Okay, so we've been talking about the law of God, and we've been talking about the two greatest commandments, love of God, love of neighbor. And if you didn't get the handout from last time, I put it back up there. We're just gonna try to finish off love of neighbor, and then shift gears into a new dimension of the class. So you'll remember, we're talking about you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And we asked the question, so who is my neighbor? And we tried to say, look, it's anybody that God puts on your path, including even the undesirable people, like the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here's this guy who's wounded on the side of the road. He doesn't just sort of pass him by. He says, look, I wasn't expecting this, but there they are. And there's this guy, and I'm gonna help him. And it even includes, we didn't really talk about this last time, but it even includes your enemy. So Jesus said, you've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. and pray for those who persecute you. And so as you just think about that, how does this expand our understanding of who we are called to love? Yeah, and do we have the mics or a mic runner? We do now. Thank you, Johnny. There is no exception. You do not have anybody you're not allowed to love. Right. Thank you. Even if it's not like full-on persecution. He says, pray for those who persecute you. It's a lot more common, right, for it just to be someone who just really annoys you, who really grates on you. And like you said, there's no exception. To do good to all is the call. So really, when you ask who is my neighbor, you just can't make exceptions. We need to, as I was trying to say at the end of last time, we need to be focused on the people God has put in our sphere, the people immediately around us, But we should be ready to love anyone that God puts in our path. And now that requires us to answer, what do we mean by love? And really, I could spend my entire ministry talking every single week about what does it mean to love your neighbor? Oh, wait, that is what I do. And I would never get to the bottom of this. So I was like, wow, what does it mean to love your neighbor? How do I distill this? But I was trying to, I was just looking around in scripture, just trying to think of like perspectives or angles. So one angle is what Romans 13.10 says. Let me just read this, because this is another instance of, Like basically, if you want to know what something means in the Bible, you let scripture interpret scripture. That's the great infallible rule of interpretation, right? So love, sorry, Romans 13 10 says, you know, all these commandments, this is verse nine, all these commandments, you should not commit adultery, you should not murder, you should not steal, any other commandment are summed up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, So there it is, all those, you know, the second half of the law, commandments five through 10 are summed up in, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then he kind of distills it and he says, love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. So we realize, you know, those commandments five through 10, it's always thou shalt not, right? With the exception of number five, which is honor, honor your father and your mother. Thou shalt not. What's the essence of it? Thou shalt not wrong your neighbor. My advisor has this great thing where he talks about the 10 commandments are the Lord's bill of rights. And it's the rights of God, commandments one through four, what is owed to him, and the rights of our neighbor, commandments five through 10. A little different, right, from thinking about my rights, right? Let's think about also the rights of God, rights of our neighbor. So yeah, doing no wrong to others, but that's sort of putting it negatively What about putting it positively? Caring for the needs of others is more important than ourselves. And I think Philippians 2 is really great on this. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others, and then he says, have this mind in you, which was in Christ, and he summarizes the work of Christ. So if you think about the work of Christ as the preeminent act of love of neighbor, Paul tells us, okay, what's the essence of that? And what would you say, based on Philippians 2, three through four? What's the essence of the work of Christ as an act of love of neighbor? I think I see a hand over there. I was going to say, being of service to them, you know, like fulfilling a need if you saw a need, like, I mean, just being neighbors. What if they're having a hard time and you need a mother-in-law? I mean, they don't, you know, just small things like that, or, you know, helping them with those kind of things, just filling in those kind of needs. Yeah, and that's what, you know, he took the form of a servant. And yeah, that's I think the essence of what he's saying here. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit. Consider others more significant than yourselves. So we're seeking to really subjugate our own desires and think instead of like, how can I bless others in their lives? And the rich young ruler, he says, oh, I've done all this. And then Jesus says, okay, you lack one thing, right? Sell all that you have, give to your neighbor. What's he showing by that? He's showing this guy thought he was loving his neighbor, but really when it came to his wealth, he was more focused on himself than the needs of those around him. And so, yeah, another dimension of love of a neighbor is to consider the needs of others as more important than your own. And this is just so radical. I keep talking about it because I just keep getting blown away by like, this does not come naturally. We need to be taught to do this. And Paul, another way we could talk about it is Paul, and not just Paul, there's other New Testament authors who use this language too, just looking at all the one another commands. So I looked at all of them to prepare this. This is not a complete list. This is like maybe a third or a half of the one another commands, but I'm just gonna read these, all of them, and I want you to think about like, what's the running theme? Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Aim for restoration. Comfort one another. Agree with one another. Live in peace. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. Encourage one another and build one another up just as you're doing. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. So, obviously I'm pulling from a lot of different passages there, but what do you think is kind of the running, unifying theme in all of this? Well, as you were reading those, I was just thinking, I think we all have kind of an awareness of the fact that in the resurrection, That's absolutely what it's going to be like. Always putting others ahead of ourselves, blessing one another. There's no lack because we're all taking care of each other. God's taking care of us. No scarcity, just abundance because there's so much giving, which is so counterintuitive to where we live our lives now. It's hard to think of living that way now. in this life. It really is difficult. And yet when you think about what would it be like if literally everybody was doing this perfectly, like you said, there would be no lack. There would be no poverty. There would be no wrong done to others. Yeah. I think the common theme is love. The act of love is demonstrated in every one of those things that you had mentioned. Yeah. And we should remember too, the words one another when it's used in this churchly context is particularly focusing on what we do to each other here. So that's how Paul can say, you know, where is it? Yeah, there it is. First Thessalonians 5.15, always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. So one another is particularly focusing on what we're doing to each other in the church. But of course, we're to love those outside the church too, yeah. Our TINUS II study this week talked about tattling, and so this really came up. The author of the book said to approach it from the way of, are you loving your sibling, or are you trying to get them in trouble? Like, what's your motive? Are you encouraging them to do right, going to them with Matthew 18, or are you just wanting to gloat to see them be in trouble? Right. And in order to really keep these commands, it's not just going to be the external. It's going to be what's in our heart. Are we actually seeking the good of our neighbor? And is that pure motive in our heart? Or is this about you looking good or trying to get the other person in your debt? All of those things are not right. And really, I think the next piece on here, 1 Corinthians 13, if you recall back to when Montgomery and I did the series on this, the running theme of all these things, love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude, et cetera. It's all about seeking the other person's good and having that desire, that pure desire in our hearts. And then the final window on love of neighbor that I want to offer to you all is just as I have loved you, Jesus says you are to love one another. So like again, you want to know how to love? Look at Jesus. How does he love? Then you'll know. So to kind of distill all of this, and I don't want to take too much more time on this, because I want to get to the topic for today, the new topic. I just want to ask this thought question, though. If we say that loving your neighbor means be really nice, what is that missing? Kindness is certainly part of this, yep. I think it's missing the motivation. If you're nice, whatever that means, if your heart's not in the right place, once that's stress tested, it's gonna come down pretty quickly. So if the motivation's there, that's unshakable. That's what God wants from us. Yeah, so this is much more than just kind of nice, outward actions, your one act of kindness every day or whatever. It's gotta be coming from the right heart, even three acts of kindness. I didn't quite catch that, sorry. What else? What other things are being missed if we just say love basically boils down to be really, really nice? Yeah, I think I see a hand right here. I think a lot of times what we mean by be nice is don't offend somebody. And I think that not offend somebody is really fear of man. So I heard a story recently of, would you confront somebody on certain things that were wrong? And what if my sister was going to go out and she was dressed in a way that would Maybe people would make fun of her or something. Like the one person was saying, don't say anything. The other person was saying, no, I would say something because I care about her and I would want to protect her. But the other person is really just not wanting to hurt her feelings, but yet she's going to go out and have her feelings hurt by others anyway. So I think a lot of times it's, be nice means don't offend. And it's really about not hurting people's feelings. Nice. Yeah, if we saw someone running for a cliff, would you shout, stop? Would you tackle them, even if it hurt them, to save them? I would hope so, because that's love. Yeah. I was going to say, when we say, be nice, it's almost devoid of truth. What is the true side of things? Some people are a little too quote-unquote truth-heavy without the kindness, but some people are too nice without the truth side. Yeah, good. And it's basically making whatever that person wants to be the rule. And what it's totally missing is what you're bringing up, Dan, is that like, God has standards, and so if you really, really want to do this awful thing, commit adultery or whatever, because it feels good for you or