Exodus 23: God’s Command To Party

God doesn’t just rescue Israel from slavery, he teaches them how to stay free and Exodus 23 gets surprisingly direct about what that looks like. We talk through the chapter the way we read it: not as a list of random rules, but as a blueprint for a community learning new rhythms after generations of oppression. If you’ve ever wondered why you fall back into old patterns even after a fresh start, this chapter hits close to home.

We dig into practical justice that still matters today: refusing false rumors, not bending the truth because of pressure, rejecting bribes, and choosing integrity when the crowd wants something easier. Then it gets personal as God commands rest for workers, foreigners, and even animals, plus a seventh-year reset for the land. That’s not God being soft, that’s God dismantling the “taskmaster” mindset and replacing it with worship, renewal, and humane boundaries.

And yes, we lean into the wild idea that God commands celebration. Three times a year, God tells his people to stop, show up, and celebrate with him. We also wrestle with why God promises to clear obstacles “little at a time,” and how that reframes the slow, uneven seasons of spiritual growth where you’re tempted to ask, “God, why?” If you need a clearer view of Sabbath rest, biblical festivals, and trusting God’s timing, you’ll leave with language and next steps.

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Transcript

Welcome And Quick Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

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Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Exodus chapter 23. And today's title is God's Command to Party. God's Command to Party. I will tell you something that if you know me very well, this is not a surprise, but the reason why might be, and that is I love Christmas. I absolutely love Christmas time. And here's the reason why is all throughout the year, there's always a thing to do, a place to be. I just just it seems like there's just always this fast-paced life that many of us struggle not to have, but we have. But during the Christmas season, even though it is still busy and whatever, it's like we give one another permission to at least attempt to just slow down and just enjoy the season. It is the one time a year where if someone has slowed down, we go, good for you, buddy. You enjoy that season. And what I love about God is there were at least three times a year that God said, slow down, slow down, enjoy the gifts that I've given you. Let us partay together. And so we're going to talk about that today. We have a God who absolutely loves to party. And we're going to talk about it in just a moment. And I did notice if you're watching the podcast, I had the wrong screen at the beginning. Now I do, and I'm going to go to this one. So get your Bibles out to Exodus chapter 23 while you were doing that. If you ever wondered if this was recorded live, now you know it's recorded live and then stored for later. Moving on. Make sure you leave us a five-star review. Give me a chance to stop uh rambling today. It really does help when you do that on the podcast. And I have been noticing more and more people that are doing that on Spotify. Thank you so much for doing that. It really helps us get the word out that we're reading God's word around here and it helps us to do that. Also, make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job over there. You can get links to everything that I forgot to say at thebibelbreakdown.com. And always remember the more we dig, the more we find. You

From Slavery To New Rhythms

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know, one of the things I love about God's Word is it is so very real and so very practical. Imagine with me for a moment that you worked a job for 40 years. And every day for 40 years, you worked six out of seven days a week. Every day for 40 years, you worked 12 to 14 hour shifts. You were always on the job, it was always busy, and then one day you retired. How in the world would you be able to acclimate to not having to get up and go do that? I I know of a guy one time that he literally did that, but he worked also on third shift. And so third shift, 40 years, 12 hours a day, he just that was his life. And when he first retired, he would come and he would tell myself and some other of his friends, he would say, I have no idea how I am going to do this. I have been doing this one way for so long. I don't know how to sleep at night. I don't know how to just whatever. And it took him putting very specific guardrails in his life to help him slowly acclimate. Well, that's what the book of Exodus, the second half, is all about is this slave nation is now free. And God is teaching them how to be free. But if they're not careful, because they have been in slavery, not for 40 years, but for 430 years, they're gonna slowly find their way back into old habits. And so God is setting up for them all of these new habits, new ways to treat one another, and moments when they're allowed to party. For 430 years, all they have known is work and labor. Now God is saying, three times a year, I want you to rest. I want you to celebrate, I want you to party. And then he actually says there's gonna be a blessing attached to it if you do. Don't you love serving a God that says, I want you to party and I'm gonna bless you for doing it. All right, so let's let's get into this God's word today and let's see what it will say to us in this moment.

