Every time I think of that song, we sing that song, I think of Bob Morgan. In the old days, he was a member of our church a long time ago. I'm not sure what church he's going to these days. I mention it because the Lord God gives gifts to his people, and very frequently those gifts are ministered through other people. And Bob got us to start singing this song as a church many years ago, and his gift to us became his gift to you. exchange gifts, and that's what we do in our lives. Today's text is the concluding text for Moses' portion of his sermon in Deuteronomy on the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not kill. It's kind of the climax, and it's really about neighborliness. It's about gifting each other with kindness, love, blessing, and joy. The text is Deuteronomy 22, verses 1 to 8. Please stand. Be attentive to the reading of God's command word to us. Remember, this is the climax of what Moses has to say about the Sixth Commandment. Deuteronomy 22, 1 to 8. You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and hide yourself from them. You shall certainly bring them back to your brother. And if your brother is not near you or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. You shall do the same with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment, with any lost thing of your brother's, which he has lost and you have found. You shall do likewise. You must not hide yourself. You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fall down along the road and hide yourself from them. You shall surely help them, help him rather lift them up again. A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. If a bird's nest happens to be before you along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall surely let the mother go and take the young for yourself, that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days. When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof that you may not bring guilt or bloodshed on your household if anything falls from it. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this text. We thank you for this wonderful season. Help us now to rejoice in one more aspect of the advent of our Savior, what he comes to bring us and to make us into. Bless us, Lord God, with the good gift of the knowledge of this word and transform us by your spirit through it. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated. Flynn and I attended a conference for city transformation, churches that are involved in thinking through and planning for and trying to affect city transformation. And after that conference, I was thinking about these sermons on the Sixth Commandment and actually the rest of the sermons, of course, but these particularly. And I thought about the implications of what they mean for us in terms of a mental model for the cities that we envision of the future. You know, we at this conference, one of the speakers was from Mission Houston, and he talked a lot about what he tries to do is create proper mental models of a transformed city. I'm not so sure his models are all that good. I didn't necessarily agree with all of them. There was different people presenting things, and it didn't seem like their mental models were much informed by at least what we've been looking at in Deuteronomy. It reminded me of a book, Paris 1918, I think it was, or 1919, about the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles. The Big Three, there was originally Big Five, but then the Big Three were the heads of France and England and America. Woodrow Wilson, of course, kind of creating the world of the future. And what we have in terms of geopolitical realities today are largely the result of that conference. That's where Iraq as a country started was their decisions. They basically took the whole world and rearranged nations and tried to give sovereignty to countries and all this stuff. Woodrow Wilson had these 12 principles. And the head of France didn't like Wilson. He said, well, God only gave us 10 commandments and Wilson gives us 12. And then he said, Woodrow Wilson's a lot like Jesus. He said, I never understood what Jesus says. Whenever Wilson talks, I don't understand what he's saying either. Well, if all you do is read the Gospels, it is a little tough to figure out what Jesus is saying. It can be. Because really what Jesus is doing is he's bringing to pass everything that's been predicted and foreshadowed by the Old Testament. And you have to understand the rest of the Bible in order to understand the Gospels. At least you can get some stuff out of them, but an awful lot of it you really can't understand without the whole Scriptures. Well, I think that what's going on in city transformation these days are people are reading their Gospels, and that's about it, and envisioning the city. And they have a mental model. But the mental model that we have, for instance, coming through the text of Moses' Sermon on the Sixth Commandment, in chapter 19, the very first thing was, if people murder somebody, you have to execute them. Human life is that valuable to where you have to protect it through the death penalty. So the mental model I've got of Portland is executions going on so that murders will decrease. There'll be very few murders when executions are carried out in accordance with the law of God. Now, that's quite a different mental model of how to transform major cities from what most of the city transformers are talking about today. It's counterintuitive, but it's what Jesus's law says. It's what his word says that we're supposed to be doing. In Deuteronomy 20, you'll remember that it's about warfare and how cities are supposed to be called to unconditionally surrender to Jesus. I've got a mental model of Oregon City and a mental model of Portland where the gospel is presented and the whole city eventually comes to willfully and willingly submit to service to the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. That's the mental model. We're not happy with a city that just has a lot of good times rolling and people having a good time if they're not serving Jesus, are we? To me, the middle model has to be informed by the scriptures. The scriptures tell me that cities are supposed to be cities that are willingly submit