The title of our message this morning is Leviticus 19, How the Fear of God Changes Relationships. If we really fear God it should change how we relate with the people who are around us. Our tendency when we think about the fear of God is to think of it in terms of the vertical. Me and my relationship with God. And it really is that, it really starts there, but there are tremendous implications for our horizontal relationships, me and my relationship with you and with my neighbors, with my co-workers, with everyone.

If you read a blurb summarizing this talk, this is what you read. In Leviticus 19, God says one thing to Israel over and over again, I am the Lord your God. This should ring in the ears of every Christian. The Lord is our God and this is no small thing. It is a precious thing as it was for Israel but it is also a fearful thing.

Why? Because God is holy and we are called to be like him. In Leviticus 19 the fear of God is set forth as the basis for holy living with one another. A wholesome fear of God is to shape the way we treat and interact with others. Come and consider how the fear of God will radically transform how we treat our neighbors.

I'm going to be arguing from Leviticus 19 that the Lord's people really should be radically different in how we treat other people, and how we treat our neighbors and our co-workers and and unbelievers and our family members and church members, our lives should really be shaped by fearing God. It's not just a vertical element where the fear of God impacts my relationship with God but doesn't go any further than that. No, all of our relationships should be touched by our fear of God. So that's what we're here to talk about today. This will be the structure of our hour.

First I'm going to talk about Leviticus, and we're just going to set the context for the chapter we'll be studying. Next I'll talk specifically about chapter 19. We'll read it, and then thirdly I'd like to isolate on verse 14, because verse 14 actually uses the words fear God. And then fourthly, I'm gonna do exactly the same thing with verse 32 because again this is the other verse in the chapter that says explicitly fear God. So as we approach this chapter of the Bible, let's ask the Lord for help in prayer.

God, I pray that you would help us to be a holy people. I pray that you would help us to be a people who fear you and whose relationships with everyone that we know are changed or different because we know you, love you, and we see you as holy and fear you. God, we pray as we've been praying, please don't leave us as we are, please don't let us hear your word and then go away, and it having been an intellectual exercise that doesn't move us. Move us God, send your spirit among us we pray in Jesus name, amen. Okay first Leviticus.

What is Leviticus? Leviticus is primarily a book about about holiness. If there's a one-word summary of the book of Leviticus, that is the word. Holiness is about the holiness of God. God is separate from us, He is completely different from us, He is apart, He is set apart.

And the Bible says this over and over and over again, there is none like Him. When you go to compare God to someone, there's no one to compare Him to. He is other, He is different, He is holy. And then Leviticus is about the holiness of His people. If this holy God, if this different God is going to have a people, they're going to have to be a different people, a peculiar people, a set apart people who don't look like everyone else because they are becoming like this holy God.

In Leviticus, God says, be holy, for I am holy six different times throughout the book, and in one of those we're going to encounter in Leviticus 19. Be holy for I am holy. In other words, you're going to have to be a different kind of people because there's no one to compare me to. If I'm going to become your king and you're going to become like me, then you must be different. You have to be as set apart to be mine and I'm holy, you have to become holy.

And I want to argue that the holiness of God is closely connected with the fear of God. In other words, where you see one, you see the other. People who understand how different God is, that He is holy, holy, holy. They fear Him. When we begin to see God as He is, we begin to see that this is a fearful thing to come into the presence of this God that is not like us in a thousand different ways.

We and all our defilement and him and his complete holiness, this gives us the fear of God. And if we were to call two witnesses for this out of the Old Testament, we might call Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6, right? He's brought into the presence of God and angels are saying, holy, holy, holy! And what does Isaiah do? He falls down before God and he says, I am undone!

I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King." In the New Testament we would call John as a witness. In Revelation 1, he's brought into the presence of our Holy Christ Jesus. Now Jesus, he spent three years with him, he was the disciple who Jesus loved, and so it's not that he doesn't know Jesus, but he doesn't know Jesus like that, Jesus in his exalted form, and he falls down dead before Jesus there, because he's awakened to a sense of how different this God is than we are. And it makes us fear.

