Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Well, we are excited to be able to continue our series in the, uh, in our time at Sinai. And as you know, if you've been tracking with us at all, uh, this is a series that we've been working on through actually this children, visual refried. Now they're on their way, uh, to become a brand new nation. They are at Sinai. They've received the 10 commandments and usually that's where folks stop reading. Uh, one God, no other, yeah, no idols. Uh, keep the day. Holy honor. Your father and mother, you know, all of those 10 commandments, if you don't, you should check it out. We checked, we did them all in here, but after we get done with the 10 commandments, it's almost like, okay, that's done slap it on a stone, stick it on your wall. And we're good to go. What you may not know is that after the 10 commandments comes a whole lot of legal ease, and unless you're some worked person like Brent, who loves to read legalees, this could, this could put you to sleep a lot because it talks a lot about ox and sheep, Ben land and agriculture and stuff that doesn't necessarily apply to us.
Speaker 1 00:01:13 But if you look at it carefully, or you have somebody that loves you, that is willing to spend an enormous amount of time digging in and pulling out some themes for you to study namely yours, truly there is yes, there is a lot of stuff in here that applies to where we are today. 5,000 years later today, we're going through as a part of these next four Sundays last Sunday. And then these next three, we're taking the next four chapters that have a lot of legal language to the Exodus, 21 to 24. And we're pulling out four major themes. The theme from last week is make sure that you protect those who are vulnerable. Do you remember that? Make sure that you take care of those that may be on the bottom rungs of society. That is your job as a new nation. And what can we learn from that?
Speaker 1 00:02:09 When the Hebrews received these legal languages, language documents we can learn, we should also be people that show the heart of Jesus Christ by protecting those who are vulnerable. The second theme that comes out of this passage of scripture is the theme of neighbor today. We're going to be talking about what does it mean to be a good neighbor? Now you, uh, you're going to love this. I found some statistics that are going to, uh, amaze you and shock you. But before I give you the statistics before that, let me just tell you the point. I'm going to give you the point upfront, right at the beginning, here it is. Followers of Jesus Christ are supposed to be considerate. Neighbors, followers of Jesus, our considerate neighbors. Now what enters your mind? When I say that statement, followers of Jesus Christ are considerate neighbors. You may think to yourself, I'm the most considerate neighbor on the block.
Speaker 1 00:03:13 Have you met the people I live beside? That may be something that comes across your mind. If that's the case, I have some statistics for you. Are you ready? Hey, these are from the pew research. And here, here we go. How many people actually know their neighbors? 55% know some of the neighbors, 26%, no most of their neighbors, but do those statistics shock anybody? Probably not. You're probably in those statistics in your neighborhood. I would, I would guess. All right. How about this? How many neighbors get along? Oh, you want to see these ones? 66% of neighbors say they are not friends with their neighbors. 36% say they outrightly dislike their neighbors. And 25% say that they have ongoing feuds with their neighbors. Now, do you relate to any of those statements? So Frank, I think you know which one you are. They're all right. Well, now here's some hope for you. If you live in the Northwest, then you are more likely to dislike your neighbors than if you live in the Southwest. Did you know that? So we're close to the Southwest. So hopefully most of us don't dislike our neighbors. How many people do you think out of 10 actually don't trust their neighbors. What do you think?
Speaker 1 00:04:37 Three, 3% of your neighbors don't try or three out of 10 actually trust their neighbors. That means seven out of 10 distrust. Their neighbors. That's right. Yes. That's very good. Now this is the shocker when they were asked, okay, are you a good neighbor? 86% rate themselves as very great as as great neighbors. Actually, the word is great neighbors. Do you want to know why that the top three reasons why people avoid their neighbors? Here's the top three reasons. Number one, too busy. Number two, they're too noisy. Or the top three, the number three in the top three is my neighbors are weird.
Speaker 1 00:05:26 I kid you not. Yeah. During COVID in 2020 statistics say that only 34% of churches actually connected with their constituents. And that's something 34% of church members say that their church called and checked on them during COVID. I want you to know at village church east, we consider it very important that we help you be good neighbors. So last year we did a thing called egg, your neighbor, uh, which was a lot of fun. Uh, and it sounds bad, but it wasn't Egor neighbor. We, we actually, uh, put together 20,000 eggs with little treats in them and took them in bags of a hundred and took them to our neighbor's doorstep. So we gave them to you. You took them to your neighbor's doorstep. You left them at the doorstep and these families that maybe maybe were, or weren't comfortable going to church. Actually, back in April of last year, nobody was going to church.
Speaker 1 00:06:20 Uh, they were able to take these eggs and do egg hunts in their backyard with their own kids. So we wanted to give people, we always want to give people an opportunity to be good neighbors and Thanksgiving. Uh, we had a drive through Thanksgiving. Uh, Diane did a wonderful job of helping us plan that. And so we had people drive through and we gave them pies. And what else did we give them? Cookies, bread, loaves of bread. Um, at Christmas we made a donation to the Carol stream community, uh, so that we were able to help them serve people that they already knew in our community that were struggling to, to have a Christmas together. Uh, community groups were constantly dropping stuff off at houses throughout last year. Uh, we have really excellent community groups. If you're not in one, you should be, you can jump online and join any community group that we have right now.
