Sunday 11 • 04 • 18

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Every one of you shall revere his father and his mother. You shall keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal. I am the Lord your God. When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or on the day after, and anything left over till the third day shall be burned up with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted. It will not be accepted, and everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edges, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely. You shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind. But you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Good afternoon. Thank you all. It's good to be here with y'all this afternoon and glad to be able to preach for y'all and proud to do so in part because I don't think he mentioned it. You may not know it, but Jeff Bradford completed a half marathon today. Everything but give him a round of applause. Your pastor doesn't just preach well, he runs well, and I think we can respect that.

Today we're continuing to look at the book of Leviticus, and it's an honor to be able to come in here and help us to reflect upon this chapter. As I have been studying this chapter, I've come to love it deeply, and my hope is that as we gather together, it'll encourage you in the same way.

But before we begin, I'll tell you something that I don't love. I don't love my name. That's kind of weird, right? I don't love the name Chuck. If I were to name myself, I would not have chosen Chuck. My mom is here. I'm sorry—not holding that against you. True confession time: in my AP English class, my teacher and I bonded over the dislike of Chuck. She decided to start calling me Shook because she hated that hard "ch" sound. I don't like Chuck. It seems kind of blah, but I don't want to go Charles—it's a little too formal. Charlie—that was my uncle. That's my son. I'm kind of a man without a name that I like. But I make do. It's what I'm used to. It's what I'm stuck with, right?

Today, as we're looking at this passage, God gives his people a name. God names his people. He tells them who they are, but it's a name that a lot of us, I think, feel like I do towards Chuck. Something that we're stuck with. Something that we kind of have to make do with. Something that we don't really feel like fits us or that we're comfortable with. He gives the name holy to his people.

And as we reflect on this passage, what I want to do is help us all understand this name, and hopefully as we come to understand this name, it'll become something that we feel fits us a little bit better, that we'll love a little bit more, that we'll enjoy as a name that God has given to us.

The Holy Love Their Neighbor

Today, as we reflect upon this passage, the outline for today—the thing that I hope that we will come to see—is that the holy love their neighbor. The holy love their neighbor.

But before we begin, I'm going to pause and pray that God might help us to come to understand these truths and write them on our heart. You're welcome to pray along with me.

Our God and our Father, we thank you that as a father, you do name us and you help us to understand the beauty of the name you give to us. As we come today, we pray that you would encourage us and strengthen us by your word and by your Spirit to delight in you. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.

When I was in high school, we watched a miniseries by Alex Haley called Roots. This miniseries was based on a book from 1976 that captured the nation, and 50% of people who had televisions watched it. It was a story about a man named Kunta Kinte who was taken from his home country of Africa, enslaved, and brought to Virginia. But more deeply than that, it was a story about identity.

The moment that I can still remember seeing—the line that is indelibly marked in my memory—is from a scene where Kunta Kinte had been named by his slave owner, Toby. But he wouldn't take that name. So he was brought outside by his overseer, tied to a tree, and he began to whip him, saying, "Say your name so that you know who you are. You are Toby." But as he was being whipped, as he was being told to say his name was Toby, he cried out, "My name is Kunta. Kunta Kinte." He did not want to let go of his name. He did not want to let go of his identity.

The story helps us understand why by taking us back to when he was younger, back to a time when he was with his father. His father told him this: "You are Kunta Kinte, son of Amora Kinte. Your name is your spirit. Your name is your shield." So when he was tempted to cry out Toby, he went deep down and remembered his true identity—the identity his father gave him, that he was Kunta Kinte.

This passage of Leviticus is written to people who were enslaved for four hundred years. They had been in bondage in Egypt. They were shaped by the pharaoh and the way that he had ruled over them. They were shaped by the culture of Egypt. And here in the book of Leviticus, what God is doing is he's calling together this people and he's speaking out to them their true name, their true identity. He's telling them, you are not named in the way that the pharaoh named you, but you are something different. You are something deeper.

He says this in verses one and two:

The Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, 'You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.'" — Leviticus 19:1-2

Their God gives the people of Israel their name. The name of the father giving it to his son, Israel. And he wants the people of Israel to have that name as their shield, to have that name as their spirit, to have it be something that is deep down in their heart.

