Speaker: well what is a Jubilee?
Well, Jubilee is a celebration, uh, but biblically speaking, it
was a special year designated to God for the Nation of Israel.
And so we're actually going to go ahead and because it was a season,
we're gonna have a season leading up to and experiencing the Jubilee.
And so we're gonna actually have a sermon series for the next three.
We call the heart of Jubilee.
And so what we're gonna be doing here is really trying to capture what was the
heart of, of, of God's intention when he prescribed and designated the jubilee
for God's chosen people at that time.
And then how does it apply to us today, especially as we are about
to have our own Los Angeles Jubilee and actually the, uh, Roman Catholic
Church, they're actually having their year of Jubilee as well this year, and
they're having events at the same time.
And so that's.
Uh, you know, interesting and cool that, uh, we're having
this jubilee at the same time.
And so let's go ahead and let's get into the word of God.
You guys with me here this morning.
You know what?
Can we pray again?
Can we pray?
Let's go ahead and let's pray here before we dig into God's word.
Father, I'm so grateful, uh, for your word.
I know I'm excited about what I've been studying, excited here about, uh,
the content and how it applies to us.
And Father, I pray that your work.
May be able to be spoken today that you may move me to the side, and God
that you may communicate your message.
Please cast to the aside everything that wants to distract, detract from
our hearts from hearing your word today.
And so Father, we praise you in Jesus name.
Amen.
Yeah.
All right.
So I wanna give a little history and some context so that we can
fully appreciate and understand the Jubilee and see how it applies to us.
And so, uh, well shout out to my boy Chad Hoffman.
He told me to.
It's, it's helpful to do a little timeline sometimes.
So when I remember I, I, I put a little timeline in, so here we go.
And so this is just looking at God's chosen people from Abraham.
And so right now we're gonna go into the book of Leviticus.
And this is where Moses, uh, was chosen by God speaking of chosen.
He was chosen by God to lead God's people out of slavery of
Egypt into the Promised Land.
And so we just finished a sermon series, uh, from Jude.
We call it The Forgotten Letters.
And now here we are in Leviticus, and we're digging into the
Bible here up in North oc.
Amen.
When's the last time you heard a sermon, Leviticus?
Stop lying.
You didn't hear it recently.
Okay.
All right, so we're here.
We are.
So we're gonna be in the book of Leviticus, all right?
For the next two weeks.
All right?
And so, again, this is important for us to understand.
So God's people, they've been freed from slavery.
The Passover, Moses, remember Prince of Egypt?
All right, so we're, we're, we're at past that.
So now throughout the Mount of Sinai, and so God has given instructions to Moses,
and so they had yet to enter the Promised land, but God is preparing his people.
For what he wants them to be like a holy nation.
That would be a representation and that would be a blessing to all the nations.
And so he's preparing his people and he's telling them, here's what it
means to be a holy people who serve and have a relationship with a holy God.
And so he is gonna give them a number of things, but he's establishing their
culture and their judicial system.
So as you read Leviticus, as you read numbers and Exodus, you have to
understand, again, God's establishing a covenant people and he's establishing
some very practical things.
How is their judicial system?
How's their culture gonna be?
And so to set us up, we have to understand that Leviticus chapter 25, that's where
we're gonna be at today, is in this, what many scholars call the Holiness Code.
And so this is where God is establishing again for his people to be holy.
So I want us to quickly go over that.
So in Leviticus chapter 17, again, this is where it starts with many scholars
called the Holiness Code, uh, code.
And in Leviticus 17, it gives instructions about sacrifices and how blood is sacred.
It's our livelihood.
And then at 18, uh, forbidden sexual practices, how Israel must not
imitate the sin of Egypt in the land of Canaan in which they're going.
Uh, then we get over to Leviticus 19 and it gets real practical holiness.
And this is where we get the, uh, the scripture that's prominent, not only
in the Old Testament, new Testament.
Be holy for the Lord.
Your God is holy.
And he includes justice.
It includes love for your neighbor.
Honesty, care for the poor.
It's like a blueprint for the righteous.
Congregation that he's establishing.
And in Leviticus 20, the consequences of sin, Leviticus 21 through
22, the Holiness of the Priest.
And what's included in that is how the priests are to be.
Separate in their lifestyle and in their worship.
And then Leviticus 23, we have the appointed festival.
So that's the, the weekly Sabbath, that's the annual feast of like the
Passover, uh, Yom Kippur and whatnot.
And then you have God's sacred rhythms for remembering and rejoicing.
Now that's key because we'll see that in 25.
And then in Leviticus 24, uh, we have the holy items and then also justice.
And then we get to Leviticus 25 where there's.
