This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's word to Your Daily Life.
Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.
Good man, American, but like community churches, morning Bible study, we are in Leviticus chapter five. We're finishing a chapter out today dealing with the principle of restitution now. As an attorney, for me dealing with the principle of restitution, especially because a aspect of my practice is to deal in criminal law.
If you're a small town lawyer, you do a lot of things. I do criminal law. I do I do a lot of guardian ad litem. I'm, I represent children in penalty court. I represent children in criminal court. And in the juvenile criminal court, I do a do a lot of rules and do a lot of estates and do closings on houses.
And I do a little bit of of litigation between parties, but civil litigation, but mainly I know just whatever comes on the door and, criminal work is one of those things that in smart towns attorneys have to do. And I deal with a lot of this and one of the things that is real important and when a person has ran into another person is the idea of restitution.
And especially when we're dealing with unintentional things that maybe they didn't intend to intend to hurt, but whether they whether they intentionally meant to do what they did or whether they unintentionally meant to do what they did, say I hit I hit somebody's house, or maybe I ran into a a piece of equipment that they have, or maybe I destroyed something with my car when I ran off the road.
That was an unintentional act in the sense that you did not intend to run off the road. It was an intentional act in that you did, in that you did get in the car inebriated and drove, and so that's why you, that's why it's illegal to do it. Because you got inebriated and made, and did not make sure that you had a way home, a way to wherever you were going without you being the one who drove.
And there's the intentionality, but if I drive off the road and I hit I hit somebody's cow or if I hit somebody's mailbox, a really nice mailbox on the side of the road. If I went into their car, I pet the car on the side of the road. I have rattlesnared. I've done something wrong.
And as far as God's concerned sometimes we're ratting God in that we We do not treat him as he should be treated as holy. We do not treat him as if, we treat him as a common thing. And we do that in church a lot. We do that a whole lot. We do not come to church prepared to worship in our hats.
We come to church as a perfectory act. Something that we just we probably need to do this. A room. For those of you who are people who have spent your life being faithful to come to church, sometimes that faithfulness can slowly slide into apathy. And even though we're being faithful to be there, you're not being faithful to bring your head there.
You're not being faithful to bring your whole mind and strict to that. And so the apathy comes and the apathy causes you to not really come with the purpose that God has made in worship. And that is for his people to have communion with each other and for those people to have communion with him.
And a lot of times we come to church and we retreat. That which is holy, that which is eternal as something that is very common. And when we do that we need to make restitution for it. We need to make it right. And so if I drive drunk, sure, there's going to be some criminal penalties for that.
But if I drive back and hit your car on the side of the road, then, obviously, I need to make you hurry make you back to where you were before get things right with you, because It's just the right thing to do when you do somewhere around maybe you say something about a person that's not true and it gets out and people think that you need to publicly make that right.
Public sin requires public public confession. If I do something that, that hurts someone even if I did not intend to do it, but my actions or what I did cause them to for things to be less for them, then I may need to help make that right with them. And you go do I have to?
And that's their privilege. Yes. It's not that you have to, it's that it is the right thing to do. And that's how you can tie that into the holiness of God, do what is right by people, do what should be done to, for people. And do what is right by God. But still says when the Lord spoke to Moses saying, if a person commits a trespass, that means they cross over and don't do what's right.
They trespass from from God's territory where we're supposed to live, we're supposed to live in the, in God's. Land, if you're thinking about land and trespassing, and then I sent unintentionally, and I cross over and I go to I'm not supposed to be into the darkness of, and it's in regard to the Hillary thing and delivered and that may be have at my.
May have all kinds of things to do with the temper of a tabernacle with the priesthood, all that kind of stuff. If I do something that's wrong by someone who says, and he says, and then he shall bring to the moon as his trespass offering around without blemish from the throats with the evaluation and shackles of silver requiring the shackles of the sanctuary as a trespass offer notice, there's actually.
Financial Renewal notion here, that's that's, he's saying that you're supposed to be bringing around and it's It's supposed to have a value. We're supposed to know what the value is, and we shall make restitution for the harm it has done in regard to the holy thing, and shall add one fifth to it, and give it to the priest.
So what does he do? He's going to make it right by making it even, and then add 20%. Wow. So I add one fifth to it. So I bring it around, and it's worth a hundred shekers. And I don't know what a ram's worth. I really don't know in ram's ever been worth, but if I bring a ram and it's worth 100 shekels, let's just say it's worth 100 shekels, then I'm supposed to bring the ram and bring the 20 shekels, 20 extra shekels.
