Message Description

Dr. Terry Thomas brings to light God's plan for humankind to experience an abundant, worthwhile, and expansive life.

Message Transcript

Hi, everybody. Good to see you all here. Hey, it's been spectacular so far, some great music today, really fantastic music they did. Hey, so it's Labor Day weekend. And it's kind of weird, to celebrate Labor, we take a day off. That seems strange a little bit. It's like, celebrating learning, we try to forget a few things. I think I've got some students... Anyway. I don't know. Many people don't know a lot about Labor Day. It's strange. You hear it is a national holiday and we don't know a lot about it. By the way, let me just yell right out here. How many of you know when Labor Day was passed as a national holiday? Does anybody know? Take a guess. Someone, take a guess. 

The 1940s, okay. Does anybody want to take another guess? The sixties, okay. Does anybody want to take another guess? The twenties, back in the twenties. Okay. One more last chance. The 2030s, I don't know what that is, but anyway. Okay. Grover Cleveland was president in 1894 when Labor Day was first instituted. It's kind of interesting. There had been a lot of labor strife in America at the end of the 1800s, in the midst of the industrial revolution. A lot of it was driven, I'll tell you this right now. A lot of it was driven by anarchist forces, socialist forces, and so forth. And it was very disruptive. These forces began to talk about using the power of the strike, for instance, to try to get better working conditions. 

One of the things people were interested in was having an eight-hour workday. So, there was this push to have a day where laborers would take the day off and they would celebrate the contribution that they had made to America. Which was quite substantial if you think about it? They had done unbelievable things in terms of the prosperity and the growth of American industry. So, here's what happened. They suggested that May 1st should be this day. All right. Strangely enough, with some people, especially in the Chicago area, where there were some anarchist groups and so forth, that were connected to the labor movement. There was in, I think 1886, there was a violent labor strike around the May 1st time, and a number of people were killed and so forth. 

What happened was, later on, a guy named, I think his name was Peter Maguire. He was the vice president of the American Labor Federation. He suggested that what they do is they have a holiday that was in the fall, at the end of summer. And that what they would do is, they would take the day off, and there would be a parade to celebrate the benefits and the great things that labor had contributed. Then afterward there would be a picnic. This was the plan. The plan was a parade and picnic to celebrate. Then the idea was, you sell tickets to the picnic, and it provides some money for the union to be able to support its workers when they needed to be. Well, here's the deal. Grover Cleveland was a bit of a conservative type of president. 

He wanted the labor strife to be resolved, but he didn't want to have it resolved around the day of the anarchist problems out there in Chicago. So, he went with the other guy, Peter Maguire, and said, "We should have it in between the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. The first Monday of September." So, in 1894, he passed through Congress the law celebrating Labor Day. And that's where Labor Day came from. Now, it doesn't mean that everybody observed Labor Day right away. It took a while. It was even into the 1920s, before just about every state and every institution was giving Labor Day as a national holiday. And by the way, I work at Geneva College, and I have to go to work tomorrow. Some people didn't get it yet. But it's a Labor Day thing. 

Hey, there's one other thing that people are confused about with Labor Day too. Why is it that you can't wear white after Labor Day? How many people are ticked off by that stupid rule? Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I think it's a woman, anyway. Here's the deal. There is no fashion designer nor has there ever been a fashion person that says that you can't wear white after Labor Day. It's never happened. It's a myth. All right. Here's the way they think it might've gotten started. People back in, especially in the mid-twenties and in the thirties and forties, when they worked in the city, wore dark clothing. They were suits, brown, black, gray, that kind of thing. Then when summer would come, if they were wealthy enough, they would go on vacation, and they would go to the shore and go to different places. 

When they went there, they wore lighter clothing. Stuff that was cooler to wear and it was also reflected the sun and so forth. Then what happened was, when they would go back to work at the end of the summer when school would start and all that kind of stuff, they'd take their white clothes, and they would put them away. So, it became a kind of snobby rich thing that you didn't wear your white clothes after Labor Day when school started because only the peasants like us would wear white clothes after the fact. And we bought it. Stupid, anyway. Hey, seriously, wear white as long as you like. Nobody ever criticizes Queen Elizabeth for wearing white after Labor Day. And work is weird sometimes too, isn't it? Isn't work very strange? 