themselves to Jesus Christ. Deuteronomy 21 says that I've got a middle model. informed by the scriptures of what a transformed Portland, Oregon city looks like in terms of sexuality. And even in the time of warfare and captured women, war brides, sexuality can only happen in the context of marriage, where the women are honored. So sexuality, my vision, my mental model for the city, based upon what Moses has taught us about the sixth commandment, is that, you know, sexuality happens in the context of marriage. We talked about this last week, both in my sermon last week and in the Christmas Eve service about the reversal of barrenness. And as this country has moved away from Jesus, what do we have now? We've got what seems like inevitably the state sanctioning homosexual and lesbian marriage, which by definition is sanctioning a relationship that is intentionally barren. The opposite of fruitfulness. So, my mental model for what it will look like when things are really good in Oregon City and Portland includes this idea of sexuality in the context of marriage. That chapter also talked about inheritance, right? And how to divide your inheritance among your kids. My mental model of a transformed city doesn't see a 35% or a 45% taxation on a man's inheritance that he's built up to give to his children after his death. Now, these are mental models of a transformed city that are informed by God's word in God's world. And what I'm saying is we need Deuteronomy. We need these sermons, we need this perspective on what God's Word says about culture, about how to create a proper state and cities, transform them. Or we end up transforming Portland just by affirming everything and everybody, then completely misreading the Gospel message. Today, we come to the climax of Moses' sermons, and we have one more aspect. And in this one, I think, you know, we probably have most people agreeing with us to a certain extent. So we now come to common ground, more or less. That's interesting. There are four laws in this section. You remember that we just had, well, you may not, but in the last chapter, in chapter 21, we had four laws as well. We had a law about a man being found in the field. Who's dead? And now this one here starts with men or men starts with beasts being found and the need to return them or even beasts being fallen down on the road and need to help them up. So there's kind of a similarity between this this thing in Deuteronomy 22, 1 to 4 and the search section of 21. Men and women, the war brides that I mentioned before, were the second law in Deuteronomy 21, and the second law here in Deuteronomy 22, 1 to 8, has to do with men and women and warfare again. That's interesting. It seems like there's some kind of connection going on that God wants us to think about. It doesn't look like it's warfare, but believe me, it'll be that. When we get to it, you'll see it's warfare going on, not just transvestitism. And then there was this discussion of mothers and children and the inheritance thing in Deuteronomy 21. And then we get this kind of, you know, riddle text about if you find walking along, you're going to take the eggs and young, you can't take the mother, too. So mother and children are sort of the subject. And then at the end of 21. We saw a picture of Jesus's redemption for us, bodies being hung after they were killed. Jesus is hung, of course, to be killed. And then his body is removed in accordance with the end of chapter 21 before nightfall. And in the end, the last verse, the very last verse of Moses' sermon on the sixth word has to do with another high place, another high structure. It's not a pole now built. It's a house now built. But instead of death being the picture, it's now joy, because that's where you entertain us on this roof. And you don't want that joy marred by bloodshed. So there's kind of a connection between chapter 21 and then these four laws here, these four simple laws. And there's movement. As I said, we move from the atoning work of Christ into now the rejoicing aspect of the city that has its laws structured to be in proper submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's look at these laws in some little bit of detail. First, verses one to four, there are laws about restoring property. And so the idea is that whether it's your neighbor's beast or if it's his clothing or whatever it is, you find a somebody else's, because they've misplaced it, property rights don't stop. It's still their property, even though you found it, even though they're not in control of it, and you have an obligation then to restore it back to them. This is the law of God. Isn't it just a good idea? Well, you see, in a way, what does it got to do with the commandment not to murder anybody? Well, remember, when we started this series, that that word murder isn't murder. It's not kill. It's a word that can be used to describe both murder and manslaughter, unintentional harming of life. So here, the unintentional losing of man's life as property must be restored to him. So a proper application of the Sixth Commandment is to restore life back to people that they have displaced somehow or they become separated from. And so the specifics here of this basic principle that we're supposed to desire and be motivated and go out of our way to help people come to fuller life, the specific example is this idea of things being lost and found. So Calvin says this essentially is the law of kindness. And this is where my outline, even though it is the wrong date, is about the advent of neighborliness. You're supposed to be a good neighbor. You're supposed to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You're supposed to be the good Samaritan who sees somebody hurt and doesn't go to the other side of the road because the guy was walking to Jericho and who knows what stories we might tell ourselves about that guy in the parable of the good Samaritan. No, we see somebody in need, we try to help them. The law of kindness, the law of neighborliness. the good Samaritan law, we might call it, the law of loving your neighbor as yourself, and all in the context of enhancing his life. That's what the sixth word is all about. In this little concluding section, it emphasizes at first doing good to other people