whatever, that needs to be confronted in a sometimes maybe very frank way that a lot of people would say is not very nice, but is actually very loving, because you're standing in the way of that person careening into disaster. So yeah, love is much bigger than that. Love is doing good, even if the other person doesn't feel, it doesn't feel good, right? The surgeon who has to cut somebody open and bring a lot of pain in order to bring healing is still loving in his work. Yeah, faithful to the wounds of a friend, that's right. Good, okay, so look on the back. I just give you an at-home exercise. I encourage you to actually do this, to ask the people you live with, how can I grow in showing you love? How can I better understand your needs? Remember, considering the needs of others, more significant than your own. And what are your love languages? In other words, ways that you appreciate receiving love, and sort of the classic five are there, words of affirmation, quality, time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and, or, it can be more than one, physical touch, And yeah, these are just sort of big categories. There's lots of specifics within these. But for a lot of us, it's like it's hard for us to understand how much a hug means to somebody else when that doesn't really mean that much to us. but it may really mean something to your spouse or to your kid. And that understanding of like, okay, this person's different from me. That's part of what I was getting at last time. I talked about to really love, you have to have a tremendous amount of imagination. You have to imagine what's it like to be them. And so, Expand your imagination. Ask them, what's it like to be you? Can I love you better? And then ask yourself, are there any people I'm bitter towards where I haven't forgiven them? Because that's not really incarnating the grace of Jesus, right? How am I placing my love of self over my love of others? Where does my selfishness govern my actions instead of love? Again, returning to Philippians 2, 3, and 4. Am I considering the needs of others as more important than me? Really? You need to search that out. Any final thoughts or questions on love of neighbor? Obviously it's like absolutely enormous topic. Okay, so now we're gonna launch into a new part of our course together. We've talked about the two big commands and before that we talked about how do we think about particularly the Old Testament law as applying to us. Now we're gonna start using the framework I taught you. by looking at particular kinds of laws in the Old Testament and showing how, in Christ, these laws are profoundly relevant to us and really matter. And we're gonna just have this common structure where we're gonna talk about what matters to God in this law. What does this law show us about God's unchanging character, in other words? And then we're going to talk about how it's fulfilled in Christ. In other words, how does Jesus show us this law on a whole new level by His love and His action? And then finally, we're going to talk about what does it mean for us today? How do we keep this law as New Covenant Christians. People who are now in the New Covenant, in Christ, in a different phase of redemptive history from the Old Covenant people. So this will just be what we'll do. several times just to get a sense of this flow of thought. And you know, part of this is gonna be thinking about what's different now, right? That was the second key question for answering how to keep the law today. Like we need to understand based on what Christ has done, How now do I keep this well? And so, if you turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 14, we're going to look at, really, this is one of my all-time favorite passages in Deuteronomy. I just find it really refreshing. I hope you find it too. I'm just going to read this, Deuteronomy 14. I'm going to read 22 through 29. It's one of those surprising passages. It's not well known. But when you're reading through your Bibles, you're like, wait a second, really? All right, so in the Blue Bibles, it's on 187. You shall tithe all this yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you're not able to carry the tithe when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, Then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire. Oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns for he has no portion or inheritance with you. At the end of every three years, you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your hands that you do. Okay, so what's important to God here? What's important to God? Why is he giving this law what matters in it? Not everybody all wants now. Yeah, I see Debbie in the back. Hold on, let's get the mic real quick. Sounds like he's concerned with our happiness. Good, yeah, what makes you say that? I think you're exactly right. Well, he's telling us to go do whatever our heart desires. Yeah, isn't that an amazing part? He's like, you know when you get there you so say the way is too long for you and you got a you know, you're way up in Zebulun near the Sea of Galilee and you got to get down to Jerusalem and like the idea of taking all the firstborn and of your flock and these like wagon loads of grain and stuff is just, man, this would be a huge transportation nightmare. So no big deal. Sell all that stuff, turn it into money, and then bring the money. And what are they supposed to do? Buy whatever they want. Whatever your appetite craves is like literally whatever you want to eat, whatever you want to enjoy. and eat there. So yeah, I think God's concern for our happiness, I'll just put, for our happiness, it's shocking, right? It's the kind of shock we should feel, I think, when we read the Sabbath law. Now, the fourth law is you need to rest. It's like, okay, go take a nap. Like, wow, what a slave