Throughout this chapter, again and again, God says, "I am the Lord." Sixteen times in chapter 19 he says, "I am the Lord." Why does he say that over and over and over again? Because he's trying to drive down deep into the heart of these formerly enslaved people their true identity—that they are not named by the world, but they are named by God. That they are named by Yahweh, that they are named by the Lord, and that is their true identity.

Think about the power and the beauty of this. All of us want an identity. All of us want something that tells us who we are, and we want that to be something that is valuable, something that is beautiful, something that is glorious. Most of us spend our life trying to carve out an identity. We want something to mark us. So we look at what we've done and say, "Is this good? Does this show me that I am valuable?" We look at what we could do and say, "Would I be valuable if I have this?" Our life is filled with anxiety because we often see our actions, our products, our attitude as things that shape us and make us valuable. We are looking for an identity and we are trying to form it by the things that we do.

This is the way that the Israelites lived. They lived for four hundred years with the pharaoh saying, "You are only valuable to me by what you do." They lived as slaves who had to work to earn their food. They had to work to get the privileges that they needed for life. Again and again, if they didn't work, they would be punished. They would be killed.

But here, God says to them, "I am giving you a new identity. I'm giving you a new identity that you don't have to slave to get. It is given to you. It is a gift. It's a new identity that you don't have to maintain by your efforts. It is who you are, not what you do."

God brings these former slaves, these Israelites, into this place where he can show them their deep and true identity—that they are the children of God, that they are valuable, that they are glorious. He gives them an identity that is greater than anything in this world.

Be holy, for I am holy. — Leviticus 19:2

Isn't that remarkable? He says this in verse two. He gives his own identity to his people.

The identity of who I am, I give to you. My name, I give to you. I am holy. Be holy. This is not something that you have to go and earn and work hard and be a slave in order for me to give you my blessing. I am giving you myself. I am giving you my identity. I am giving you my glory.

Be holy for I am holy. — Leviticus 19:2

God names his people as holy, as a gift to them. This is what holiness ultimately is. Holiness is ultimately an identity that God gives his people. But we still struggle with this mentality, don't we? We still have things in our life that are like pharaohs to us—the pharaoh of work, the pharaoh of body, the pharaoh of money, the pharaoh of family. Things that we look to and say, "If I do these things, if I have these things, then that makes me valuable. That makes me glorious." And we slave ourselves into these things, working for them that they might give us blessings, fearing them that they will give us death. They demand on us but never give us the identity we long for.

But God's people always have an identity that is given and not earned. That is not achieved but is received. God gives his people the identity of being holy. And this is the beautiful thing for God's people—that they are named this way. And it's beautiful because it leads us in two different directions. It leads us both upward and it leads us outward.

Identity Points Upward

First, it leads us upward because it reminds us that our true identity, our identity that is given to us, is something that is glorious. It is something that is like the Lord. And so throughout this passage, as he calls his people to live in a certain way, he says, "Do these things. Why? Because I am the Lord. Do these things. Why? Because I am the Lord"—because all these things point us to him.

When we think about holiness, we often think about the way that people act. But if you look in Leviticus, if you look in the Old Testament, you see that holiness isn't really about obedience. The way that you can see this is the fact that a table is holy. Do tables obey? No, tables don't obey. But why is it that God calls a table holy? It's because that table has an identity. That table has been named. It has been named holy because it is set apart for God. It belongs to God, and it's there for what purpose? To point to God.

This is what we see in the temple. The temple is holy not because it obeyed, but because it pointed upward. You see this in the way that the temple was constructed. The bottom portions of the temple were all made of brass, the middle was all silver, and the top was gold. Why was it constructed that way? It's because this holy thing, this temple, was built to bring your eyes from down upward—to go from the brass to the gold. And that's what made it holy. It had an identity. It was named to be something that points to God, and so it was built to point to God.

That's what this chapter is trying to help God's people see: that they have been named holy because they are to point to God. That their identity is there to reflect upward, to help people to see what God is like.

Identity Reframed

This means that holiness is probably different than what you think it is. What do you picture when you picture holiness? You probably picture some guy up on a mountaintop communing with God. Or you picture what you'd see on Instagram—a cup of coffee, a Bible, and a prayer journal. But what do all those pictures of holiness have in common? Being alone.