When we get a glimpse of this holy God, we fear him. The holiness of God is a basis for the fear of God. If you don't know the holiness of God, you cannot fear him. You will not fear him. The Lord's people are the ones who have been made to feel just how different this God is from us.

Think of Isaiah and Isaiah 6. I am undone. I am nothing like you. I need a coal from the altar to cleanse my lips because I'm so defiled and you are holy. But as we've been learning, I think every speaker has said this so far, every speaker that I've heard, this fear of God derived from the holiness of God doesn't drive us from this God, it's magnetic.

It pulls us towards God and it makes us want to become like him. An ungodly fear of God just pushes you away. You want nothing to do with being in the presence of this holy God, but for those who have been brought near by Christ, this fear of God actually draws us nearer. It attracts us to him and it makes us want to be like him, to start becoming holy, like because he's holy. And what we've seen of him, we love of him.

That's the difference, okay? The ungodly person, the person outside of Christ, sees the holiness of God and doesn't want anything to do with that. The person who's been brought in by the blood of Jesus Christ sees the same God, sees the same thing, and says, I want to be like that. That's Leviticus, the book of holiness, a holy God, and therefore if he's going to claim the people for himself they're going to have to become a holy people, a peculiar people. Second, chapter 19.

I'm gonna read chapter 19 now, but here's what I want you to look for as I read through. I want you to read... I want you to look for this phrase, I am the Lord your God. God in Leviticus 19 lays claim to a people, so we're going to see, I am the Lord your God, or something almost identical to it 15 times in this chapter, so just be sensitive to that, be aware of that, and looking for it as I read the chapter. Hopefully your Bibles are open to Leviticus 19.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying. Speak to all the congregation of the children 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 mother and father and keep my Sabbath.

I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols nor make for yourselves molded gods. I am the Lord your God. And if you offer a sacrifice of a peace offering to the Lord you shall offer it of your own free will. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it and on the next day and if any remains until the third day it shall be burned in the fire and if it is eaten at all on the third day it is an abomination it shall not be accepted therefore everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity because he is profaned the hallowed offering of the Lord and that person shall be cut off from his people.

When you reap the harvest of your land you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest and you shall not glean your vineyard nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal nor deal falsely nor lie to one another and you shall not swear by my name falsely nor shall you profane the name of the Lord your God I am the Lord you shall not cheat your neighbor nor rob him the wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning You shall not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind but shall fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord.

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 tail bearer among your people nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord.

You shall not hate your neighbor 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. You shall keep my statutes.

You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed, nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you. Whoever lies carnally with a woman who is betrothed to a man as a concubine and who has not at all been redeemed nor given her freedom for this there shall be scourging but they shall not be put to death because she was not free And he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, a ram as a trespass offering. The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he has committed. And the sin which he has committed shall be forgiven him.

When you come into the land and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you. It shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year, all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase.

I am the Lord your God. You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. You shall not shave around the sides of your head nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead nor tattoo any marks on you. I am the Lord.

Do not prostitute your daughter to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land become full of wickedness. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits. Do not seek after them to be defiled by them.

I am the Lord your God. You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God. I am the Lord. And if a stranger dwells with you in the land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself.

For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, and honest ephah, and an honest hen. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore you shall observe all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them. I am the Lord." So it's a big chapter and there's a lot in the chapter and we're not going to get to very much of the chapter, but hopefully that gives you a flavor of it and the fact that we saw in that chapter 15 times, I am the Lord your God, or something almost identical, and it gives you a flavor of the chapter. In saying, I am the Lord your God, over and over and over and over in the chapter, what is God doing there? He is laying claim to lordship. I am the Lord.

I claim lordship over this people. He's claiming a people. He's claiming kingship over this people. And here's the whole line of thinking throughout the chapter. Because I'm your king, behave in a certain way.

This is how this kingdom must be characterized. This is how the subjects of this kingdom must must act and live. And much of that has to do not with how we relate to the king, but how we relate with the other subjects in inside the kingdom and outside the kingdom. In other words, there are verses that are vertical, that tell us how to relate to the king. But more than that in this chapter, there are verses that are horizontal, that tell us how we are to conduct ourselves as we interact with one another in our relationships with other people.

