Leviticus 23:2 (Strong Festivities)

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Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the

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Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

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Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you well

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Been on a while since I've been up here. So I wanted to ask a question as we get started If you were to make a list of all of the

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Christian disciplines that were essential for the Christian life What would get on your list?

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Some common examples maybe would be prayer Reading the Word Sanctification being present and active in the local church giving would show up on some of your list cultural engagement

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If you go to the internet Chat GPT or any of the other AI bots.

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They'll tell you that journaling Silence solitude study quiet time biblical meditation.

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All these are good things. But if you're not careful What you end up believing about the Christian faith is that it's entirely done alone

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By ourselves in our closet contained between our ears and it doesn't ever affect us corporately

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You see the Bible doesn't talk about faith like that those disciplines are good But there's communal elements underneath those disciplines and the

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Bible talks about a church That is communal who is loud who is roaring who is shouting who's gathered together and fellowship

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The Bible is not a monastic community of quiet monks who barely you hear a peep out of She's festive

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She fellowships to the glory of God The church is a gathered theological sacramental liturgical people who preach the

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Bible rightly who administer the Lord's table and baptism rightly who order herself with godly liturgy and participate in robust festivity fellowship and feasting

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Which brings us back to our original question if you were to write down all of the Christian disciplines that you believe are essential with feasting and festivities and fellowship beyond it

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How many of you would admit that it not only is a good thing But it's essential to the heart of God What we're gonna see today in the scriptures is that God deeply cares about these things

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You see in my time in evangelicalism, I found that there's been sort of two churches and I'm talking about the faithful ones

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I'm asking about the compromised ones. We're talking about the faithful ones. There's churches that really prioritize fellowship and are weak on doctrine

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There's churches that are really strong on doctrine and there's no fellowship

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What we're gonna see today and what we see every week is that God cares about doctrine But what we're gonna see today is that God also cares about communal fellowship festivities feasting

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Now we're gonna do this in a couple different parts Part one we're gonna see how God commands this

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Number two, we're gonna see that God cares so deeply about it that he handles all of the details You know when you plan a party, it's like where when's it gonna be?

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Where's it gonna be? What are people gonna wear? What's the food gonna be? How's it gonna be scheduled? God takes care of all of those things prescriptively

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He doesn't let us Figure out the details. He provides them which shows us that he cares and then the final part we're gonna see how a festive

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Christian life is A blessing to the people of God in the Old Testament in the

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New Testament What we're gonna see is in the way we feast Our feasting will bring our theology from up here

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To here to here to here and all of our other senses. It makes our theology living So if you will turn with me to Leviticus 23 to as we read this verse

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It will be sort of a launching pad verse We'll be here but not very long. We're gonna be kind of all over the place

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So we'll read that and we'll pray and we'll get started Speak to the Israelites and say to them these are my appointed festivals the appointed festivals of the

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Lord which you are to proclaim as sacred Assemblies, let's pray

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Lord. Thank you Lord, thank you that you command us to have feasting

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Lord, thank you that you command us require us To be a festive people

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Lord you're not concerned chiefly With our doctrine, although you are you're also concerned

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With our patterns of living our habits in community You're you're concerned not just with our head but with our heart and our body as well

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Lord help us today To see things that maybe we've never seen before in the text

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Lord help us to grow healthy in this way as a feasting festive Church It's in Christ's name.

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We pray. Amen Festivities and festivals and feasting are commanded by God.

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There's no way to get around it It's there in the text and that's why I love the Torah so much The Torah is not just a list of laws that you have to obey like a law code

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You know, no one has fun when they open up a law code My lawyers will tell you can agree with me on that this statute that statute it sucks the fun out of the room

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The Torah is not just a law book The Torah has songs in it it has music and it has feasting it has history it has

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The morality of the people it has poetry government health care On how the people are to take care of themselves has origin stories so that they'll know who they are as a people

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God commands these things and what he does is he commands them to party? He commands them to feast

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He commands them to get together to do life together and not be ashamed about it But to do it joyfully to worship him when they gather.

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Yes with songs and liturgy. Yes But with feasting and eating with all of their sights and senses engaged

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He cares very deeply about this topic Again, we're gonna use Leviticus 23 2 as a launching pad

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But what I want us to do is I want us to now kind of go through the Bible a little bit and see where This is commanded. First off.