Speaker 1 00:07:09 We have a couple that are waiting to start up again. And so, uh, you can sign in there and say, you'd like to be a part of our community groups. Those meet once a week on zoom. Mostly right now, although we may start meeting in person here soon who knows, and our elders, actually, you may or may not know this, but I think John, we can let the cat out of the bag. We actually had a system where we were helping each of our folks connect with each other, or we were connecting with them, just making phone calls and sending texts and making sure that people were not forgotten about why are we so concerned that we are good neighbors to one another? Well, simply because of this, Jesus would be a good neighbor. How many of you would like to have Jesus as your neighbor?
Speaker 1 00:07:53 Some of you might think to yourself. I do. I have somebody that is just like Jesus as my neighbor, which is great. Or if you're one of the 86%, you might think you're Jesus to your neighbor. Hopefully, hopefully you are. Jesus said in Matthew, 22, 37, he said to them, when asked, what are the two greatest commandments? Jesus said, you shall love the Lord, your God with what does it say? Church, all your heart and with what church? All your soul and with all your mind that doesn't leave anything out, all of that. And then he says, this is the first and greatest commandment. But look in verse 39, the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as what church love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments depends all the law and the prophets. You want to know why? Because if you're a good neighbor, you don't need a lot to tell you to be a good neighbor.
Speaker 1 00:08:47 Your law is love. You are indeed one of the 86% of great neighbors that exist in our communities. So it shouldn't surprise us that after the 10 commandments are given, God goes out of his way to give us lengthy detail as to what it means to actually be a good neighbor. There's a significant part of these next four chapters that treat, uh, treat us with language on how to be a good neighbor. God makes it his business so that we know what it means to be a good neighbor. Good neighbors are required to be thoughtful, respectful, attentive, caring, mindful, and sympathetic. Do you want to write those down in case you don't because I didn't put them up on the screen and you can't take pictures of them. Let me give them one list. One more time, thoughtful, kind, respectful, attentive, caring, mindful, and sympathetic.
Speaker 1 00:09:53 And if you look those words up in the dictionary, you will find one word that covers them. All. One word that is a synonym to every single one of these words. And that word is well, no, that's not in the dictionary, but it should be consider it, consider it. God intends for us to be considerate. Neighbors. Followers of Jesus Christ are intended to be considerate. Neighbors. I want to tell you a story about a neighbor we had in Madison. His name was CA and James, both of them CA and Jane, they were semi retired. CA was one of the best neighbors ever. He loved our kids. Like they were his own. He had a job in his life where he took care of golf courses. So guess whose lawn looked the best in the neighborhood and guess who lived next to him? So my lawn, although it looked okay, never looked as good as CAS CA's lawn was fantastic, but CA and Jane loved our kids.
Speaker 1 00:10:58 Every time we would bring home a new baby, they would like welcome it in as their own. We stopped at four and they, they, they loved all four of them. We got a dog. The dog's name was Bailey. Bailey was wonderful. Bailey's not with us anymore, but she was wonderful and Bailey loved shoes. And my neighbor CA because he's semi retired, loved to walk around on his plush lawn with his, I don't know what you call them, but the, the sandals with no toes slides walked around with this slide. I can't stand them, but he walked around with slides on all the time. And because they got wet in the grass, he would always leave them on his deck. And our dog loved shoes. Did I mention that already? So my dog would go over. Bailey would go over and regularly steal, not both, but just one of his and rip the living crap out of these shoes, then CA would go out and he would want to take care of his lawn.
Speaker 1 00:12:00 And he would look down and he thinks to himself, I must be going crazy. There is yet again, only one shoe on my deck. Then he put it together and began to understand because we began hiding the shoes so that we didn't look like bad. No, we didn't. We would go over to our neighbor and say, oh, I'm so sorry. We are dog. Ate your shoes again. We would buy him new shoes offer to buy him new shoes. He wouldn't take us up on it. He would just buy new shoes. And then the dog would say, steal them again. CA was a great neighbor, no matter what, whether we were outside on the deck till two in the morning with our friends or our dog is stealing one of his two shoes and blowing his whole day, CA was always loving to my kids. Jane was always loving to our girls.
Speaker 1 00:12:45 They were like grandparents to my kids. There was nothing that we could do seemingly. So that would make them dislike us. They loved us. I think of CA and Jane, when I think of good neighbors, we have a good neighbor. Now his name is John lives right next to us. And, uh, I don't know if he's going to watch this, but I'm going to brag on John for a second. I had a basketball on that that I actually found on the side of the road one day. And I brought it home, dragging it behind my minivan because it didn't quite fit in all the way. Dragged it home, set it up, took all the bends in the dents out of the thing, set it up because Rebecca wanted to try out her basketball skills. So Rebecca was into basketball at the time. And that lasted for 28 days, I'd say, but the basketball and that sat in our driveway for three years.