Now the Sabbath year and the Jubilee.
So are you, are you with me?
Church.
Okay.
So this helps us to understand what's going on.
'cause sometimes you insert yourself in the middle of a text.
You can get good stuff, but you can also miss the greater and bigger
picture, which would bring home even more the point that God wants to make.
So here we are in Leviticus chapter 25.
And so before we get actually into the text here, you say,
well, what is the jubilee?
Let's keep it real simple.
Well, here's the Jubilee.
Every 50 years, God told his people to stop working the land free.
People who owe debts, return land to the original families, and then trust them.
Trust God to provide.
So every 50 years, this is what God's people were to do.
And so if we, the way we'll look at it and break it down here is this, it was really
about a reset release and restoring.
The God's Jubilee year was about a reset for his people, was about
releasing and it was about restoring.
And today we're gonna look at the reset part.
Now, man, there's so much good stuff.
As I was studying this out this week here, uh, there's so much good stuff, but
we're not gonna be able to get to that.
We're gonna stay focused and allow God to lead us in this season of Jubilee.
All right, you guys with me Church.
Alright, so let's go ahead.
Let's get into it.
Leviticus chapter 25.
We will read verse one.
The Lord said to Moses out Mount Sinai, speak to the Israelites and say to
them, when you enter the land, I'm going to give you the land itself.
Must observe a Sabbath to the Lord for six years, sow your fields
and for six years pruning your vineyards and gather their crops.
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.
Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes
of your unintended vines.
The land is to have a year of rest.
Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year will be food for you.
For yourself, for your male and female servants and the hired worker and
temporary resident who live among you, as well as for your livestock
and the wild animals in your land.
Whatever the land produces may be eaten.
Count off seven Sabbath years.
Seven times seven years.
So that seven Sabbath years amount to a period of 49 years, guys doing
some math for the people there.
Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere.
On the 10th day of the seventh month on the Day of Atonement.
That's Young Kippur sound, the trumpet throughout your 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 your family property and to your own clan.
The 50th year shall be a jubilee.
For you.
Do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest
the unintended vines for.
It is a jubilee and it is to be holy for you.
Eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
We'll stop right there again.
The heart of the jubilee is a reset.
And like a Sabbath day.
Remember, God established a Sabbath day.
That being Saturday, we worked six days and God told his people to work
six days, but then to rest and to rejuvenate, to be restored and to worship.
And so now he's established a seventh uh, uh, Sabbath year.
And not only for the people, but also for the land that stood out
to me like the land needs to rest.
And he says it's a rest time.
It's a time of resting from land and a time of resting from labor.
And so here's a little diagram just to kind of understand
what it was to look like.
And so for the first six years, it's a regular year.
Then there's a SA Sabbath year on the seventh year, and then you keep going.
And then on the 49th year, that's on the day of Pentecost, or no, excuse me, on the
day of Yo Kapo, their day of atonement.
You would have on that day, on the 10th day there, uh, uh, of the seventh
month, then they would sound a trumpet, and then that would signify, now
we're going into the Jubilee year.
And so some scholars think that, uh, the Jubilee actually was on the 49th
year, or some believe that, uh, it started on the 50th year, but that
they really shortened the 50th year.
It, it doesn't really matter.
The point is that they were to have a jubilee year, and
so this is helpful for us.
But here's the interesting thing.
Nowhere in archeological findings or even in scripture, do you actually
see God's people practice this
like we have no record of.
They say, oh, remember that jubilee year, or, here's what
happened on that jubilee year.
Which is pretty incredible.
No, none of the writing.
Now there's things that might point to a Jubilee year, but we can't say
for certain that we know that they actually put this into practice.
And that's interesting right there.
Right.
We can have some good philosophical discussion right there.
I don't think it means they didn't celebrate it, but it's just
interesting that we don't have a record of it, and I, I'm firmly am
convinced that they never celebrated again once they returned from exile.
Because it was different.
The land was inhabited.
They had different nations and there was mixture, and there was no way for them
to properly celebrate the jubilee year.
So this has been a long time since God's people have celebrated the
Levitical Jubilee year, but the Jubilee principle, as we see can
and does apply to you and I church.
Are you with me here?
Here's one observation I wanna make.
God believes in rest.
Did you see that?
Amen.
He said, rest for a whole year, every seven years.
Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds good, doesn't it?
Corinne and I talk are like, man, a whole year of rest,
boy, can we sign up for that?
We like America.
We need to get this together.
You know what I'm saying?
I know there's people trying to fight for four day weekdays.
I'm like, let's just fight for that Sabbath year.
Okay?
Now again, this was a part of God's divine schedule.