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It's commanded in the very beginning in the Garden of Eden You cannot tell me that God doesn't care about our joy and our feasting and fellowship if he put them in a fully stocked paradise from the beginning and he tells them to be fruitful and Multiply which is a blueprint or a paradigm on how to make the world just like Eden He did not say

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I want you to make the world into a dusty library where only a few very nerdy people will flourish He put them in a fully stocked paradise five -star resort and said replicate that And it's not just his vision in Eden That's his vision for Israel after the fall after sin after their brokenness comes in he meets them with these themes again

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Before God when the people of Israel in Egypt Before God delivered them

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Before God gave them their freedom before he gave them national identity before he gave them the law

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Do you know what he gave them first? He gave them a feast the very first thing he gave them was a feast

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It was the Passover if you remember in Exodus 12 the people were to have this hurried meal because they're getting ready to be freed by God and and Sent out of Egypt and to have this land of their own so they have to gobble down this meal quickly

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It was a scheduled feast where God said on this day of this month You have to do this every single year as a memorial and as a memory of what

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I've done for you It's a sacramental feast in the sense that that this lamb is gonna

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Represent the people and he's gonna be the one to substitutionally die for the sins of the people the father was actually gonna hold the lambs head in his hands and he was gonna speak a

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Covenantal curse over the lamb saying that my sin my wife's sin My family sin is on you and then that lamb would be slaughtered as a substitutionary atonement for the people

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So it was a scheduled feast. It was a sacramental feast. It was an atoning feast. It was commanded though not suggested

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He did not recommend that they feast he ordered it and invented it and required it and He did it yearly so that every year they would have to reproduce this feast

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Now why would God do that Because it kind of works against the idea of party if I look at you and say you have to come to my party

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It can feel like I've sucked a little bit of the life out of it Why would God be so strict so strong in?

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Commanding these things we have to remember the nature of God's commands. God does not give commands that ultimately take from us

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That do require things of us for sure, but God gives us commands that pour into us that bless us

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God commanded them to celebrate this festival in this feast every single year because he loves them

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Because he cares about them because he wants them to know who he is and to know who they are

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They are the ones that caused this innocent spotless lamb to die. He is the one by grace alone

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Who brings them back? The festival brings our theology down From the library to our kitchen it makes the truth of God's savory and tasty

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It seasons our life with living doctrine and not just dusty axioms that are fit for a shelf

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Passover again reminds them who they are and it reminds them of who God is. That's the first one commanded There's other feasts though in the

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Old Testament that are commanded There's three pilgrimage feasts where they have to travel once they get a land from Jerusalem or from wherever their home is to Jerusalem So in that in the history of all of this they fled they got out of Egypt as quickly as they possibly could

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God literally drowned and destroyed the Egyptian army at the Red Sea and They travel to the mount to Mount Sinai where they're given these three

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Pilgrimage feasts where they're supposed to do this every year if you're a man in Israel every single year You were commanded by God to have fun and feast beautiful What are the three pilgrimage feasts is one's

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Passover which we already talked about that everyone had every male had to attend The other is the festival of weeks, which is 50 days after the feast of unleavened bread

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You have Passover then you have unleavened bread immediately following it and then 50 days later the people journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai and that 50 -year journey is

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God Delivering them and reminding them that he is the one who descends to be their

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God So why would he require that feast? Why would he command it? So they'll never forget that in their journey in their wondering

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That he is the God who comes down and lives and dwells with him He says I am your

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God and you are my people and I'm gonna command this feast every year so that you never forget that The festival of booths is another pilgrimage feast

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That's when the Israelites had to had to live for 40 years in the wilderness I don't know if you know about this or not, but wildernesses aren't great places of produce and food

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They didn't have the best Merlot. They didn't have cheese and crackers and everything else They were struggling to find water and bread.