Speaker 1 00:13:34 So once in a while, it would get used, but not very often. See it. Uh, John has a daughter and she started taking volumes. She's very good volleyball player. And she started learning how she could serve practice. Her, serves with a basketball on that with pool noodles and basketball net. And so she tied up, I don't even know how she did it, but it was amazing. She could slam that volleyball. It would hit the, it would hit this back board and then it would roll right back to her feet. It was wonderful. But John came over to me and he said, listen, I noticed that you haven't been using your basketball and that a whole lot. And I said, nah, not really. I said, we bought it. We bought it. We got it for, for Rebecca. And you know, I, I found on the side of the road, it was, you know, but we've had it up here.
Speaker 1 00:14:14 He said, let me buy it from you. I said, buy it from me. What are you talking about? Just take it. We don't even use it anymore. And he said, no, no, it's Rebecca's. And I want to make sure that I said, forget that. Just, just take it. When, when you, when you got time to set it up with the pool noodles and whatever, you're going to do, pick it up and take it over there. Week passes by Rebecca comes up to me. She said, John gave me $80 for the basketball net because he knew it was mine. And he knew that I, that, and he wanted to give me a gift so that he could use the bias. That's that's just come on. That's just a good neighbor, right? You've ever been blessed with good neighbors. I'm grateful that I have been, I'm grateful for the thoughtfulness, for the consideration of these people that I've lived beside. But when God talks about how we treat our neighbors, it is more than just being a proximately close to welling, adequate family unit. I wrote that down because it is a, when God talks about us being a good neighbor, talking about more than just being approximately close dwelling, adequate family
Speaker 2 00:15:25 Unit.
Speaker 1 00:15:27 This is about going the extra mile. When I don't have to. This is about how I feel. When I see an ambulance in front of my neighbor's house, this is how concerned we are, that our Alon isn't the one most populated with dandy lions. This is about treating my neighbors, treating everyone, whether they live right next to me or five houses from me. This is about treating everyone as if they are part of my neighbor influence. And you might say, Craig has going a little too far. Now you're expanding neighbors to just the people who next to you to all of these different people. Are you saying we need to be this way in all different people? Well, I'm not saying it, but if you were to ask Jesus, he might say that in fact, Jesus did say that when somebody wanted to justify themselves, they literally said, okay, who's my neighbor. And do you know what parable Jesus gave him? As soon as he asked that question, he gave him the parable of the good Samaritan. Everybody's your neighbor, whether you live close to them or not. And so today I want to ask you, are you a considerate neighbor? And how does that matter for the kingdom that God has built?
Speaker 1 00:16:40 Are we <inaudible>? And it's more than just filling in a blank. It's it's verse after verse about Oxys and donkeys and vineyards and grain and all this stuff in the passage. And we're going to get there in just a second. But the heart of Jesus is to help us understand how to translate this into modern day. It may not deal with Oxys and donkeys and green and all those things, but, and it may not actually deal with computers and microwaves and cars and backyards and Sandy lines. But Jesus took this idea of be a good neighbor out of these four chapters in Exodus, right after the 10 commandments. And he translates it into a Roman world. When he's asked, who is my neighbor? He literally doesn't say, well, this is what we did 2000 years ago. He literally says, your neighbor is the Samaritan. He picked a common everyday example. And he said, you still have neighbors be considered.
Speaker 1 00:17:39 And so we do the same and you may be surprised at what we get out of these verses. Let me ask you a few questions. These are not up on the screen, but all these are dealt with in these four chapters. What do we do when we borrow something and it gets stolen? What do we do? If we get in a scuffle with our neighbor, somebody that we know and, and they lose wages because we hurt them. What do we do? If our dog bites our neighbor, we do. If I borrow something that is my neighbors and I break it, what happens when my neighbor wants me to join a cause they believe in, and I don't, what do I do? If my sidewalk causes somebody to hurt themselves because I keep it in disrepair. What do I do? If I see my neighbor's garage door open overnight, what if my dog eats a shoe off the porch of my neighbor's house, these are all boiled down in these next. All of these questions are answered. Believe it or not. You may think to yourself, nobody had garages back then. No, but Jesus translates this into a Roman world. And we're about to translate it into
Speaker 2 00:18:49 Our world.
Speaker 1 00:18:51 Am I considerate neighbor? And you will know you are considerate neighbor. If you can do these three things, value authority, remain thoughtful and make things right. If they go wrong. So I'm going to, I'm going to pull out a couple of verses out of the, well, several verses out of these passages, and we're going to play a little game. You are going to be the applicator, the applicant, the person who applicates, the person, the person who applies, what we're talking about to a modern day situation. All right, you ready for the game? Here we go. The first one is an Exodus, 21, 15, whoever strikes his father and mother shall be put to death. Whoever curses his father and mother shall be put to death. Now all your parents are there. You're gone. Yeah. Finally, I knew I was right all this time. And now I can see that I was right.
Speaker 1 00:19:47 God agrees with me. Yeah. Uh, just let me say one thing. Remember when you were kids. Yeah. Be, be, be thankful. We do not live in this age and the longer we live in the age of grace, but how do we apply this? Well, you apply this this way. Watch your kids grow up your kids to be respectful. Citizens in society and parents are required to discipline. How do I get that out of that will, this whole thing is about discipline. Parents are required to discipline. When I discipline my children, I always blame God for everything. It's a really great tactic. If you're a parent and you're thinking to yourself, how should I discipline? This is a good one to fall back on. Now, these, by the way are all drastic punishments. We don't do these anymore. We're not a part of this Israeli society.