driver, right? No, the exact opposite. Yeah. It's kind of interesting because there's a sense that you've laid all this up as a tithe. You've got all this entourage of this caravan of stuff to bring. You can't do it. And so God tells you, okay, just use it yourself. Turn it into money, buy whatever you want, enjoy. So there's sort of, it's as though he's equating that act with the sacrificial act of giving. He's saying they're both the same. It's not as though the tithe is a burden or really a sacrifice, like you're depriving yourself. And maybe we just need to think about that and see how that is. How it's really the same as having your heart's desire. Yeah, that paradoxically, giving is also blessing for yourself. And I should point out, we should note that they are supposed to, if they are close enough, like if they live in Judea or Benjamin or something, they can actually bring the wine, oil, firstborn, all that stuff, and then they are there to eat it there in front of the Lord. And the implication, we try to put this together with the law and numbers, which also describes a tithe and the tithe going to the priesthood, is that you're not taking one-tenth of all your produce and consuming it all yourself. The point is, you go there, you enjoy a part of that tithe, and then the rest of the tithe is to go to the Levite. Verse 27, you should not neglect the Levite. So there's this understanding that Part of the tithe you consume before the Lord, but the bulk of it is going to be to support the priesthood and the work of the temple ministry. Yeah. So you just went over, don't muzzle the ox. There's a reward to labor. Labor is the title deed to property. Yeah, yeah, when you labor hard, the expectation is, you know, the last verse, right? Verse 29, that the Lord may bless you in the work of your hands that you do. Like, they're about to enter the land. That's sort of the timing of Deuteronomy. And he's saying, now, this is how I want you to live life in this abundant land. It's going to yield so much produce for you that you could give the first tenth of it all basically to this party that you enjoy in the temple, and then give the rest of it away to the Levites and the priests, and you're still going to be doing great. Yeah, you're not going to be lacking. Good. What are some other things? Just look again at the text. What are some things that he keeps talking about that matter to him? We've only begun to, I think. Yep, there's a reward. Yeah, I think, yeah, the fact that he wants us to not just sort of bring in the harvest, but celebrate the harvest, right? Yeah, there's a reward for our labor, and to bring in Mike's point, and for our giving, like that there's a joy in giving this away. I'll give you a hint. What about the place where all this happens? Thoughts on that? Yes, Bob. I'm thinking about those people in the place, those Levites who are poor, that said fatherless, no portion of inheritance, things like that. to share your riches with those who are needy. Excellent. Yeah. Verse 29 is, I think, really wonderful. Every three years, so every the first year and the second year, what are they doing with the tithe? They're bringing it to Jerusalem and they're enjoying it themselves. But then the third year, The impression is you just get this huge heap of produce and goodness, and you put it right there in the middle of your town, and everybody who has a need, the person who's an orphan, the person who's a widow, the person who's a Levite, can just come and take everything that they need so that they're not lacking. So God's concern for the landless. All those are landless peoples. So the people, if you're an orphan, you don't have like a father who has part of the inherited land. If you're a widow, many times they would not have the land. You think of Naomi, right? And God is giving to them the produce of the land through those who have the land. So, and the Levite is in this category too, because they may have had their little cities with the pasture lands around it, but they basically didn't have the huge gaping farmland that the rest of Israel did. How are they going to be provided for through those who have that land? Yeah. It's also really important to him where the place, being where his name dwells, in that first and second year, that they have to go there. They have to. Yeah, good. And that's something I was trying to draw attention to. Did you notice how many times it talks about the place? So verse 23, go to the place that he will choose to make his name dwell there. If the way is too long for you, well, don't just stay home, change it into money so that you can go to the place. Verse 25, The place, the place, the place. And this is connected to chapter 12, where it says, no sacrificing anywhere except at the place where God has chosen for his name to dwell. At this period, that place was not disclosed. We all now know that it's Jerusalem, right? And so God's concern that they go to the place, why? Why does He care so much that they go there? It's pretty obvious, like, hey, you're not allowed to have the tithe party anywhere else. He wants you to go there. Why? Why does this matter so much? Yeah. It's in the text. Is it this verse 23 where He says that He chooses because His name dwells there? His name dwells there. Yeah, and did you notice how it says after this that, let's see here. Yeah, here it is. Verse 26, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice. The implication is God wants them to celebrate in His presence. to rejoice before Him. And there's so much packed into this, like they're recognizing It is not their hand that has gotten this wealth. God produced this wealth. And so, in another passage, the Law of the Firstfruits in Deuteronomy 26, there's even this ritual they're supposed to do where they come and they say this little confession