by replacing their lost property. It's a big deal to them. It may not be a big deal to you. Maybe their garment isn't all that great or something and you found it and they've lost it. It's their garment, it's part of their life, it's part of their whatever, for whatever reason, what equates out into who they are. People aren't just people in isolation from things. Things are extensions of people. Property has that kind of significance in the scriptures. Then it's supposed to be restored. We're supposed to work at it. And if the example is, one of the examples is, well, if you don't know whose it is, you've got to take care of that donkey or that whatever it is, that beast. You've got to feed it. You've got to house it. You've got to go to some sacrificial work for the well-being of someone you don't even know who he is. Perfect stranger. And in fact, it's even worse for us. We could say the Exodus 23, 4, and 5 and the Exodus laws that apply to the sixth word. It says this. If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. To see the donkey of the one who hates you lying under its burden and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it. So it's the same thing. Restoration of property, helping somebody with the donkey that's burdened. And now it's not just a stranger in Exodus 23. It's your enemy, someone that hates you. Now, this is very significant. This means that our lives are supposed to be filled with compassion, even toward people that hate us. Even if they lose their property, oh yeah, we got it now, they lost it, that's mine, that's that. Oh good, his donkey's falling down, I hate that guy anyway, and he's on the road to Jericho, and he probably doesn't love God, what's he going to that city for, and who likes him anyway, and he's probably not a Christian. Let's just let him suffer. No. The Bible says a proper application of the sixth word doesn't end with you not killing somebody. It continues on to you helping people. Helping people, your neighbor obviously. Helping people you don't even know who they are. And helping people, if you do know them, that they hate you and they're your enemy. You're supposed to be kind to them. So this is what Jesus came for. This is what we celebrated yesterday, is the incarnation, the advent of our Savior. And when He comes, He does just that, doesn't He? He dies for us who hated him. We're supposed to be like Jesus. We're supposed to have proper compassion in trying to help other people in the context of their difficulties. You know, the rich young ruler, Jesus tells the Good Samaritan thing, too. He says, well, you know, Jesus says, yeah, you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who's my neighbor? You know, we get into those kind of games. And Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. And now you have to be a little bit careful how you read the thing. Jesus isn't telling him who your neighbor is. Jesus always says what he wants to do in these conversations. He's hard to understand because he doesn't answer the sort of questions we want to ask. But what he says here is not who your neighbor is ahead of time. He identifies the location of the one you're supposed to be loving. The location is the guy who is hurt, who's been beaten up by thieves and left to die alongside of the road. He describes the location in an event, not a person. That's real helpful, isn't it? It's helpful for me. If I've got to prejudge who my neighbor is and who I'm going to love and who I'm not going to love, that's one thing. But if God says, look, don't think about all that. Just think about when you see people who are in true need, have compassion on them. And that's your neighbor. That's loving your neighbor as yourself. That's the proper fulfilling of the second half of the law of God, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Your neighbor is somebody in your location, somebody you come across. And that's what Jesus told the rich young ruler there. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 44, I say, do you love your enemies? Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the good and the bad. So this is not new. You know, Jesus didn't come to change or transform or push out the boundaries of the law. This is just Exodus 23. Exodus 23, which is a parallel text to the one here in Deuteronomy, says the same thing. Somebody hates you, somebody who's your enemy, do good to them. Return their lost property. Help them with the burdens that their animals may be suffering in the context of. H.B. Clark, in his excellent book, Biblical Law, which is a statute book that takes all the laws of the Bible. He was an Oregon state legislator years ago, and he created this book, Statute Law, of all these case laws of the Bible. And he has a little bit of comments, but mostly it's just statutes set up like a statute book. I wish we could get 100 copies of that and give it to the legislators. They're very expensive. The book has been out of print. There's a paperback version, but it's still expensive, $25 or so. But in any event, H.B. Clark in Biblical Law says this, the doctrines of Biblical Law are not altogether satisfied when one merely refrains from injuring his neighbor, for the law requires the doing of good at all times. And that's what Moses is saying here in his exposition of the Sixth Commandment. It's a requirement of doing good. R.J. Rush, in his commentary on this, the requirement of restoring lost property to people, says this. He says, simple theft means taking that which belongs to another. There are many other ways of depriving people of their properties, such as by taxation, but an indirect means is to refuse neighborly watchfulness. To see a neighbor's ox, cow, or horse go astray and do nothing means that the stray animal may be injured or stolen. It's a form of theft. To see the property unprotected because it has been mislaid or in some other way lost and to do nothing is to help in its theft. So Rushdie says, you know, look, you've got to help people find their lost goods. And if you don't have regard for their lost property, it's akin to or likened unto a form of theft. Now, we don't think of it that way. We're not trying to use it for our own purposes necessarily. But it's important that we do it. You