He inserted it.
He, he prescribed it.
So what does that mean about God?
God knows, and God believes that you and I are to rest.
Can I get an amen for that?
Amen.
He knows that we can't keep going.
We can't go nonstop.
He created a he, he had a Sabbath day principle, the Sabbath year.
Now a jubilee.
I mean, he wants rest weekly.
He wants rest yearly.
He wants to make sure that we rest.
Amen.
Now, it doesn't mean be lazy.
Some of y'all heard resting.
You thought, Ooh, yeah, I'm gonna binge on Netflix for 36 straight hours.
That's not what God intended, but it was for rest 'cause it's
set up for a time of resetting.
And so God's people needed to be intentional and have
consistent time of sacred rest.
It was supposed to be part of their rhythm, their rhythm of life.
That's kind of some of the, the, the language that a lot of people are
into right now, our rhythm of life.
And so God wanted the rhythm of life, not just for individuals before his
congregation, to have a rhythm of life that included sacred holy rest.
And so again, this was a rest.
And it was set up for a reset, a reset for society, and a reset spiritually.
And we all need a reset too, don't we?
You need a reset.
We all know we need resets.
Everything in life needs a reset.
You know, sometimes you have your phone, it has glitches, right?
The, the, the app on your phone has glitches.
What do you do?
You reset it, right?
You restart it.
Sometimes you even have to reset your phone or, or with your car,
it may look fine, but, uh, if, if you never get a tuneup, you're
headed for a breakdown, aren't you?
And so you have to have that in tuneup.
It's like, Hey, yeah, you might have been doing all the maintenance that you should,
uh, oil change every 3000 miles and whatever, but you still need that tuneup.
And in the same way, that's what the Jubilee was.
It was a reset, a divine tuneup.
Not because they were bad, but because God loves his people too
much to let them run on empty.
It's a time to recalibrate physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
It was a time for reset.
You know, I just gotta get recalibrated.
You, you, you've had those days and times, haven't you?
The jubilee.
Was again, something that God knew his people needed then.
And I still believe that God knows his people still need today.
And it wasn't just for individuals, but it was supposed to be
practiced by God's chosen people.
It was supposed to be a collective practice.
And so again, as we read, as we interpret things, we see not only the
individual, but we see the collective.
So as we can see as we'll, we'll study out here today and for the next couple weeks.
This applies to you as an individual, but applies to us as a
congregation, as God's chosen people.
And it says here in verse 12, again, I want to read this for, it
is a jubilee and it is to be holy.
For you to be holy means to be set apart for something that's sacred.
To be of God, to be divine, to be righteous.
And so this jubilee, this time was to be holy.
You know, the prescribed interruption, the prescribed
stopping of normal community society.
Life was designed by God for, for God's people, so that we, or they would hit
the reset button, that they would hit the reset button on life, on faith,
on their priorities, their purpose.
And their mission and you know, you have to stop in order to reset.
You can't reset while you're still going.
Have you, have you ever tried?
That doesn't work.
You have to stop in order to reset and you, so, so you see no
regular working during the jubilee.
Why?
Because you then can't reflect and you can't rest.
If I keep going and I don't stop, then I don't have time to reset, but I
don't have time to reflect upon how I'm doing, what God is saying and what's
needed for me or even for my soul.
Stopping allows for time of remembering and reflection.
And so I'm excited even with our Jubilee that's coming up here in,
uh, uh, uh, first weekend of August.
We're stopping.
We're stopping for several days, and we're just gonna have a chance
to, to, uh, hear what God is saying to us, not only individually but
collectively, and therefore being able to go in God's direction going forward.
But again, a time for resetting is a time that allows us to remember and to reflect.
And for them, the Jubilee allowed them time to remember and to reflect on where
they came from, where'd they come from?
Slavery in Egypt.
Hey, we're no longer there.
Our people are no longer there.
That's no longer our heritage.
That's no longer our mailing address.
No longer my status in life.
They were able to remember and reflect upon their deliverance that it was God
that delivered them and not themselves.
It was God who produced the miracles.
It was God who provided manna in the desert.
It was God who put them in the land, who had victories and is God who's gonna
continue to provide for their daily needs.
So you get a chance to remember and to reflect.
Upon this, and when you see God has delivered, you get to see God and maybe
new facets, or you get to marvel at things that you haven't appreciated in
a while because you're always on the go.
And so they got a chance to see God is a God of love, a God of
compassion, a God of great mercy and patience, a God of power and a God
of provision, meaning to provide.
And so now they get a chance to do this and they, they pause from the
striving and the toiling and the tilling of their agricultural society.
