Exodus 23:1–9

Hey, hey, good afternoon. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's so good to be with you today. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. And today we're at Exodus chapter 23. I'm so glad to be with you.
Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to get to have your word, to hear from you. Father, we plead with you that you would help us. Teach us, Lord, not just to know these truths, but to live them in our lives.
Let us not be those who would just confess that we know you. but father that our hearts would be near to you in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. So we're at Exodus chapter 23. I think we're going to take this whole chunk together instead of breaking it apart like last time, because I think there is a common theme that runs through this. So Exodus chapter 23 verses one through nine.
You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall testify in the dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute. If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.
You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. Keep yourself far from a false matter. Do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not justify the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous. Also, you shall not oppress a stranger, For you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? What is this about? The section is talking about justice.
What are you supposed to do when when there's different scenarios in your life and there's different times where you have to go to the judges? What are you going to do? How are you going to behave as an Israelite society? And God gives them here directions. for what they ought to do. And if we boil it all down together, right, that's what Jesus tells us, is that we are to love our neighbor as ourself. Right?
If we were poor, would we want people just to push us off because we were poor? No, we wouldn't want that. We would want justice if somebody stole from us or did wrong to us. What if we were a rich person and somebody had an axe to grind and they were really about caring for social justice? Would we want them to just say that because a poor person stole from us that there shouldn't be any type of restitution? No. The equity is supposed to go both ways.
Now God is also going to tell us later, don't despise a poor man who's starving when he steals. Understand that's human nature and maybe show him mercy. But here he's saying that when you go to the judges, the judges aren't supposed to just look over sin. I also love this fact here where he talks about if there's your neighbor and he hates you, but you see his donkey going along the road and it's falling down, it's in trouble, you might think in your heart like, ah, that guy hates me anyways.
I'm not going to help him. No, go love him. Help him. Care for him, right? If there's a mob going out in the streets, you're going to love your neighbor and not go and do violence. But you're not to kill the innocent man or the righteous person, right? And I think this kind of gets at the heart of this.
Why? This is the second half of verse seven. For I will not justify the wicked. God doesn't want bribery amongst the judges because it blinds our eyes to justice. And so he says, no, if you're going to love your neighbors, if you're going to be a society where equity abounds, you're to love one another. This is why I gave you the ninth commandment. You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor. Why? Because there should be a system of equity, but it has to start in your hearts.
It has to start in how you think and treat other people. And so I think the general equity of this principle ties into our lives really easily today, right? Do we love our neighbor as ourself? How would we want to be treated? Do we desire Equity? Do we desire justice? Are we those who are quick to show grace though? Because we would want to be shown mercy and we would want to be shown grace. I pray that today you might be able to go and show mercy and grace.
And that when inequity comes, and it's going to come in this sinful world, that we understand that someday our Redeemer is going to return. And he'll make all things right. So we don't need to be so wrapped up, right? He will bring justice. But we also understand that we have been those who have been forgiven much. The scales were tipped against us. We were sinners, but God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He would not justify the guilty, but He condemned Christ that we might be declared righteous. So all of our things go to him because he has kept this law.
So I pray that you might go knowing that God is a God of justice, a God of equity, but that we don't need to be hell-bent on equity and justice in this life because it's going to always fail us. We're to be those who live upright lives, upholding this in our own hearts. and trusting in the Lord that he'll bring about the right ends at the right time. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would please let us be those who would model equity and justice, but we know that we fail.
And so, Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you that you are the one who has redeemed us from our sins. Lord, conform us more and more to the image of Jesus. Let us walk in your ways. In Jesus's name, amen. Well, may the comfort of the Holy Spirit be with you today. May you abide in Jesus Christ and bear much good fruit. And I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. we'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.