The Breakdown: "I Want The Blessing"

6:39 Hit that like button, hit that share button, because somebody somewhere we believe is going to be blessed by the word of God as it goes forth on tonight. As we return to the book of Leviticus, chapter 25 in Stewardship Month for us here at Friendship West. As we take a deeper dive and a deeper look and another study of stewardship in the book of Leviticus and reflect on Sunday's sermon. I want the blessing. So again, hit that like button, hit that share button, share this with somebody in your sphere of influence as we get ready to go and study the word of God together as a family of faith. It's good for us to be here. It's good for us to be, amen, in the presence of the Lord and in the fellowship of the believers one more time. I'm so excited that our praise and worship ministry is going to bless us. Sister Shemberley Byram is going to bless us tonight. Take us higher in the spirit of the Lord, in the presence of the Lord.

7:33 And then we're going to get a chance to study the word of God. But before we go any further, another further, as the old saints would say, we want to pause and sanctify this time together in a quick word of prayer. Wherever you are across the sanctuary, across our digital platforms, we would that you would stop and pause and just join us. Consecrate your heart and mind and spirit in a time of prayer. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your grace and for your mercy and your care that met us early this morning. And our testimony is after living on renewed mercies, that indeed your faithfulness toward us is great. Our declaration is that great is the Lord in every area of our life. We declare your greatness. We declare your goodness.

8:26 We declare your sovereignty. we declare that you're worthy of our glory and our honor and praise we declare that you are strong that you are indeed mighty that there is nothing and no one who can take your place who can defeat you and oh god we surrender ourselves tonight and ask that you would take up stewardship over the difficult seasons and situations and sections of our life use your strength use it for our good that we might be called blessed fathers we come tonight to study your word we come with different situations and circumstances and we surrender them and we lay them at your feet as a sacrifice of faith as a sacrifice of belief and trust we do what your word says and we cast our cares upon you because we indeed believe that you indeed care for us. So wherever we are tonight, oh God, as we're in the sanctuary, as we're watching on our way to the church house tonight, if we're watching in our hospital beds, as we're watching, oh God, from behind prison bars, wherever we are tonight getting the word, we ask that it would meet us with power to change our circumstance, to make us believe more and to go deeper into the faith, knowing that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things that we cannot see. Bless our church. Thank you for our pastor, for Dr. Haynes. Thank you for all those who call Friendship West home. May your word stir up gifts and anointings and commitment and faithfulness as we go deeper into your word together. And we count the blessing to be ours and already done. In the name of Jesus, we pray through the Holy Spirit and according to your word and the people of God said amen now pastor mcgruder has already told y'all to bless the lord so how about let us magnify the lord

10:35 how about let's worship let's worship together this is a very easy song you've probably heard it before and let's just join in if you know it goes welcome holy speed Thank you. We are in your breath. me I'm gonna go back to the top of the letting it go welcome holding Guess what y'all We are in your presence Let's get it Fill us with your power Live inside of me Now this is the reason why You're the living water Never-flying fountain Wonderful counselor Take complete control You're the living water Never trying fountain He's my comforter and counselor I need him take complete control Back to the top Oh, welcome, Holy Spirit.

12:17 Guess what? We are in your presence. Come on, y'all, what we need them to do. Fill us with your power. Live inside of me. Welcome, Holy Spirit. We are in your presence Fill us with your power Live inside of me Come on Mike, you got it, get smart You're the living water He's a never-trying fountain He's my comforter and counselor Take complete control You're the living water I don't have to lift no more Cause you're a never-dried mountain So glad you're my comforter and counselor Take complete control Welcome Holy Spirit We are in your presence Fill us with your power Live inside of me Move inside of me Dwell inside of me Live inside of me Dwell inside of me Move inside of me

14:25 Oh, move inside of me. Well, inside of me. Move inside of me.