of faith. Chapter 26, it says, my father was a wandering Aramean, talking about Abraham, and yet God rescued him and his family, and now here I am today because of that rescue, And basically the everyday, you know, commoner Israelite guy, he's saying, I used to be a slave, I used to be a wanderer, but God gave me this land. And now here I am bringing the firstfruits saying, God, thank you. It was because of you. Yeah. So every 50 years there was a year of Jubilee. Yeah. But it was never celebrated. Never. Yeah, right. So Christ is our Jubilee. And so this points forward, I think, where you might go is this points forward to the unity of the body of Christ. Yeah. Celebrating week by week as we do. Especially when we think about this, right? The concern for the laments. My question is, was this ever done? Excellent question. Yeah, we have no data on this as far as I'm aware. We do know from Second Chronicles 36 that the, what's it called, the sabbatical year, every seven years the land was to rest. And it talks about God giving these 70 years of exile to make up for all the lost years of sabbatical rest where it wasn't kept. Implication being, if you do the math, that for basically the 500 years they'd been there, they weren't keeping it ever. And there's other hints as well. So like there's this great Passover that Josiah celebrates and it says that like basically Passover hadn't been celebrated for a really long time. So, you know, the implication is that many of these beautiful laws just sort of laid, moldering, collecting dust. Yeah, sad. I had a related question. You know, the Passover was every year, the year of release in Deuteronomy 15 was every seven years where you forgave Paul's alluding to this every third year where you bring the produce, you know, the excess. Was it something that every Jew was supposed to do every define third year, or was it staggered? Because I think for survival you'd want the produce staggered, you know, like the clock would be different for everybody. Rather than every third year there's just this big pile of produce where it would go. That's a great question. Yeah, was it staggered so that there wasn't just this enormous one pile every three years, like maybe One-third is on another cycle. I don't know, but that would certainly make sense. The heart of the law is caring for those who cannot care for themselves. Later in Deuteronomy, he'll talk about, look, don't harvest your fields all the way to the very edge. Leave stuff on the outskirts so that the people who don't have land can come. And so, you know, the disciples picking grain, right? What's that picturing? It's picturing like God's concern for those who have no, who are poor, who need the goodness of the land. So yeah, I want to make sure I put up here the point Paul was making about concern for unity and for our care for each other. And yeah, maybe we should start changing gears here so we have enough time to make sure we get through it. But before we even start talking about how it's fulfilled in Christ, how do we keep it as Christians, I just want to remind us that this would be considered one of those worship related laws. Like it's considered part of the, we talked about the three different kinds of laws, moral law, civil law, and then ceremonial law. And this would probably be considered one of those ceremonial laws, but we don't wanna just immediately say, well, ceremonial, therefore not relevant to me. We wanna read all of these laws as they are. We want to hear them for what they are and realize that the heart of God, what matters to God, is being revealed here to us. So even if we may not keep it in the same detailed way, we don't live on the land, this is kind of anticipating some stuff we're gonna say here, but nevertheless, this is showing us something really important, like this word was given to us. And actually, there's just one other, I thought, really cool thing I discovered as I was looking at this. Verse 28 talks about, at the end of every three years you shall bring out all of the tithe of your produce. And that's the same word as in 22, which says, you shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes out or comes forth from your field. So there's like the produce comes forth from the field, but then guess what comes forth from the people? This gift, right? So like God, God is abundant and he's wanting us to imitate him. in their abundance. Actually, there's one other theme I really wanted us to see. Notice how it ends, like, do all this stuff that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do. So in other words, as you're giving generously, joyfully, enjoying God's goodness, that will lead to still more goodness. And so there's like this intertwinedness of holiness and blessing. The best life is the holy life. You want to be holy? Awesome, it's going to lead to blessing. And that blessing then will yield to more holiness as you now need to tithe still more because you're so generous. And God then turns around and He, it's like you can't out give Him, right? And it's just like this unending cycle. It's kind of getting what Mike was saying earlier, like, guess what? The greatest blessing is actually giving, and in your giving there's joy, there's celebration. Contradicts the world's idea of like everything, trying to get everything for yourself. Yeah. It is worship law, but isn't it also like it's hard to separate it from being a civil law as well because it's a societal way of providing for all these different people groups and that's a blessing to society. Yeah, that's true, and I think those categorizations, as I was trying to say when I did that lesson, there is oftentimes overlaps, right? So the moral law, you shall honor your father and your mother, was interacting with the civil law, but what do we do with a son who is really stubbornly