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So God rains down bread from heaven he scares a Massive monsoon of quail

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To just come in and lay right before them so that they could they could eat meat until it became

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So much so that they were complaining about that. He gave them water out of a rock this 40 years of wandering in the wilderness is

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What the festival booths is all about that They are the people who are so utterly reliant on the provision of God that if he doesn't feed them, they won't eat

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What a great reminder for the people of Israel to never forget that that's why he commanded it

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He's gracious in Commanding these feasts because he's reminding them of their history their national identity and he's reminding them that salvation is by God and God alone

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There's more once they get into the land. They have feasts that are commanded. The Sabbath is one of them

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The Sabbath is a 52 Week feast that happens every year or every week where they are to remember that it's not their labor

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That is what's nourishing them. It's God They had to gather twice the amount of manna on Saturday or on Friday so that they could eat on Saturday They had to not work and do any labors and they had to trust

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God That was the whole point of Sabbath is that you need to trust God that he will provide and God said that that Festival was so important because guess what?

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We're people who naturally Fall out of trusting God quickly Any little problem in our life?

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We're like, oh, I don't know if I can trust God So what does God do? 52

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Sabbaths a year to reinforce Repeatedly that he can be trusted.

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He commanded them. They're not optional What are some others that he gives he gives the

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Feast of firstfruits? Immediately after the Passover they're celebrating that the firstfruits of the harvest are breaking through the ground

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Meaning that they are reliant upon God again for their sustenance That he would be the one to provide for them.

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They celebrate the Feast of trumpets, which is called Rosh Hashanah That's really fun to say in it

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Rosh Hashanah It's in Leviticus 23 23 through 25

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That's the Jewish New Year and the trumpets would be blown now trumpets in the Old Testament is a fascinating thing

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It's either that the trumpets are blown because Israel is going to war or it's that God is coming to war against the people so when the trumpets are blown during Rosh Hashanah this required feast the people would

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Recognize that they're not going to war against their enemies. God is coming against them Because of their sin and because of their failure and because of their brokenness he's coming so Rosh Hashanah Was about repentance

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Deep reflection on all the things that are broken in my life and they would comb through their life with a fine -toothed

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Comb looking for every knit of sin Because this God is holy and he's coming

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His justice demands that the sin be paid for in some way That's an incredible truth to remember he commanded that they feast

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So that that theology would not just be bumbling around in their head, but it would be in their heart in their body now the problem with Rosh Hashanah is

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That you can't repent enough You can go through your life with a fine -toothed comb and there are sins you forgot about There are attitudes that you didn't even know were sinful

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There are things in you that you either are trying to hide or you don't even remember or you're ignorant of So what does

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God do God commands a climactic feast called the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur?

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Which is a blank check Sacrifice for the people of Israel. There were two goats involved in this sacrifice there was the one who was slaughtered for the sins of the people and there was the one that was set free and Over top of that goat that was set free

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It's called the scapegoat all of the sins of Israel were proclaimed and he was driven out of the camp and the point is

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That you have unconfessed sin in your life You have forgotten sin in your life and you have hidden sin in your life that you don't want anyone to know about I am going to cover it and I'm going to cast it away from you so that it is not yours anymore.

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It belongs to me During that festival they would fast

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Because of the great work that God was doing God wanted their attention not on food not on pastries not on yogurt

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Not on anything else. He wanted it on him There were festivals that came in the exile period or in the second temple period one is

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Purim You read about Purim in the book of Esther where the people are being accosted by this wicked man named

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Haman Who creates this law where all the Jews are basically going to die and God through his grace delivers them

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This is a reminder that God even delivers them from their greatest enemies There's a second temple feast that happens after the book of Malachi and before the book of Matthew somewhere in that Intertestamental period there's a festival called

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Hanukkah or the festival of lights where for eight days the

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Jewish priests were fighting against the Seleucid Empire and Because they were fighting they didn't have time to tend the lamps and the legend says that the lamps stayed lit for eight days the oil never ran out

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So God again It's the one who provides for his people Now what I find interesting about this is that he commanded a festival or a feast for every stage of their history

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There's not one stage of their history that he left out He commanded a festival for their time in Egypt for their time in wondering for their time at Mount Sinai For their time in the land of Canaan for their time in exile and Babylon and for their time of return

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They have a festival for every season because God is the God of every season of Israel He commands these things because he loves them and he wants them to remember