So as one who has been brought both to love and to fear this king, I am to verse 3, revere my mother and father. I am to, verse 9 and 10, leave some of the harvest back for those who are in need, the poor and the stranger." In other words, it's the law of gleanings that I don't completely harvest everything, I'm to leave some behind So that those who are in need can come and by their own labor provide for themselves verse 11 I'm not to steal or to deal falsely or to lie verse 13. I'm not to cheat my neighbor or to rob I'm to pay wages the same day to a day laborer. Verse 15, I'm not to be unjust in judgment. I'm not to be partial to the poor or the mighty.

In my judgments, the poor doesn't get an advantage, the mighty doesn't get an advantage. I'm to judge righteously. Verse 16, I'm not to be a tailbearer or to jeopardize the life of my neighbor. Verse 17, I'm not to hate my brother but I'm to rebuke my neighbor. In other words, I'm not even at liberty to let my neighbor languish in sin.

If I see him in sin, I'm to love him enough to go and tell him so that he can be reconciled to God and man. Verse 18, I'm not to take vengeance or to bear a grudge. I'm to love my neighbor as myself." That is the single most often quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. Love your neighbor as yourself. Verse 20, I'm not to engage in sexual immorality, to defraud any of my brethren in that way, to defraud any person in that way.

Verse 29, I'm not to prostitute my daughter. Verse 33 and 34, I'm not to mistreat the stranger. Verse 35 and verse 36, I'm to use honest weights and measures. In the context of the book of Leviticus and chapter 19, a God-fearing people are careful to do and to avoid certain things. This is what we get.

A God-fearing people, a people with a holy God who fear because he's so different than us, and that makes us both a little afraid and also to stand in awe of him and want to be like him. We do these things or we avoid these things because he is a holy God and he's our king and this works its way out in how we treat others. Now, by the way, I gave you a long list fast. Okay, I'm not spending any time on that, I'm just trying to drive home a main point there, so don't worry that I talk faster than you could take notes during that stretch, that's okay. The main point is God is holy and his people fear him and that changes the way they act towards others.

And I just plucked out the verses in which it says we have to interact differently with people because we are people who fear God. And of course Jesus quotes Leviticus 19 18 in Matthew chapter 22 when he's asked which is the great commandment in the law he says okay number one love God number two love your neighbor and then he says this On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. This is what you need to know about the kingdom of this king. Love is the fulfillment of the law. All of the other laws, they're real, and they require us to really do things and really not do other things, but they can be summed up in one word, love.

It's either loving God or loving neighbor and often it's both. That's what we need to know about this kingdom. If we follow this king, all of our interactions with him and with other people can be summed up if we're obeying him in with one word, love. This is the essence of what it means to be the people of God. All of that is somewhat indirect with regards to the fear of God.

In other words, I've said a lot without being able to tie it directly in the text to the fear of God, although the connection can certainly be made. We're a holy...we're to be holy because God is fearfully holy. That's what the whole chapter means. We are to be holy, we're to be different in our interactions with other people because God is fearfully holy. Now I'd like to turn to the two verses that actually do explicitly use the words fear God.

Let's look at verse 14. So first we looked at Leviticus, the book about holiness, a holy God claiming a people and making them holy. Secondly, chapter 19, where over and over and over again God lays claim to lordship and lays claim to a people. I am the Lord your God. Third, we want to talk about chapter 19 verse 14.

So let me read it again, verse 14. You shall not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God. I am the Lord." I mean, let me give you a summary of this verse, okay? Here's the summary. Fearing God keeps you from acting wrongly even when the natural barriers are gone.

I'm gonna repeat that, because we're gonna spend a fair amount of time on this verse, and this is really the point I'm driving home, because I think this is actually what the verse is teaching. Fearing God keeps you from acting wrongly, from sinning, even when the natural barriers are gone. Now let me develop that. As we start to consider these two verses, verse 14 and verse 32, I want to consider general equity. General equity.