And it's getting stranger by the minute, as people are a little confused about what to do or how to be about it. I have a thing here; I think is kind of interesting. This is from a corporation. I won't mention the corporation. It was when they decided they would institute a thing called Casual Friday. Does anybody here have Casual Fridays at their work? Yeah, we have a Casual Friday at Geneva and so forth. Let me just tell you, these are the memos related to this. Just goes to show you the kind of confusion there can be about work and so forth. Casual Friday, it says, week one, memo number one. Effective this week, the company is adopting Friday as a casual day. 

Employees are free to dress in the casual attire of their choice. Week three, memo two. Spandex and leather micro-miniskirts are not appropriate attire for Casual Day. Neither are string ties, rodeo belt buckles, or animal costumes. Week six, memo three. Casual Day refers to dress only, not attitude. When planning Friday's wardrobe, remember image is an important key to our success. Week eight, memo four. A seminar on how to dress for Casual Day will be held at four o'clock on Friday in the cafeteria. A fashion show will follow, attendance is mandatory. Week nine, memo number five. As an outgrowth of Friday's seminar, a 14-member Casual Day Task Force has been appointed to prepare guidelines for proper attire on Casual Day dress. 

Week 14, memo six. The Casual Day Task Force has now compiled a 30-page manual titled Relaxing Dress Without Relaxing Company Standards. A copy of which has been distributed to every employee. Please review the chapter, you are what you wear, and consult the home casual versus business casual checklist before leaving for work each Friday. If you have any doubts about the appropriateness of the item of clothing you have on, contact the CDTF representative before 7:00 am on Friday. Week 18, memo number seven. This is a great one. Our Employee Assistance Plan, our EAP, has now been expanded to provide support for psychological counseling for employees who have difficulty adjusting or have been traumatized by Casual Day. Week 20, memo eight. Due to budget constraints in the HR department, we're no longer able to effectively support or manage Casual Day. Casual Day is discontinued effective immediately. 

Work can be confusing. The whole Labor Day thing. I don't know, it's really confusing. I'll tell you what though when I heard, I was going to talk on Labor Day, I thought, talking about work wouldn't be a bad idea. Because we've got a lot of confusion I think about work and what the purpose of work is, at least for Christians. If you wanted to really understand what it was about, here's what you would do. You'd start back in the very beginning in chapter one of Genesis, and you'd recognize this. In the very first chapter, it says that God created human beings in his own image, male and female he created them. And he blessed them. Then here's what he said. He gave them a command. This is the only command that human beings had before the fall. This is the thing that you might say set them towards understanding what the meaning of life was. 

Here's what the command was. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Now, most people are like, all right. I love that God. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Whatever the task is that he's going to give them, it's going to require a lot of people to do it. Then he says this, "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and rule." Then he gives a list of all the different things in the creation that you're to rule over. It seems to me that the meaning of human life is to reflect who God is in the way that you unlock what life is supposed to be about. As a matter of fact, in chapter two, again, before the fall. It describes Adam as being put in the garden of Eden. It says, "and God put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to care for it." 

Another way to think about it is that God creates a world. He creates a special creature, that's you and I, human beings. He makes him in his image. He gives them special abilities that only they have on all the creatures of the world. Then he says, "here's what I want you to do. I want you to be like Adam here, cultivate." He's cultivating the creation. What God has done is he's put potential in all these different things within the creation. And he wants us to figure out how to unlock that potential so that God can be glorified, and we can be blessed by it. That's what work is supposed to be about. 

Work is supposed to be about reflecting the image of God, understanding what God's will is for all areas of life. And then trying to figure out how to cultivate it and how to develop it. As a matter of fact, that passage, that Genesis passage that says be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, rule over it, is sometimes called the cultural mandate. That is the command of God to develop a culture in the world. But not everybody sees it that well. Working at a college, I see this every once in a while, when I go to the cafeteria. There'll be a guy there, and he'll be eating dinner, cereal, or something like that. And all of a sudden, he stops. And you wonder, why did he stop? I'll tell you why he stopped. He saw some woman coming into the cafeteria. 

When he saw that woman, you know what went through his mind? This is what went through his mind. He said to himself, "I see that woman is a creature of God, filled with all sorts of multidimensional potential. I wonder how I could cultivate a relationship with her to help her to become everything that she was meant to be, and in so doing God would be glorified." No, that is not what he thought. I'll tell you what he thought. I see some potential. Apparently, it's the kind of potential you can identify from across the room. All right. Then in his mind, he's thinking like this. I wonder how I can manipulate that woman to rip off a little potential for myself. God glorified? Me blessed. 