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What is the word remember even mean that we would be remembered back to God Us as members of his community being remembered back to him

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Reconnected back to him So these are commanded things

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Now if you add all of this up all the feet of the fleeing feasts the Sabbaths the Pilgrimages the local feasts the exilic and post -exilic feast if you add all of it up It would be about 80 to 90 days that God commanded for them to be in festival per year

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Now according to the Jewish lunar calendar, which is not the solar calendar that we're on that's right at 25 % of their life

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Was commanded to be in festival This is not a minor thing that God's like when you get time, you know,

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I hope you party and celebrate me. No a quarter of their life

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Besides work and family time. It was the most significant time in their life was time in festival

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So for us who don't normally think about these things We see that God does

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God cares about them and if we're not a feasting Festive people who are fellowshipping with one another in celebration of who

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God is having joy If we're not a joyful happy festive people, we've got things that we can work on because God cares about this

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So much more than we probably knew So that's the first thing God commands it he commands it because he loves them because he wants them to have great joy

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The second thing we need to understand is that God doesn't just stand aloof from these festivals and command them to figure it out

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God doesn't say hey, I want you to have this festival But I'm not gonna tell you when to do it where to do it how to do it. No God gives them all the details

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So for instance, he schedules the festivities if you and I I converted this to our modern calendar because we don't have a lunar calendar

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So forgive me these dates aren't 100 % precise but if you and I Were in the ancient world and the year just so happened to be 2023, which

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I know is can't do that March 4th and 5th, we would be in the celebration of Purim That God delivered us from our great enemy which reminds us of the

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Garden of Eden Passover April 5th and 6 the lamb Would be given for us

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Feast of unleavened bread would be April 6 through the 13th And we would have to travel to Jerusalem for both of these feast

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After that, we would have a 50 -day break with Sabbaths 7 Sabbaths in between which is a perfect rest

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After that, we would go to the Feast of Weeks where we would travel to Jerusalem and We would have a one -day ceremony where we read where we remember the fact that God came down and dwelt among us after that We would have the

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Feast of Trumpets in September 27 through the 29th Where we would remember once again that we're a broken people there were people who need to be

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Repenting of all of our sin after that on October the 10th The Yom Kippur would be that blank check sacrifice that would forgive us of all of our sins

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We would be in tents in October the 11th through the 18th and the festival of booths. We would literally be living in tents

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Celebrating how God provided for this sinful people during the wandering years and December the 23rd through the 30th

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We would be at Festival of Hanukkah, which would be at the local synagogue level where we would celebrate that God fights our battles for us

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He not only commanded these festivals. He scheduled them with specificity Second thing is he did he figured out the guest list

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He didn't ask us to figure that out or the Old Testament people all of Israel was invited for most of the festivals all of them and it's not like Us today when our guest list is about currying favor with people that we want to I really like to have that person there

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I really like that person You know, it wasn't like that God invited everyone

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He invited the weird the weak and the weary He invited the social butterfly and the wallflower

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He invited all of them To his festivals now, there's some who got more than an invitation some got a summons that they had to be there

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That was the covenant heads the males of every family. They had to be there there were some exclusions where you would not be able to come if you had

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Sinned in a way that made you unclean You weren't allowed to come to some of those feasts because it would have taught you even in your absence that God is holy

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If you were a foreigner You were invited to most all of the feast except for a couple and you were encouraged that would have been

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Encouraged you to enter into covenant people of God and to stop being a foreigner and to become

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Like the people of God if you were under legal discipline like from the courts

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You could have been reminded that sin is serious, but you can't participate right now So there was a couple different exceptions

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But there were also Provisions being made for people who couldn't afford to go if you couldn't afford the travel if you couldn't afford the sacrifice you remember

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Jesus and Joseph sacrificed two pigeons That wasn't the main sacrifice that they were supposed to offer for Jesus at a circumcision.

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That was an accommodation because they were poor All throughout the Old Testament there's accommodations for the people who are poor and the widows and the orphans

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They're supposed to have loosened requirements. I don't know if you know this but when they plowed their fields They were supposed to leave the corners of the fields unplowed so that the poor people could eat

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When you come to festival in Jerusalem the wealthier Jewish people were to open their homes and their doors so that poorer people could stay and Have a place to live during the festival.