General equity is a phrase that you'll find in both the Westminster and the 1689 Baptist Confessions. And it means a fundamental underlying principle that can be much more broadly applied. A fundamental underlying principle that can be much more broadly applied, meaning we got a lot of laws in this Old Testament And many of them, because they were either ceremonial, having to do with temple worship, or they were national, having to do with the nation of Israel, are not directly binding on Christians under the New Covenant, but these confessions say that even so, in every one of these laws there's a general equity. There's a fundamental underlying principle that can be applied more broadly. Now you won't find the term general equity in Scripture, what you'll find in Scripture is actually Paul using it.

Okay, so don't be disturbed by the fact that you can't do a word search on the internet over general equity and find Bible verses with that in there. What you do find is Paul doing what's being described by that. Here's the prime example. Do not muzzle the ox while it treads out the grain. Don't muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

This is Deuteronomy 25 verse 4. Now if you don't believe in general equity, then you can just skip over that verse and never read it again, unless you work with ox and grain. You work with ox and grain, that's for you. You don't work with ox and grain, that's not for you. But if you do believe in general equity, then you accept what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 9.

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul takes Deuteronomy 25, verse 4, don't muzzle the ox while it treads out the grain." And he says, is it oxen that God is concerned about here? And then he answers his own question, no! Deuteronomy 25 verse 4 isn't about oxes and grain. It's about laborers being worthy of their wages. And then he applies it more specifically, he says that's why you should pay those who labor in the gospel.

That's why they're worthy of wages because of Deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 4. That's general equity. If you don't believe in it, you throw out all of that and say it's worthless to it now. If you believe that Paul is doing something legitimate, then all of a sudden it comes alive and you say, even though this might not have a direct bearing on me, there is the wisdom of God for me to mine out of two-thirds of this book. I think we should be doing that.

We should be mining the mind of God, the wisdom of God, out of two-thirds of this book by doing what what Paul does by going into the commandment to see what the fundamental underlying principle is that we can apply and should apply in other places, general equity. So these two verses, verse 14 and verse 32 that we're gonna look at in detail, I want to argue this is all about general equity for us. This is about finding the fundamental underlying principle that should be applied here, here, here, here, in other places in our lives regarding how we treat other people because we're to be a holy people because God is holy. Now back to verse 14. Any mystery buffs in here?

Anybody like a good mystery? When you're in a mystery, it's almost always sort of the same fundamental Storyline. Someone is trying to commit the perfect crime. They're trying to devise the crime that they can commit, and no one can ever catch them. Okay, and it never works out in Agatha Christie.

So like, is that Inspector Porro? It's probably not. The genius always gets them in the end, right? Proving that there is no perfect crime, but maybe in verse 14 we have found the perfect crime. Two of them.

Like how are you to be caught in these circumstances? You have a deaf man, no one else is around, and you're behind him. Curse you! Curse you! You so-and-so!

I can do that with impunity, right? No one else is around, you have to grant me that. And there's the deaf man, he's not facing towards me, so there's no lip reading. I can say whatever I want about you! Because you can't hear me, it's the perfect crime.

Or the blind man. The blind man, you know, he's coming down the sidewalk, and no one else is around. And I can put the obstacle there. And he'll never know, after he falls, he'll never know whether a person or a thing or a circumstance came together that made this happen. If somebody did it on purpose or they didn't do it on purpose, he'll never know your name after he picks himself up.

So we're really given, in a way, two perfect crimes in Verse 14. And we're not given some information that we might like to have. There's nothing about the deaf man or the blind man. How'd he get deaf? How'd he get blind?

We don't know. Is this a good guy or a bad guy? You can't assume that this is a good guy because he's deaf or he's blind. Like you know nothing about him. All you know is he can't hear and he can't see.

You don't know where he's going, what he's planning. You just get the basic circumstances. You have a person, me, I'm making myself the criminal in verse 14, you had me and I'm at perfect liberty to wrong him. The deaf man will never know. The blind man will never have a way to know.