14:46 Hallelujah. Amen. Let that be our heart's declaration. Welcome, Holy Spirit. And we give God praise and we give God glory and we give God honor in the house of the Lord on tonight. We also honor our senior pastor, Reverend Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III. And we're delighted that the Lord continues to use him as he is on assignment. Amen. All throughout the country. and we give God praise for the blessing that is our pastor in this season. I want to return our attention in this stewardship month to the book of Leviticus chapter 25, where we focused on from Sunday, the theme, I want the blessing, the sermonic subject, I want the blessing. And tonight we want to just engage in a deeper study of stewardship from the book of Leviticus.

15:47 Just a few points from the sermon. I want to use the sermon really as a starting off point. Again, for this deeper engagement. And for those of you who are taking notes, those of you who are wanting to follow that kind of deeper engagement. we want to look at chapters 23 and 25 as a way of framing it. But the sermon was kind of focused on the idea of blessing and what it means to pursue the blessings of God and for us to be able to distinguish the blessings of God from how we understand and interpret what it means to be blessed or to have a blessing and so it was not a demonization of money no money can be a blessing money can be one of the many ways that god uh one of the many ways one of the many tools that god uses to bless us but if we reduce money to the only way to be blessed right then we allow money to be a source of our own misery because not everybody with money is blessed so what does it mean to pursue the blessing of God's promise, the blessing of God's peace, the blessing of God's joy?

17:06 What does it mean to walk in blessing and what do we need to do to pursue that blessing? All right, if we, if we pursue money, right, then we, we wind up potentially selling out our people, selling out or selling ourselves short. We wind up potentially compromising our morals. We could potentially gamble with our values because uh the love of money as the scripture says is the root of all evil and so if our goal is to get money ain't no telling you know what it is that we'll do to get money but the scripture and particularly Leviticus God says you don't if you will just align yourself with me you won't have to chase money I will make blessings and that could be money, that could be resources, that could be peace, that could be joy. I'll make the blessing chase after you. So we talked about the fact that we can, we should pursue the blessing because we know who the owner is. I know who the owner is. I know the owner so I can trust that what God has for me by way of blessing is going to be good for my life because what does God say?

18:19 all of this belongs to me and we're going to talk about the jubilee principle uh and and what jubilee means and and but but the essential theological claim that underlie jubilee was that the land belonged to god and the people belonged to god and it was god's intention that his people live in freedom okay and so we know who the owner is so we can get excited about the blessing but it also has an order. God says six years of labor and then you take a year of Sabbath and you rest and you recover and you recuperate. You let the land rest. You let the land recover. You let the land recuperate and then after seven cycles of seven years on the 49th year, that 49th and the 50th year are years of rest. Oh and by the way, bless, sanctify, consecrate the 50th year and all of friendship west should have just gone up right there consecrate the 50th year as a year of jubilee so there is this pattern and order that god establishes six years of labor the seventh year is a year of rest seven cycles of rest the 49th year is a year of rest and the 50th year is the year of jubilee an order that god has established and if we're going to flow into the blessings of God if we're going to walk in the blessings of God if we're going to live according to the blessings of God we have to live according to God's order and so how profound it is to understand sabbath and tithing as about God asking us are we willing to trust him enough to live according to his order to live according to his will to live according to his way and and if we will live according to God's order, we can be blessed and we don't have to ask God to bless what's out of order. Oh my goodness. So we have become comfortable, uh, asking God to bless, uh, what is out of order. My grandmother would say, God don't bless no mess. Okay. Y'all grew up like with my grandmother too. God don't bless no mess. And in other words, God is not going to bless

20:29 what's out of order. All right. Here's the other, the benefit of the blessing is that it has other people in it. That the blessing is not just about me. As Dr. Haynes says all the time, the blessing is not what God wants to give to you. It's what God can get through you. How can God use what's in your hand? How can God give you resources and power and capacity and anointing and connection and relationship, not so that it can build you up, but so that you can be a blessing to other people. So if the blessing stops at you, it has not fulfilled its purpose. It has not fulfilled its plan. But here's the troubling thing. The final reason why we should give God praise for, why we can pursue, why we should pursue, why we should be diligent in seeking after the blessing is the hardest part. It is that the blessing requires obedience.