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There was all these accommodations by gleaning laws hospitality laws good Samaritan laws because God wanted everyone to participate

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So he invites everyone without exception He determines the dress code

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Read Exodus 28 if you don't believe me it is detailed on the dress code of the high priest and And it's a glorious section.

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I can't really go into it much detail now, but it's three layers It's almost like he's putting on his football equipment to like get like he's getting ready to get tackled by the holiness of God So that's pretty specific the

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Levitical garments are also specific because they're the worship leaders the ones who are Leading the religious services in a lot of ways their garments are specific and for everyone else.

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It was clean clothing If you have things that are on you that would render you unclean clean your clothes clean your face wash your self

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Anoint your beard if you're if you're dry and flaky But God brought theology into their dress code

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He brought truth into the into their wardrobe and When we see great detail in the

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Bible Great detail for us as moderns when we read about the dress code of the of the high priest or like oh my goodness

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Why is this we read through the Leviticus? It's like the long lobe of the liver for the 40th time and the detail sometimes

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Bothers us, but when you see great detail in the text, it means God has great love for that thing That's why he talks so much about your salvation because he loves you so much

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That's why he talks about great detail in the temple because it points to Christ his son So he wants to describe it in detailed ways.

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That's why the feast are described in detailed ways. That's why the Genealogies are described in detailed ways because they all point to Christ and because he loves

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Christ so much He describes them in great detail the Old Testament He determines the menu in These parties and Passover you have lamb bitter herbs and unleavened bread

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The unleavened bread was to symbolize their haste the bitter herbs was to symbolize their bitter suffering in slavery

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The lamb was the substitutionary atonement their theologies meeting the table At Shavuah or the

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Feast of the Weeks. It's two unleavened pieces of bread which symbolizes Israel and Judah one united people under God The yeast in the bread because this was not an unleavened bread symbolizes their fast and rapid growth to the ends of the earth modern

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Jews also use milk and honey during the festival of booths or a festival of weeks because God brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey.

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Their theology is meeting their table The Feast of Booths They get fruit and branches twigs and berries to symbolize a meal that was rugged as You were on route to the

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Promised Land Rosh Hashanah the holy year we don't have specific

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Bible passages But tradition says that they ate apples dipped in honey If you remember Rosh Hashanah is all about the bitterness of suffering the apples would have been very tart

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Think about a crab apple you eat it. You're like, oh That's what repentance or that's what sin is like in you it's bitter it's hard to swallow but the honey

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Reminds us that once we've repented God has sweetness for us They're sweet, there's a sweet life for those who repent and trust in Christ their theologies meeting their table

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Yom Kippur they didn't eat because God wanted them to be singularly focused. That's a menu choice by God at Purim.

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They ate triangular pastries according to Jewish tradition to commemorate God's deliverance and what

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I find so funny is the Jews in That time did not understand the Trinity and yet they picked a trying symbol of God's deliverance

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It's interesting at Hanukkah, this is this is like the redneck

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Feast of the Jews because everything they ate was fried Why because they didn't run out of oil

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So everything they cooked was with oil God is bringing his theology into their menu so that they don't just think about the truth.

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They taste it They know it they smell it it fills their senses

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He picks the music at these festivals he orders them to sing and to chant for their own good

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He gives the musical instruments like lyres harps trumpets and cymbals He gives them worship leaders like the

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Levitical priests who are gonna lead them in worship and song He gives them specific songs to sing at specific times like the songs the

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Psalms of Ascension Where they're going on their pilgrimage feast These are pilgrimage psalms that they're to sing

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Psalm 120 through Psalm 134 that they sing as they go up To Jerusalem and when you read

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Psalm 120 through Psalm 134 There's this theme of them ascending to God because they're singing those specific psalms on route to Jerusalem They had a shofar, which is this great ram's horn

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God's coming for you. So the theology is hitting your ears not just your head They were commanded to dance

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I'm not a dancer But I understand why God would do this because there's joy when your body is kind of moving

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Like it's supposed to I don't really find that joy because my body doesn't move like that But I understand why it's commanded because God loves them the point is

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That God commands festivities to strengthen his people because you're not just a walking head

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You may be cerebral You may like to read but you are not just a head

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Your eyes ears Nose tongue your senses are connected to God and he wants you to worship him with all of them and This is the final sermon in this series called built strong So if we want to be built strong, we have to follow the

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Bible if we want to follow the Bible Then we need to become a festive people a

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People who sing and dance of people who shout the people who eat to the glory of God who feast to the glory of God?