And you have a person perfectly vulnerable to being wronged. He's vulnerable, perfectly vulnerable. And the two natural barriers to me wronging him or him are gone. Meaning, being discovered is a natural barrier. Now we'd like to think we do the right things for the right reason, but oftentimes we do the right thing because we don't want to be discovered for doing the wrong thing.

I'll take all the reasons I can get to do the right thing, won't you?" So a natural barrier to sinning is the fear that I'll be discovered for cursing you, or for putting a stumbling block. Well, For the deaf man, that natural barrier is gone. For putting a stumbling block in front of the blind man, that natural barrier is gone. Or what about being repaid? That's a natural barrier.

You can hear, I say, curse you on the second row. You. Curse you. Okay? I'm 46.

I don't know how old you are, but you're getting nothing but bigger and stronger. I'm getting nothing but small. My spine is compacting. You might be the wrong person in the room to curse I don't know but but but the point is like there's a different level of risk there isn't there like like he's in a position to repay the deaf man not at all the blind man not at all So we've got these natural barriers to sinning that actually help us. They keep us from sinning.

They keep us from doing wrong. We're afraid we might be discovered or we're afraid we might wrong the wrong dude and get back worse than we gave. With the deaf man, with the blind man, the natural barriers are removed. So as for me committing these crimes, I will be held harmless temporally. Meaning, no one's going to know.

So on planet, on earth, among people, there are not going to be any consequences for me. And as for him, he is totally defenseless in his awareness temporally, meaning no one is around and they can't hear or see for themselves and so totally defenseless. But the reason I say temporally is that both of those things are only true if there's not a God in heaven. It's not true that I will be held harmless if there's a God in heaven. It's not true that he's totally defenseless in his unawareness if there's a God in heaven.

If the God of the Bible is there, then both of those things go from true to very, very untrue. Now I want us to consider a concept developed by Paul in Ephesians and it's the concept of eye service. We get this in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 5 and 6 and I'm probably going to read it faster than you can get there so just listen Ephesians 6 5 and 6 bond servants be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling insincerity of heart as to Christ, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." So here we have the concept of eye service. What is eye service? I work when you watch.

Okay. Eye service. You watch me serve. You don't watch me don't serve. Okay.

Eye service. You leave the room, you come back in the room, oh, busy about my business. This is what's being called for. And what Paul is saying is there should be a fear and trembling not for the boss who might have you on closed caption camera and eye service when you don't really know or have his eyes on you and you don't really know it not fear and trembling of the boss but fear and trembling because when the boss is out of the room, God of heaven is in the room! Okay, so if you're going to be an eye servant, Christians pick their set of eyes differently.

Okay, It's not the boss's eyes. It's our holy, our fearfully holy God's eyes. And he never sleeps and never slumbers. And he's always watching. So if it's going to take someone watching for us to do our job, then at least we know that our God is always watching.

And we live in that reality, doing the will of God from the heart, not with thy service as men pleasers, but doing our work as unto the Lord as God pleasers." Okay, that's what the people of a fearfully holy God do, and That's how they think. Listen to Hebrews chapter 4 verse 13, and there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account." Listen to that again, Hebrews 4 verse 13. There is no creature hidden from his sight. It doesn't help you when the boss leaves the room. But all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account, the one who fears God lives in that reality." The one who really fears God can't get that out of her mind, can't get that out of his mind.

So here's the question for us. Is the fear of God a natural barrier to sin for you and me? This comes right out of this verse and what this verse means. Is the fear of God a natural barrier to sin for you and me? The true answer to that question reveals a lot.

If the fear of God is a natural barrier to sinning for you, then it would be unthinkable that you would curse the deaf man. It becomes unthinkable that you put a stumbling block in the way of the blind man. And if you and I are not restrained from sin by our fear of God, then what we thought was the fear of God is counterfeit. Did you get that? If we are not restrained from sin by our fear of God, that's fake.

We don't really fear God at all, because that is the sure evidence that your fear of God is genuine and real if it produces an effect. If it doesn't produce an effect, it's fake. Consider what Paul says in Romans 14 verse 13. Romans 14 verse 13. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way." General equity.