Why? Because when I make it right, I've not just hanged the person and made them even. I have hanged them in that I've caused them I've caused an emotional pain. I may have put them out for a few days or even a few weeks and months and that they didn't have the item that that I distributed for them.
I need to make it right by them, do right by them. And let me tell you something, there's something godly about that. There's something immediately good about what. That when we do that, when we see that we in our ways or in our actions, we have hurt someone and we realized that we need to do right by them according to just God's very nature.
We need to do what is right for them. And so he says, the prince shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering and it shall. It shall be forgiven him. When you want someone to, you want to make things right, like I said, with someone when you restore them back to where they are and then give them something for, just something for the treble.
And that's the phase where that is used, right? Give him a little bit of something for his trembles. That's what it is. I'm giving you something because I recognize that my actions not only hurt you financially might have disturbed something that you own, but it caused you trouble in your heart and It meant really how we should be.
We should be making people whole. We should be making people full of the Holy Spirit. We should be pouring into them life and truth and a little bit for their trouble oftentimes makes a enemy into a friend like none other, and we're realizing that you realized. What was done was not right, but you realize that they were hurt by it and you care.
Oftentimes that goes far better than anything else that you could do. The realization that what you did mattered to not only them, but it matters to you and you want them to be okay. You want them to be to move past this as if nothing happened. And one of the ways to do that is to not just make restitution, but make sure that you've taken care of them in their troubles.
It says in verse 17, if a person sins and commits any of these things, which are forbidden to be done by the commandment of the Lord, though he does not know it. These are unintentional acts. Sometimes those are the things that we say and do that are not right. And a lot of times we will say things publicly that are not correct and cause someone pain.
He says, if that happens yet, he's guilty and shall bear its iniquity. And he shall bring the priest to lamb without blemish from the flock. With your evaluation as a trespass offering, so the priest shall make atonement for him, revealing his ignorance in which he erred, and did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him.
Notice bring that trespass offering and make atonement for your problems and your struggles. Do, bring it back to us. Do it by someone. And It goes a long way. Now we do live in a world where where a lot of the things that we do, especially in business and especially in the corporate level is Bambi Corporations and Corporations originally were a cooperation of a group of people to do a business and coming together a group of people to do a business that has grown into these massive organizations that they're not really a group of people cooperating together.
Yeah. And it's fundamental that are, yes, you have stockholders and they they buy into the company and all those people come together and they are the owners of the company. But the truth is that the, those who really are in charge and run the company are oftentimes people who really don't know the stockholders and don't know the people around them.
And so their actions are made. And early based off of based off of how much money they can make for the corporation. Now you say that's evil. No, not really. The whole point of the company is to make money. If you're coming together to go into a business enterprise together, you grow, you're coming together to make money.
And that's the purpose of why you went into business. Now, the problem with that is when we, as individual believers, begin to recreate how we should act. People the same way corporations act toward us. And that is taking something that's just totally not personal. It's not individual. Jesus didn't die for a single corporation.
Okay. But he died for the individual person. When we start acting corporately in our minds. Toward other people and counting pennies rather than counting people and counting pennies rather than counting people can oftentimes for even corporations cause them trouble that they have no idea that they're getting into.
The realization that Bush road was created by being that is is very clear a relationship. The God himself exists in three persons, the father, son, and the Holy Spirit, and they exist in perfect communion with each other. And they made mankind to be a part of that communion and to be a part of that relationship.
And when we act in any way outside of why we were made and we were made for relationship with God and relationship with each other, when we act outside of that and hurt someone, it behooves us. Do you wear that word, behoove? It behooves us. It's important that we do this, that we make it right by others.
And when we do that, we not only prove that we are human, but we prove that we understand the depths and the struggle that sin causes. And One of the things that makes a believer real attractive to a non believer is the believer understands the depth of their sin and understands the depth of their struggle and has compassion and love for those who are in the same shape.
And yet, don't have the life that is in Jesus Christ. As we're going into the weekend, I pray that you that you will get ready and be in church on Sunday morning, whether it's healing or whether it's faff in place. I have no idea when we're matching fam. Whether it's today. Maybe years to come you hear this bottle study, I would pray that you would find yourself in the fellowship of believers on Sunday morning so that you might be encouraged, so that you might be filled and so that you might be an encouragement to others and that you might experience the level of God that he's provided in the Son of Jesus Christ.
As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope. And peace today in Jesus name.