Speaker 1 00:20:42 This, this Hebrew society that is burgeoning now and becoming a brand new nation. That's not, but we are still required to discipline our children. In fact, Proverbs says the man who doesn't district discipline his child, doesn't love his child. We are required to discipline. So what I did when I disciplined is I always blamed God. And what I mean by that is if they were bad, if they needed some, you know, some serious discipline, more than just the, you know, kind of regular. If it's, if it's something that requires some discipline, I would always ask them the same question. Now, you know what you did? Yeah. I know what I did. What'd you do? Okay. I did this all right. Now, what does God require me to do? And they'll say you got to discipline me and I'll say, see, there you go. It's God's fault. Not mine. So I'm, I'm the good cop. God's the bad guy. Now you don't play that game, but you always point back to God. You are required to do it because these precious little people need to be taught how to be good citizens. How to be, how to understand what authority means. Because I want to tell you this. If they don't understand parental authority, they are never going to understand any other kind of authority.
Speaker 1 00:21:56 They need us. So we, we understand, they need to understand the authority of parents. And there's also the authority of rulers. So good neighbors, value authority, Exodus 22, 28. You shall not revile God nor curse a ruler of your people. Come on, man. So here you go. You shall not revile God nor cursor rule. So how do we apply this one? Any ideas? Do you want to speak out? Some of you are gone. I want to say something right now. No, you want me to tell you? You don't play the game. It's a fun game. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:22:33 I'm stumped. All right. How can we apply this? Be careful how you speak about authority around your neighbors. Be careful how you speak about authority around your kids. Be careful how you speak about authority everywhere. Make sure that you respect those who are in authority over you. Who's in authority over you. Well, the government, the police, I mean, it's right there. It's not it's as old as the Hills, this commandment and the same thing applies to us. Respect the authority. Did Jesus respect the authority that was over him? Oh yeah, he did. Did Jesus ever fire bomb anything? No. Did he ever tear down the temple that was run by Sandra sees that couldn't care less about Jesus, but Lord had their authority over the people so that they oppressed them beyond belief. Did Jesus ever tear down their houses? Fire bombed their houses. Never did any of that.
Speaker 1 00:23:25 Why? Because we respect the authority that God puts over us. The authority of the rulers over us and the authority of the law. The judicial system look at this Exodus 22 nine, every breach of trust, whether it's for an Oxford donkey for a sheep or for a cloak or for any kind of loss thing of which one says, this is the case of both parties shall come before God. The one whom God condemns shall pay double to his neighbor. In other words, if your neighbor comes over to your house and see something laying in your living room, that looks like something he owned and was stolen from his house a month ago, he might look at you and say, dude, I think that's mine and you'll go. No, no, no, no, no. I had that way before you did that's mine. He can take it before the courts.
Speaker 1 00:24:09 He can take it to the law. And the law will make a distinction as to who actually owns us. They'll listen to both stores. Listen, there are tons of times that judges are called on in these verses. This is just one to make a distinction too, to distribute justice and whatever they came up with. Everybody had to live with whether it's fair or not fair. Now, have you ever felt like you've been taken a little advantage of by the judicial system? I have. I may feel like that more often than I do, but the fact of the matter is we respect that is over us. We respected judicial system.
Speaker 1 00:24:53 In fact, it's interesting in these verses that it says the one whom God condemned shall pay double to his neighbor, which is an indication that God put those people in their places of judgment. And when they make a ruling it's as if God used them to make that ruling, the bottom line is neighbors are those who respect authority. And again, if your child is not taught to respect authority in the home, they won't respect authority anywhere else. I remember during the riots last year, there was a kid wearing a sandwich sign that says saying something like I broke windows of a building. I didn't own and stole things that were not mine. And he had to walk around with a sign and his mother was standing right next to him. The, the media came out to him, said, why are you doing this to your child?
Speaker 1 00:25:36 Why are you? This is so mean. And she actually said, ask him. And that, and the kids said, well, because I broke windows in a building that wasn't mine and I stole things. My mouth was gone. You go, mom, that's great. If your child doesn't respect your authority at home, they won't respect anywhere else. Each citizen was responsible for their own actions. I remember one time I had a, I had a paper route when I was growing up and I collected money. At the end of the day after school, I would go round to the house. Do you remember these days when you had to go around and collect? We called it paper money. It was paper money, but it was for paper newspapers. And I would go run and I collected all and I'd had this big wad cause I was a kid and I didn't care and I'd shove it all in my pocket and counted at the end of the night.
