Sabbath is about Justice and Forgiveness

What we will see today is when we know who we are, we know how to respond to injustice in our world.

If you have a Bible, please open to Leviticus 23. Just as God has a plan for the rhythm of creation and the rhythm of the week, He also has a rhythm of the year.

Story my dad’s confession.

How do we respond to people who have sinned against us?

Leviticus 23:1–2 (NIV)

1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.

Instead of reading this entire chapter, let me summarize the assemblies. And guess how many there are? Seven!

1. Sabbath: Every 7 days

2. Passover & Unleavened Bread: 14th day of 1st month (Passover), Followed by a 7 day festival beginning on the 15th day

Passover, remembering when God’s punishment passed over His people happens on the 14th (2x7) day of the first month and then is followed by a seven day festival of Unleavened Bread remembering the exodus.

3. Firstfruits: Day after Sabbath of Unleavened Bread week

4. Weeks: 7 Sabbaths after Unleavened Bread week (Pentecost)

The next Sabbath day following was the festival of firstfruits and then seven Sabbath days after Unleavened Bread comes the festival of weeks or what we now often call it, Pentecost.

The term Pentecost is a Greek term for 50 because it was 50 days, from the end of firstfruits. Pentecost is also the time in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit arrived to each Believer. Isn’t it fitting the Holy Spirit descends seven Sabbaths after the resurrection?

5. Trumpets: First day of 7th month

The seventh month is referred to as the sabbatical month because there were lots of festivals.

6. Day of Atonement: 10thday of 7th month

7. Tabernacles: 7 days during the 7th month starting after the 14th day

Leviticus 25:3–5 (NIV)

3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.

Do you know what was to occur in the Sabbath Year?

Deuteronomy 15:1–15 (NIV)

1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. 3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. 4 However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. 6 For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. 8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

15:1, Cancel Debts

15:4-8 Give Generously to the poor

15:12 Set slaves free

Justice: n. 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/ her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal.

Law dictionary

Deuteronomy 5:15 NIV

15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

What are we to free others from?

Then, after seven sabbatical years, there was a special year. A super Sabbath year called the Year of Jubilee.

Year of Jubilee: Leviticus 25:8-10

Leviticus 25:8–10 (NIV)

8 “ ‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9 Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.

Notice the year of Jubilee starts on the Day of Atonement. This is the 10th day of the seventh month after seven cycles of seven Sabbath years.

Day of Atonement is the Day of Forgiveness

and it is the year of Jubilee that points us to Jesus

Luke 4:16–21 (NIV)

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The phrase “the year of the LORD’s favor” is a reference to Jubilee. This is what Jesus has done for us.

Jesus is saying the time of Jubilee has come because I have come to liberate my people.

Because God is a God of Justice and Forgiveness, so should we.

Ephesians 4:31–32 (NIV)

31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Action:

We should not do anything that supports or reinforces cycles of slavery: porn

We should not hold people’s sin against them; we should be a people of freedom and forgiveness

New Life Services

Forgiveness proceeds from a generous soul.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Last week we talked about how the sabath teaches us to resist tempation by teaching us to Trust

this week we will see that the sabbath doesn’t just trach us how to overcome tempation, but it also teaches us how to better relate to people.

Lev

This sabbatical year was a time to allow the land to rest. Which is deeply profound. My grandfather was a farmer in Kansas and I remember one time going to visit him and he was driving us around in his farm truck showing us the land and we drove past a plot of land and he said, “This is the CRP land.” He explained that farm land can be over-farmed and it needs time to rest, so the government was paying farmers to put some of their land into a Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). These vary in length, 10 – 15 years. God had His own conservation program. Every seven years the land was not to be farmed. You could glean what grew naturally, but the landed needed to rest. Which meant the people had to trust God to provide.

“‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.

Similar to the pattern of Pentecost, after seven cycles of Sabbath years, there is the year of Jubilee. Which means this event would occur basically once in a lifetime for the people. If you lived to 70 or 80 it is possible you could catch two, but most people didn’t live that long and some would never experience this in their life. So it was a big deal and a lot happened in that year. Here is how God instructed the Year of Jubilee.

The Day of Atonement was a day for the people to have a sacrifice to atone, which means to cover up, for the sins of the people. After seven times seven, or 49 Days of Atonement the Year of Jubilee came.

Here is what happened in the year of Jubilee:

§ Land has rest (Leviticus 25:11-12)

§ Property returned to the original tribe and family (Leviticus 25:13-17)

§ Debts released (Leviticus 25:39-43)

This was like a reset on all of the economic and property exchanges which occurred since the last Jubilee. The rationale God gives for this type of 50-year reset is given in Leviticus:

This ties back to the Day of Atonement. God is declaring to the people, Since I have forgiven You, You are to forgive each other. Since I am a God of justice so You are to be people who work for justice. In a system with a 50-year reset cycles of poverty could be prevented. This prevented any tribe or family group from falling on hard times and not being able to keep up. It also limited the ability for wealthy or successful families and tribes from taking advantage of the poor since they were instructed not to charge interest or to take advantage of each other.