So often when we think about holiness, we think about it as being disconnected from life, being separated from the world, and being something that is individually, privately, communing and reflecting and thinking about God. We think of holiness as inward focus. As someone who's kind of above the cares and concerns of the world, floating as though they don't matter.

But the picture of holiness that we see in this chapter—the picture of what holiness really is—is not being disconnected from the world. It is touching the world, is present in the world, is impacting the world. It's like the temple on the ground, pointing upward. God gives his people an identity. He gives them the name holy. Because he wants them to see their family heritage in a way that they pointed outward into the world.

Holiness is not disconnected from the world but is deeply embedded into all that the world is. It is not above the world but is in the midst of the world. It's not ethereal.

It is earthy. And throughout this chapter again and again and again, what God wants us to see is that he wants us to be holy. That means he wants us to be in the world. He wants us to be holy who he has named us. Holy—the identity he's given to us. Holy in a way that that identity is seen and understood by others. Holy in the way that as they see that identity, it doesn't point them to us but it points them to him.

Why am I named Chuck? I'm named Chuck because my uncle had three girls and my dad had three boys. He had an extra slot, an extra name. So he gave it to my uncle in that way, but not only did he give it to my uncle, he also kind of honored his mom because my name, Charles Holland, was the name of her father. And because my father loved his mom, loved his grandfather, loved his brother, he put that name onto me. So that identity would reflect out the family heritage and the love that existed in the family. That makes me like my name a little bit more.

But that is what God is doing to us by giving us the name holy. He's putting us into the family. Giving to us the family name, but then shining out to the world the family image that he wants the world to see. An image of love.

You see, holiness is an identity but it's an identity that has a calling. It has a direction. It has a purpose. Holiness leads us to love.

The Sandwich Structure

You know, this chapter is a sandwich. For those of you who are here, you remember Jeff talking about sandwich. Sandwiches were popular in Hebrew writing not because they would eat them when they were writing—they weren't invented yet. But they were popular as a way that they would bring a point into focus. So they'd write about something, then they'd write about something else and they'd come back to what they had just written about. And by doing so, they would bring your attention to the thing that is in the middle and it makes it a sandwich, right? It's a turkey sandwich on rye, not a rye sandwich on turkey, because the meat's the important thing.

And in this passage, it's important to see the middle. The beginning of this passage is seen in chapter 19 verses one and two where God says:

Be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. — Leviticus 19:1-2

The end of this chapter, which is not printed for you, is this in verses 36 and 37 where it says:

You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just scale because I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules and do them for I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:36-37

This passage begins and ends with the identity of the people of God—that they belong to the Lord. They are named by him. And so they're called to be holy. But that means we need to go to the middle. The sandwich points us to the middle, and what do we see in the middle?

You shall not take vengeance or bear grudge against the sons of your own people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:18

And what the Hebrew writers are doing is they're helping us to see that we who have been given the name of God, we who have holy put on to us, we who have the identity of God, are called to live that out into the world in a distinct way. In love.

Holiness as Action

And so all these kind of random commands that seem like why are they here in this passage? All these commands are not really random, but they're always that God calls his people into an earthy holiness. Always that he calls them to demonstrate the family heritage in real life. They are always that God calls his people to step out with action into the world. The character of love.

You see, for so many of us, when we think of love, we think of emotions, we think of feelings, we think of kind of spontaneity, but what we see here is that love is something that is enacted, something that's lived out. And God wants his people to act out, to live out the identity he's given to them, to live out their holiness, and that looks like love.

And so as we see this chapter, what we see are things like business, judicial proceedings, dealing with people with disabilities. We see issues of addressing falsehood and contracts. All these things are things that God says, "Here is an opportunity for you to love. In your day to day life, to live this out."

But why is it that he wants us to live out love? It's because this is, of course, the way that he has been treating us. This is the way that he's been treating his people.

There's a fascinating section in this chapter. It kind of seems out of place. You may have wondered why it was there. Look down in chapter 19 at verse 5:

When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or the day after. Anything left over until the third day shall be burned up with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted; it will not be accepted. — Leviticus 19:5-7

And everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity, because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord. And that person shall be cut off from his people.