21:24 It is that the blessing of God requires that we be obedient to his will. And be obedient to his way. And align ourselves with his order. He says if you align yourself with me. That's verse 21 of chapter 25. Align yourself with me. And I will command the blessing. I will command the blessing on your entire life. And the promise is that if you can trust me. And so in six years. In the sixth year I'll give you enough that you can eat all the way up to the ninth year. I'll bless you enough in six years that you'll have enough for three. I'll bless you enough. I'll bless you in one year rather in the sixth year that you'll have enough left over so that when you start planting again, amen, in the eighth year, you'll still be eating on what you should have been throwing away. What you thought that you was going to run out of, what you thought that you wasn't going to have enough of, what you thought was not going to be sufficient, what you thought was not going to be a supply enough for your needs and not just your needs because it's got other people in it.

22:29 your needs and the needs of the people connected to you if you align yourself with me in the sixth year you'll have enough blessing to last you until the ninth year but that blessing requires god's obedience that takes us to a deeper uh study of the book of leviticus itself right uh leviticus being the third book of what is called the pentateau the pentateau uh or just the the books of the law well right the first five books of the bible leviticus is number three and leviticus gets a bad rap uh because genesis is about the beginning where did all this come from it's about the it's the book of beginnings it's about adam and eve it's about god giving promises to abraham to isaac to jacob to sarah to rebecca all right to leah and to rachel it's about how god sustained a people on the edge of collapse in Joseph.

23:24 It's the story of the beginning of this covenant promise and the beginning of this covenant relationship. Exodus picks up the story of identity, of beginnings and extends it. It turns it into a story of liberation. How does this people whom God has made a promise to survive on the other side of the experience of slavery and bondage in Egypt? How does God transform this chosen people into a liberated people? And that is God's desire. That's God's will. That's God's ultimate plan is that we would live in liberty, that we would live a life of liberation. How do I know? Because we come to Leviticus. And when we think of Leviticus, we think of it as the rules and regulations. We think of Leviticus as all the stuff that we can't do. All the stuff that we're not allowed to do.

24:17 all the stuff that we can't do but it is through leviticus that god gives this liberated people statutes and commandments and instructions for how they are to live a liberated life they're living in the wilderness they're living amen they're journeying on their way to the promised land they haven't received the promise yet and by the way every time they turn around they getting on Moses's nerves Moses is ready to quit every other week Moses is ready to resign every other week he doesn't make it to the promised land because the Negroes made him so mad he struck the rock when God said just speak to it right and and so the question is how is it that these liberated people can make it to the promised land without allowing the the the injustice and the oppression that I have delivered them from from taking up residence in their life again how let me say that let me say it one more time how do we how does this liberated people make it to the promised land without allowing the injustice and the oppression that they have just come out of from taking a residence in their life again leviticus is about holiness it's about god's standard it's about god's way it's about god's commandment to us so that i can live a liberated life without allowing the negativity, the difficulty, the nasty stuff, the difficult stuff, the frustrating stuff, the stuff that makes me angry, the stuff that makes me want to quit, the stuff that makes me want to throw in the towel. It prevents me from letting my life get corrupted by the corruptible stuff of the world. As I'm journeying through the wilderness, making it to the promised land, how can I live a sanctified, a holy life? How can I give structure to my life so that freedom is not just freedom to do what I want to do but it's freedom to be free indeed it's called the the word Leviticus signals something like uh rules for the priest that's the way we might think of it it's the instruction manual for the priest here's the

26:24 thing though it's an instruction manual for the priest but it doesn't contain rules for just the priests. Did you catch that? I said it's the manual, the instruction manual for the priests, but it's not just written for the priests. The whole, everybody, the whole camp has some instruction in there. And in so many ways, Leviticus is helping us to understand that it's always been God's intention for us to be a priesthood of all believers, that we all supposed to have access to the oil of anointing, to the capacity to get into God's presence. It's written to the priest, but everybody's in it. Now here's what blesses me. Here's, here's, here's, here's what, here's, here's what I want you to think about. I want you to take this away. I want you to reflect on it as, as we, uh, go through this study. The, the, the priests in the old Testament aren't what we think of the preacher as today. All right. What I mean by that? the preacher today has an office and at least here we have staff pastors and they have offices and you make appointments with their administrative assistants and they lead relatively quiet lives for the most part and their job is to pray for your soul and to care for your soul and to attend to the life of the ministries and to make sure that the spiritual care of the souls of this congregation are attended to under the leadership of the senior pastor all right but but the priests in Leviticus I want you to hear me tonight that wasn't they they didn't have a study right they didn't have that kind of life of ease they were I want you to think of the priests of the old testament watch this as military chaplains okay yeah they they were military chaplains they were literally the spiritual guides, the spiritual shepherds of the souls of a people who every day are going out to fight for their lives. They were the, they accompanied the soldiers on their, on