They stop and they pause from producing and controlling, and now they hear
the call to trust in his provision.
Again, his providing and in his presence.
I don't want you to work this year the way you normally do.
And I don't want you to store up because I'm gonna provide in the
previous years so much that you'll have enough for the next year.
What is that called?
For some serious trust?
And it reminds you what?
I'm not in control.
I depend upon a holy God, and he must be a provider if I'm gonna follow this.
And it will show where my faith truly is, if I'll trust him enough to do
that, or will I take things in my own hands and I'll get to working again.
And so allow them to reflect and to be reminded of who God is a chance to be
reminded and reflect on their current response to this holy and righteous God.
Again, not only individually, but collectively.
Hey, does my life look like it once?
Did, does it look like it should in response to God's blessings
in our lives, are we faithful?
Are we still grateful?
Are we aligned with his mission and his purpose for our lives?
Or have we veered to materialism and unholy living?
Which will lead to the question, what changes are needed for me to be where God.
Wants.
And so this,
these were the opportunities which were offered and presented.
When they got a chance to stop, remember, reflect, and hit a reset.
Let, let me ask you, do we need a time to reset as a church?
Yes.
One person believes it.
Some of y'all so tired.
You like, yes.
You just said it mentally.
No, seriously.
Do we need time as a church to reset?
We do.
Do you as a child of God, do you need a season of resetting?
Well, most of us do individually than we do collectively, don't we?
And so I'm excited about this season that we're in.
But here's the wonderful thing here, is that I believe I'm a hundred percent
convinced that we can experience Jubilee today, that the principles of resetting,
of releasing and restoring you and I can experience today through the
blood and, and, and sacrifice and the deliverance we have in and through Jesus.
That we have the opportunity to experience the Jubilee
principles in our lives in 2025.
Brothers and sisters, are you with me here?
But we need to slow down.
We need to have some time to reflect and to trust in God's provision for our lives.
And like the Israelites, we need to reset so that we can have a
time to remember and to reflect.
And so we need to have some time.
Let's, let's hit the reset button.
Let's start this hour.
Let's start this week.
Let's hit the reset button where we slow down and get some
time to remember and reflect.
We get, we need to remember and reflect on our slavery to sin.
We weren't slaves in Egypt, but we were slaves to sin.
And maybe you're a youth in the crown.
You go, I ain't no slave to sin.
Just study the Bible.
You'll see your slave to sin as well.
But every single one of us and some of us, we're still slaves to sin today.
We have yet to be free from that bondage through Jesus.
I wanna encourage you, don't wait till tomorrow.
'cause there's nothing like freedom in Christ, but we need to reflect
and remind ourselves of what it was like in our slavery to sin.
But then we need to remember and reflect upon God's deliverance through Jesus and
how we've been freed from that, and the opportunities that we have to live in that
freedom from now into all of eternity.
And we need to see who God is.
We need to remember that God is a God of love, of great patience
and mercy, a God of power.
And a God of provision.
It's a call to trust in his provision and his presence in a world that runs nonstop.
Can we learn to stop and let God lead again?
Because what's the temptation for us?
If I don't do this, I'm gonna miss out.
I won't have, I won't get ahead.
I might not have, can anyone relate to those thoughts?
But God is saying slow.
Down, trust in me.
If you follow me, I will provide everything you need.
Amen.
But will you trust, will you allow him to lead or will you say, no?
Can I get my, my plow and let me do my parts?
And we have to do our parts?
Don't get me wrong.
The God calls us to trust in him.
We need to remember and reflect on what's our current response to the
blessings that we have in Jesus, and examine where is my faith?
Where are my convictions today in 2025?
What's my lifestyle like?
Does it look like it's in con, aligned with the proper response?
To being freed in Christ.
Are my priorities in the right place?
Maybe I'm focusing on the right things.
Maybe I'm getting materialistic, and that's not hard to do in Orange County.
Is it?
What's my purpose?
What's our purpose as a church?
What's our mission as his people and what's he individually called me.
To do.
What's my role in God's church?
What's the church's role in our community and in our society?
I get a chance to reflect upon these things and then ask ourselves,
Hey, how can I stay aligned?
If I'm aligned, how can I stay there?
Or if I'm misaligned, how do I get realigned with where
God is, wants me to go?
And so this isn't a bad thing.
This isn't something, oh, I should feel guilty.
I'm the worst person on the earth.
Hallelujah for a jubilee, because it's a reset.
You don't get mad.
Or maybe you get mad, but, oh, my app is crazy.
Let me throw my phone.
Stupid phones that maybe you do that.
I'm gonna tell you that's not the right way to do it.