Why is that there? When there's so many other things talking about commandments of how you're acting out there, why is there a little section about sacrifice? About the peace offering? Because this sacrifice reflects exactly what God wants his people to do. Here what he's talking about is a peace offering. Here's what he's talking about: a time where you would respond to God's goodness freely, out of no obligation freely, and take part of his goodness, the abundance he's given to you, and bring it to God and give it back to him in a way that you say, "You have loved me. You've given to me generously, and so I'm going to offer this up to you."

But the thing that I like about these offerings in particular is that these offerings were parties. Because here's what would happen: when you would bring this peace offering, it was one of the few sacrifices that didn't get completely burnt up. Instead, what would happen is part of it would get burnt off—the fat—but then the rest had to be eaten. You had to eat meat. If you're a vegetarian, I'm sorry, but that meant you would have to eat the steak. For those of you that like steak, you're excited.

And this is what God called his people to do: to see his goodness and to take a portion of his goodness and give it back to him by eating it, by enjoying it, by experiencing his goodness. But listen, what does he say in this command? He says, "Don't leave it until the third day." Why did he not want it left to the third day? Was he worried about spoiling? No. This is part of the beauty. When you would go and you'd give him this sacrifice, it would be more than you could ever eat. And so if you were to obey this commandment, you had to bring people along with you. You had to bring people along with you so that they would see and understand the way that God has been good to you. They had to eat the meat with you, or you couldn't obey God in the sacrifice. You couldn't do the sacrifice rightly. The only way you could do the sacrifice rightly is to celebrate God's goodness by bringing people in to taste the goodness with you.

And that is exactly what God is doing in this chapter. "I have given you the identity of holy. I've given you my name. It is a name that is a sign of love, and I want you to show that love out into the world. I want people around you to taste and see the goodness that I have given to you. You have been loved richly by me, and I want others to taste that richness with you. So offer yourself as a sacrifice. Give yourself as a sacrifice to bring others into tasting the goodness of God."

God tells his people that he wants them to be people of love—not in this abstract idea like we sometimes think holiness is, but in a tangible way so that they taste it, so they experience it, so they know it.

You know, God himself is holy, right? God is holy, and how do we know his holiness? How do we taste his holiness? It's by Jesus, right? It's by the way that Jesus has come into the world and showed us what holiness looks like, showed us a way that pointed us upward to God by showing us his glory, his majesty, his strength, his wisdom. And showed us the nature of that holiness: that it was a holiness that was directed outward, a holiness that was oriented towards the world, a holiness that came not to serve himself but to serve others, to through his good care invite into the world the goodness of God in the way that they could taste it.

And we see this most clearly on the cross, right? When on the cross, Jesus came and took on to himself all the sins so that he could be the pure sacrifice, so that we wouldn't have to be the sacrifice, but we could be the children, the ones that were named by God and not named by sin. Jesus shows us love and shows us holiness in a concrete, tangible way. He helps us to know God because of the way that he lived. And that is what God calls his people to be like: to be holy people named by him that come into this world in a way to show forth the love of God in a tangible way where they are brought in to taste it, to see it, to understand it.

And so this chapter brings us out in an earthy way. We're going to look now at verses starting in verse nine through verse eighteen because here are five ways that God in particular drills down and says, "This is what it looks like to love in the world." Five ways that are ways that we wrestle within our life, that we deal within our life, that are opportunities for us to show forth the identity that we have as God's people. The areas that God deals with here are the areas of resources, truth, power, justice, and sin.

First: Resources

Look at verses nine and ten. There, God says:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge. Neither shall you gather the gleanings after the harvest.

And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner.

Here, God wants us to see that having the name holy and living it out in love means that we are generous with our resources. This is the family identity. This is what it looks like to point to God. So here he talks about your agricultural practices. He says that if you have a field, don't get every single bit of it. Don't strip it bare but leave some for the poor. Leave some for the people who are passing through and don't have means to take care of themselves.

So, holiness means to be generous to those who are in need, but not in a generic sense of kind of writing a check once a year and thinking that you're great because you gave to the human fund. But it means particularly building into your life a pattern of generosity. A pattern of living out the identity of generosity to your people around you.

Why We Give: Our Identity in God

But why do we do this? Again, we do this because this is our identity. So how does this section end? It ends with him saying,

I am the Lord.