28:35 their, as they're making their way through the wilderness, they got to fight Amalekites and Amorites and Philistines and Moabites. And, and it is the priests who stand beside them to help them. Now, why is that important? That is important because jubilee, the word jubilee, as we focus on in the book of Leviticus in the 25th chapter, that word is a Hebrew word, yovel, which means horn, ram's horn, or we might just say for some people, horn, ram's horn, right yavel ram's horn god says in that in the year of jubilee you sound that trumpet you blow that horn you blow that ram's horn now what is the ram's horn the ram's horn has two purposes two jobs it is to either signal or call to call the people to worship or to call the people to war jubilee your veil it is to call the the whole when they hear the sound of the trumpet right you're supposed to stop what you're doing because it's either a call to worship or it's a call to war and my question was how could it be both how is it possible that this one word can mean both and it is it is this simple fact that every every time israel gets to a conflict, we see this repetition. When they're in covenant with God, they win. When they're out of relationship with God, they lose. And a matter of fact, if they get deep enough in covenant relationship with God, there's some battles, some wars they don't even have to fight.

30:17 Some wars, their worship is enough to get them through the fight. So how is it that the word Yavelle, Jubilee, can be both war, a call to war and a call to worship? It's for the believer to understand that sometimes when you get deep enough in God, when you go deep enough in your trust, when you go deep enough in your relationship with God, your worship will be your weapon. And you don't have to fight and you don't have to struggle and you don't have to cuss because your God will fight your battles for you. I just thought that that would help you. I thought that was a blessing to somebody who needed to know tonight. Your God will fight for you that if you get deep enough in trust because the tithe is about the trust stewardship is about trust giving is about trust if i go deep enough in my trust if i align myself in obedience to god my worship is my warfare all right yeah this is i want to i want to take us back to uh leviticus 23 and 25 because they concern uh the holy days and the observances that god ordains for the children of israel chapter 23 is where we take our scripture emphasis for the month of September, at least one of our scripture emphasis for the month of September from the book of Leviticus chapter 23.

31:33 I want to encourage everybody to read chapter 23 in its entirety as a time, as a part of your preparation, as a time of your meditation, as a time of your spiritual preparation as you get started in the morning. But I want to take us back to chapter 23 before we go forward to chapter 25 because 23 and 25 are deeply connected. They both concern the holy days or God's observances that he has ordained for the children of Israel to keep. These are times that God has set aside, times that God has ordained, times that God is asking the people of God to keep for him. When we go into the book of Leviticus chapter 23, where we discover is that God has established a sacred calendar, a sacred calendar. And the goal is for Israel to learn how to organize its life around God.

32:33 That's what the holy days are about. That's what the calendar that God gives to Israel is about. Do you trust me enough to let you, do you trust me so much that you can set your watch by my promises? do you trust me so much that you can organize your life according to my word uh so there there's some sacred cap there's some sacred times that god has established uh every seven days god tells them to sit down somewhere and to rest it's the sabbath right god gives them sabbath rest leviticus chapter 23 uh verses one through three establishes uh the the period of rest but we could go back even into genesis right that on the seventh day he rested he said i'm gonna sit down somewhere he rested um so the lord spoke to moses saying this is leviticus chapter 23 the lord spoke to moses saying speak to the people of israel and say to them these are the appointed festivals of the lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations.

