06/07/2026
Today's Sermon notes:
Love and Respect Among God’s People
Exodus 21:12-22:14
1. Honor _____________ made in God’s image
“The death penalty was invoked, not out of indifference for human life, but rather because each human life is of tremendous ____________. A life for life does not express vengefulness, but rather the idea that the only payment that can be made for taking human life is a human life itself.”
– Desmond Alexander
God is teaching that there is nothing more valuable than human ________! We are held responsible to the damage we cause due to our sins here on the earth. So if we take the most valuable thing here on earth, we have to pay it with our own.
God values every human ___________. God does not show favoritism. We are to love all others equally and not show favoritism since we are all in the same family anyway.
2. Respect ________________ (Golden Rule)
The principle that God is applying here is that if anyone injures another person they should provide their victim with some form of compensation.
3. Lex ________ – the punishment must fit the crime
“Expressions like ‘eye for eye’ were understood idiomatically to mean a penalty that hurts the person who ruined someone else’s eye as much as he would be hurt if his own eye were actually ruined also. The precise ________ was left up to the judges by talion law; it might involve anything from banishment to loss of property to punitive confinement to special financial penalties to corporal punishment to public humiliation, or to any combination of these.”
– Douglas Stuart
Jesus is telling us in the Sermon On The Mount that we have
it all backwards! The Lex Talionis was not for vengeance. When someone does something against us, we are to forgive and love. We have the chance to show grace and mercy as we have been ___________ grace and mercy. We are to use this law to care for those we have harmed.
God out of His great love and grace, gives us Jesus Christ to take our sin and pay our price, die our death. We have been forgiven of so much! Now we are made part of God’s family and are now to show our Father’s love and grace. We are called to forgive others when they do something to us!
32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32 (ESV)
Rather than giving us what we deserve due to our harm of God’s glory, Jesus bore our griefs and death on the cross. So how are we to treat others? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Show respect for all! As far as possible, make restitution for any _________ you have caused. And love and forgive others as Christ has forgiven you.
4. Respect other’s ___________________
We are to respect other’s property as we are to ___________ and respect them. Here God is teaching His people how to
live together in community. We not only care for others but we care for what God has given them to be stewards of.
