Rest - Renew - and Reset

Lescribe our bibles, describe our bibles. Had turned to Leviticus chapter twenty five.

Leviticus chapter twenty five. If you don't have a Bible with you,

just raise your hand. We're passing those out right now. And if you

don't have a bulletin, you didn't pick up a bulletin on your way in

through the doors there the worship cent are. Just raise your hand. We're

passing out bibles and bulletins, and turn with me to Leviticus chapter twenty five.

Leviticus twenty five. Yeah, we got a Bible right over here.

Yeah, perfect, Leviticus up towards the front. I'll tell you this morning

a little different than we usually do it. Usually. My convictions and the

convictions of the leadership of this church is that good nutritious diet for a congregation

is to take a passage of scripture and exposit it for its main point,

really kind of like get all the meat out of it for ourselves. And

in fact, the best way to do that usually is to go passage by

passage through a book of the Bible, so that we've got the full context

for all of that. That's a good nutritious diet. Every once in a

while, you take a vitamin, right, It's not a meal, it's

a vitamin. And in doing so, we're kind of asking, just like,

okay, what is the Bible teaching on this topic? What is the

Bible if we bring a question to the Bible, what sort of answers do

we see throughout scripture? I want to focus on Leviticus chapter twenty five,

but really we're asking another question as we approach this passage and a few other

passages with it. Let me read our text and then we'll dive into it.

But the question we're asking is how important to God is rest and renewal

and resetting? How important to God is rest and renewal and resetting. Now,

don't we know God doesn't need rest? But has he nevertheless taught us

that rest and renewal and resetting is important in His word? And I think

Leviticus chapter twenty five actually does a really good job of giving us an example.

Let's read it together, Verses one through twenty two. The Lord spoke

to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, speak to the people of Israel,

and say to them, when you come into the land that I give you,

The land shall keep us sabbath to the Lord. For six years.

You shall sow your field for six years. You shall prune your vineyard and

gather its fruits. But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of

solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. And you shall

not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows

of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine.

It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The sabbath of

the land shall provide food for you, for yourself, and for your male

and female slaves, for your hired worker, and you're the sojourner who lives

with you, for your cattle, and for the wild animals that are in

your land. All its yield shall be for food. And you shall count

seven weeks of years seven times seven years, so that the time of the

seven weeks of years shall give you forty nine years. Then you shall sound

the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the day

of atonement. You shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land, and you

shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its

inhabitants. It shall be a jewbilee for you. And when each of you

shall return to his property, and each of you shall return to his clan,

the fiftieth year shall be a jewbilee for you. In it, you

shall neither sew nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from

the undressed vines. For it is a jewbilee. It shall be holy to

you, and you may eat the produce of the field. In this year

of Jewbilee. Each of you shall return to his property. And if you

make a sail to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not

wrong one another. You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years

after the Jewbilee, and he shall sell to you according to the numbers of

years for crops. If the years are many, you shall increase the price,

and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for

it is the number of crops that he's selling to you. You shall out

wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the

Lord your God. Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and

perform them. Then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will

yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely.

And if you say, what shall we eat in the seventh year,

if we may not sew or gather in our crop, I will command my

blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop

sufficient for three years. When you sew in the eighth year, you will

be eating some of the old crop, and you shall eat the old crop

until the ninth year, when it's crop arrives. This is the word of

the Lord. About ten years ago, almost exactly, my wife and I

sold our house in Austin, Texas, packed everything we owned into storage except

the children and those we packed in the back of a minivan, and we

set out. We set out for church planting training in Chicago. We had

been preparing in so many ways, through seminary and through resigning from administering a

law firm as my job, and selling the house and saying goodbye and packing

up the stuff. And now we're on the road. Everybody's stuffed in the

back asleep. I'm driving through the night here to Chicago one shot. Are

you kidding me? I'm pounding monsters listening to the song Strong God on repeat.

You know this, We'll sing it later crying. I sleep when they

sleep. I cried. And we went off convinced that our strong God would

do an amazing work of church planting. We got to San Antonio to work

and watch our strong God work. We got here, we didn't know anyone

except for one family that wasn't related to us, right Natan Amanda came with

their similar sacrifices. We knew one family here that wasn't related to us.

That was Amy and Randy Standridge, I know. And they promptly and wisely

told us, no, we're not getting involved with the church plant And then

we prayed and our strong God went to work on their soft hearts. And

I knew and believed that God commanded and blesses hard work, and that he

works through the work of his people. I believe that. I think Scripture

teaches us that. But here's what else. Scripture teaches that God commands and

blesses good rest, and that god ours strong God works through his people,

but also apart from his people. Well, the scriptures teach and what our

passage in particular points out is that resting and renewing and resetting is important to

God. The question is, is resting and renewing and resetting as important to

you as it is to God? Because that's wisdom? Right, I mean,

if there's a definition for wisdom, it's I'm seeing things the way God's

seeing things, right, not perfectly, And no, we don't know the

mind of God. But if God views something a certain way, with a

certain priority, with a certain importance, and we don't, that is the

foolishness gap. Right. Do you view rest and renewing and resetting as importantly

as God does? That's the question. It's a very simple proposition this morning.

