside of the church was not practicing this. And yet, because the church was divided, they weren't doing anything about it. The leadership wasn't strong. And as a result of that, they just kind of let it be, and Paul's rebuking the church for not dealing with this sin.

And so he says, "When I come, I will deal with it." That's what he's saying here. Matthew 18 is talking about church discipline. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.

So I'm not going to go through all of it, but basically it's about church discipline. Right? Oftentimes you hear people using those passages where two or three are gathered together, they are in their midst. You know, like, "Oh, that's great fellowship." You know, "The Holy Spirit is with us." It's in the context of discipline.

When somebody sins and refuses to repent, you've gone and sent other brothers with them and they refuse to listen. And then to take it to the church basically means to elevate it to the leadership. So the whole church knows, the whole community knows, and they still refuse to repent, and then he says, "Then you carry out discipline." Right?

It is dangerous not to practice church discipline. And it doesn't make you a gracious and loving person. Right? Because if your son is headed down a path that is harmful to him, being gracious is not gracious. That's indifference. That's a bad father. That's a bad mother. We confuse in our churches that being gracious and kind means that you just sweep sins underneath the rug.

You would never do that to somebody that you really love. You would never do that to somebody you really love. You would never ignore that. Right? Because again, the confusion is we've talked about grace to the point where God's holiness, it's just kind of something that happened in the Old Testament, but it doesn't exist today.

God is the same God that gave the commandments at the tabernacle is the same God today. The only reason why we are not consumed is because the blood of Christ covers us. But it's the same God that demands and desires holiness in the church. Right? We have to be careful how we practice that.

Right? Because we have a tendency to err on one or the other. And I'll talk about that a little bit at the end. But again, over and over again, the scripture talks about discipline. Again, this is not just a couple of verses. Oh, you're taking it out of context.

It's all throughout scripture. It's all in the Old Testament. It's scattered all throughout the New Testament to keep the community of God's people holy. Right? This is why a seeker-friendly church is unbiblical. Right? Yeah, I said it. Right? I'm sorry if you're offended by that, but it is unbiblical because the church is a gathering of God's people.

So can non-Christians come to church? Of course they can. Right? But the church is not a gathering of non-Christians. So for the church to organize for the purpose of non-Christians feeling comfortable in the church is unbiblical. That's not a church. You can call that an outreach. You can call that an event.

You can call that whatever you want, but that's not the church. The biblical understanding of the church is people who have been called out for the purpose of God's worship. Right? So I'm not saying that we should ignore the non-Christians, that we shouldn't love the non-Christians, reach out to the non-Christians, but the church is a gathering of Christians.

And that's why the Bible talks about keeping the church holy. In fact, the early church took that so seriously, they wouldn't allow anyone who was not baptized into their church to worship. So they would have communion, and so the people on the outside thought that they were cannibals because they were talking about eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood.

And because it was such a mystery, the Christian worship, so people on the outside were saying, "These guys are cannibals." That's how exclusive the church was because they had to be baptized in order for them to participate. So we went from that to changing everything in the church so that the non-Christian would be comfortable at church.

I can go off on that, and you've heard me go off, and I'm not going to go off on it because you already know what I think about that, but I want you to see biblically why our church ministry philosophy is the way it is because it's not because we don't love the non-Christians.

In order for us to be a light, the light cannot be mixed with the darkness in the church because the church is called to be a light, so the church has to be wholly set apart. So there's a reason why God tells the nation of Israel to purge this sin, because God's trying to keep the nation of Israel holy.

This section teaches three principles about justice. This is where you get the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. In carrying out this justice, there's three things. First, they underscore the high value of human life. I think in our circles, that's pretty given. If you're a Christian, I don't think there's as much of a debate, and it's not even just a Christian debate.

I think if you're a theist, I think we're all in agreement, no matter what religion you are, there's a higher value to humans. But sad to say, we do live in a culture where we have Pita who are saying, "Well, we can't eat animals because they have equal value as human beings," absolute ridiculousness.

So the first thing it teaches is that there is a different value to human beings and to animals. He says, "If a man kills a," and he repeats this twice, "If a man kills another man, his penalty is capital punishment." Again, I'm not going to get, like if people say, "Is capital punishment Christian?" I'm not going to say it's Christian, but it's biblical, which means it's Christian.

Capital punishment, again, and the argument against that, argument against it is, "Oh, we value human life." In fact, the reason why God commanded capital punishment is because he valued human life, because it was a serious crime, to deter murder. So it wasn't, you know, the argument is, "Oh, human life is so important," as well, you know, and that's the very reason why he commanded capital punishment.

Second, they point to the importance of punishment fitting the crime. This is where we get the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, right? This is not the only place. We find it in Exodus 21, Deuteronomy chapter 19. But it was to say that the punishment must fit the crime.