Speaker 1 00:26:24 And maybe it added up, maybe it didn't. And one day I was out and I had my earphones on, I had my walk. When you remember Walkmans those big honkin heavy things. Right? I had my jacket on, my jacket was loosed on my Walkman. Kinda kinda held down in the back there. So it was, it was there. And my Walkman, my earphones, I was bebopping along. I was walking across it and I thought I heard gunshots, but I didn't think much about it. Cause I had my music up really loud. And then all of a sudden I thought I heard somebody screaming at me and I thought, well, I can't be, I'm just walking across this field. I just crossed the street. And I looked behind me and there's two guys with their guns out. They had just pulled over their cake. You remember the KKR?
Speaker 1 00:27:04 They just pulled over the, you don't remember the KKR, I'm aging myself. So they just pulled over their K car. They got out of the K car. They come over to me there. They've got guns drawn and they're, they're talking to me. They think I'm ignoring them. But I took my earphones off. I said, pardon me? What did you say? They said, get down on the ground. So guess what I did. I got down on the ground. Do you want to know why they had guns? And I didn't. So I got down on the ground. I didn't do anything wrong, but they come over to me and they start feeling the little sack in the back of my jacket because they think maybe it's something that's not a Walkman. I'm sure. And then they reach in my pocket and they pull out this big wad of cash, all wadded up in there. They said, what's your name? Where do you live? What are you doing out here? They asked me the same question, 12 different ways, 12 different, different times. And I told them that my name is Craig jars. I'm collecting money. Cause I'm a newspaper. Please don't shoot me. I didn't do anything wrong. And they, and they said, okay, you're clean. Go, go on your way. So I put my stuff in and I walked away.
Speaker 1 00:28:08 When I got home and told my parents what had happened. I'm thinking to myself, man, they're going to be so mad at these guys, making their kid lay down on the ground, searching them and do all this say, Nope, Nope, Nope. You don't want to. My parents said, I told her, I said, I can't believe they made me lay on the ground. They were searching me. They were patting me down. They answered the same question. They took like half an hour of my day away. I was trying to collect the money. And my dad simply said, one thing he said, did you get down on the ground? Said, yeah, I got down on the ground and said, good. Okay. What are we having for dinner? And that was it.
Speaker 1 00:28:39 Why? Cause my dad taught me. If, if, if you, if you're told to get down on the ground by an authority that has authority over you get down on the ground by the authority that has authority over you. They were police. They were detectives. And they were checking out this shooting that had just happened. And they thought since I had a little thing in my jacket and I had a wad of cash in my, the pocket, I looked a little bit suspicious. Part of the reason our world, I think seems out of control is that many parents have brought their children up to be precious and not respect. And so we want to teach our kids to be respectful of justice of the law and of us as parents.
Speaker 2 00:29:26 Now,
Speaker 1 00:29:27 If you see injustice in the world, you should do something about it by, by far. And I want you to know our world, our, our, our community, our country gives us a lot of ways that we can do something about injustices that we see in the world. But fire firearm, firebombing police cars, or getting into tussles from somebody that tells us to get down on the ground is not the way to do it. Now you may think to yourself, Craig, I don't think you have the right to say that because you are white and middle aged. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard in your life? It is to me anyway, in 2021, I'm not allowed to say to people, you should respect the law. Listen, you should respect the law. It's not something I'm making up. It's something that's in scripture. Did Jesus respect the law? Yeah. And they killed him. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:30:19 You respect the law. You respect the legal system. He part of this silliness about all of this is because I'm not, not allowed to talk about this because I'm out of touch I'm white or whatever it is. This is a tactic of the evil one. By the way, let me just clear this up for you. And I know I'm on a little bit of a soap box, but this needs to be said, because right here, it really, really fits the tactic of the evil one is to get stuff on our conversation plates. We're not allowed to talk about anymore. If he can get stuff on our conversation, place it we're not allowed to talk about in public anymore. We will stop talking about those things. And when you stop talking about those things, you know what happens? They get worse. They get worse.
Speaker 1 00:31:02 This began only a few generations ago. First of all, it was with no abortion talking, not allowed to talk about abortion. You're not allowed to talk about prayer in school. You're not allowed to talk about getting divorced. You're not allowed to talk about living together. You're not allowed to talk about homosexuality. You're not allowed to talk about race. And now you're not allowed to talk about respecting authority. This is another one. Put on the no conversation plate. I don't know about you, but my Thanksgivings are getting more and more quiet around my house. When we have our neighbors in there's certain things we're not allowed to talk about anymore. This is a, this is a tactic of the evil one to get us to stop having meaningful conversations. These are not political issues. These are issues that are spoken about in scripture. They matter to God. And so they should matter to us. Spiritual issues belong to Christ first and Jesus gives us no caveats. God gives us a no caveats. You don't have to be a certain color of the skin. You don't, it doesn't matter. If you wear a rainbow flag or your shave, your head, you get vaccinated or you don't get vaccinated. You March with BLM or you choose never to March with BLM, you drive a military vehicle or a police car. Jesus never said, love your neighbor as yourself. Now pick the application.
Speaker 1 00:32:19 Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. What about this? When there's injustices? Well, you can demand attention. If you see injustices and you should get involved, but firebombing a police car or, or, or breaking windows in a building or leading a rebellion is not something that Jesus ever did. Good. All right, enough on that, let's move on. Good neighbors are respectful, respectful of each other authority and all of those things. Good neighbors are also thoughtful. There are full with their open pits. Now you may think to yourself, what in the world is an open pit? Well, that's a good question. Let me read it for you. Exodus 2133, when a man opens a pit or when a man digs a pit and doesn't cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pitch shall make restoration and he shall give money to its owner.