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There is absolutely nothing in The scriptures that command us to be a joyless hapless people this idea of sackcloth and ashes all the time with the dour face all the time that we're just Begrudgingly getting through it and you know,

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I trust God God is good We're the people who sing when cancer diagnosis get given

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We're the people who praise God When someone who sinned greatly against us is forgiven

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We're the people when that person who's hurt us more than anyone comes to Christ and we rejoice and we don't begrudge we're the people and I know you've seen examples of this when a

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Shooter comes into a church in South Carolina and the mother stands up I think his name is Dylan roof or Dylan roll for something

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The mother of one of the kids that was killed stands up and says I forgive you

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Not because this event makes me feel good. I'm broken and I'm hurt but I forgive you because Christ forgave me

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We are the people who are not dour and Always in the doldrums of life.

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We are people who are overjoyed because of Christ Because of the surpassing worth of who he is.

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Do you know that's why he says that if you don't hate father and mother You're not worthy of me. It's not because he wants you to want you to hate your father and mother

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It's in comparison to your love for him. It should be so outlandishly different That every other relationship on earth even your closest ones look like hate it would be

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Compared to a flicker of a match Compared to a supernova. That's what he's saying in comparison to the way you love me.

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Let everything else be Limited so that it even looks like hate in comparison

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He gives us festivals to make a strong mentally emotionally and Tactile Lee so that our fingertips our ears our mouths our noses are all engaged in the theology that we believe and It did something to the people of Israel That's the third thing that I want us to look at it as these fist festivals when they did them rightly now

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We know Israel's like this But when Israel did these rightly it did something to them it brought

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Continuity to their community when they were doing communal meals like this. It made a closeness in a knit

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Community where they loved each other well, and we have proof of that in different eras of Israel's history when they did this

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They were a worshipping people because they were constantly being invited into worship They were people who put themselves aside so they could pilgrimage to Jerusalem They were people whose clans and families would travel together and who'd get to know each other as far as a communal people goes

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We are not in the West. We are individualistic and we are selfish and we are

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Isolated all of us are isolated We're a church that drives from the north an hour to get here from the south an hour to get here from the west 45 minutes to get here from the east an hour and 15 minutes to get here the geographical spread of our community is

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So wide that wouldn't made sense in the ancient world Because they were so local and knitted together because they had to be because of these feasts

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There were public readings of scripture. So they were constantly being washed in the word There was celebration activity so they had joy and they could had a shared sense of purpose

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There were customs that they went together hospitality that came together Generosity and charity teaching and learning so that the younger generation would grow up with traditions

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Adults, what are the traditions that you grew up in? Some of them are silly Like we get up and we stand in front of this tree that's lit up and we we open presents together

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Most of us have that sort of tradition But it's nostalgic for us It's beautiful to us.

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We think about it. We think about I want my kids to experience some of my traditions my kids Because a family worship at our table have that as a tradition.

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There's a tradition We sing sometimes our prayer for lunch we sing the doxology so that we're out in public

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My kids are like dad. Can we sing the doxology? I'm like We're at Chipotle And I have to think about that I'm like they have more joy and their salvation and less shame and fear than I do

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Why can't we not sing in public other than just my pride? Traditions unite the people together

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They connect us they give us something to pass on to future generations They make us strong.

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They build up strong family strong families build up culture and culture strengthens a nation We want reformation

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To come to America. What are we doing in our living room? To prepare for it What are we doing in family worship

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What are we doing in festivity to become a people that are not just connected to our head but connected all of our senses who know

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God on every level So it blessed the people of Israel, but we also know this is the fourth thing

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That it didn't just bless Israel. It was a blessing as you look past the festivals to what they pointed to The festivals don't point to themselves.