33:37 These are my appointed festivals. They don't even belong to you. They belong to me. So you consecrate them, not because you like them, because you want to celebrate them, because it's a good time for you to get together and barbecue and start the grill and let off the fireworks and buy presents and buy gifts and turn on your slow jams and have a pool party. No, you honor and keep the holy days because I want them. because they're they because i am asking you to observe them the first is six days shall work be done but the seventh day is a sabbath of complete rest and it is a holy convocation a holy convocation you shall do no work it is a sabbath to the lord throughout your settlements seven every seven days take a rest so that gives us the week uh we next have the passover the Passover uh in Leviticus chapter 23 verses 4 through 14 the Passover is about what that that holy day established as a part of God's liberation plan of the children of Israel right as the Pharaoh wouldn't let God's people go so God says to Moses and Aaron go back the last time and and tell him and if he don't do what I'm telling you to do then you go back and and everybody who believes, everybody who's a part, everybody who's a part of the family of God, all of my children, they're going to, you're going to put the blood of the lamb over your doorposts.

35:10 And when the death angel passes over, I will pass over the houses whose houses are marked by the blood of the lamb. Passover is about God's liberation plan. It's about God setting his people free. so so the Passover is they're called to remember liberation don't miss that they're called to remember to celebrate to uh take time to commemorate the fact that God has set them free that it was God's intention that they live a life of liberation then there's Pentecost or weeks the festival of weeks what we come to understand as Pentecost this is about harvest harvest this is a agrarian people this is a people who live by what they planted what they sow and what they reap and so God says there's going to be as I want to set a set time for you to celebrate the fact that I am the God who makes provision for you that I'm the God who makes a way for you so that you can have what you have, drive what you drive, live where you live, work where you work, right?

36:28 We celebrate that God is the God of our provision. But then there's also the day of atonement. Atonement. Why? Because these were not perfect people. And God establishes in his observances a set time for them to say, God, I messed up. Lord, I got this jacked up. Lord, I messed this up. Lord, I did not get this right. It establishes a precedent for accountability and repentance. Now, let's tell the truth. In the same way that we have had a theology of abundance and a theology of success and a theology of money that has convinced us or helped us to negate the relationship between money and justice or money and communal well-being, we have also ignored a theology of repentance.

37:24 We don't talk about repentance. We don't talk about the fact that we ain't perfect, that we don't always do it right, that we make mistakes. And in some ways, this theology of abundance, this prosperity theology accompanies this theology that negates repentance. we don't feel like we need to apologize. We certainly don't. And here's the thing. If we're not going to say sorry to God, how are we going to say sorry to each other?

37:59 If you won't set your heart right toward God, not as a public performance, but as a way of dealing privately, as a way of saying, Lord, center me. Lord, help me. Lord, reset me. Lord, help me to get right what I've messed up. If you can't confess that to God, how are we going to be able to say, okay, all right. How are we going to be able to restore what is broken amongst each other?

38:26 So the day of atonement was a day set aside so that we could, so that they could say, I messed up. When was the last time you told God I messed up? When was the last time that you confessed your sins to God? Right? When was the last time you confessed that you got it wrong? Instead of making it somebody else's problem, instead of making it somebody else's fault, when was the last time we practiced accountability so that we could have the atonement? And here's what God does. He says, I'll give you the day of atonement, and the day of atonement is, again, a set day on the calendar, but there's also a coming atonement that I'm going to give you where you won't have to kill a ram and kill a bull, and you won't have to make oblation. I'm going to give you atonement through my son Jesus Christ. and I love you so much that I'll give the very best that I have, a spotless lamb, hallelujah, slain from the very foundation of the world so that you can be in covenant relationship with me.

39:26 But what do we have to be in, what position and what condition of our heart do we have to assume in order to get that, to have that gift? We got to know that we've sinned. We've got to know that we've done wrong. We've got to know that we've got ways that do not please God. So atonement is about repentance and restoration. Then there's also the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, this was so important, the Feast of Tabernacles. This was interesting to me. The Feast of Tabernacles where, and I think Pastor Westbrook taught about this in Young Adult Bible Study. The Feast of Tabernacles, for those of us who were there, amen, they let me slide in. the feast of tabernacles. Every year they were to go out into the woods, pitch tents and live in the woods. Now you ain't doing that. Somebody said, thank God that Jesus is, you know, the fulfillment of the law. So I don't have to go out into the woods once a year. Somebody's just shout hallelujah because I don't have to practice. Amen. The feast of the tabernacle, but they were required to go out into the wilderness and live in tents. Now, here's the thing.