Truth, Justice, And Loving Enemies

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Chapter 23, verse one, he's gonna continue to talk about finding justice for one another, and then he's gonna transition. Here we go. Verse one says this you must not pass along false rumors. Praise the Lord. You must not cooperate with evil people by laying on the witness, by lying on the witness stand. Verse two, you must not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you are called to testify in a dispute, you must not be swayed by the crowd to twist justice. And do not slant your testimony in favor of a person just because that person is poor. If you come upon your enemy's ox or donkey, that is straight away, take it back to its owner. If you see that the donkey is someone uh is if you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has a c has collapsed under its load, don't walk by. Instead, stop and help. In a lawsuit, you must not deny justice to the poor. Be sure never to charge anyone falsely with evil. Never sentence an innocent or blameless person to death, for I will never declare guilty a person to be in never declare a guilty person to be innocent. Take no bribes, for a bribe makes you ignore someone that you clearly see. A bribe can make even righteous people twist the truth. You must not oppress foreigners. You know what it's like to be a foreigner, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land

Sabbath Rest For People And Land

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of Egypt. Plant and harvest your crops for six years, but let the land be renewed and lie uncultivated during the seventh year. Then let the poor among you harvest whatever grows on its own, leave the rest for the wild animals to eat. The same applies to your vineyards and your olive groves. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but on the seventh day you must stop working. This gives your ox and your donkey a chance to rest. It also allows your slaves and your foreigners living among you to be refreshed. Pay close attention to all my instructions. You must not call on the name of any other gods, do not even speak their names. Now pause. Once again, God is saying to this slave nation, you have to take off one day a week. Isn't that amazing? I mean, that is absolutely phenomenal. That he is saying, you have been working for someone else this whole time. Now that you're working for yourself, if you're not careful, you are going to fall back into those old patterns, only you will become your worst enemy. You had taskmasters who were enslaving you. If you're not careful, you're going to become enslaved to yourself. So I'm telling you, serve me. And I'm making sure you take off one day a week, not just for you, but for everybody around you, so that everything can rest and everything can be renewed. That's powerful. Here

Three Festivals God Requires

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we go. Verse 14. Each year you must, I'm gonna say this again, you must celebrate three festivals in my honor. God says, you must celebrate three times a year for his sake. Verse 15, first, celebrate the festival of unleavened bread. For seven days, the bread you eat must be made without yeast, just as I commanded you. Celebrate this festival annually at the appointed time in early spring, in the month of Habib, for that is the anniversary of your departure from Egypt. No one may appear before me without an offering. Second, celebrate the festival of harvest, when you bring me the first crops of your harvest. Finally, celebrate the festival of the final harvest, and at the end of the harvest season, when you have harvested all the crops from your fields. At these three times each year, every man in Israel must appear before the sovereign, before the sovereign the Lord. You must not offer blood of my sacrificial offerings together with any baked goods containing yeast, and do not leave the fat from the festival offerings until the next morning. As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the Lord your God. Oh, by the way, you also must not cook a young's goat, a young goat in its mother's milk. To which I would say, of course, because that sounds absolutely terrible.

The Angel Who Leads And Protects

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Verse 20, see, I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you. Pay close attention to him and obey his instructions. Do not rebel against him, for he is my representative. He will not forgive your rebellion. But if you are careful to obey him, following all my instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppress those who oppress you. For my angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, so you may live there, and I will destroy them completely. You must not worship the gods of these nations or serve them in any way or imitate their evil practices. Instead, you must utterly destroy them and smash their sacred pillars. You must serve only the Lord your God. And if you do, I will bless you with food and water and protect you from illness. There will be no miscarriages or infertility in your land, and I will give you long, full lives. I will send my terror ahead of you and create panic among all the people whose lands you invade. I will make all your enemies turn and run. I will send terror ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites, but I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply and threaten you. I will drive them out little at a time until your population has increased enough to take possession of the land. And I will fix your boundaries, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the eastern wilderness to the Euphrates River. I will hand over to you the people now living in the land, and you will drive them out ahead of you. Make no treaties with them or their gods. They must not live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me. If you serve their gods, you will be caught in the trap of idolatry. Wow.