know, Caitlin Phelan does just this. She actively applies this text, whether she knows it or not. She goes down there to the lost and found we have downstairs and she takes pictures of whatever you might have misplaced or lost here. And then she puts them up on the Facebook page of Reformation Covenant Church. And those things are held here for four weeks. We're trying our best to obey this law, you know, to say, well, you've lost things if we're not going to do it at the church. We're sure not going to be very motivated to do it outside the church has to start here, right? So this is a very simple law. Its implications are large for creating a Christian community, but it's very simple. It just says put on a mental attitude of trying to help people be neighborly, be good neighbors. Watch out for one another on your block or in your area where you live here at the church. Watch out for each other. Watch out for things that have been misplaced and get them back to people. So we want to do that. Easy, easy to understand, but to obey requires a mental attitude of a desire to be neighborly. And that's exactly what this law tells us ought to happen. We're commanded not to withhold our help, not to hide ourselves. That's what the text says from our neighbor. Interesting. So don't withhold your help. Don't hide yourself from your neighbor. When the opportunity exists to do good, do it. So that's what this first commandment is about. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. Luke 19 tells us that. The advent of Jesus was really to fulfill this particular verse in that way. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. That was us. We belong to the Father. And we wandered away. And Jesus came as the good Samaritan, as the good person to seek and save that which is lost. And we've been recovered. And God wants us to have the same attitude that Jesus had. OK, secondly, preserving the source of life, women in wartime. OK, so this is a little difficult verse. Deuteronomy 22.5, a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment. All who do so are an abomination of the Lord your God. Now, clearly, you know, a proper application of this is transvestitism. So whether they knew it or not, the Portland Rescue Mission appropriately, I'm not sure they understood it. It appears that they didn't, at least with their first press releases. But you know, there was this, there's an event put on by a transvestite called Queer Christmas. And so about a month or so ago, they approached, they're smart, they approached Portland Rescue Mission. They wanted to have a benevolence component. They were going to collect coats when people came to this Transvestite Queer Christmas, and then give the coats out to poor people. And they wanted Portland Rescue Mission to be a sponsor of the event, and then help with distributing the coats to poor people. Portland Rescue Mission says, well, it may hurt some of our donors. They may not like us doing that. And then later, the idea came, well, maybe it's just a little late for us to consider this. Too bad. But they really missed an opportunity to kindly but firmly talk about the importance of a Christian culture and Christian sexuality. But in any event, it's appropriate to think of this text when we watch transvestites parading around in Portland. It's an abomination to the Lord. We're supposed to have distinction of the sexes. Now, it's not appropriate to say, well, that means you can't wear jeans because men used to wear jeans. All that stuff's taking the thing in a direction that isn't really intended. But to deliberately dress like the opposite sex, that's what is going on here. This is against God's word. And it's kind of a violation of life. But to fully understand this text, you've got to understand a couple of words here. The word for man, OK? It says a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, and a man can't wear a woman's clothes. The word man isn't the normal word just for man-man. It is the word for warrior guy. It's a man with strength and power. It's a man that you would use to describe somebody in the army. Warrior guy, okay? G.I. Joe. And the word for dress, anything that pertains to a man in the first half of the verse, doesn't mean clothes. It means kit. stuff, a bunch of stuff that applies to a guy. The word can be the kit that the priests use in the context of worship, for instance. All the accoutrements to worship are the stuff that pertains to an Aaronic priest. And the word is also used in terms of military battle. So a man's kit is, you know, his pack, his gun, his grenade. I don't know what it is. David Spears would know. you know, set of stuff that warrior guy takes into battle. And what this verse, the first half of the verse prohibits is a woman taking that stuff on herself. And as I said, this kind of goes back to the idea of women in battle back in 21. But I think what's going on is the woman is not supposed to engage in combat. This verse has been used for centuries by the Christian church to interposition itself between women and the civil government who would like to draft women to go and fight in military combat. Not support roles in the army, that's fine, but on front lines sort of stuff. And this is the verse that churches have used in a long, long time, well-established legal precedence, because that's what it's about in the first sense. It's about women not going into combat. And I think that what's going on here is a protection of women, right? Women are the nurturers. And the next little verse about the mother and the eggs, the bird thing, you know, the mother is the nurturer. She's kind of like the future in a way. She can have more eggs. Women are the nurturing culture, part of the culture. They're to be protected, not because they're weaker, but because they have this life giving aspect, both with giving birth and also nurturing birth in its earliest moments. That little Ella around lately, you know, her latest granddaughter can't do a thing. And mom's real important in her life to nurture her. I think that's what's going on here. It's a prohibition against women in battle. But the bigger thing is, is that life has to be protected and nurtured. And to do that, women who are sources of life in the context of a culture