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The festivals are not ends unto themselves. They point to something and they point to Christ If you think about it every single one of these festivals are a tiny little miniature version of the epic and real thing as a kid

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I used to love to build model cars and at the end of that with the glue and everything else most of the time my fingers were stuck together because I wasn't careful but I'd build these 67

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Shelby's I would build these little motorcycles that intricate pieces my grandma would buy these for me But at the end of it,

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I did not sit down on that toy car and think I was gonna go to town Because it's not a 67

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Shelby. It's a type of a Shelby Points to the actual

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Shelby These festivals are not the thing they point to in the same way that is you're driving to Boston You see the sign

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Boston and you look at it says 20 miles away 10 miles away 5 miles away. That's not Boston It's a sign it points to it.

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That's what these festivals are doing. They're pointing to the reality What's the reality under every single one of them?

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The reality is Jesus Christ The festival booths is

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Celebrating that we don't need to live in in a campsite anymore because he's the one who came and tabernacled among us

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He's the one who took on flesh and tented with us so that we can now be brought into him the

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Passover We don't have to make atonement for ourselves anymore because the true Passover lamb whose true blood was brain was painted on the cross

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Is the one who forgave our sins and caused the worst enemy? Satan sin and death to pass over us because now we have eternal life

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The feast of unleavened bread is about Christ Unleavened bread was a symbol of sin get rid of all the living in your house get rid of all the sin in your house

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We can't do that without Christ, but because of Christ now we've been made the unleavened loaf The festival of weeks

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We don't travel to Jerusalem once a year to wait for a symbolic ceremony of God coming down from heaven 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead the

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Holy Spirit came down like tongues of fire on the people of God and Fulfilled the festival of weeks his coming his pouring out happened

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So we don't celebrate the festival weeks anymore because we're in the reality that it always pointed to Hanukkah, it's not about watching

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Adam Sandler's a crazy nights Hanukkah, it's not about a dreidel

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Hanukkah is about Christ being the light of the world and his oil never runs dry And if you're in Christ, you've been made a lampstand for his glory that will never fade

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So that you and I as we leave here We're a lamp for Christ in a dark and broken world

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Rosh Hashanah Where that great trumpet is blown one day the trumpet will sound again and Christ will return and he will call us home

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No longer in sin but in perfection You see the

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Old Testament festivals tell the entire story of Christ from his incarnation Tabernacling among us to his return and glory

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The New Testament is telling the story of the Old Testament fulfilled in those festivals

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Every single one of them are the incomplete chapters of redemption that Christ will bring to full when he comes

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They are pointing to something and you and I have it Because of Christ Which means we don't have to celebrate these

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Old Testament festivals, but that does not mean That the New Testament is joyless or festive less.

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I know that's not a word. I Feel like if I clarify that it's not a word you'll give me grace

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What are the festivals of the New Testament, what are the things that Christ has commanded us to Celebrate and be festive and well

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Sabbath Does not go away in the New Testament, but it's called the

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Lord's Day There's a verse in Acts 22 where it says on the first day of the week in your

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English translations The actual word is Sabbath on The Sabbath on Sunday as Christ rose from the dead

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The New Testament Church said Sabbath is no longer on Saturday the last day of the week It's the first day of the week which was celebrating the resurrection of Christ every week

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You and I get the opportunity To feast and be festive Because of what

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Christ did in his resurrection The Lord's Supper, do you know the Lord's Supper comes directly out of Passover?

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Christ is at the Passover table when he gives the Lord's Supper and if that's true Passover was required

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Jesus says whenever you meet together do this in remembrance of me. I think he's saying the Lord's table is required

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One of the things that's been so discouraging for me over the years as I've become more and more reformed to seeing many reformed churches

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Take communion once a year it says in the New Testament they broke bread every week

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Jesus says that if you feast on me, you'll have life if not, you'll be starving He gave us the

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Lord's Supper as our festival as our new Passover completed in him Why don't we take it every week it's not a knock on us we do that But it's good for us.