40:40 They're given this law in the midst of the wilderness. They're given this law, this commandment, in the middle of the wilderness. Every year, you're going to go out into the wilderness and remember my deliverance of your ancestors. Now, in some ways, that doesn't make any sense. They're still in the wilderness. They're still living in the tents but it is a call of God watch this and if you can be obedient to me you'll begin to practice amen you'll be able to practice you'll be able to rehearse the deliverance I'm getting ready to give you amen you'll be able to practice you'll be able to rehearse a blessing that you haven't even received yet so every every year they're supposed to go out and they're supposed to remember the fact that they were homeless at one point and that it was through the grace and through the blessing and through the mercies of God that they were brought into the promised land. Okay, so these are the holy days that God has established for the people.

41:40 When we get to chapter 24 is about blasphemers and, you know, it fits but it don't fit kind of our study tonight. When we get to the 25th chapter, we see this pattern of Sabbath expanded. God has established another holy day a holy time God has established on his calendar some more time that he won't set aside seven days you rest work six days on the seventh day you rest and I want to establish that for for the years you're going to work six years but then on the seventh year you're going to let the land rest and I can see some of my farmers back there amen praise God hallelujah who who understand the importance of letting the land rest right that that you can you can plant and you can go through seasons of sowing and reaping and if you're not careful you'll strip all of the minerals out of the ground and won't nothing be able to grow unless you let the land have a period of rest so there's some practical application to this spiritual commandment that's the kind of god you serve that the spiritual stuff has practical application so in the seventh year you're going to let the land rest the land is going to rest every seven years but then after seven cycles of seven years which account for 49 years in that 49th year which is going to be a year of rest i want you to prepare for a year of jubilee we talked a year of jubilee a year of jubilee that 50th year which is a year where what liberation is proclaimed let's go to it i want to i don't want you to take my word for it i want you to take god's word for it leviticus chapter 25 um let's go back to verse 8 let's go back to verse 8 of leviticus chapter 25 this is where we this was the text that we took that we began on sunday for the sermon it says you shall count off seven weeks of years seven times seven years so that

43:47 the period of seven weeks of years gives 49 years then you shall have the trumpet there's that yovel the trumpet the call to war and the call to worship you're gonna you're gonna sound the trumpet on the 10th day of the seventh month on the day of atonement on the day of atonement you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all of the land and you shall hollow the 50th year and how do you do it through a feast through a festival no you hollow make holy make sacred make consecrated the 50th year by proclaiming liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants and it shall be a jubilee for you and you shall return every one of you to your property and every one of you to your own family that 50th year shall be a jubilee for you and you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines it is for a jubilee it shall be holy to you and you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

44:55 So we have an expansion of this Sabbath principle. Again, every seven days, take a rest. Every seven years, let the lamb take a rest. And then after seven cycles of seven years, you're going to do a social and economic reset. You're going to hit the reset button on the whole economy. hit the reset button on your social relations so that you will understand it again it is my intention that the land and the people would be free again as we said on sunday we should be careful uh as a christian nation to proclaim ourselves christian to proclaim ourselves bible believers when we don't practice the year of jubilee how shameful it is that we would call ourselves Christians, call ourselves believers. Amen. Uh, bring a circus to town last week to, and, and, and tell folk that we love the Lord and we practice what God says. And yet we refuse to make the economy affordable for, for, for, for working people. We refuse to allow the poor to get off from under the burden. We can bail out banks. We can bail out corporations. But if you talk about bailing out main street you're a socialist it's marxism we ought to call it what god called it we ought to call it what jesus called it we ought to call it a jubilee what's the principle of jubilee it is again an application of this sabbath principle to the social and the economic relations it's a recognition that the pressure can build up so great that every now and in we need to hit the reset button and if that is not the truth of our economy right now if that is not the truth of our political relationships right now it is that the pressure has grown so great that if we don't hit the reset button we will collapse on ourselves the economy will collapse on itself and so God says rather than you collapse I'll ask you to sit down first sit down somewhere