should be protected so they don't go into frontline combat. On the next verse, actually does talk about the garb of a woman. It doesn't talk about the word there. The next half of the verse, a man shall not put on a woman's garment. That actually means a woman's clothing. But the man here, again, is this word for warrior guy. And it seems like the warrior guy is trying to stay out of not get hurt by putting on women's clothing. It seems like that to me. I'm not sure. But I think that may be what's going on. And again, if men start doing that, then women are going to be seen as fair game in battle. And so you're going to end up with women being killed. So I think the idea here is to nurture life, to add part of this conclusion, this climactic conclusion of Moses' sermon, is the need to see women in their important role as bringers of life and nurture to young life. and that they have an important aspect in our culture, and they're to be protected. Again, not because they're weaker, but rather because they're stronger and better at doing life-giving aspects. And so again, not just don't murder, enhance life, protect it, create a good climate for it. And so that's what I think is going on here. I think this too is related to glory, right? In the parallel text back in Deuteronomy 21 about the war bride, she put off her nails and her hair and her garments. And garments are glory. Elisha asks for the double portion of Elijah's spirit and he takes Elijah's cloak upon himself. A cloak is glory and power and authority. And so a woman's cloak or garment has to do with emblematically of the nurturing and life-giving aspect that God has called her to have in the context of the culture. So Jesus came as the conquering bridegroom to protect his bride, right? That's the same thing. The only reason why I'm up here instead of a woman is because I'm a representation of Christ ministering his word to you. And you, in corporate worship, are a manifestation of the bridegroom, or the bride, rather. Jesus is the bridegroom. We're all part of the bride. I'm part of the bride when we sing songs. That imagery is firmly established in the scriptures. And Jesus's advent came so that he could do battle, not the church. He does battle to protect his bride, and then she does mopping up stuff. But he's the one to put on the garments of the kit that only he could use to accomplish the salvation of the bride. And so that's, I think, behind this verse. Third verse, preserving the source of life, mothers and birds, and I've already mentioned this a little bit, but verses 6 and 7, if a bird's nest happens to be before you, you know, as we go through Moses' sermons, he has these kind of things, little pictures that would almost never happen in your life, but they're to illustrate a point. And the point is, you don't snuff out life by taking the mother and the birds. And the point is that the mother will be able to have more eggs or little birdies. And yeah, the birds will eventually grow up. But the image is that the mother bird is the source of life and nurture. And you're to preserve that. You're supposed to want that to continue. And so the law says you can't take both of them. And then it tells specifically that you leave the mom. Abortion for the sake of the life of a mother, when the mother's life is endangered, truly endangered, so that having a baby would kill the mom. This text has been used in Christian ethics courses to teach that, yeah, you know, if you have to take the young to save the life of the mother, that's OK. Now, it's almost never the case anymore. Praise God. But the idea is that you have this preexistent life going on and the mother can have more life, etc. And so you preserve her life. You know, this is a little law, right? About little birds. But it's an important law. God says that he tells us, he says, aren't five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. When we read little laws like this about individual little birds, you know, God loves birds. That's important. But he loves you more. And he wants you to know from the context of this to draw analogies to people. You know, Paul said, well, does God care for oxen? Relatively speaking, no. The oxen law about not bridling the ox when he's treading out the grain. Paul says for the purpose of application to the life of men and specifically to the life of preachers being paid for their labors. So we're supposed to understand that while God loves birds, he created them, he cares for them. Beyond that, we're supposed to apply these things to the life of people. And so again, it means the importance of the protection of life by protecting mothers specifically. And it reminds us of the great value that God places upon each of us. God cares about every sparrow. He cares about every hair of every head. And He certainly cares for you in the same way. Jesus comes to bring us blessing. He comes that we might live and that we might have and that this life might have priority. Life has priority. So that's the third law. The fourth law, the final one, the culminating law to the sixth word in his sermon on it is preserving life from the accidental shedding of blood. And we've seen this. We saw this at the beginning when we looked at the very word for thou shalt not kill. It means not just don't murder, it means be careful that human life isn't extinguished. And so the same thing is talked about here in verse 8. When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof that you may not bring guilt or bloodshed in your household if anyone falls from it. Okay? So now, in Exodus, a parallel law to this It's on in Exodus 21, 33 and 34. And if a man opens a pit and if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, if the owner of the pit shall make it good, or rather the owner of the pit shall make it good, he'll give money to their owner, but the dead animal shall be his. So if you take these two laws together, whether it's a pit or whether it's a high place, we have obligations as owners of property. to do things to them that might preserve life and not accidentally lead to the death of life or the death of one's property in terms of animals. So that's the basic idea, then, is that the sixth word is fulfilled when we're careful to try to create situations