In every single one of these sections ends with that phrase because God wants to drive home to the people that you don't do this to get an identity. You do this because this is your identity. You don't do this to get God to love you. You do this because God loves you.

I am the Lord,

he says. Which reminds the people of Israel of who God is, his own identity. "I am the Lord" reminds them of the fact that here they are in a wilderness, but where are they going? They're going to a promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where God is going to be generously giving them in abundance all the things that they need.

I am the Lord.

What kind of identity does their Father have? It is one of generosity. And think about them as slaves—they were impoverished people. They had no land of their own. They had no money of their own. They had to be given stuff by the Egyptians so that they could even leave the country. They were poor people. But God provided for them abundantly, provided them through the Egyptians, provided them with a land that they didn't cultivate, that would be filled with all the good things that they need. God has been generous to them. He says, this is who I am.

I am the Lord.

So this is the way that you should be. This is your heritage. This is your family identity. This is your name.

Be holy for I am the Lord.

So that means be generous. This is the same God that we have too, right? We have a God who is generous to us, and so we, the people of God, still have this call to be generous to others. We still have to think about our resources and see them as a powerful thing.

Jeff has reminded us that a lot of Leviticus is performance art. It's a way that the people of Israel step into the drama, the story of God's work in the world and understand what it looks like to be forgiven of sins and understand what it looks like to be made clean by God. And that's what opportunity you have with your money. To see it as performance art. To see it as a way that you can teach the world the character of God with money.

That's different from the way that we think about it, right? We think about money as something that names us, shapes us, gives us an identity. I'm something because of my bank account. But God says, no. That's not what names you. I name you. You are holy. So don't use that money to build your identity. Don't feel good about yourself because you're making six figures. Feel good because of what I say you are. You are holy.

And instead, take that money. Don't use it to build yourself up, but use it to be generous, to give out, to show the world, to do performance art, to invite them into the parable by saying, God is generous. Taste it, see it, feel it, understand it.

Why does God give you money, people of God? So that you can be like him. You can be generous. You can be rich. So don't take all your resources. Don't take all your fields and think that I have to strip them bare to use them all for myself. But instead, see those very resources as an opportunity, a stage that you get to act out the generosity of God to those that are around you.

We're called to be generous. Why? Because he is the Lord. That is the identity that he has put onto us that we reflect to the world.

Living Out Generosity

So what does this mean? How do you use your resources? Do you take every single penny and think about the way that you can strip out of it the standard of living that you aspire to? Or do you leave margins? Do you leave space so that you can have the opportunity to be generous, to show God's generosity?

What would it look like as a college student to skip a meal, to not go see a movie, to set aside $10 every month, to give to someone who just happens to be in need? What does it look like as a family to downgrade a part of your standard of living?

Did not keep up with the rest of Raleigh and use that money instead to support a missionary. We're to put it into an account so that you can be ready to share it with someone who is in your community group and has a financial hardship. God hasn't given you that money so that it names you. He gave you that money so that you could point others outward to him. God calls us to use resources as a way to show the world, to point them upward to his character.

Holiness and Truth

But then he moves from resources to truth. Holiness calls us to concretely love our neighbor in truth. And so we see this in verses eleven and twelve where he says:

You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely. You shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God, for I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:11-12

Here what God is doing is he's calling his community to integrity in the way that they were dealing. This was a time before contracts, before they had written things that would hold them to what they promised. Everything in the society was built upon trusting someone's word. But that meant that if you lied, you could use it as a way to advantage yourself. You could lie to steal and say that no, that's mine. You could lie to orient contracts and say, no, I never promised that and get out of an obligation. You could lie as a way to advantage yourself and disadvantage your neighbor.

But God says, don't do that. That's not who you are. That's not your identity. That doesn't reflect me. For I am the Lord. He's calling us to come back to him, come back to his identity, to see who he is—that he is the God of truth.

And the greatest thing that we have from him is his promises and knowing that they are true, knowing that he doesn't lie to us, knowing that he won't back out of those promises, knowing that when they are hard, he will stick with them—which we see on the cross, right? When it was at the greatest moment of cost, he didn't back out but he pushed through and honored his promise to us. God is a God of truth and our faith is built on that. Our joy is built on that.

And so he says, this is who I am and this is who you are to be. This is your name. This is your identity. Be people of truth.

