Sermon Tone Analysis

I like when we get the opportunity not to just hear a sermon but to also debrief the sermon together.

Social media sometimes allows us to do this.

Here is one example of this.

Dayle after the message last Sunday summed it up for us.

If the giver isn't helping the receiver become a giver, you're really not giving them much of anything that matters.

Dayle Garris

This way is not popular and often times is more difficult.

Sabbath for the land in the seventh year

Year of Jubilee

Theologically

Socially

Economically

Theologically

The Land is the Lord’s.

Once again a reminder that everything is the Lord’s and we are simply stewards of that which he has provided.

You are only foreigners and temporary residents on My Land!

The jubilee affirms that the Lord is not only the God who owns Israel’s land; he is sovereign over all time and nature.

His act of redeeming his people from Egypt committed him to provide for them on every level because they were his own.

Therefore, Israel’s observance of the Sabbath day and year and the year of jubilee was a function of obedience and trust.

In practical terms, the jubilee year embodies the trust all Israelites could have that God would provide for their immediate needs and for the future of their families.

At the same time, it calls on the rich to trust that treating creditors compassionately will still yield an adequate return.

Socially

1.

The first stage is depicted in

A person could simply become poor.

The presumed scenario is that of a farmer who borrowed money to buy seed but did not harvest enough to repay the loan.

He therefore must sell some of the land to a buyer in order to cover the debt and buy seed for the next planting.

If there was a person who belonged to the farmer’s clan who wished to act as a “redeemer”, he could pay the buyer according to the number of remaining annual crops until the jubilee year when it reverted to the farmer.

Until that time, the land belonged to the redeemer, who allowed the farmer to work it.

2. The second stage was more serious (Lev.

25:35-38).

Assuming that the land was not redeemed and the farmer again fell into debt from which he could not recover, he would forfeit all of his land to the creditor.

In this case, the creditor must lend the farmer the funds necessary to continue working as a tenant farmer on his own land, but must not charge him interest.

The farmer would amortize or slow pay off this loan with the profit made from the crops, perhaps eliminating the debt.

If so, the farmer would regain his land.

If the loan was not fully repaid before the jubilee, then at that time the land would revert back to the farmer or his heirs.

3. The third stage was more serious still (Lev.

25:39-43).

Assuming that the farmer in the previous stage could neither pay on the loan or even support himself and his family, he would become temporarily bound to the household of the creditor.

As a bound laborer he would work for wages, which were entirely for reduction of the debt.

At the year of jubilee, he would regain his land and his freedom (Lev.

25:41).

Throughout these years, the creditor must not work him as a slave, sell him as a slave, or rule over him harshly (Lev.

25:42-43).

The creditor must “fear God” by accepting the fact that all of God’s people are God’s slaves (NRSV “servants”) whom he graciously brought out from Egypt.

No one else can own them because God already does.

The smallest unit of Israel’s kinship structure was the household that would have included three to four generations.

The jubilee provided a socioeconomic solution to keep the family whole even in the face of economic calamity.

Family debt was a reality in ancient times as it is today, and its effects include a frightening list of social ills.

The jubilee sought to check these negative social consequences by limiting their duration so that future generations would not have to bear the burden of their distant ancestors.[6]

1. God desires to break the bondage of generational sin and poverty.

This is a reset to help with breaking this cycle.

2. It is not the desire of God that generations continue to experience the sin of previous generations.

GOD DESIRES TO RESTORE! (preach/expound)

Economically

The economic angle reveals the two principles that we can apply today.

First, God desires just distribution of the earth’s resources.

According to God’s plan, the land of Canaan was assigned equitably among the people.

The jubilee was not about redistribution but restoration.

According to Wright, “The jubilee thus stands as a critique not only of massive private accumulation of land and related wealth but also of large-scale forms of collectivism or nationalization that destroy any meaningful sense of personal or family ownership.”[7]

Second, family units must have the opportunity and resources to provide for themselves.

In most modern societies, people cannot be sold into slavery to pay debts.

Bankruptcy laws provide relief to those burdened with unpayable debts, and descendants are not liable for ancestors' debts.

The basic property needed for survival may be protected from seizure.

Nonetheless, Leviticus 25 seems to offer a broader foundation than contemporary bankruptcy laws.

It is founded not on merely protecting personal liberty and a bit of property for destitute people, but on ensuring that everyone has access to the means of making a living and escaping multigenerational poverty.

As the gleaning laws in Leviticus show, the solution is neither handouts nor mass appropriation of property, but social values and structures that give every person an opportunity to work productively.

1. God wants to restore

2. God cares about poverty and creates laws that bring us to a place that God desires.

God restores opportunities for families to make a living and providing for themselves.

Point Us to Jesus

I don’t know about you but when it comes to sin.

I have a massive amount of debt in sin.

I owe my creditor so much.

I need to pay the penalty of my sin which is death, but my owner King Jesus went to the cross and paid the debt for me that I owed.

HE SET ME FREE FROM THE DEBT THAT I OWED!!! (preach) I don’t deserve it because I racked up the bill in sin but Jesus while I was sinner died for me.