Simple. I think it's profound, but it's quite unpolished. It's a

simple proposition. Resting and renewing and resetting is really important to God? Is

it to you? We're gonna walk through this with a few questions like number

one, why do I think from scripture that this is true, that this

is really important to God? I think it would also help help us to

ask the question, well, are we returning to the law then, if

if the if the Sabbath is taught in the Old Testament law. Are we

talking about returning to the law or are we talking about learning from the law?

I think we should talk a little bit about why rest and renewal and

resetting is important to God. After all, he doesn't need to rest.

So what from scripture teaches us about the motives that God has in this priority.

Then I've got some time for congregational reflection, just a few questions for

congregational reflection. We'll take communion together, and then after our last song,

I'll come back up for some personal reflection, a little family chat time,

and then our elders are going to pray for me and our whole family.

So that's that's how we're going to handle the rest of this morning. So

rest and renewal and resetting is really important to God. What from scripture makes

me think that's true? Always a good question, right, I just giving

that question to you for free. It's worth learning and asking. Whenever anybody

makes a bear assertion and you can just say, well, what from scripture

makes you think that's true? I hope that's not too confrontational, but it

works in small group. What from scripture makes you think that's true? Here's

why I say it consider Genesis, the creation account. God creates all things

from nothing with the word of his power. He does not need to rest,

and yet he does. On the seventh day, he rests from all

his work he's created it all, thinks it is good, good, good,

good, very good. And then he sits on the front porch swing

of the cosmos, and just takes a look at all he's done. It's

like, let's just sit here for a second row. Why he doesn't need

the rest, but he sets the pattern for all of his creation. And

in fact, when he gives the Law Covenant to his people Israel, he

includes in the Ten Commandments, as well as many other places, you shall

remember the Sabbath day and keep it holding other day as you work. Sabbath

day, keep it holding. It's for rest, it's for renewal, it's

for resetting, it's for worship. And then not only think we have a

sabbath every seven days, rest, renewal, resetting, worship every seven days.

Then every seven years you have what we just read about in Levik's twenty

five no farming. Does anybody else think that's weird? Me? And you?

All right? Come on, who thinks that's weird? Fourth of us.

Okay, I mean, yeah, there's prop rotations and stuff like that.

Yeah, I get it, but still every seven years and is that

importance to God? Yeah, as a matter of fact, you can go

look into this on your own. But there's this really interesting interplay between what

the scriptures teach here in Levika is twenty five and then what happens in Second

Chronicles in chapter thirty six, and an interplay between the prophet Daniel and the

prophet Jeremiah where Jeremiah says, Okay, since you guys did not live in

obedience to the Lord your God, you lived here for four hundred and ninety

years, You're gonna be gone for seventy and the land will have its rest,

they'll have all its sabbaths from that four hundred and ninety years because you

guys didn't trust him enough to do what he said. Daniel's like, yeah,

that's about how long it's gonna take his rest and renewal and were setting

important to God? And then you see Jesus Christ and of one of the

things I've come to appreciate the most in his teaching, in his life and

ministry. In Matthew chapter eleven, he says this. Come to me,

all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you

rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. For my

yoke is easy and my burden is light, and I will give you rest

for your souls. What's interesting if you look at that account in Matthew,

the context of that account is in the setting of Christ teaching the leaders of

the Israelites what the Sabbath really means and to take the yoke of Christ.

To take the yoke of Christ means so in rabbinic terms, to take someone's

yoke would be to enter into their school, right, to enter into their

school, to learn their disciplines, to learn their way. You would have

a rabbinic school and say, okay, this is how to follow God,

this is how to worship, this is how to conduct yourself, this is

how to step out in faith. And Christ is saying, if you will

follow my way, if you will, if you will learn to obey the

way I obey, learn the way to work the way I work, and

rest the way I rest, and pray the way I pray. If you

will learn from me and follow my way of life, here's what you'll find

that my way is easy and light. You will find rest for your souls

in my way. Doesn't mean there won't be work, doesn't mean there won't

be hardships. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, you will find

rest for your souls if you will learn my way. And here's my question,

how well are we learning his way? Now? You ask? Okay,

well, yes, the Old Testament Law Covenant teaches Sabbath, teaches Sabbath

day, it teaches a Sabbath year. Are you saying that we should become

Sabbatarians? In other words, that we're to obey the Old Testament Law in

the same way that it's framed up for Israel. And no, I'm not

saying that at all. Christ has fulfilled all of the law, and we

aren't the nation of Israel. We're not called to set up a civil society

according to those same regulations. That's not what Christ has called us to create,

called us to a completely different people. But that doesn't mean just because

we don't return to the law doesn't mean we don't learn from the law as

it reflects the perfect character of God. Romans fifteen four says these things that

were written in the past were written for our instruction that through endurance and through

the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. So we learn,

and what we learn is that rest and renewal and resetting is really important to

God. Is it as important to you as it is to God? Well,

here's a question, what are God's motives in this? Why is rest

and renewal and resetting important to God? I think we can at least point

out four things that are clear from scripture that that sort of suggests God's motives.