Speaker 1 00:33:15 And the dead beast shall be is. In other words, if you have something on your property that is uncared for, and it hurts somebody else guess who's responsible. Well, you are a good neighbors. Responsible watch the ice on your sidewalks. Watch those open bits in your backyard. We're responsible to be good neighbors. And that means taking care of personal dwelling space. Number two, be thoughtful with your animals. 28, when an oxygen there's a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stone in this flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox will not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past and its owner has been warned, but hasn't left it, it kept it in this pen and it kills a man or a woman. Then the ox shall be stone and the owner shall be put to death.
Speaker 1 00:34:05 That's pretty drastic, right? While it would really make you take care of your pets. Don't you think, especially if your pet is known to hurt other people. So what is the application to this one? Watch your animals don't have animals that hurt other people. And if you do take it seriously, if it happens once grace, if it happens twice, you're dead. So, so guess if that, if you knew that was the law, how careful would you be with your animals the first time, watch your animals and then general courteous courtesy. Even if you hate your neighbor, listen to this Exodus 23 four. If you meet your enemies, Oxford has donkey going astray. Bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden. In other words, it's dying because there's so much burden on his back.
Speaker 1 00:34:54 You shall refrain from leaving him with it. You shall rescue it with him. How does this apply to us? If you see your neighbor's garage door is open, you should let them know. If you could see smoke coming out of their house, you should really say something. If you see their children in unsafe situations, it's your responsibility to make sure that those children are taken care of, that they know your kids in a bad spot here. And this is interesting because this isn't just your neighbor. You like, like the 86% of us that are good neighbors. This is the person you don't like your enemy and be thoughtful with lending. This is all thoughtfulness thoughtful with lending. If you, if you loan a cloak, it says in 20, 26, if you loan a cloak to somebody and you, you exp it's a pledge because they give you a cloak and it's a pledge because they owe you something.
Speaker 1 00:35:48 You're not allowed to keep it overnight because it makes them uncomfortable. They're not going to be able to sleep overnight. They need their cloak for warmth. Jesus interpret this. When you lend expect nothing in return, be thoughtful when lending the next one deals with reputation 23, one don't spread a false report. Don't join hands with a great wicked man to be a malicious witness. Don't fall in with the many to do evil, nor bear witness in a lawsuit siding with many. So as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit, how do we apply this? Don't bear false witness to gain something for yourself. Don't side with the majority, because you'll look better. If you do, you stand for justice, even if it's the unpopular thing to do you don't side with somebody in a legal suit in order to prove your point, you are in this for real justice, with your neighbor. And the last one is good. Neighbors make things right? This one deals with theft and property damage. 22 seven. If a man gives his neighbor money or goods to keep safe and it's stolen from the man's house and the thief has found he shall pay double. But if the thief has not found the owner of the house shall come near to God and show whether or not he has put a hand to his neighbor's property. I love that. Hey, that looks just like my iPad that went missing a week.
Speaker 1 00:37:09 Well, an investigation ensues, and you go by what the justice says. Um, uh, justice comes down. You, if you borrow you return, if something dies under your care in 2214, you give full restoration. If it breaks under your care, you give, if my neighbor's shoe gets eaten by my dog, I buy him a new pair of shoes, not just one, but both even neglect. Listen to this 22, five of a man causes a field of vineyard to be grazed over, or lets us be sluicing that finds another. He feeds in another man's field. He shall make restitution for the, from the best in his own field and is an in his own vineyard. In other words, if my sheep go and graze in somebody's field, because it's better, I don't know they're doing it, but they do. I'm responsible to give that person who owns that field, the best that is in my field, because that's what good neighbors would do.
Speaker 1 00:38:03 So be careful what you borrow, be careful what you use. Be careful what you're consuming, because if it's owned by somebody else, you'll need to pay them back. This one, I love even loss of listen to this one. This is interesting. If you get in a fight with your neighbor so that your neighbor loses time at work, you are responsible to make up that time. Financially, that crazy in this culture, it's in 21 verse 18, if to quarrel and one strikes the other with the stone and he doesn't die, but takes to his bed. If the man rises and walks out doors with his staff, he who struck him shall be clear, but he shall only pay for the loss of time until he's thoroughly healed. If your anger hurt somebody else, you're financially obligated on your own. You want to side swipe somebody's car because you're angry. You owe them, you owe them repair. Why all these laws, why all this pedantic detail, it's not. So we can learn to be good legal scholars. It's so that we can understand what it really means to be a good neighbor, a considerate neighbor, and listen. Anybody who wanted to be a part of Israel could there were sojourners. That could be a part of this, but they had to obey these laws. They had to live as though they were part of this society. And they all, all these laws applied to them as well.