And by the way, in the world, there are only two ways to look at life. One is, you do it the way that you were created to be. The image of God called to cultivate the creation by unlocking the potential, in order that God can be glorified, and people can be blessed. Or you live it for yourself. Now, before the fall takes place, even God reaffirms what he has in mind for people with their work. But not just for their work, but the work of being an image-bearer. He has an idea for us, to give us a picture that's bigger than we would imagine for what it means to be an image-bearer. And the beginning of it is about not only just your work but also your rest. What you're doing when you're not working if you want to call that rest. 

Here's a couple of passages early on in the Bible and you'll see how they develop. Stay with me for a second here, because we're going someplace. Trust me, it's going to get there eventually. Here's the first one. The first one is found at the end of the story of the creation. It says this, "thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day, God had finished the work that he had been doing. So, on the seventh day, he rested from all of his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and he made it holy because, on it, he rested from all the work of creating he had done." There are two important things in this passage that you should see. One is this one here. It says, "he completed it in all their vast array. The heavens and the earth in all their vast array." 

You see, here's what God did. God made the world, it was so complex, beautiful, interesting, and fantastic with so many different things that you can't even imagine how many there are. And each one of them he crammed with unbelievable potential, with the possibility of them opening up to become just ecstatic experiences of what life was about. Not just a few things, but a lot of things. More than you can imagine. Then it says this, that after God had finished it, he set a day aside to celebrate himself that creation. The first time you hear about rest, the first time you hear about a Sabbath, it's a celebration that God takes. And the celebration that God takes, he celebrates the fantastic goodness and perfection of the creation itself. It's not a no-work day for God. It's not like God needed a day off like, that Grand Canyon took it out of me. I need a break. Did you see that Denali Mountain I made up in Alaska? 

No, it was a celebration of what fantastic possibilities, unbelievable possibilities God put within the creation. And how he looked forward to seeing his image-bearers, his representatives in the world unlock that potential and just show it to be the spectacular life it was meant to be. I'm going to tell you this right now. This is where we're going. Life for most of us is this big, and God means it to be this big. It's mostly this big. It's meant to be this big. When Jesus said, "I've come that you might have life and life abundantly." He didn't mean life in the sense that life that just goes on and on, eternal life. Meaning, you'd never die if you believe in me. He didn't mean that. But that's not the point of what he said when he said that. What he meant was, I've come that you might have life and life abundantly. He meant, not this, this. If you could figure out what it's about. 

By the way, the word Sabbath in Hebrew is the same as rest. It means rest. Sabbath and rest those two words. Next time you hear it is in the 10 commandments. It says, "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you labor, do all your work, 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, your daughter, your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor the foreigners who reside in your town. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that's in them. But he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and he made it holy." That is, he set it apart. That's what it means to be holy, to be set apart. So, how is the seventh day supposed to be set apart, the celebration of the seventh day and why? 

Well, here, it tells us the reason why you should celebrate every seventh day is that God celebrated the seventh day. And you know what? Strangely enough, the celebration that he had should be the celebration that you have. The celebration of the spectacular nature of God who created this unbelievable world in all its vast array. Good, perfect, crammed with potential. Meant to be lived out by his people who he made in his image so that they could have not this life, but this life. People are mistaken and they think that the point is not to work, not to do anything. It's not about, not working. By the way, in the creation, if God were to not work in terms of him sustaining the nature of reality for one moment, it would cease to exist. 

But no, it's about the celebration of the goodness of the creation. About 10-15 years ago, I was at a conference down in Miami beach. There are many hotels down there that are dominated by Jewish residents. So, we were there on a Saturday night, which is the Jewish Sabbath. When we went in to go up to our rooms, the guy who was at the desk tried to remind us. He goes, by the way, we have Sabbath elevators here. I don't know if you know what a Sabbath elevator is but listen to this. A Sabbath elevator is one that when you get in, you don't have to press any buttons. All you do is you stand in there; the door closes and here's what happens. It stops at every floor, all the way up. We were on the 15th floor. Every floor, all the way up. It goes all the way to the top, then it comes down. And it stops at every floor, all the way down. 

See, because the idea of the Sabbath was that you don't want to have to do the work of pushing a button in an elevator. Seriously. Some wacky rabbi convinced people that it was work. And that was what it meant to celebrate the Sabbath, the goodness of the creation in all its vast array. Don't touch that button. It's not about that. Do you know what it's about? It's about how you are figuring out just how big your life was really meant to be. It's about getting an opportunity to put aside the stuff that you regularly do day-in and day-out and focus your mind on some other things. How spectacular God is that He made a world like this. That you and I get to participate in and enjoy, all the potential being unlocked. It's unbelievable. By the way, the 10 commandments appear at a different time, another time in the Old Testament. It's in Deuteronomy five. 