This is important when you think about it because if they can't trust your word, they can't trust the God that you worship. If they don't trust your word, then they don't trust God's word that you proclaim. The way that God's community handles truth will reflect upon the God that is the center of that community.

And so how are you known in your community? How are you known in business as someone who shades the truth to your advantage or do you hold true to the promises that you've made even when it costs you? Do you keep with your word as long as it is convenient or do you keep with your word as long as it has been said even if it is costly? The way that the people of the Lord handle truth teaches the world about God and his identity.

Holiness and Power

Then God continues and he calls his people to think about the way that they use power in light of him. We see this starting in verse 13. There he says:

You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:13-14

Here, God is calling his people to use their power to serve and not to get. All of these ways that are mentioned are ways that you can use your power to advantage yourself against your neighbor. You can use it to oppress, to keep back what belongs to your neighbor, to use it to get resources for yourself away from your neighbor, to rob your neighbor by your strength, by your political power, your power in the justice system, or your physical strength.

He even sees us in the way that you could use power as an employer and hold back your wages from people. And the people that are described here are people that lived hand to mouth. So if you didn't give them that wage that day, they couldn't eat that day, which would make them desperate. It would hurt them, but it would also give you more power to hold out to them, to bargain for a lower wage, or to make them do more work than you agreed to.

But God says, don't do that. That is not who you are. That is not who I am. How did I use my power? I am the Lord. How did I use my power? I used it to free you. I used it to bless you, to take you out of slavery, and bring you into a promised land. I used my power not to advantage myself but to advantage you. And that is who I am, and then that is who you shall be. That is your name. That is your identity. Use your power to serve others, not to advantage yourself.

What do you do with your power? What do you do with the power that you have? The power that has been given to you.

We can think about this as employers. How do we treat our employees and use our power to serve them, to help them, as opposed to using them as stepping stones to more power and advancing our career. We can think about it as parents. As parents, we have power over weak people—our children—and we can use that power to harm them, to advantage us, getting them to conform in obedience so that we don't look bad. But what do we teach them? We teach them that might equals right. And that's why Paul says, "Parents, don't exasperate your children." Don't use your power to harm them because that just drives them away from seeing the beauty of a God who uses his power to serve. And that is what we must do with our power. Not use it for ourself but use it to serve, to be a picture, a parable to help people see the God who is all powerful and uses all that power in humble service of his creatures.

Justice and Righteousness

Fourthly, God calls his people to act out love and justice. He does this in verses 15 where he says:

You shall do no injustice in court. You should not be partial to the poor, defer to the great but in righteousness, judge your neighbor. You should not go around and slander among your people and stand up against the life of your neighbor, for I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:15

God calls people to pursue justice for others, even if it doesn't fit with their agenda. He speaks to how people could be local leaders and a case is brought to them and they might have a person that they like who's on one side of the case or a group of people who they want to curry favor with and they could use their power to build an advantage relationally and skew justice, tilt the scales so that they get something in return. But God says, no, do not do this. Why? Because I am the Lord. That is not who I am. That is not who I name you. That is not your identity.

God does not tip the scales of justice for his advantage but he allows justice to bring him the greatest harm. On the cross, we see justice fall on Christ. Why? To serve others, to bring others into his family. And this is what he wants his people to do—not use justice to advantage themself but use justice to serve. Make sure that justice flourishes that people see and understand God.

We too have to think about this. I know even for myself, when I go in to vote, I'm a checkbook voter. That's my tendency to think about how this is going to affect my pocket, how is this going to impact me in my day to day life, what will be most helpful for me financially? We all when we go into that voting box have a tendency to think about our tribes. Am I red or blue? In which way will I vote to advantage that tribe? We try to think about our own impact. Is this tax going to help me? Is this tax going to hurt me? And whether that should be what we vote for.

But the people of God don't use justice to their own advantage. They use justice to advantage others because that's what Jesus did for us. So I'm not telling you how to vote. But when you vote, what is it that is leading you in your votes? Do you pray about your votes? Do you think about God's character in your voting and do you act out justice for your neighbor in the way that you vote?