Speaker 1 00:39:29 You may be sitting there thinking to yourself, well, Craig, I think you might be overdoing this. These are after all laws for a burgeoning new nation. After, you know, we don't own sheep and donkeys and cattle and vineyards and grain fields and all of that. That's, that's not us. You know what? You may be thinking, Craig, it may be overdoing it. I don't know if I'm actually doing enough. My conviction is that I'm not going far enough. These laws apply to us more than we know. Jesus felt absolutely free to say to his Roman society, which was not a Jewish society at all. He felt free to take these laws, transcribe them so that he actually said, you've heard that it was said, somebody strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. But I say to you, or I'm sorry, somebody strikes you on the cheek. They owe you. And then Jesus said, but I say to you, if somebody strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. I don't think I'm going far enough on what it means to be a considerate neighbor. Okay?
Speaker 1 00:40:39 And these people that were questioning Jesus, these were the keepers of the law. They, they knew the law like the back of their hand. And they did not like Rome doing away with their laws. They didn't like Rome being in charge, but Jesus always obeyed RO in fact, he said, render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar's and under God, the things that are gods Jesus obeyed the law, these Sadducees, they said there is no Rome, even though they're here, there's no Rome. We have to obey God's law. How do you think the Sadducees felt having to go to Rome to get permission, to kill Jesus? They couldn't do it without Rome's permission. That's why pilots out there washing his hands. Cause pilots saying to them, these, these leaders of the people I'm not getting involved in any of this Rome. I'm not putting robe signature on this, but I am giving you permission to carry out your law. I bet you, these Sadducees were kind of ticked off. They had to go to Rome to get permission, to kill Jews.
Speaker 1 00:41:42 Okay? The key to all of this is when somebody came to Jesus, like I said at the beginning and said, okay, who's my neighbor. Jesus gives the parable of the good Samaritan. That's a thumb in the eye. Did you know that? Here's why man was traveling from Jericho or from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's about a 40 kilometer journey. And it's about a 2,400 foot drop. It's like steep, downhill. I've biked it. I know. I think I peddled once and the rest was a free ride, free ride all the way down. I lost a Coke bottle and I never caught it. It went faster than I did on this road. There were tons of areas where thieves could hide. And this one individual we're not knowing what his name was, but he was beaten up and robbed and left for dead.
Speaker 1 00:42:35 Three people passed him by two of them. Didn't stop. Three people, Jesus chose to choose were actually very high Jewish people that you think would stop like pastors. And you think, Hey, that person will definitely stop. They didn't. Instead, the person that did stop was a Samaritan. Samaritans were looked down on by the Jews. They were half-breeds. They were half Gentile and half too. They weren't true blooded Jewish people. So Jesus said, you know, who did stop? And it's almost like a twinkle in his eye. It says a Samaritan, the Samaritan stopped and he sees this beaten up individual and he leans down and he, and he takes care of his wounds. And not only that, but he puts them on his donkey and he takes him to a place where they will care for him. And he says, as long as it takes, let me know and I'll pay him. Spill.
Speaker 1 00:43:37 Samaritan didn't live anywhere near the guy that got beaten up. But at the end of the parable, Jesus said now, which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who was beaten up. And everybody had to say the Samaritan. You see, you're not just called to be a neighbor to people who live in close proximity to you. You're not just called. We are not just called to be considerate. Neighbors, to people who live next to us, to the CAS and the Jane's and the Johns and all the people in your life. The 86% of great neighbors that are out there in our minds, we are called to be neighbors, to everybody, considerate neighbors to everyone. In fact, Jesus said, now who was the neighbor? We should be that neighbor. Every neighbor wishes for followers of Jesus are considerate neighbors. How do I go from being only a neighbor in proximity to being a neighbor like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 00:44:36 Number one, I must learn to be considerate to my neighborhood. Not just living in my neighborhood. I must value authority. Sometimes my HOA ticks me off. I got to tell you, we have an HOA. We shouldn't because we've been there long enough, but no, we got an HOA. I got to pay the money every single year. They give nothing to me except letters telling me everything I'm doing wrong. I don't like, yeah, I'll say this publicly. I like my HOA. All right, but I pay them the money and I go by their rules. I pay my dues and sometimes I'll even show up at a meeting where by the way, nobody shows up.
Speaker 1 00:45:14 Be careful of the way I act, speak, et cetera. I need to be careful that I don't curse my leaders. I'm thoughtful. I'm conscious of what's going on in my neighborhood. I support my neighbors. Children's causes. If they're selling cookies, I don't buy them because I liked them. I buy them because I want to help my neighbors. I want to support my neighbors. I wanted to make sure my house is not the quote unkept house on the block. I want to make my neighborhood better. I want to keep my home under control. Be considerate with my stuff, my property, and have integrity. When accidents happen. I may not always be a good neighbor, but when I'm a bad neighbor, I make it right. I'll say that one more time. That's really good. I may not always be a good neighbor, but when I'm a bad neighbor, I make it right.
Speaker 1 00:46:08 Number two, I must realize I can be a good neighbor. As far as it depends on me, I can do this. Romans 13, nine for the commandments. You shall not commit adultery. Don't murder, don't steal, don't covet. And any other commandment are summed up in this word. What is it? Church? You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is a fulfillment of the law. So what do you do when your neighbors on unreasonable? What do you do? Church? When your neighbors are in reasonable, you love them. You love them.