in our home of safety. But it's not a pit here. It's a roof. And in order to understand this, I think one of the things we're supposed to think about, and there are probably several directions for meditation, right? When we have these kind of enigmatic laws that use specific things, it's a new house, for instance. Why? Well, we're not sure. But there's all kinds of things going on. But one thing that's going on is this is where people would entertain. They would get together for Christmas or whatever it is, and they'd have a good time on top of the roof. OK, that's where this culture would entertain. And so in our entertainments, we're supposed to be careful that people don't get hurt. So, you know, Angie and Steve were having a New Year's Eve party, and they got to think about, you know, trying to avoid things that would cause people to unnecessarily get hurt there at their house. This is what we're supposed to do. And as I said, if you kind of connect this up with the previous chapter, at the end of 21, we had this structure that was built to hang a dead body on. And this really pictured the atoning work of Jesus. And the atoning work of Jesus pictured in that, as well as the, remember the neck of the heifer was broken at the first section of Deuteronomy 21. Jesus' atoning work is given to us as Moses is moving to the conclusion of his sermon on the sixth commandment. And now at the end of the commandment, the sermon on the commandment, Atonement is no longer the real picture, but joy is the picture. Safe rejoicing together in community, in people's lives. And so we're moved from a place where atonement is made to a place where rejoicing happens. And in the context of that rejoicing, we're told, be careful that people don't get hurt. Be careful to preserve life. Think about the sixth commandment when you're entertaining, because Jesus comes to bring us joy and community. So the great culmination of Moses' Sermon on the Sixth Word is joy and community on a rooftop, made safe by the members of the community, applying the principles of the Sixth Word. So it's kind of a neat deal, kind of a neat thing that it comes to its climax in rejoicing and God not wanting our rejoicing times to be turned into times of sorrow. Now, we could end there, but I want to move on and deal one last time with one last set of verses. And I've mentioned this before, but we did it very quickly. Rejoicing life in community, that culminates Moses' sermon, has another aspect to it that Leviticus chapter 19 talks about in verses 15 to 18. So open your Bibles up. to Leviticus 19, 15 to 18. And I want to just make a few brief points about this text as another application of the sixth commandment. Remember, Leviticus 19 has all these 70 commandments that are kind of a commentary on the 10 words. And these are the verses that specifically speak of enhancing life. So let's read it together. Verses 15 to 18. You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go about as a tailbearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. Okay. So what he's saying is that he wants you not to take a stand against the life of your neighbor. The sixth commandment is not either deliberately or accidentally damaging the life of your neighbor. And that's why commentators always connect up these verses to the sixth commandment primarily. And so what we're told here is, is that in order to not stand against the life of your neighbor, in order to properly apply the commandment not to do damage to your neighbor's life in the sixth word, we're told here some specific things to do. And the first thing it says is don't go about as a tailbearer. Goes on to say, you shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Love the neighbor as yourself. Return his property. It's the same basic theme going on. So these these verses in Leviticus chapter 19, which is the very center, by the way, of that 70 commandment structure of application of the 10 commandments, the very heart of it. is to love your neighbor as yourself. And it tells us some very specific ways to do that. So we're not supposed to stand against the life of our neighbor. We're supposed to enhance the life of our neighbor. And I've got your outlines in several directions. First, by not slandering him. Our reputation, our name is our life. OK, so the first thing it says is don't stand against the life of your neighbor. It's not a small thing to slander your neighbor, to talk about him. You get together and say, oh, did you hear about this? Oh, did you know about this? Oh, isn't he like this? That's slandering your neighbor. And when we do that, we're violating the sixth commandment. It's like we're killing him. It's like we're murdering him. Because a person's reputation is almost, I would say, it's almost more important than his physical life. You know, if you shoot me, I go to heaven and that's that. If you slander me, you know, I got to live with that loss of reputation and with that slander, wherever long it might take to get sorted out. And even then, you know how it is. If I could set up a mental image in your mind of something, and even though you may know it's not true, the mental image sticks and it kind of colors your perception of that person. So you may get rid of the specifics of the slander, but the tint of slander, right? The tint of slander, the tint of, you know, something bad will stay with that person and his reputation to you. So it's, I would say it's worse than killing somebody. Don't do it. You know, we are commanded to stand for the life of our neighbor. And to do that, we want to use our speech in a way that does not and cannot be read by someone else as slandering our neighbor. Really important stuff. Secondly, by not having a bad attitude toward him. Right, because that's what it goes on to say. It says, don't be a tailbearer among your people. Don't take a stand against your neighbor's life. Don't hate your brother in your heart. Don't have a bad attitude, right? Don't hate your brother in your heart. Things happen in families, in communities. We all get sideways because we're all sinners. And even if we weren't all sinners, we're all sort of imperfect in our understanding of what we try to communicate, whether we're committing sin or whether we're just