Here then are the principles of the Year of Jubilee:

1. God owns it all.

2. Trust God to provide, not ourselves.

3. God’s people are people of justice.

4. God has forgiven us, so we forgive others.

This is a super-sized Sabbath. In week one of our series we said the Sabbath was a micro-Eden. It was a mini holiday each week that in the midst of our striving and labor and hurried nature we can have a day where we focus on enjoying God, enjoying others and enjoying God’s creation. It is as if, just for a moment, we are back in Eden. Or said more accurately, it is a day to practice what our future will look like when we are with God forever in eternity.

The year of Jubilee is that idea expanded for an entire year and was to be stretched over the entire Nation of Israel, all of their laws, property, real estate, and economic practices. It was for them, a year of Eden.

What an awesome experience this would have been!

The issue, of which scholars debate, is if the Jubilee ever actually happened. We don’t have any recorded evidence of the people of Israel ever actually holding the Jubilee.

But even if they didn’t keep the Year of Jubilee, God did. Turn in your Bibles to Luke 4:16.

Jubilee is about Jesus: Luke 4:16-21

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The phrase “the year of the LORD’s favor” is a reference to Jubilee. This is what Jesus has done for us. He became our atoning sacrifice and just like the Day of Atonement launched the year of Jubilee, so did the crucifixion and then resurrection of Jesus launch a type of Jubilee. You and I have been set free from sin and death. We are now living in a type of Sabbath, our souls have rest with God because Jesus has restored our relationship back to what it was in Eden.

We are people of Jubilee: Work for justice and proclaim forgiveness.

This means we are to be people of the Jubilee. We are to be people who bring a type of Jubilee to this world. In the same way the people of Israel were to bring a little bit of Eden to their Nation in the year of Jubilee, so we as followers of Jesus are to bring about God’s justice for the oppressed and innocent and proclaim God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ. That is how we respond to injustice.

This weekend is near to Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the United States. This is a fitting weekend for us to be reminded that as people of the Jubilee we can look at injustices in our world and we work for the cause of innocent, the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of Jubilee and his faith in Jesus led his to work for the cause of racial justice in the United States. As people of Jubilee we are to be like him and like Jesus. When we see injustice in our world, we work to bring God’s justice. This can be the ongoing work of racial reconciliation, or even economic justice for those among us.

One of the many ways you are doing that Wooddale is with our Coat Room. A few years ago some local officials came to us and told us there were an increasing number of families in our community who needed winter weather gear. They didn’t have a solution and they asked if they could send them to Wooddale. Not only did we say yes, we made a room just for them. Here is a photo of our Coat Room here at Eden Prairie campus. [Show photo]. This room has served over 250 families from 16 different countries and given over 500 coats and over 250 boots to families in need. Thank you, Wooddale, for being people of Jubilee.

But there is another issue of justice I want to mention today. Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday, which is a Sunday where the topic of justice for the unborn is discussed. Today, I have a few important comments to make about this which relate directly to the idea of being people of Jubilee, but before I do, I want to make two requests. One, this is an emotional and serious issues and many of you feel passionately about this issue. But out of respect for the serious of the topic, I am going to ask you to refrain from applause or stating, “Amen” or booing, or walking out for that matter. Please hear everything I am saying because the whole matters. One of the challenges in our society today is we have reduced everything to talking points and short statements which isn’t helpful for important issues. Second, this is not a political message, and I have no political agenda in what I am saying. This topic has been politicized, which is unfortunate, and my sole focus is on what God’s Word says, not any political group. I am not going to comment on policy issues, or court cases. Rather, on the principles of Jubilee. Is everyone sufficiently anxious?

God is clear in His Word He is the author of life, all humans are made in His image, all life matters to Him and He is the one who determines our birth, our life, and our death. Those aren’t decisions He has given to us, He is clear those are His decisions. It is also clear in Scripture that God forms us while we are yet to be born. When the topic of abortion comes up, there are a lot of important discussions and I don’t intent to diminish those discussions, but one item is often overlooked. We are talking about a child, in the womb. That is a life and that life is precious to God. Now, I realize there are horrible, gut-wrenching situations when the life of a mother is at risk or other deeply complicated medical situations. I know some of you who have walked through those moments. They are hard, and painful and no one situation is the same.

But the principle of Jubilee is we are for life. But not just life of the baby until it is born. We are to be for all of life. At Wooddale, we support ministries who help women and couples make the decision to keep the child. But we also work to support families in need and in crisis during and then after birth. There are a number of very real and very difficult situations expectant mothers face and this is why we are creating a program to help those in financial need and those who are in need of resources and support because if we are going to be people of life, we must be for all life and be for supporting life through hardship. Many of you give sacrificially to these type of causes and when you do, you are being people of Jubilee. As people of Jubilee, our vision is to bring a little bit of Eden to this world, where life is valued, protected, supported, and it can thrive.