Speaker 1 00:46:48 These are not rules about how your neighborhood perceives events, by the way, uh, sometimes your neighbors and you will not agree on things. You may not wear a mask outdoors. They may wear a mask outdoors and they may lecture you for the rest of the day on why you should wear a mask outdoors. This is not mean you do everything your neighbors want you to do. It does mean however, you are amicable towards your neighbors. So when you're around them wear a mask. When you're not around them, do whatever you want. Well, as Pritzker first or Fowchee, there will be disputes, but we are called not to subject ourselves to the whims. And right. I thought of something like, like we had Bible studies at our house. And every once in a while, we'll have a lot of people at our house and there'll be cars up and down the, the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 00:47:37 And once in a while, I'll be really conscientious of my neighbors and what they think. And so I want to be sure that the cars that are parked on the street of people coming to my house, aren't blocking driveways. Aren't making people's lives, you know, unreasonable. And if somebody complains, I want to go over to that house and make sure we'll do everything we can not to park in front of their house. In other words, you don't have to do everything everybody wanted to do. If you live that way, you'll never live, but you do have to be amicable and loving toward your neighbors.
Speaker 1 00:48:09 Romans 12, 18, as far as it depends on you live at peace with all men. Last one, I must realize being a good neighbor is important to God. So it must be important to me. Why is God so concerned with us being good neighbors here? It is. In a nutshell, you may not be able to get your neighbor to come to Christ, but you can do a lot to prevent it. Yeah. You may not get your neighbor to come to Christ, but you can do a whole lot to prevent it. Your neighborhoods should know that you are trustworthy because you say that you're a believer. You are a follower of Christ. So no open pits in my yard, no dogs wandering off of my yard into somebody else's yard. And if they do what dogs do, make sure I pick up that and take it home with me as well. Nice souvenir. I leave you with this one question church. If you moved out of your neighborhood, would your neighbors notice?
Speaker 1 00:49:05 I like to apply that to our church. If our church moved with our neighborhood notice and we all think to ourselves, yeah, they should notice, right? If you moved, would your neighbors notice or would they throw a party because they realize they're not there anymore. I don't know, be a considerate neighbor because I think that's what Jesus would be. We got into this time of communion. And again, we do this, we finish our service with this each Sunday, because we want to make sure that we punch that truth home, which is why we're here in the first place. We're not just good neighbors because our neighborhood deserves it. Or, you know, we are just good people or whatever blank you want to fill in there. We are good neighbors because of Jesus Christ. He, he has rescued us and he is building us into who he wants us to be. So when we come to a message like this, even though we think to ourselves, well, there's some things that I, I think I could improve on, but there's other things that I think I'm doing pretty well, regardless of how God's talking to you. The bottom line is he's talking to you. And the reason that is, is because if you know Christ as your savior, he's moving you to a place where you look more like him every day we are growing, literally in scripture, it says into an image of Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:50:23 The ultimate great neighbor, I think would be Jesus, don't you? Not only did they, can, he do all the, you know, living rights stuff, but he could do miracles. Like if you're short on wine at your party, he can make some of that for you. You can do a lot of stuff. It'd be cool to have Jesus as your neighbor. Ultimately, we want to be more like Christ because of our love for him. Jesus came. And if there ever was a neighbor that was abused, it was him. All he did was good. And all he got was our disregard rebellion suffering at our own hands. He killed Jesus art. And even though we weren't there 2000 years ago, our sin is what, what took him to the cross in the first place? The reason we do communion every Sunday is because the juice represents the blood that was shed. The cracker represents the body that was broken, that was opened up. So the blood could flow out. And when we eat and we drink, we proclaim that we are who we are because Jesus was who he was. And Jesus is who he is to us today.
Speaker 1 00:51:34 So when we eat and we drink, we say, we want to be like Jesus, right? That's what we're inevitably saying. We want to be more like him. So if Jesus was a great neighbor, we should be too. If you're at home, I want to invite you to join us, grab some juice out of the fridge or some crackers, whatever you got laying around the house, grab it. We're going to, we're going to take a moment of silence before we do this. In-house there's, uh, crackers and juice in front of you. That in a little cup, everything's contained in one cup, just come up and grab it and go back to your seats, hang on to everything for a moment. And then I'll come back up, read a passage of scripture and then we'll eat and we'll drink together. The reason we do that is because we want to communicate in every way that we're all in this together, all sinners saved by Jesus Christ by his grace.
Speaker 1 00:52:21 And so just hang on to those, uh, come back to your seats, stand at your seats. We're going to be singing. Um, and then I'll come up. I'll read and we'll eat and we'll drink together. After I read a passage of scripture before we do any of that, I want to just give you a moment. Maybe the Lord spoken to you this morning and just said something to you personally, maybe something you need to work on, maybe something needed to be reminded of, maybe something about him that has become fresh to you today. Would you just take a moment and give him thanks for that and ask him to keep creating you into an image that he would be proud of. Would you do that this morning before we go any further.