47:03 so this is God applying again the Sabbath principle to Israel's social and economic relationships I want you to notice this is a text about stewardship and we said this on Sunday this is a text about about stewardship but there are no uh there are no blood sacrifices it's a text that's connected to tithing but but what does God ask for them to give I really want us to think about this and again tithes the tithe is established in the book of Leviticus and sacrifices are established in the book of Leviticus and the priestly responsibility for handling and manage the sacrifice is given in the book of Leviticus. But this text about stewardship has no sacrifice, no blood sacrifice in it, but there is a sacrifice. What does God ask them to sacrifice? God says, sacrifice your time. Let me say it another way. Nope, that's not it. God says sacrifice your control.

48:02 There it is. Sacrifice your control. of the circumstance of the situation sacrifice your control for six years you're going to work the land but on this on the in the seventh year release your control of the land and watch me bless you trust me to do for you what you can't do for yourself watch this trust me to bless you in one year more than you could have done in six but in order to get that blessing you got to release the control now that's a word for somebody sitting in here because our belief is that if we don't hold on to control if we don't have control of the situation if we don't have control of the circumstance if we're not in control of the money if we're not in control of our life if we're not in control of our own autonomy then other people will take advantage of us other people will ruin it for us it will get destroy if you don't have control over it. And the Sabbath principle is teaching us that the greatest thing that we can surrender to God before we give him our money, before you give him your time, before you give him your talent or your treasure, that the greatest thing that you can surrender to God is your need to control it. Is your need to have control over how God works that thing out. We want to tell God how to fix it. I think this is another condition of that prosperity theology. We've convinced ourselves that we can give enough money to make God do what we want God to do. So we need, we've got, we want control even over God. And the Sabbath principle, the Jubilee, the time of rest that God calls Israel to is a, it's a call to relinquish control.

49:53 and that is somebody's word that is somebody's test of faith you're sitting in the sanctuary you're watching online and that is your area of growth lord i i must let go of my control because i can't control the outcome it's too big for me it's too hard for me it's too much for me it's overwhelming to me it's confounding me it's confusing me it's keeping me up at night so lord I surrender control because I know if I let you handle it, you can work it better than I can.

50:26 That's the first principle. It is the principle of rest. It is a principle of stewardship. It is the principle of allowing God to be in charge. We make it about our money. We make it about our resources. We make it about all of our material things, but God says, ultimately what I want is your trust and that's what rest teaches us go to sleep god's got it get quit staying up all night god's got it under control now there are some things that your responsibility there are some things that are your duty there are some things that your obligation god doesn't say surrender your your obligations don't be responsible for what you're responsible for but if we're going to be faithful stewards we work to the edge of our responsibility and then we let god handle the rest participating in our deliverance i like that i'm gonna steal that amen participating in your own deliverance you participate how do you do it it's not that you try to be god it's not that you try to make yourself god it's not that you try to fight every battle fix every circumstance it's that you get to a place where you let god have it that's why we that's why we started with that idea of jubilee yavel worship and warfare you got to get to the place where you trust god that you ain't going to fight this battle. You ain't going to fight every battle. You ain't going to fight every demon. You ain't going to cuss everybody out. You're not going to try to have, hey, come on, talk to me. You're not going to try to always have it your way, but you're going to say, God, I give it to you. These are your people. This is your job. This is your, this is your house. This is your money. This is, these are your children. This is your marriage. Lord, I give it to you and I'm going to be a steward by resting in your power.