Love in Response to Harm

God continues lastly and says, not only is it in money, in resources, in truth, in power, in justice, but it is in sin that you live out my identity. We see this in verses 17 and 18. He says:

You shall not hate your brother in your heart but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear grudge against the sons of your own people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:17-18

God is saying we are going to have people that hurt us. We're going to have people that come and do evil against us, that sin against us, and our gut reaction is to respond back with anger, with vengeance, to respond back to evil with evil. But this will not reflect the character of God—the God who is gracious, the God who came to serve and die for his enemies. He's a God of grace and he wants his people to act graciously. So even when they are sinned against, to not respond with vengeance, to not respond with hate, to not respond with coldness in their heart but instead to reflect back a love for their neighbor.

And isn't it interesting the way that he's been building towards this point, starting out with just kind of outward agricultural use of resources and keeps moving deeper and deeper into our hearts, to get down to the deepest part of our hearts—the way that our hearts can hold and nurse grudges, the way that our hearts can be cold and act out passively aggressive towards people that are around us.

The way that we can cut people out of our community when they hurt us because we don't want to love them because we don't get anything from them. He's gotten to the hardest part of dealing with people when they hurt us. It is so hard when you're hurt to not respond back with hurt but to respond with love.

But why would we do this? Why would we love our neighbor as we would want to be loved ourself? It is only when we see the deep down truth of our identity. That we are people who have been greatly loved. We are people who should have been given vengeance. But instead got grace.

For while we were enemies, Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8

He didn't respond to us with coldness. He responded to us with warmth. He didn't respond with anger. He responded with grace. And so when holiness hits down deep into our heart, when that name gets written down deep into your heart, you begin to see it come out in the way that you respond to those that are hurtful to you.

A good question to ask is this: How would you be if God responded to you the way that you are responding to that person that's hurting you? How would you be if God treated you the way that you're treating that person that has brought you pain? If he was being passive aggressive to you? If God responded with vengeful anger, you know, the lightning bolts coming down every time you did wrong. If shouting at you every time you made a mistake, how would you live? Would you love God? Would you want to have that name? No. You wouldn't want that identity. You wouldn't want that name. You wouldn't want to be connected to that God.

But what brings us close to God? What makes us want to have his identity? What makes us want to be like him? It's his love. It's his kindness. It's his patience. It's his grace with us even when we are terrible towards him. That love constrains us to obedience.

In the same way, when we respond to our enemies with grace and kindness, that speaks more powerfully than you could know. So Paul says it's like heaping burning coals on their head—not to punish them, but in a way to draw their attention to something that they otherwise would miss.

Here's what God wants us to see: we are called into this world, into the earthy ins and outs of this world in a powerful way to show forth the identity, the name that God has given to us, to show forth his character, the family image of love that has been put on us in a way that the people of this world see and know. And think about how powerful this is.

How is it that an ancient world would have come to believe in the God of a bunch of former slaves? It would only be if they saw something in that God that was different than the other gods. If they saw something powerful, compelling, beautiful in the way that this people lived that caused them to say, "Maybe this God is real. Maybe this God is worthwhile to worship."

How is it that the early church—a bunch of fishermen, washed up zealots, out of work tax collectors—brought about a transformation to the great empire of Rome? It's by living in a way that God's character was seen, in a way that confused but compelled people to say, "Maybe this God is worthwhile to know, to worship, to understand."

How is it that as we move more and more into a culture that is less interested in Christianity, how is it that we are going to see them come to understand God when they're not going to come in here? It's only by you going out and being in their life and living out in front of them your identity, your name, that you are holy in a way that they see, in a way that they taste, in a way that they come to understand who God is.

Our Mission

You see, the greatest tool of evangelism is our name. That we are holy. And this is what we are here for. We are here together to be a community that is named by God so that we go forth from here helping people to see the God whose name we wear. We are called to be holy for he is the Lord. He is holy. This is our identity and we are called to go out to be reflections of that identity to the world.

That is what our mission is, right? We exist to speak and to serve as the very presence of Jesus Christ in Downtown Raleigh. That is holiness. That is the name that we wear. That is our identity. And so to love is to move out into this city, living, speaking, serving in a way that points them upward to the God who gave us his name.

May God help us to do that.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace to us and the way that you give us an identity that is glorious—an identity that is yours. We pray that we would wear that identity, that it would embed itself deep in our hearts in a way that flows out in how we live in our day to day life. Use us as people that help people to taste your goodness. We pray in Jesus's name. Amen.