And now you gotta waste more money.
But what do you do?
You just restart the thing and now it starts to be refreshed, and now you
go, okay, now we're working properly.
And so as we get a chance to reflect, to remember, God starts to work on
us so that we can function properly.
God's design for the Jubilee was for his people collectively and individually.
Let me ask you this, what could that look like if the entire thousands, if
the entire LA church and those from the surrounding areas who come, what would
it look like if the entire LA Church and beyond experienced Jubilee this year?
What would happen if all of us hit the reset button?
Imagine the possibilities if we all stopped, remembered, reflected,
and it responded to God with complete trust and faithfulness.
Amen.
Imagine that.
Or brothers and sisters, let's do our parts in this picture, in this
visual coming into fruition, you and I today can begin our season
of Jubilee and we can pray for the masses to be able to experience the
Jubilee Principle in 2025 and beyond.
So I wanna get real practical.
Can we get real practical?
Church?
I said church.
Can we get real practical?
Yes.
All right.
Are you still with me here?
Yes.
Here we go.
I wanna give some action steps here.
You know, it's not a Marcel sermon if I don't have action steps.
All right.
Why do have some sermons?
I don't have action steps?
Here we go.
Alright, so first step here is uh uh, I wanna give you here a reading plan.
And so.
Uh, here's the reading plan.
It's, it's real simple.
You can have this in addition.
It's not really, uh, worthy of a quiet time, if you will, unless
you wanna reflect deeply upon it.
But, uh, in the back, as you walk away, we printed out some, you also can
see on the, uh, on the screen there.
So pull out your phones there.
There's a QR code that will take you to week one.
So each week we're gonna provide, uh, a reading plan.
So it's gonna give you scriptures for each day of the week.
And so that you can think and reflect upon.
And then we also have some questions for you that you can do either
yourself, you can reflect upon them.
It would be fantastic if you do that with your discipleship
partners or discipleship groups.
I know a lot of us are in our summer passion groups, but let's get together
and let's pull this out and say, Hey, hey, what do you think about this?
And allow for God's spirit to minister for to us.
And again, deepen.
Our conviction and our growth and what we're learning and
growing as a church here.
And so here's the thanks.
These are, oh, it's also gonna be on the church app as well.
So I think in about, uh, 25 minutes, you'll get a little notification.
All right.
With, with, with this as well.
So if you say, I don't have it, you lying.
Okay.
All right.
So that's part of that practical holy living.
All right.
I think that's Leviticus Chapter 19 or something like that.
All right.
So, um, I encourage you, don't just take a picture.
But again, if you and I are going to experience and enter the realm
of Jubilee, we need to practically do something and prepare our hearts.
And so I'm not saying this is the end all, but this will allow you
and me to enter into this realm and allow for God to minister to us.
You guys with me church.
And so whether you've been in the church 45 years, or you're in the front row here
and you're in the junior high, you're in high school, uh, let's do this together.
And as you'll see, uh uh, it's really simple and definitely doable.
Right now, we're gonna switch up and we're gonna take communion.
We have the juice and the blood.
These are the emblems that represent Jesus' body and his
blood that was sacrificed so that we could have salvation.
God commanded his people to rest, not just from physical labor.
But to reset their trust in him.
That was the heart of the Sabbath and the heart of Jubilee in
Jesus that rests is fulfilled.
He finished the work and now we come to God not to strive or try
to prove ourselves, but to stop, to remember, and to rest in his grace.
In Hebrews chapter four and verse nine.
It says there remains then a Sabbath rests for the people of God.
For anyone who enter God's rest also rests from their works just as God did from his.
As we take communion, let's stop.
Let's remember, and let's reflect on his body broken, his blood's poured out
so we can have eternal rests with God.
Let's pray.
Father, I thank you again so much for the Sabbath principle, the
Jubilee principle, and the chance and the opportunity to reset.
And God, we thank you so much that really salvation was a
complete reset spiritually for us.
Father, the fact that Jesus died and rose again in those of us who
were able and, and have responded.
By turning to you in faith and trusting in you repenting and getting baptized,
God, we have had a true reset spiritually, but God, we know that you call us
to a reset on a consistent basis.
I'm so grateful as a church, we take communion on a consistent basis because we
get a chance to stop, to remember, and to reflect upon the cost for our salvation.
We get a chance to remember your deliverance.
From our sin, we get a chance to remember, you are a God of power because
you raise your son from the dead.
You're a guy who delivers and continually delivers in our life.
A God of great mercy, great patience, and through the cross we
see you are a God of ultimate love.
We thank you for the eternal rest we have in.
Jesus.
It's in your name we pray.
Amen.