So in other words, a man, he commits murder, capital punishment is carried out. But if he kills an animal, you compensate with another animal, right? You don't say, "Hey, you killed my animal, I'm going to kill you," right? It's to restrain, because our natural tendency is to give out more.

Okay, some of you guys may think, "Oh, that's not me." It's like, maybe you think that's not you, right? But our natural tendency is to, if somebody wrongs me, I want to make sure that they are taught a lesson, right? I remember when I was young, when I would get into a fight with one of my brothers, my dad would always, he would never lose his temper, he would always be controlled.

And the way he would punish us, he would have us sit across each other. This is if we were fighting against each other, right? And it was usually between me and my younger brother, Philip. My older brother was too big, he would kill us, right? So he would have us stand, and he would have us slap each other, right?

Because he said, "Well, you guys are fighting, so I want you guys to do it controlled." So it would usually start with a tap, and then I would tap back. Then I would think, "Wow, that tap was a little bit harder than what I gave," and then I would tap back.

And then now he's hurt, so he would tap back, and then it would usually escalate, right? He would escalate to the point where we're trying to literally hurt each other, and then that's when my dad would kind of step in, right? He would step in and say, "Okay, that's enough, and you guys, if you fight, that's the way you're going to fight." The reason why I tell that story is, every time my dad did that, it always ended with an escalation, 100% of the time.

It would never end with a tap, tap, tap, tap. It was never equal. At some point, I would think, or he would think I hit harder than he did, the previous one, and then as a result of that, he'd need to pay me back, and then he would pay me back, and then say, "Wow, I can't believe you did that," and I would pay him back, and that's how society gets ruined, right?

You have a bunch of people who are offended, trying to pay back what they did, and then it escalates, and the next thing you know, you have a war, right? So the commandment, the second principle is make sure that the punishment fits the crime, right? And again, if you've ever sat through marriage counseling with me, you know one of the principles of biblical communication is to never fight when you're angry, even though that's usually when we fight, right?

Because everything coming out of your mouth is going to be escalated when you're angry, right? When you're upset about something, say, "You never do this. You always do this. I wish I never," and then you say these escalated things, and then when you're not angry, say, "Oh, man, I shouldn't have said that," but you said it already, right?

So this is to kind of make sure that whatever the sin was, whatever the punishment was required, that it's carried out in justice, not retribution, right? Third, it teaches that there is no exception to this. So the second principle was, and which was the original question, this guy was not a complete Jew, so what do we do with him?

So the one part of it was to punish him, but the second part was to keep the community pure. So for that reason, God said, "There is no exception." Whether you're a foreigner or whether you are a native, that if he defiles the community, it must be carried out, okay?

All of this pointing to what God desired of his community. This is how God was going to carry it out. So this is not about retribution. This is not God saying that if they hurt you, I'm going to completely destroy them, right? That's not what he's saying. He's saying, like, if you want to practice righteousness, this is what righteousness looks like, right?

If you want to practice righteousness. So in every government, they practice righteousness. And he said that's why God establishes authority, because they carry out justice for those who deserve it in order to restrain sin, restrain chaos. But when we get to the New Testament, the distinction between the Old and the New Covenant is the Old Covenant was based upon righteousness or based upon the law.

The New Covenant is based upon his grace. And Jesus actually mentions that in Matthew 12. No, this is not the passage. In Matthew 5, he said, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too." So the whole point of this is he's not saying that the eye for an eye, tooth for tooth wasn't right. He's not saying, you know what, I changed my mind.

I'm going to do something different, right? He's basically saying the Old Covenant, this was the practice of righteousness, but the New Covenant, because of the blood of Christ, he's commanding us to do even more than that, right? And I remember a very good description of righteousness, no, justice, mercy, and grace, right?

And it may not be the technical term, but I thought this was a great way to explain this. You know, justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. And grace is getting what you didn't deserve. Does that make sense? So that's the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant was justice, right? Blessings and curses. If you obey, you will be blessed. If you disobey, you'll be cursed. So this is God's teaching what justice looks like, right? And that's righteousness. And God will be perfectly just to wipe out mankind, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

We come to the New Covenant, he practices not only mercy, he goes a step further than that and gives us grace. The fact that he didn't wipe out the nation of Israel, the fact that he didn't come and flood the nations over and over again, would have still been mercy.

He would have still been merciful if Israelites lived as slaves to the Assyrians and the Babylonians because they committed sin and God didn't crush them. But he went beyond that in the New Testament, where he came and he gave his only begotten son and he made us adopted children into his kingdom.

And so again, that's what Jesus is not saying the Old Testament law is nullified, he's saying those things were given, but now I call you to do even further. Not to simply practice justice, but to practice mercy. Now think about that in our community, as Christians. When we are wronged, we feel justified to retaliate, whether through words or through actions.

