South City Baptist Church: Tauranga 15.06.14
P & SD 3 The Year of the Lord
Aim
To see the freedom that comes in Christ
Introduction
Over the past two weeks of the Prayer and Self Denial series I have been sharing about the Jesus manifesto passage of Luke 4;18. The time when Jesus entered his own home town church and preached for the first time in His ministry and laid out for them His manifesto for ministry.
We said last week there was
a fire the spirit of the Lord is now upon me for He has anointed me and there was
a focus and we looked at the six points of the focus in three groups
· To bring Good news to the broken (the crouching, the needy) those who see their need of God and ask for God to meet that need
· The heal the broken hearted
Release the captive
Set the captive free
Release the oppressed
· And then the third Statement. To announce the acceptable year of the Lord (King James)
Different translations express this in different ways
· To announce the year of the Lord’s favour (NIV)
· To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.(New King James)
· To announce, “This is God’s year to act!” (the Message)
· To proclaim the favourable year of the Lord. (New American standard)
So what was the year of the Lord? The year of the Lord’s favour?
It is not a term we are familiar with and I have to ask does it mean that God has good years and not so good years? Are there years that the Lord smiles on us, and years that the Lord frowns on us? Is it like in Joseph’s time in Gen 41 when there were seven really good years (the fat cows coming up out of the water) followed by seven lean years?
No it’s not like that.
The term the “Year of the Lord favour” is something that does not mean a lot to us but to the people of Israel (The Jews) it would have had a lot of meaning because it was part of their heritage and part of their dream and their promise and vision.
So what I purpose to do today is to discover that meaning for us too.
A To start we need to go back to Genesis 2:1-3 (NIV) 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done.
Now someone asked me last week why did God rest on the seventh day. God doesn’t get tired so why does He need to rest? True God didn’t need the rest but God rested as a model for us that if God has a rest day per week so should we.
Of course God reinforced that in the Ten Commandments when He gave the fourth command and keyed it back to creation.
Exodus 20:9-11 (NIV) 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
In God’s word to Moses in Exodus 31:12-17 (NIV)the message is even stronger 12 Then the Lord said to Moses,
13 "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.
14 "'Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.
15 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.
16 The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.
17 It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested. With the way life is today we often don’t follow God’s commandments as we should. Sure we don’t kill and don’t commit adultery we don’t give false testimony we only steal a little bit, but we so often avoid the fourth commandment and we work on Sundays.
I was brought up in a home where that command was fairly strongly reinforced and shopping was to be avoided and even today I find it difficult to do things on Sunday. Now some of us have to work on Sundays, nurses, doctors etc and that is so but the key is that we set aside other times like set aside Friday as my Sabbath and make this a different day.
In Exodus 16 when God gave the children of Israel manna in the desert it came for six days but on the seventh there was none. Some of them didn’t get the message that they should gather double the day before and it would last they still went out on the Sabbath to see if they could find some. Similarly some worried that God would not provide every day so they took more on other days and wondered why it went off and smelled so bad but the extra they collected on Friday lasted two days.
In Joshua 6:3 we find the children of Israel surrounding the city of Jericho for seven days.
B Now the next thing that God instituted was that they should work for six years and the seventh was a Sabbath year
Exodus 23:10-11 (NIV) 10 "For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops,
11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
And a command for when they come into the promised land Leviticus 25:2-7 (NIV) 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord.
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 Sabbath of 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.
6 Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year will be food for you--for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.
C and then in the following verses God goes a little further and he says every fifty years there is to be a jubilee Leviticus 25:8-55 (NIV) 8 "'Count off seven Sabbaths of years--seven times seven years--so that the seven Sabbaths of 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 one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.
11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.
12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13 "'In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.
14 "'If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other.
This fiftieth year was the year of Jubilee. Now we don’t know for how long the Jews kept that command but this is the year of the Lord’s favour to which Jesus is referring in Luke 4: 19 and again it is that quote from Isaiah 61:1. (Living Bible (TLB)) The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the suffering and afflicted. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted, to announce liberty to captives, and to open the eyes of the blind. 2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of God’s favor to them has come, and the day of His wrath to their enemies. 3 To all who mourn in Israel He will give: beauty for ashes; joy instead of mourning; praise instead of heaviness. For God has planted them like strong and graceful oaks for His own glory.
So what was so special about the Sabbath year
1 It was to occur every fifty years, so there was the seventh period of 6 years then the Sabbath year immediately followed by the year of Jubilee
2 It started on the tenth day of the seventh month; (on the Day of Atonement) and it starts with a trumpet blast throughout your land.
3 It is to be a consecrated to the Lord. it is to be holy for you. God’s year
4 It is to be a year of rest. It was a year of rest, no sowing, no reaping even of stuff that had grown up from the year before. God will bless the sixth year so much that you will have enough for the seventh and eighth years and enough to get you through into the ninth year.
5 It was a year of God’s blessing and provision
So what did they do?
A Each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.
B They were not sow or reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. ; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
C If land has been sold it comes back to the rightful owners at a price that reflects the number of harvests to go. It reflects the fact that the land is not yours but God’s and you are just the tenants of it. If it is sold because of poverty a family member (uncle, cousin or any blood relative) who has done well must buy it back for you and if a person like that cannot be found then it is given back.
D Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God. Do not rip each other off in the name of the year of Jubilee. There were specific ways transactions were calculated.
E The poor are to be helped so that they can live among you and are not to be charged interest. Money is to be lent interest free and you cannot sell food at a profit.
F If someone is sold into slavery he is to be set free and with his family return to his own clan.
H You must not rule over your fellow man unfairly or ruthlessly because we are all God’s servants and He is our God.
Like many commands of God in return God makes promises
18 "'Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.
19 Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.
What a wonderful way to live. It was about a level playing field that took the injustices and pain of the past and set you free from it. About not inheriting the sins and actions of a previous generation but each generation gets a fresh start.
Do Jews do that today? What they call the Yovel Year.
Jews today say that this law only applies when the Jews were living in Israel as tribes. Since the exile 600BC this law has not been applicable on the basis that all the tribes were not living in the land. I would suggest too, that as people gained property and moved about it ceased to be practica.l
So let’s get back to Jesus and ask “What was special about his announcement? He came to announce the year of the Lord’s favour, not as Israel had known it but as the Kingdom of God knows it.
It was to start on the Day of Atonement (the 10th Day of the seventh month). So what was the original day of atonement? Lev 16 It was about sadness and sin (even sin which we are not yet aware of) being removed from us.
Who atoned for our sin and make us at one with God? Jesus Christ and so He brings the year of Jubilee that starts with atonement in His death on the cross. So the year of the Lords favour is here but it’s also coming.
When Jesus broke the power of sin on the cross, and proved this by His resurrection He brought in the day of atonement.
We living, as the redeemed, are people who enjoy the power of the atoned life.
Romans 3:25-26 (NIV) 25 God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- 26 He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
2 So the day of the Lord’s favour has commenced and will be complete when Christ returns or when we get to heaven.
Jesus came not to reinstate the old Jubilee but to be the new Jubilee, to be the deliverer, The healer, the King.
The Isaiah passage not only says Isaiah 61:2 (NIV) 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor but also the day of vengeance of our God, but when Jesus quoted it He only said to the announce the day of the Lord’s favour and He omits “the day of vengeance of our God” because Jesus ushers in a day of Grace and forgiveness and not of anger and revenge by God.
Romans 8:1-4 (NIV) 1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.