Why God Clears Obstacles Gradually

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Well, what we see here is we see, first of all, God telling them, make sure that you have proper justice for one another, including the justice of rest. Make sure that you don't get back into the old patterns you used to live in. Don't follow even yourself. Follow me. And by following me, I'm telling you, rest. Take a day off once a week. And then he even says, take off a year every seven years. Praise the Lord for that, right? And then he says, three times of year, three times of the year, I want you to take time out. I don't want you to celebrate. But I love how he says, and do it with me. Come before me. I want to be part of the celebration experience that you have three times a year. And then he said, if you will follow me as I am leading you through the wilderness, if you will follow me, then I will give you favor and I will take care of you, and then I will give you the land. And I love how he also says, and realize there's a reason why I'm not removing all the obstacles before you get there. I'm going to remove them a little at a time so that the land doesn't become wild in your absence. So God has a plan even when we don't always understand. You ever wondered why, after you get saved, why is it that everything's not perfect? Why do we go through seasons when we have to rest because we we're overworked? Or we have to take seasons where we step back for a minute before we can move forward? You ever wonder why there's ups and there's downs and there's everything else? Or there's a thousand reasons, but one of the reasons is because God has a plan. Because God is doing more than we can realize. I would have never thought about the reality that if God had removed all of those, those people groups that moved into Canaan when Israel had to leave for a season. I would have never thought that if he removed all of those, then all the land would have grown up, wild animals would have come in, and they would have actually been, it would have been harder for them to take the land back because it would have been wild and overgrown. So the fact that he slowly moved them out was actually a benefit, even though it probably looked like a temporary setback. Can I tell you the same thing is true in our lives? The reason why God moves us through different seasons and we have up seasons, we have down seasons, we have all this kind of thing, is because God has a plan. God has the ability to do amazing things through horrible days. He has the amazing ability to take what the enemy meant for bad and turn it into something good. And so that's why I love that at the very beginning he says, Hey, listen, I need you to follow me. I know you've been used to serving these other masters, and they did it a very different way, but this I want you to do it this way. I want you to do it this way, not just for your sake, but for those around you. And one of the things I want you to do is I want you to spend time with me, celebrate me, follow me, and realize that I'm doing a good thing in your life. And even if it doesn't look like it always, because instead of removing all the obstacles, I am gonna help you slowly conquer each obstacle, there's a reason. I I'm telling you, in my life, and I'm sure you'd have the same testimony, there are so many things in my life that while I was going through it, if I'm honest, I would say often to God, God, why? Why am I having to fight this battle? Why am I having to do this thing or endure this this test and why am I having to do this? Only on the other side to realize what God was doing in my life. And while I would never have wanted to go through it at the time and I don't ever want to go through it again, I can't say that I regret it because of what God did in the process. Is it possible? God uses these things for our ultimate good. So what do we do? We trust Him. We choose to follow God rather than follow our own ideas. Follow God rather than the the culture of our past or sometimes the tyranny of the present. Instead, we honor and follow God and trust that just because there's obstacles in front of us doesn't mean that God's lost his way. It means that God is leading the way. And sometimes he leads us around the trouble, and sometimes he leads us right through the middle of it to show his faithfulness and to lead us into all

Trust, Prayer, And Closing Promise

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righteousness. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you're trustworthy. It's because you are trustworthy that you help us to walk after you. Sometimes when you lead us to and through difficult places, we don't always know why, but we can trust that you are trustworthy. And because of that, God, we step back in to every moment. We live this day with our eyes open, not denying the trouble that surrounds us, but denying its ability to define your faithfulness. We trust you in all things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Anyway, God's word says in Exodus 6, verse 6, God said, I will free you from your oppression, and I will rescue you from slavery. I'm so thankful to serve a God of freedom. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Exodus chapter 24.