rebellious? There's sort of moral and civil components in both, and this one definitely has moral, civil, and ceremonial components in it. Well, I was just thinking that Jesus has basically shown us this whole pattern, right? He's come. He's given His life. He's given just not only, you know, everything, but His life. And what reward He had for that, He's showing us. You know, because his reward was sitting at the right hand of God after he's fulfilled his mission. And so he's laying out that whole pattern and all of this by, you know, it is what Jesus did. Awesome. Yeah. Let's just talk about that, because that really is we need to fill this in. So what did Jesus do? At least one of the things he did is he really gave of himself. Right. So this idea of giving generously, And we can say he goes beyond this law, right? In what way? Like he doesn't just give a tithe of himself, he gives his whole self. He gives himself wholly to us so that we would be blessed. Other thoughts about how does Jesus fulfill the heart of God here? We see Jesus, you know, he's faithful that he pays the temple tax. We see that with Peter. Not exactly the same thing as this, but you know, he's faithful in those areas, but he goes beyond, you know, just some of the specifics of this law. How do we see Jesus fulfilling the heart of what this law is about? Yeah, Cherise. Well, relating to the matters about the land, we no longer have to go to the land, right, to worship and to be blessed by God. Really, Jesus is the land and he's coming to us. Yeah. Right. And so then, therefore, there are no landless people groups. Right, yeah good. So when we think about what happens in Christ, you know the land gives way to something a far greater reality. There's the new creation that we're expecting and We're no longer preoccupied with, or we ought not to be preoccupied with just the Middle East as like one specific holy land. That was a shadowy part of this whole thing. And so something greater has arrived here, Jesus giving to us himself, holy. And so, yeah, the concern about like, you know, bringing the produce, the first fruits of the land, all these things get superseded, but not lost. And that's sort of where I want us to focus on. Let's just think about this. How does God show forth his concern for, like you brought up, Sharice, it's not so much that there's a landless anymore, but like the poor, how does Jesus kind of fulfill that on a whole new level in his life? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Yeah, go ahead. Actually, I wasn't thinking of that verse, but I was thinking of how in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy, God was making a provision for a group of people who could not care for themselves, who could not accomplish what they needed. have what they needed, whereas in Christ, he, his death and resurrection, his death on the cross and shedding his blood, and essentially he made a provision for all of us who couldn't do what we needed to do in having a right relationship with God. Good. Yeah, that we who are poor, he became rich so that we who are poor might through his poverty become rich. And so if we talk about like starting to map this law onto the work of Christ, Christ is the one giving. We are the ones, we are the poor who are receiving his generous gift, something that we could never have generated ourselves, the gift of salvation. And so then there's a carryover, I think very directly to us continuing to have concern for the poor on multiple levels, right? The poor who are, in other words, completely without Christ, those who have no knowledge of salvation, but then also literal poor, right? Like we were just talking about this a couple of weeks ago with, you know, Paul saying in Galatians 2 that he was reminded by the apostles to have regard for the poor, the very thing he was eager to do. So we're showing forth the love of Christ when we do that, yeah. We can look at the biblical language too of like Christ giving of himself because he's called the first fruits particularly. Yeah. And if he's the first fruits, the implication then is the rest of the harvest is us. And even Romans talks about us being living sacrifices. But it's funny how messy it gets, because everything is about Jesus, and then everything is about us too. Yeah, that's right. And I think that's where it does take some discipline to think about carrying these. Whenever you're applying the Old Testament to the New, there's so many connections you could make. On the one hand, we're the recipients who desperately need the gift, but we're also called, as those who are in Christ, to emulate His generosity. and to give generously. And even while we're talking about this, we should talk about just specifically tithing. After all, this is a law about tithing. And so does this law continue to apply to us in the sense of like Christians being required to give 10% of their income today? And I don't have a ton of time to talk this through, but I think this is one of those like details of this that we have to think really carefully about. Because there are lots of details in here, right? Going to the place where the name has been established, right? We all understand that that was part of the old covenant shadowy thing. Having a regard for the Levite, like they're not Levites anymore, right? And so there's lots of specifics, even just the fact that they're dwelling on the promised land that have all changed. And so just asking ourselves, so is this 10% thing carrying over today? And I think that it would be difficult to make a case that like this one detail carries over when all these other things don't. And yet at the same time, if we were to think about all that Christ has done for us, giving of himself wholly, and then say, oh yeah, we're not required to give as much as the old covenant