sinning by not being more careful about how we act toward one another. Bad things happen in community. And this verse tells us don't have a bad attitude toward your neighbor. Trusting God's vindication of something's going wrong. Right. So so, you know, Rushkin, he says that this text is a reminder to do a mental dump of information. It affects your memory. Somebody's done something wrong. Somebody, you know, maybe they've really done something wrong. You have this in your memory. God says, get rid of it. Flush the memory. Do a reboot on the computer. Don't hold that person's this bad attitude toward that person in your mind. The best way we could apply the advent of Jesus who brings neighborly love as we move toward the new year is to make a commitment right here to be careful with our speech toward each other, first of all, and secondly, to try to do this dump of our memories. God says your memory is something you're under control of. You're supposed to dump it if it's causing you to have a bad attitude toward your neighbor. Don't have a bad attitude toward your neighbor. Now, you know, it's not just about your thoughts, though. It's about reality, too. It says don't hate your neighbor in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. So in other words, your neighbor You know, every time you're living next to somebody here at the church, every time they get up in the morning, they take their garbage and throw it on your lawn. And so, well, Pastor Terry says, I got to have a good attitude. Don't want to be standing in his life. My neighbor don't want to go tell the church about it because don't want to be a tailbearer and don't want to hold in my mind. So I'm going to do a metal dump for what he did. Well, now, in order to do a metal dump, a lot of times you have to do what the very next part of the verse says to do. You have to reason firmly. That's what this says here. You got to reason firmly with your neighbor. You shall surely rebuke him. It doesn't mean call him a name. It means to reason firmly, although nicely and charitably with your neighbor about their sin. You're not supposed to forget it if he just keeps dumping garbage on your yard deliberately. Part of the way we love each other and stand for each other's life, again, it's sort of counterintuitive, but it's true, is by loving enough to talk to our neighbor kindly, gently, lovingly, but firmly reasoning with them about what they have done improperly. You know, the world is filled with all kinds of people, but there's people that don't really like controversy and there's people that are more They don't shrink from controversy. They don't really think about it all that much. And so for people that are prone to be forthright and outspoken, you know, they know this part, the rebuking part. Yeah, I do it all the time. Now, they may not do it very much in love. They may do it in a way that makes them keep mental attitudes of hatred toward each other. And they may do it in terms of slamming other people. But at least they're talking to people. Now, you've got other kind of people. They don't like controversy. They just assume let the matter be all papered over and not worry about it, you know. But what happens is if you don't like controversy, some people, a lot of people that don't want to rebuke their neighbor, that don't have the courage to speak directly to someone or think it's unloving, they're going to get a bad attitude in their heart. And that's exactly what this verse is. Don't do that. And the way you don't have a bad attitude is by speaking forthrightly with your neighbor. You know, it's amazing to me how people's reputations in any community, including church communities, they can get real sideways when nobody's really ever talked to somebody about the things everybody's getting sideways with them about. Everybody's just talking over here about somebody else, but nobody really wants to directly talk to them and work it through to resolution. That's a little bit of an exaggeration for effect, but you know what I'm saying? The end result of that is you stand against the life of that person. You end up having a perspective on their character that you then share with other people, and you slander that person, and you're standing against the life of that person, you might as well just shoot him and put him down. Because it's easier for him to die and go to heaven than to walk around, him or her, for years with a bad reputation because people won't forthrightly talk to him, kindly and gently, but firmly reasoning with them about the things that they're doing wrong. The sixth commandment says we're supposed to love each other enough to stand for each other's life. And the way we do that is by avoiding slander, avoiding bad attitudes. And the way we do that, the text says, is to speak with your neighbor about the things that are bugging you, whether they're real or perceived. You've got to do it. The Qumran community commenting on this says that you're supposed to talk frankly and I would say charitably, but they say it this way, in truth and humility and in loving consideration of a man. Nicely put. That's how you go about talking to somebody about perceived problems that you see in their life. So, frankly and charitably about what he may be doing that could be sinful. And then we get back to the mental state. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, not bear sin because of him. And there's the other thing. Not only do you sin against him, but you're bearing sin if you fail to do that and have a mental attitude against him. Now, you're bearing sin, OK? They say that the slanderer kills three people. He kills the person he's talking about, their reputation. He kills the person that goes into their ear and changes their attitude and makes them more twisted. And it kills you for articulating such a thing. It makes your perspective on life and people twisted. So it does this threefold murder, the ancients have said. Well, here you bear sin if you don't rebuke your neighbor charitably, but frankly. Then it says, you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge. And here again, it's commanding you not in here. It's not just doing a mental dump of what he's done. This is prohibiting nursing a grudge. You know, a nurse nourishes something and feeds it. And usually we can't stay neutral in our head when we've got a bad attitude towards somebody because we haven't worked it out or just, you know, let God take care of it. Sometimes you can't work it out to fruition, but you just got to leave it with God. Well, usually we don't. It's not just a matter of having a bad attitude. Usually we then nurse that bad attitude. Usually then we'll interpret all kinds of other events in terms of that bad attitude. Right. So now the person says X and we'll say, oh, see, that reinforces what I thought they were a jerk about. And this is the specific thing that's being talked about here is nursing a grudge, not just having a grudge. But actually, you know, talking to yourself, that internal conversation, evaluating other actions of the... Oh, I see now why they said that. I understand that now, because they're jerks and they're this and they're that. And that's nursing a grudge, you see. And again, God wants us to do this mental dump, this memory dump. Control your memories. And don't nurse a grudge. And the best way not to nurse a grudge is to kill it. Get rid of it. If it sits there in your bosom, this grudge, you're likely going to try to nurse it along. Because otherwise you feel kind of guilty. Why do I feel I have this bad attitude towards somebody? You need to come up with reasons why, right? If you're going to have a story that somebody's a jerk, then you've got to have, unless you just completely have no conscience, You've got to come up with a lot of reasons as to why they're a jerk. If you start filling in all these reasons and you're nursing a grudge, then that's what this particular phrase in Hebrew is about. Bearing a grudge doesn't mean just carrying it, it means actually nursing it along. All this is standing against the life of our neighbor. All this is a violation of the sixth commandment, nursing the grudge. Rastuni talks about this mental thing. He says, our memory is to be purged and our outlook thereby altered. We view men and events in terms of our memory. In this respect, memory is an invaluable and necessary tool for learning because our knowledge of the past gives us discernment for the present and future. Thus, where a man has repented and made restitution, we warp ourselves by continuing to harbor a grudge. This aspect of Leviticus 19.18 deals with our mind and memory. Very astute, I think. Very good. So part of obeying the sixth commandment is having a proper memory where we redefine things in the context of our love. First Corinthians 13.5 says love, which means God, thinks no evil and it doesn't keep a list of wrong suffered. See, when we keep a list of wrong suffered from somebody, we're nursing a grudge. And when we think evil about people, we're harboring a bad attitude in our heart. And Jesus comes down to bring neighborly love. And God's character described in First Corinthians 13 is such that it doesn't do that. It doesn't do these things, and neither should we. And then finally, by actively loving each other instead. Leviticus 19 goes on to say, don't bear a grudge. against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And I've made this point a couple of times now, but in the particular Hebrew there, you shall love your neighbor. You shall love to your neighbor is what it actually says. There's this implication of preposition there. So it's not talking about a mental attitude just of love. You're supposed to have love to your neighbor. You're supposed to be doing something right. So the end result of the way to change your attitude, to take care of all these problems that are standing against the life of your neighbor in violation of the sixth word, the culmination of the best way to deal with that is to engage in active love to your neighbor. That's why we need Christmas every year. That's why it's good to actively love each other by giving them gifts and putting out a good attitude again. It's starting the year off right again by purging all the old slanders, harboring of grudges, failure to speak forthrightly to one another. May the Lord God grant us as we enter into the new year, we'll do so remembering that ultimately the advent of Jesus Christ that we celebrated yesterday is the coming of love. It's the coming of neighborliness. What did the fall do? It produced unneighborliness even between husband and wife, bickering, fighting, bad attitudes, grudges, slanders. That's what the fallen community is. And Jesus came to definitively roll back the curse by rolling back our violations of the sixth word committed not so much with our knives, but with the knife that comes out of our tongue. Jesus says a sword comes out of his tongue to speak the truth in love. And as a result, it's a healing device. He slays us for the preaching of his word and he brings us back together. That's what the Savior does. And may the Lord God cause us to rejoice in the advent of Jesus Christ. Look at the new year to come and commit ourselves afresh to love actively. That's what Jesus did. That's what we who are made in his image are to do. We're to rebuild Christian community that had been destroyed by the fall. Jesus came. Christmas is about the advent of neighborliness, the advent of the ability to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, the way God loves us. May the Lord God grant us this year in our families, in this church, with our friends, The grace to put aside, consciously to commit to put aside slanders, bad attitudes, harboring of grudges, and put on frankness of speech and active deeds of love given toward one another. This will be living out Christmas in the context of our lives. will lead to that great rejoicing together that is spoken of at the end of Moses' sermon. May the Lord God be blessed for bringing life and that abundantly, as our Savior said. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for our Savior's advent. We thank you for the coming of him who came that we might have life and that abundantly. Forgive us, Father. for all the ways that we diminish our lives and the lives of those around us. And bless us, Father, as we attempt to commit ourselves afresh in the power of the Holy Spirit to love one another. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.