It's Paul's commentary on Leviticus 19 verse 14. Let us resolve this not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brothers way. The context of this is dealing with those who have weak faith over doubtful things And he pulls language right out of Leviticus 19 verse 14 to say, you better be careful with that brother with weak faith. You don't despise him, you have a duty to him To not let your conduct be a stumbling block to him over these doubtful things. It's Paul in general equity again.

A very similar context. Listen to this, very similar context, meaning it has to do with these doubtful things again in 1st Corinthians chapter 8. I'll be reading verse 9 and then verse 13. 1st Corinthians chapter 8 verses 9 and 13. But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak." Verse 13, Therefore if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

Understand this, this is not vegetarianism. This is food offered to idols. Okay, that's what makes it a doubtful practice. It is not a doubtful practice to eat meat. The Bible says that's legitimate.

Okay, It is a doubtful practice to eat meat offered to idols. So that is the immediate context here. And Paul says, if eating that kind of meat is going to make my weaker brother stumble, I'll never eat meat again! He's going into this chapter to say, the people who really own a fearful God and are owned by a fearful God are willing to set aside things for their weaker brother. They're willing to interact differently with people because they have a different kind of king.

Again, general equity. Okay, fourth. Finally, verse 32. Let me read it. Leviticus 19 verse 32, you shall rise before the gray-headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God.

I am the Lord. Here's my summary of this verse. Fearing God compels you to act rightly even when the natural enticements are gone. I'll read that again. Fearing God compels you to act rightly, to do what's right, even when the natural enticements are gone.

Do you see how verse 32 is a mirror image of verse 14? Verse 14 was the fear of God keeping you from doing wrong even when the natural barriers are removed. This is the exact opposite of that. The fear of God compels you to act rightly even when the natural enticements are gone. Again, like in verse 14, we're not given any information at all about the characters.

The gray-headed man. Like, is he in the people of God, out of the people of God? We don't know. Has he lived his life well or lived his life poorly? We don't know.

Is he a nice guy or not a nice guy? We don't know. We're only told about the circumstances. He has gray hair, and if you fear God, you're to stand up. He's aged, And so he gets your honor.

If this king is your king, he gets your honor because the king says he gets your honor. When we come to verse 32, don't idealize old age as if old age makes people good and worthy of honor. Old age does nothing of the sort for every Bill and Mary Brown. Have you seen Bill and Mary Brown around? This is Scott Brown's mom and dad.

Like, if you know them, they're a delight because they have been serving the Lord for decade upon decade, and they've been making progress in the faith, and so now they're seasoned with grace. And I just want to say, for every Bill and Mary Brown, there are five bitter, unthankful, hard to be around, Bad smelling old people. That's true. We're in a nursing home every week and I think I'm being gracious with that ratio. I don't really think it's five to one.

So many of the natural enticements for honor are gone. Like what? Like the person will appreciate it. When you honor an old person, I give you five to one odds that it will be appreciated. That is a natural enticement.

We love it when we give honor and it results in something. Good. Appreciation or better. It's a natural enticement that the appreciation for the honor might help me in some way, either directly or indirectly. What do I mean by directly?

Well, thank you for honoring me, now I'll do this for you. That's a natural enticement to honor. Or indirectly. Isn't that guy great? Man, that guy goes into the nursing home and just serves those old people, honors those old people.

Isn't he fantastic? Let's talk good about him. That's a natural enticement to honor. The question is, will we honor when the natural enticements that we might be appreciated for it, thanked for it, It might be reciprocated. If that's stripped away, will we still honor?

I mean, this is what's on the table in verse 32. Stripping away the natural enticements, now will you honor just because you belong to this king? No. We honor the gray-headed because we belong to the Lord and we fear Him. With some older people, the natural enticements are still there.

I'm just saying we can't count on it. If you work with a lot of older people, you know that oftentimes the natural enticements are gone, and the natural enticements are not part of this equation. In other words, as the Lord's people, we're not at liberty to honor when the natural enticements are there when they're Bill and Mary Brown. We're called to honor when they don't smell good because they can't control their natural functions anymore and they're unthankful and you're more likely to get snapped at just for talking to them even though you're trying to honor them. All the natural enticements stripped away, you honor because He's King.