"Well, they did this, so they deserve this." And you are right, that may be the just thing to do, that may be the fair thing to do, but the New Covenant calls us to go beyond that. That's why Jesus says, "If you love as I have loved you, then the world will know you are my disciples, and the love that he practiced was not justice, was not simply mercy, but grace." And so that's what ultimately points to all of these things God placed in the nation of Israel, but ultimately when Christ fulfills it, he doesn't just fulfill it, he fulfills it and takes it to the next level.

That's what all of this points to. So the discussion questions for today, the three of them, what is an everlasting ordinance that we've been given in the New Covenant to remind us of God's presence in our lives? And there's more than one. You can probably think of many, but what is commanded?

Again, I hear a lot of cliches saying, "We're not about religion, we're about relationship." It sounds great, but Christianity is a religion. There's a set of doctrines and rules that God has given us for us to follow. So it's not like, "Well, as long as I feel this connection with God, all this other coming to church and communion, all this stuff is not necessary because that's religion." Absolutely false, right?

Because Christianity also has boundaries and rules and regulations and commandments that God desires us to follow. What are some things that are given to us in the New Covenant to remind us as an everlasting covenant? Number two, do you think you live with the awareness of God's presence in your daily life?

How does a real awareness of God's presence affect the way you live? Think about that. If you struggle with pornography, if you knew that Christ was sitting right there, how would that affect your life? I bet it would affect it tremendously. It would affect our speech. It would affect the way what we watch.

If you're a parent, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are certain things that you may have watched very loosely until you had a kid and you have a three or four year old sitting next to you watching the same thing and you're very aware that this is inappropriate.

As a result of that, you say, "Oh, I can't watch this because of my kids, because it's inappropriate for him." I know because I'm a pastor, there are certain things that you will not do in front of me, not because I'm more holier than you are, but because I represent holiness, because I represent God.

There are certain things you won't say or do, even though you're very free with your friends and I know what they are. I'm just saying, my point is, if you are aware of the presence of God in your life, the Holy Spirit that dwells in us 24/7 as an everlasting covenant, morning to evening, all the time, as God did with the bread or the cake and with the lamb, how would that affect our daily lives?

That's my question, is how often are you aware of the presence of God, not just at the church, but with you at home, when you sleep, when you're in front of your computer? The Holy Spirit is right there with you. He's there not just to watch us, but as an encouragement, to guide us and lead us, to intercede on our behalf, to grow on our behalf, but the Holy Spirit is with us and in us 24/7.

Number three, how do you establish community that practices grace without creating a community that doesn't take holiness seriously? Because our tendency is to err on both sides. And I'll bet you even in this room, you have some people who are gracious to the point where people can literally do anything in front of you and you say nothing.

And that is also disobedience. If you have somebody who is living in sin, who is walking in sin, and you're so gracious that you say nothing, you're not being gracious. In fact, you're very selfish, because you're not thinking about that person. You're only thinking about what that person might say of you.

And that's the reason why you stay quiet. So we have a tendency to err on that side. The other side is where you become the detective in everybody's life, and you have to weed out all the yeast in other people's lives. You know what I'm saying? Every sin, every thought, every behavior needs to be called out.

And then you have that other, and no one wants to be around you. Because who wants that? But how do we practice this? And I'm just going to let you guys take some time to discuss it, but I remember a guy came to me years and years ago, and he said, "Does your church practice church discipline?" And I said, "Yeah, when it's necessary, we practice church discipline.

We just don't do it like every members' meeting, we have three people, we need to discipline. That doesn't happen." And then he's like, "Oh, good, good. I'm glad you practice church discipline, because I think the greatest problem in our church today is that the churches refuse to practice church discipline." And I know what he meant by that, but I remember having that conversation with him, and I don't agree with you.

I don't think that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is that we don't love each other enough. We don't love each other enough where we look at discipline as a punishment, instead of shepherding and caring. And the reason why we just kind of let sin be swept under the rug is because we don't care enough to do anything about it.

If we loved each other the way that Christ calls us to love one another, we would take sin more seriously, not only in our lives, but in other people's lives. So when you deal with sin in the context of practicing love, it's much easier to balance than if you're trying to practice one or the other.

Do I love them or do I stone them? And if that's a two-option in your head, then it's going to be very difficult to balance. So I think the ultimate balance is, do I really care and love that person enough to be involved even when they're erring? So I want you guys to take some time in your group to discuss these questions.

So let me pray for us and then I'll have you guys get into your groups. Heavenly Father, I ask for wisdom in your Holy Spirit to lead and guide the discussions. And I pray that you would help us to be transparent, help us, Lord God, in our weakness, to be open, help us to care enough about each other's lives, that whether we need encouragement, we need grace and understanding, or we need accountability, help us to do it in a way that reflects you.

We are unable, Father God, to know how to balance all of these things. But as we look at the perfect sacrifice of Christ where holiness was not forfeited because of His grace and love, it was demonstrated in perfect union. Help us, Lord God, to be a reflection of Christ's righteousness and His mercy and grace.

So we pray that you would guide and lead us in our discussion. In Jesus' name we pray.