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It nourishes us. It imparts to us the grace of Christ It's not a communion sermon

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We could talk a lot about that But there's something that Jesus is doing at the table where he's nourishing us that if we miss out on it will be spiritually malnourished

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I Come to church every week and my favorite part of service is the

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Lord's table Because what he's promised there I Get to experience and you get to experience and you don't experience it up here

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You experience it here? Because he wants you to taste and see that he is good

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The Bible also New Testament also talks about love feast or agape festivals that the

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New Testament did look at Jude chapter I always do that Jude chapter 1 the only chapter in the book verse 12.

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I Just get so excited verse 12 These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feast

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When they feast with you without fear caring for themselves clouds without water carried along by winds autumn trees without fruit doubly dead uprooted

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They don't sound like good guys The point of this passage is Jude is calling out wolves in the congregation, but I want you to look under the text

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He says they're doing these things at your love feast, which means that love feast existed

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He wouldn't have said they're doing these things at love feast if there wasn't a love feast. So the

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New Testament Church regularly Committedly repetitiously we're meeting together weekly outside of the gathering for something additional

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Which is why? We think it's such a big deal that this church meets together Outside of church and has meals together and fellowship together because they're doing in the

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New Testament I think that the Lord's table is the most important meal of the week.

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I would rather eat nothing and come here and eat that so it's it's critical, but Just because it's the most important meal of the week doesn't mean we shouldn't have other good meals that we experience with other people in this community for joy for life fellowship

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So the church was doing this There's also examples of a New Testament fellowship meal Acts chapter 2 46 through 47 day by day, which means on a daily basis

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Continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house They were taking their meals together with gladness and with sincerity of heart.

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They were doing it every day Now this is one of those like Tim the Toolman moments if a little is good a lot's good

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You ever watch the show? 100 horsepower is great. How about a thousand? This is one of those moments where you cannot over enjoy festivities in the

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Christian Church They're there for your joy you can have them weekly you can have them daily you can have them every meal

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They're there for you sight sound taste and touch to experience the reality of Christ and in heaven

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There will be no gaps and no breaks. You'll have it all the time in every way So to the degree that you participate in festivities now

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Be it to the degree that you taste it now that you see it now that you experience it now

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If you're feeling like these things are distant from you, maybe increase your quotient of festivities and feast

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And I'm not just talking about Useless eating. I'm not just talking about parties with pagans.

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I'm talking about intentional Christian Feasting and fellowshipping together.

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There's so much more that we could say The whole Bible is before us but What I want us to see as we close out this series and we return to John next week

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Is that I want us more than anything to be a strong church And a strong church has strong men

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A strong church has strong women biblical godly women a strong church has strong giving Strong church has good networks and partnerships with other churches

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Strong church has strong families as pastor Derek preached last two weeks Strong church also feasts well feast faithfully and feast joyfully

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That discipline will make our theology real I Believe that strong churches are built on open

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Bibles and open homes. I believe that strong churches are built at the Lord's table and also around kitchen tables and I believe that all of these festivals that we see in the

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New Testament are pointing to a reality that you and I are commanded to engage in so with that Let us pray as We do

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I want you to consider How you have participated in this sort of thing in your life because I'll be honest with you

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It's something I've never heard a sermon on. I've never heard preaching on the festivals of Israel and and and the necessity for us to be festive people so I can understand if if it's new to you

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Ask yourself the question if God spent 25 % of his Old Testament people's lives and he spent so much

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Information in the New Testament to command these things to us. Aren't they good? And aren't they for our good and aren't they for our joy and building us up according to godliness?

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And if that's the case, why not? Today we'll have a meal at the powers house afterwards

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Everybody should come and let us feast and be festive together. Amen Lord Jesus, thank you for today

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Thank you that you have given us so much that we can celebrate We're not a people who have to try really hard to figure it out.

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It's all over everything that you've done from every sin that you've forgiven every blessing that you've given

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Lord you have given us so much to be thankful for and Lord, you've given us so many reasons not to do it alone as a lone ranger sort of Christian Our culture in our society

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Lord have taught us that that we have to keep to ourselves We have to be private

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We can't live our life in the sight or in the in the eye of other people

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Where our society is wrong? Because your scripture is right Lord, I pray that this church would be known as a peculiar group of people who love each other so much that we can't

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Stop meeting together feasting together and enjoying the good gifts that you've given us together

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Lord may the world see us as strange and may the strangeness of us point them to the gospel