Here's the first one. For regular creaturely rest, for regul guiller creaturely

rest. You see in all of these passages where God is speaking about the

Sabbath, he says, it's for you and your maidservant and your man's servant,

and for your animals and for all who are under your care. This

is for all of my creatures. They need regular rest every week, renewal

every week, resetting. It's part of how I've designed them. Have you

ever been to a restaurant where they hadn't reset the tables right, and some

family cleared out, and then then and then you get you sit down and

like there's kind of ketchup everywhere and I don't know why other people's crumbs are

way grosser than my crumbs, but it's gross. And then and then you

clear out, and then another family comes behind you, and it's just like

layers of meal debris. Yeah. Do you do you ever feel like your

weeks are like that? Like I need a new tablecloth in my life?

Right? Do you ever feel like that? Like I still have like crumbs

from three weeks ago in my to do list. For regular creaturely renewal,

God teaches us reseting, but not only that, also for a deeper renewal

and reset, a deeper renewal and reset. So not only do you have

weekly sabbath, but then here you have a sabbath every seven years, and

after seven of those you have what what what's called a jubilee. And God

teaches the people of Israel. Here's what happens every seven sevens every forty nine

years. On the fiftieth year, all debts are cleared, all property reverts

back to the original property owner, all servants are freed. Everything gets reset

every fifty years, a deep, profound resetting. And again we're not called

to create a civil society that's based off of the same laws as Israel.

But if we can't learn the principle of rest, renewal and resetting from something

as profound as that, I don't think we're paying attention. Well, here's

a third motive that seems plain not just regular rest, not just a deeper

renewal, but also a reminder of whose you are, a reminder of whose

you are. If you look at the Deuteronomy five teaching about Sabbath, here's

what you'll find. God links the command of Sabbath to the freedom the people

of Israel have out of Egypt. He says, you are going to observe

my Sabbath, for I rescued you from slavery from Egypt with my mighty arm.

Your mind now, and whereas you did belong to Pharaoh, and you

worked under his crushing regime, and you never had a day off. All

Pharaoh cared about was your productivity. You don't belong to him anymore. You

belong to me, and I care about you. Your mine, you're his.

You don't belong to the company, you don't belong to your idol of

productivity, you don't belong to the ha. And when you worshipfully rest with

Him in mind, as an act of faith and obedience. He reminds you,

yeah, your mind, I care about you. You are worth more

than what you put out, what you clean up, what you manage,

what you process. You're my creation, You're my people and your mind.

Because of none of your own work, you belong to him, all of

his work, none of yours. How will we remember that it's all of

Jesus' work and none of our work. If all we're ever doing is working,

or when we're not working, we're completely none doubt, zoned out,

vegging out, not worshipful rest, just basically drooling to the next work day,

for regular rest, for deeper renewal, for a reminder of whose we

are. But fourthly, this to the Creator. In worship to the Creator,

do you do you see how he puts that there? He says you,

you will sabbath. This is for you. It's a verse right,

verse two. Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them,

when you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep

a sabbath. It's to the Lord right verse four. It's a sabbath to

the Lord. It's for yourselves. Verse six, for your male and female

slaves. It's for your hired worker. It's for the surgery, so journal

who lives with you. But it's to the Lord. It's an act of

worship. It's for our rest, it's for our renewal, it's for our

reminder. But it's to the Lord. He set the pattern, and he

calls us to trust him, even says I will cause blessing right when you're

like, okay, well, if we do the Sabbath year thing, then

I don't know exactly what we're gonna eat because we're not gonna be planting or

we're not gonna be harvesting. God, I don't think you understand how this

works. It's like I will command my blessing. Do you trust me?

Who do you think grows the crops to begin with? Do you trust me?

And sometimes I think, sometimes I think we don't take rest, renewal

and resetting as seriously because when it comes right down to it, we don't

trust that if we take our foot off the gas, God can actually keep

the car going. We trust our strong God to work through us, But

do we trust our strong God to work without us? That's the question.

How is it going? How is it going with making resting and renewing and

resetting as important to you as it is to God. What would that look

like for you on a weekly basis, on a yearly basis, on a

multi year basis. Sometimes it can help bring the that question to a little

sharper focus if we come out in another way, like what if if you

really took rest, renewal and resetting as seriously as God took. What if

that caused your productivity to drop to seventy five but your worship up to one

hundred? Would you make the trade? Worship has always involved sacrifices. What

if if you took resting, renewal and resetting as seriously as God took resting,

renewal and resetting. What if it took your productivity down to fifty percent,

but it took your worship to one and kept it there. Would you

make the trade? Now, I'm not making any predictions. I don't think

that will happen. In fact, I think that God is not only the

god of rest, He's also the god of productivity. He said he will

command his blessing. I don't think. I don't think that's the trade we're

having to make. But the real question is where's our motive? Are we

resting in order to serve the God of productivity, or are we resting in

order to serve the God of the universe? How are we doing