And we fear Him. And we love Him. And we want to be like Him. And He's like that. Turn to Luke chapter 6.

I think Jesus says a couple of things that help us understand verse 32 and honoring just because our King says honor. Again general equity, okay, We're looking for the fundamental underlying principle that ought to be applied more than in the realm of people with gray hair. Luke chapter 6 verses 31 through 36. Follow along as I read. Luke 6 31.

And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. Oh, let's just stop there. Okay, the golden rule. Okay, like our turn is coming. I've shaved my hair so you can't see how gray it is, like it's getting grayer by the day.

Okay, our turn is coming. This is the golden rule applied, that's what we're talking about in Leviticus 19 verse 32, continuing on verse 32, Luke 6 32. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and land hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the unthankful and evil.

Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful." Jesus is talking to His disciples about what we're supposed to do when all the natural enticements are stripped away. We look at God. We look at God because we've seen Him in all His holiness, in all His separateness, in all His differentness, and It makes us a little bit afraid, but it makes us also love Him and want to be like Him. Okay, you want to be like Jesus? When all the enticements are gone, you honor the gray-headed man anyway, because that's what God is like.

It's rooted in God. Now to Luke 14. We're gonna close here in Luke 14. Luke 14. Just 12 through 14.

Luke chapter 14, verses 12 through 14. Then he, Jesus, also said to him who invited him, when you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just." So here's what the king says. All the natural enticements are gone, and you're having a feast, I can invite the people who could never repay you.

Why? Oh, Because you will be repaid. It's like with the blind man and the deaf man. There is someone really there watching, even if no human is there. When we have a feast And we leave the rich neighbor who can repay us off the guest list and invite someone who's hard to be around and could never repay us.

All someone is watching. You shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just." This is what it's like to have a holy God. This is what it means to have a holy God who's different. He's different than what we would normally think. His conduct is different than how we would normally act in our natural, according to our natural inclinations.

He's different. He's so different that if we came into His presence, we would fall at His feet like we were dead. But If you're in Christ, inexplicably this attracts you to Him, and it makes you want to be like Him. Well, we're being shown in Leviticus 19 and in Luke, From Leviticus to Luke and everywhere in between, what it's like to become like Him. So in conclusion, these two verses, Leviticus 19 verse 14 and Leviticus 19 verse 32, are great barometers, they're great measuring sticks to just put ourselves beside them and to say, this really doesn't have to do with deaf men and blind men.

There's a general equity here that has to do with how I relate to people who are completely vulnerable and on this plane no one will ever know regardless of how I relate to them. And when all the enticements are gone, will we still serve and honor and bless? These are great yardsticks to stand next to, to see where we're doing, how we're doing, at following after this King who's different. Do I fear God? If we talk it, but it hasn't had an impact or hasn't had much impact, we either don't have any, we might not be in Christ, But even for those in Christ, like I've been in Christ for a long time and I've been humiliated by the sermons.

I hope you've been humiliated by the sermons and you're down a peg or two or ten. If I'm finding that I'm having a hard time living with people, with family, with people at church, with neighbors, with co-workers, with whomever, in the way that the Bible calls Christians to live with other people, we should ask ourselves, do I fear God as I should fear God? The answer is going to be no. There is room for growth here. And we'll be helped, we'll be blessed, we'll be happier.

We're gonna be made happier by fearing God more. God, please help us. Please increase our joy by showing yourself to us in a way that causes us to fear you and to know that you're always in the room. I'm so thankful that my hearers don't know everything about me. I bet everyone here is thankful to you that all the rest of us don't know all about them, but God, you know, you know, may we live in this reality that You are our God and there is no where that You're not.

Oh, make us like Christ. Make us like Christ. We need Your help. Pour out Your Spirit upon us. Forgive us, Lord.

Forgive us for the thousand ways that we have violated both of these explicit commandments in verse 14 and verse 32. We've transgressed them in so many ways, God, make us different, change us, Lord, through the working of your spirit and our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the family to the Word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you