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bcjennyOP•Mar 18•somewhere in B.C., British Columbia Canada

What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............

Everybody else can deal with themselves. It's the attitude we see everywhere. Every time you go to a park or a public place, and you find people who just left their trash somewhere just out in the open.

It's because they're thinking it's not my problem, somebody else can deal with it. I got what I needed out of the deal, not having to put my trash away. And to that attitude, God would say in his law, yeah, but it is your problem because you're part of the community. And if you want the benefits of being part of the community, you have to also embrace the responsibilities of being part of the community. And then God would say, now, stop being a self-centered jerk and go pick up your trash.

Paraphrasing, of course.
So write this down. God's laws require his people to live with consideration toward their community.
God's laws require his people to live with consideration toward their community.

And again, remember, in our context, the community is the church.
It's the church. Verse 35.

If one man's ox hurts another's so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the money from it and the dead ox.

They shall also divide. Or if it was known that the ox tended to thrust in times past and its owner has not kept it confined, he shall surely pay ox for ox and the dead animal shall be his own. Relatively self-explanatory if you look over it again in the Chapter 22.

If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and for sheep.

For a sheep.

Now, because this would have been one of the easiest crimes to commit because you could literally eat the evidence, God assigns the significant deterrent of exponential restitution, four fold or five fold restitution, and that is a good idea.

You steal one and it can't be recovered. You owe for back.

You owe five back. I like this a lot, you know, fourfold restitution, let's do some Bible trivia is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke.

When Jesus decides to dine at the house of any guesses, and he guesses Zacchaeus, a little man named Zacchaeus, perhaps to recall the story, Jesus's ministry is thriving.

Everywhere he goes, crowds are gathering.

And there's this man of small stature who's unable to see through or see over the crowd.

But not only that, the crowd doesn't want him to see. They hate his guts because he's a corrupt tax collector. He's employed by the Roman occupiers and he's overcharging everybody on their taxes.

He's defrauding his own people to line his pockets.

And so they're not really big fans. Eventually, Zacchaeus climbs a tree to get a look at Jesus, and then the most incredible thing happens. Jesus looks straight at Zacchaeus and he says, Come down here, Zacchaeus coming to hang out at your house today. We're going to have dinner together. And the people are shocked that Jesus would do this. They're saying this guy can't be for real. He must not know how awful this Zacchaeus guy is. But Zacchaeus welcomes Jesus both into his home and into his heart.

It's implied and so transformed is Zacchaeus by his encounter with Jesus that in Luke eight, it's on your outlines. He says, Look, Lord, I give half of my gifts to the poor. And if I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore.

And then you see it four fold. I restore four fold.

You see, what Zacchaeus is doing is he's showing true repentance by repaying people back fourfold. He's acknowledging that under the law, he's stolen from people. He's saying, I recognize that I'm a thief. And so I have to make it right by restoring four fold.

And that's part of what genuine repentance does. So we're going to talk about this.

More genuine repentance says if there's any way I can make restitution for the ways that I've wronged people, I'm going to do that.

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