Look at this. Same 10 commandments. There's no new don't eat donuts on Wednesday or something like that. "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you should not do any work. Neither you, your son, your daughter, your male or female servant, nor your ox or your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. So that your male and female servants may rest as you do. 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." 

The Sabbath day is given a second reason for why you ought to serve it. The first one was the celebration of the goodness of the creation in all its vast array and all the possibilities. This one here, says this, "you should celebrate it because you should remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord mercifully, not by anything you did, but by what he did, that he brought you out of that slavery with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. He was merciful to you." So, do you know what else you should do regularly? You should be convinced that it's not about what you do, it's about what God does. It's not what you've got in mind, it's what God has in mind. You know what? And even when you screw it up, here's what God says, "I've got a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and I'm a merciful God. And I can bring you back. You know what? You made your life this big; I can give you life this big." 

"Trust me. That's what you've got to do. You've got to trust me. I've got a plan for your life. Not just part of your life, all of your life. I want you to unlock this potential in all the vast array. Don't just be stuck on one little thing like your job, as if that was what it was about. Take time off from your job so you can remind yourself that I'm a merciful God who won't let you destroy your own life. And who has a plan for your life that's so much bigger than that." To some degree, he's saving us from ourselves, from our own selfishness, from our blindness. I'll tell you what, you know what? This is important. If you're writing down something, you should write this one down, I'll tell you that. I think that the religious position that is the most dangerous to Christianity, the one that, especially in the United States, has the most power in terms of tempting us to trust something else other than the true God, is the religion of consumerism. 

I think we believe that the more money you have, the better your life's going to be. And You know what I think, in order to get that money, we're willing to do whatever it takes. We're willing to give as much as we want. Let me put it this way. As much as it demands of us. To ignore the creation, the goodness, all these things in all their vast array, just to be focused to make that money. Because if you have more money, your life will be great. I felt sad when I saw that in the video, a young guy, of all the people that you saw in the video, that young guy says this. "If I had the time, I'd go to St. Thomas and I'd buy a mansion and a yacht." As if somehow, that was going to be the answer. Consuming was going to be the answer to his life's questions. 

God wants you to take a day off so that you don't think that somehow, it's about your gathering ability, but it's about his supply ability. And don't get lost in that. Don't somehow think that it's what I do that counts. It's trusting God and what he does, and what he has in mind for us that really counts. Hey, by the way, the Sabbath celebrations in the Old Testament don't stop there. There was one in creation, then there's a reminder after the fall that we should celebrate the same way God did. But also, because of the way God is in being merciful and so forth. But the next time you hear about Sabbath, it's actually in the book of Leviticus. And it talks about a thing called the Sabbath year. And get this one. When you hear this, it says in Leviticus, meaning in Leviticus 25, that you should count off a set of seven years. And every seventh year, you should let the land rest. 

Now, I don't know if you can figure this out right away. But in ancient Israel, if you lived in the agricultural economy of ancient Israel and the land got a year off. Guess what you got, a year off. You did not do what you regularly did for a year. I ask people, what would you do? I asked, and one person said to me, "I'd probably starve." I said, "what do you mean?" He said, "well, if I didn't work for a year, I wouldn't have money or I wouldn't have access to anything" Hey, by the way, God anticipates that. And later on, in that same passage in Leviticus 25, you know what he says? He says, "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking if I give the land a year off and I don't have anything to eat, I'm going to starve." He says, "I'll take care of you." 

This is what his promise is. He says, "I'll give you enough in the sixth year that you'll still be eating from that sixth-year harvest in the ninth year when the harvest comes in." It's almost like God is saying it like this, "wait a minute. I'm asking you to do something because I think this will enhance your life. That you'll go from this to this. You'll have abundant life if you figure out that I'm about having you develop, not just one area of life, economic or consuming life. But all these other areas of life that I've filled with potential for great things. And I promise you that if you do it, I'll take care of you. Because after all, you should trust me because I'm God. You can try. I can do it. I can take care of you." But if that wasn't enough, get this. This is Leviticus 25 starting at verse eight. 