believers are required to give, like that just would make very little sense. Like having been the recipient of so great a salvation. would we not now give even more of what God has given to us on the physical level? So this is something Christians debate, but I'm just trying to say that like there's a pattern of the details where the details tend to give way to deeper matters that then are fulfilled in Christ and we now keep today without necessarily all of the little details carrying over. So obviously, you know, the fatherless and the widow, those represent the poor, but the Levites, could it be also, you need to give to take care of those that need to be able to focus on what they need to focus on, like the Levites, and you carry that forward. Luther said, you know, we gotta take care of our pastors so they can focus on the teaching of the word. So modern day tithing is for the poor and the needy, but also to take care of our pastors so you could focus on proper teaching and shepherding of the flocks. So the Levites were... There's a parallel. Yeah, they weren't just poor. They had to focus on their purpose. Right. Good. Good. Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, you're right. It's not just providing for the poor. It's also providing for these people who were entirely dedicated to the tabernacle and then the temple. And then we learn later that the Levites are basically in charge of teaching the law. So we see that a couple of places, Deuteronomy 33. And so they're functioning kind of as the local teachers of the scriptures, therefore needing support for that. Yeah. Feel free to punt on this, but this was a nation state, and some of the taxes and tithing were interlaced together to run some of the land stuff or whatever, including the civic actions. you know, we have government taking care of the poor and other stuff where the church kind of, you know, and there's debate on, well, should we support those type of matters or should we, you know, or should the church be the one solely responsible for taking care of the widows and the orphans and the fatherless? Good. Yeah, this is a big question in our society, right? The emergence of the modern welfare state. Now there's multiple arms of people seeking to care for those in need. Who is supposed to be doing this? Is it entirely supposed to be in the hands of the church? I think I will punt on that just because it's almost the end of time. And yeah, thank you. And I did address some of these things when we did a class on the biblical theology of the state. Just trying to say, like, what does the Bible actually say is the purpose of the state? It really doesn't say that the purpose of the state is to care for those who can't care for themselves. It really does put that in the hands of the church. Did I see your hand, Danielle? Yeah. I was going to say, I was always taught that tithing went to the local church and then there's alms that was above and beyond that for the poor. And I don't know what the history of alms, like even that word or whatever. Yeah, and there's a parallel to that even in our case where we take up the tithe every, or our offerings every Sunday, but then, you know, once a month we take up this special offering for the deacons to help care for those in need. And so, yeah, these are both dimensions of what we're called to do and to be. I think just the final thing I wanted to emphasize here is that Israel showed their holiness by being a blessing to other people, and they received joy in their giving. a joy that ultimately like it was Jesus's joy to lay down his life and give himself for us. And so like the heart of this law that like you are most blessed when you are most giving of yourself to others, like Jesus fulfills that. And then he wants us to live that out and to know that when God calls you to give, like giving of your tithes and offerings, giving of your time and energy, that you should expect that it's God doing this because he really loves you. I mean, this is the God who said, hey, I want you guys to enjoy this wonderful gift of the land. I'm giving you this land because I want you to be happy. And I want you to not just be happy, but to share that happiness with other people. Is that how you view God? Like that God wants you to be blessed? That he wants you to be joyful? Is God making all these laws because he's just kind of squishing us? Or because he's just such a super abundant good God? I feel like this law is one of those laws that shock us about the generosity of God and hopefully shocks us into being generous like him. So that's why we should not ignore laws like this, but seek to live them out in Christ. So let's ask him for his help in that. Lord, we do thank you for this blessed law, this law where you not only command a tithe to be brought, but that you also, in your tremendous generosity, you call upon your people to enjoy that tithe, part of it, for themselves. and to know the joy of giving themselves to you and rejoicing before you. We pray that as we come together for worship in a short time, that we would come with the spirit of joy. That even as we come to offer ourselves and to give our offerings, we also come expecting that as we enter your presence, we will be filled with joy. We thank you for the Lord's Supper when we literally are feasting before you, just like the Israelites did. And we pray that as we think about that feast and how it is being offered because of the gift of Christ, that we would remember his joy in giving himself for us. Lord, may this church continue to be a generous church filled with love, taking all the good gifts you give and then turning around and giving those gifts to others. Because we know, Lord, your great joy is in giving yourself to us. And we pray that we'd be like you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.