There is an equally important conversation to have on this topic. That is for the many of you who are listening to this and who have had an abortion. If the statistics hold true for our church, many in our church have had an abortion. When this topic comes up, you likely cringe, many of you feel shame, guilt and are fearful about what is going to be said. Some of the reason for that is because many churches, and honestly many pastors who feel passionately about this topic, have preached about the sin of abortion, without explaining what God says about it and why or who have not also given you the rest of the message. Here is the rest of the message. God forgives. God loves you. The abortion you had does not change or diminish God’s love for you. All of us have sin in our lives. All of us. All of it is offensive to God. All of it. All of us were separated from God because of our sin. All of us. When Jesus Christ died on the cross and then was resurrected your sin was covered. All of it. You don’t need to work it off; in fact, you can’t. Jesus covers you. You don’t need to explain it, defend it, justify. All you need to do is say to God you are sorry and receive His forgiveness and His healing. That is the message of Jubilee. Aborting an unwanted child is a sin. Jesus forgives all of our sin. For far too long messages from preachers have said both, but as people of Jubilee we must proclaim both God’s justice but also God’s forgiveness. Because we were made for Jubilee.

Today, I didn’t want you to just hear this from me. I also wanted you to hear from someone at Wooddale who has her own personal experience with everything I just shared. Please listen to Sheri’s Faith Story.

Made For This Sabbath is about Justice and Forgiveness

Welcome to week 3 of our series, Made for This. We are talking about rest and Sabbath. Next weekend we will get even more practical about some of the what, why and how about our own personal Sabbath. If you haven’t yet taken our Sabbath Challenge, please sign-up and be working on implementing the discipline of Sabbath in your own life. Today, I want to give us one more overview of the Biblical Theme of Sabbath. To do so, I want to show you how the theme of Sabbath was woven in much of the Old Testament law and how it connects directly to Jesus. To do so, I want to spend time today in a book that if you have ever done a read through the Bible, you might have gotten stuck. The book of Leviticus! Leviticus is great, and people get stuck there because it is misunderstood. So today, I want to help make sense of a few things in the Law that at first seem like they have no connection to our life, when actually, they make a profound claim on who we are to be as God’s people.

What we will see today is when we know who we are, we know how to respond to injustice in our world.

If you have a Bible, please open to Leviticus 23. Just as God has a plan for the rhythm of creation and the rhythm of the week, He also has a rhythm of the year.

Rhythm of the Year: Leviticus 23:1-2

The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.

Instead of reading this entire chapter, let me summarize the assemblies. And guess how many there are? Seven!

1. Sabbath: Every 7 days

2. Passover & Unleavened Bread: 14th day of 1st month, 7 days after

3. Firstfruits: Day after Sabbath of Unleavened Bread week

4. Weeks: 7 Sabbaths after Unleavened Bread week (Pentecost)

5. Trumpets: First day of 7thmonth

6. Day of Atonement: 10thday of 7th month

7. Tabernacles: 7 days during the 7thmonth starting after the 14th day

Sabbath day is every seven days. Passover, remembering when God’s punishment passed over His people happens on the 14th (2x7) day of the first month and then is followed by a seven day festival of Unleavened Bread remembering the exodus. The next Sabbath day following was the festival of firstfruits and then seven Sabbath days after Unleavened Bread comes the festival of weeks or what we now often call it, Pentecost. The term Pentecost is a Greek term for 50 because it was 50 days, from the end of firstfruits. Pentecost is also the time in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit arrived to each Believer. Isn’t it fitting the Holy Spirit descends seven Sabbaths after the resurrection?

The seventh month is referred to as the sabbatical month because there were lots of festivals.

But in addition to this rhythm of the year, there was a rhythm throughout the years.

The Sabbath Year: Leviticus 25:3-5

3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.

This sabbatical year was a time to allow the land to rest. Which is deeply profound. My grandfather was a farmer in Kansas and I remember one time going to visit him and he was driving us around in his farm truck showing us the land and we drove past a plot of land and he said, “This is the CRP land.” He explained that farm land can be over-farmed and it needs time to rest, so the government was paying farmers to put some of their land into a Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). These vary in length, 10 – 15 years. God had His own conservation program. Every seven years the land was not to be farmed. You could glean what grew naturally, but the landed needed to rest. Which meant the people had to trust God to provide.

Then, after seven sabbatical years, there was a special year. A super Sabbath year called the Year of Jubilee.

Year of Jubilee: Leviticus 25:8-10

“‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.

Similar to the pattern of Pentecost, after seven cycles of Sabbath years, there is the year of Jubilee. Which means this event would occur basically once in a lifetime for the people. If you lived to 70 or 80 it is possible you could catch two, but most people didn’t live that long and some would never experience this in their life. So it was a big deal and a lot happened in that year. Here is how God instructed the Year of Jubilee.

Notice the year of Jubilee starts on the Day of Atonement. This is the 10th day of the seventh month after seven cycles of seven Sabbath years. The Day of Atonement was a day for the people to have a sacrifice to atone, which means to cover up, for the sins of the people. After seven times seven, or 49 Days of Atonement the Year of Jubilee came.