"Count off seven Sabbath years, seven times seven years, so that the seven Sabbath years amount to a period of 49 years." Apparently, God does not trust our own math, so he does it for us right there. Then he says this, "then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the 10th day of the seventh month. On the day of atonement, sound the trumpets throughout the land. Consecrate the 50th 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 his family property, to his own clan. The 50th year shall be a Jubilee for you. Do not sow and do not read what grows of itself or harvest the untended vine. For it is a Jubilee for you, is to be holy for you." Set apart that is. "Eat only what is taken directly from the fields." 

Every 50th year, you get two years off. Two in a row. So, what do you do if you don't do the thing, you normally do? Why would God say something crazy like that? Here's what I think he's trying to say. He's saying, "when you think it's about you, you tend to narrow your life down and put all your energy into this much. When you realize I'll take care of you, and my plan is for you to celebrate the goodness of the creation in all its vast array. You can't get up enough time off to dedicate to all these other things that you know are important." As a matter of fact, trust me on this. Hey, by the way, there are a couple of other stipulations related to the year of Jubilee. Rather than read them to you, I'll just summarize them for you. 

It starts on a particular day. The 10th day of the seventh month, which by the way, is always a Sabbath day, a day of rest. Starts on the day of atonement. The day of atonement is the high, holy holiday of Judaism. This is the holiest day. It's the day when the high priest would go into the holy of holies and he would take the blood of the sacrifice. He would pour it over the mercy seat of the Ark of the covenant on this thing of atonement right there. And it would cover over the sins of the people for the year. Here's the point, the year of Jubilee, this huge thing began with personal forgiveness. The mercy of God in your own life. He's about giving you forgiveness, he's about changing you, he's about giving you a new life. Then it says this, here's what's supposed to happen. "Give the land another year of rest, you'll get a year of rest too." 

But here's what also happens, you returned to your own land. When the Israelites went into the promised land after the Exodus, when they've gotten in there, the idea was for them to settle by tribes in different places. Then to cultivate the land and make the kingdom of God be a city set on a hill for all the rest of the world to be able to see. So, the point was that you got a piece of land, every clan got like a county. Then the county got divided up among the families, and everybody got a piece of land. Now, here's what happens. If in the last 50 years you'd lost your land for some reason. You decided that you had rough times, you needed to sell it and whatever. In the 50th year, everybody's land got returned to them. That's sweet, isn't it? If that one you knew, how about this one here? Every 50th year, all debts were canceled in Israel. If you owed anybody money, your debt was canceled. 

Now we're talking. Sweet. I always tell students; this is the year to graduate from college. So, you get that debt canceled. By the way, God knows what we're like. In this passage he says this, "I know what's going to happen. Brother's going to come to you and tell you he needs to borrow some money from you. And you're thinking to yourself, the year of Jubilee's like next week." Are you going to give him money? Because you think, I'm not getting it back. Would you give money to people you weren't going to get back? Would you invest in something that didn't benefit you? God says, 'don't be so hardhearted, be open-handed, the way I am with you. Because after all, you're made in my image." One other thing, prisoners, and slaves get to go free every 50th year. If you found yourself in some kind of indentured servanthood, or you found yourself in one of the cities of refuge because you'd done something bad. When the 50th year came, when the year of Jubilee came, prisoners, got to go free. 

It was pretty sweet. Starts on the day of personal forgiveness and leads to a time of cultural renewal. People who have been on the margin are re-enfranchised into being able to be players in the culture the way everybody's supposed to be. Hey, by the way, it says this, "proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants." Most people don't know this, but that verse is written on the Liberty Bell. And by the way, do you know why we call it the Liberty Bell? People think we call it the Liberty Bell because it was the bell that was rung over constitution hall when people signed the declaration of independence on the 4th of July. But that's not why they call it the Liberty Bell. They call it the Liberty Bell, because in the 1820s, Christian abolitionists said, "how can you start a country and ring a bell that has a quote on it for Leviticus 25 that says, 'proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants and still have slaves?" 

They began to call it Liberty Bell, because of the conditions of the year of Jubilee that were supposed to be developed during that time. Hey, by the way, for anybody who's young out here who never went to see the Liberty Bell when they were younger. Well, couldn't, maybe you did. See this hand right here. This hand went in the crack of the Liberty Bell. If anybody would like to touch it afterward, that's weird. I'm just saying it right now. Later on, some nut job came with a hammer, started banging on a bell. So now it's encased in plexiglass, and you can't get to it. But back in the day, that's right. You're jealous, I know. Anyway. Hey, are you feeling it? Do you know what God wants? He wants you to be forgiven. He wants you to not have to go to hell because you didn't accept the offering of the atonement of his own life. He wants that. But you know what? Christianity isn't about you just your little life. He doesn't want to just change your life. 

He wants to change the world. He wants to change this world into the kingdom of God. Seeing the rule of God by his people who were made in his image, unlocking that potential in so many different ways. One last thing, I don't have time to read this passage. I'll tell you. The first time that Jesus ever preached was in his hometown in Nazareth. He gave a public sermon, in a sense. He was invited to the synagogue to speak. When he got to the synagogue, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, this is in Luke four, you can look it up later on if you want. Whether I'm making it up or not, but it's there. He was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he unrolled it to the place in Isaiah 61. The beginning of Isaiah 61, verses one and two. Here's what he read. He said, "the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor." And by the way, what do you think good news to the poor is? 

How about your debts are canceled, and you're re-enfranchised into the economy of the world? "Release to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind," to see the way things were meant to be. "Freedom to the oppressed," in so many ways. "To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." I'll tell you what, in this passage, these two verses, there are two little keywords, key phrases, that people would have known what he was talking about. The first one was, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me. People would know the anointed one was the Messiah. In fact, that's what the word Messiah means. The word Messiah in Hebrew means anointed one. In Greek, the word anointed one is translated by the word Christ. It means the anointed one. Jesus Christ means Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the anointed one. Anointed for what? To proclaim good news to the poor. It's not just good news that you get to be forgiven. 

It's good news that God wants to change the world, and he wants to take your life from this to this. Then the other phrase is, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Do you know what the year of the Lord's favor was? The year of Jubilee. It was the celebration of that system of Sabbath that God has set up, from the very creation itself to the 10 commandments to the Sabbath year, to the final of it. Where all culture gets reshaped by the graciousness of God, his mighty hand, an outstretched arm. And you can trust him to do it if you'll rest in him. By the way, resting doesn't mean don't work. It's the weird thing about Labor Day. We celebrate work, but not my resting. And by the way, it's not that rest is a bad thing. It's just that that's not the point. The point is to celebrate the goodness of the creation in all its vast array and give yourself to it. 

After Jesus read this passage, it says he handed the scroll back to the attendant and he sat down. That meant it was his time to speak about it. And here's a short sermon. He said, "today in your hearing, this scripture is fulfilled." Do you know what that meant? Looking for the Messiah and entering the final year of Jubilee, you're looking for personal forgiveness and cultural renewal. I'm here. After a little argument, you know what they did? They took Jesus to the brow of the hill in order to kill him. You'd think if the Messiah showed up to usher in the spectacular new world where life was this big, you'd think they would be so excited. But they tried to kill him. It says he walked through their midst, and he went away. Seriously, if Jesus preached next week here, I hope he gets a better reception. Just don't try to kill him. 

You think they tried to kill him, why? Because he was a challenge to the way that they were living. How much of a challenge it was? Listen to this, the law, that is Moses going on Mount Sinai, which includes the 10 commandments then later on these things like the year of Jubilee and so forth. Moses received that at about 1250 BC, approximately. Jesus is preaching in the synagogue in about 33 AD. So, roughly, let's call it 1,250 years in between when they get the law and Jesus talking, saying the fulfillment of it is here. If you're going to have the year of Jubilee every 50 years, that means that they should have celebrated the year of Jubilee 25 times. Between the giving of the law and when Jesus came, they should have celebrated those 25 different times. Taking the two years off in a row, forgiving the debts, giving the land back, letting the prisoners go free, this new culture type thing. The spirit connected to the merciful nature of God and his atonement for our own sin and a new life that he was giving to us. 

How many times do you think the Jewish people celebrated the year of Jubilee? How many people are going to say over 10? Put your hand up if you think over 10. How many people think five and under? Let me see your hand if you say five and under. As far as we know, the people of God never once ever celebrated the year of Jubilee. Makes you wonder how that could happen. Makes you wonder why when the Messiah comes to usher it in, you want to kill him. I'll tell you why because it's a threat to our lives. But here's how good God is. Even as we threaten the life of his son, he still wants our life to go from this to this. 

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this time together. We thank you for your word that directs us about life. We have a hard time hearing it sometimes, but we have a much harder time living it out. So, we pray that you'd do what only you can do. By your spirit, you would change our hearts and change our minds. That we could be the kind of people that you want to be. Your representatives, your image-bearers in the world. That we could be messengers and people who live out, not only personal forgiveness but cultural renewal. And we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thanks.