52:12 I'm going to be a good steward by resting in the promises. Y'all remember the song, Standing on the Promises of Christ my King? Y'all too young. Y'all don't know nothing about the old hymns of standing on the promises of Christ my Savior. We got to learn how to not just stand on the promise. We got to learn how to rest in the promise. We got to learn how to sleep in the promise. We got to learn how to just let God have it, let God handle it because his promises are true that's somebody's word tonight you can rest in God's promises you can go to sleep tonight you can let you can amen you don't gotta argue don't even stay on the phone arguing tonight amen don't even don't even let them get you up frustrated don't let them get you angry don't let them get you upset don't let them antagonize you let it let the let God's word be true over them over the relationship over the circumstance over your finances let his word be true and know that he's already done what he promised he would do you might not have it yet you might not see it yet you might not be able to touch it yet you might not be driving in it yet you might not be living in it yet but there is a commanded blessing that if you can just rest and trust him for it will show up hallelujah i said commanded blessing that have no choice but to show up at your house knock at your door take up residence in the living room kick off his shoes and relax his feet and put his feet up on the table to bless your house and your children and your and generations unborn if you can rest in him that ought to be somebody testimony i ain't fighting nobody huh hallelujah i'm gonna let my worship be my weapon i'm gonna let my trust be my weapon i'm gonna let my rest be my weapon i'm gonna send up a shout of jubilee i'm gonna send up a sound of triumph and i'm gonna trust god to do what i know that he can do and it's already done hallelujah it's already done i don't see it but it's already done why because the blessing is commanded we ain't got that the blessing is commanded rest it's also tied up in release gotta rest go to sleep let god handle it

54:24 but if you're gonna really if you're gonna really rest you gotta let it go huh you gotta let it go now see the teddy p fans you you that's where you went no i didn't go there that's not i didn't go there no no but you do got to learn how to let stuff go let stuff go the israelites were called to release their slaves their their servants they were called to release them to let them go and we do have to deal uh we don't have enough time but we do need to talk about slave slavery in the jewish context because there's some something we need to look at something that we need to have a deeper study of but at least in leviticus chapter 25 it is a call for them to release their fellow uh jews that you could not i should call them hebrew israelites that's what we should call at least at this point in their history that they could not hold other hebrew israelites in bondage and they are called to release them and to let them go there's that's the that's the that's the practical principle that's the practical command but it's got spiritual resonance it's got spiritual significance and what is that that there are some things that god wants to bring into your life that as long as you're holding on to the old stuff you don't have room enough to receive it ah okay y'all like i said there's some things that god wants to bring into your life and some things that god wants to do in your life that cannot come into your life until you let them go all right we and we i know we can't shout about that because we got closets full of stuff that you can't fit, that you haven't worn.

56:02 Now I'm preaching to myself now. My wife been trying to get me to clean out my side of the closet because I got stuff I can't wear, stuff I'm holding on to, stuff that I need to let go. And the blessing can't enter until I throw out what is old, what doesn't fit me anymore, amen. What was good in one season, what was in style in one season, amen. What was good in one season that can't go with you where God is trying to take you. And it's true for your clothes, but it's also true for your attitudes, for your dispositions, for your ways of handling your money, for your ways of dealing with your relationships, for your ways of thinking about God. There is some stuff God says, if you want me to bless you, you got to let stuff go. You got to let it go.

56:46 It's not good anymore. It's not good for you anymore. You got to let that stuff go. I think I've said this before. The same milk that does your body good. After a certain period of time, the same milk that will bless you will kill you. If you hold on to it beyond the time that it's good. Amen. But we don't believe that in the spirit. We don't believe that in our relationships. You're holding on to people. Amen. Who God said let go a long time ago. All right. I didn't mean to say that. holding on to stuff that happened a long time ago that God says I can't bless you until you let it go release but then there's also the command of return i know we got to get out of here there's also the command to return there's also the command to return that is ancestral property was returned to the families who were originally uh entrusted with it and of course you know how stuff happens economic relations economic relations debt you know all the kind of ways transactions you know how stuff can get mixed up and turned around and messed up and so uh people there were israelites there were hebrew israelites who were holding on to property that they had accumulated that didn't belong to them this is a really important economic principle anybody ever play monopoly what's the goal of monopoly the goal is to get all the stuff around the whole board until you own everything and every time somebody come back around every time somebody passed go and come back around.

58:29 They got to pay you to land anywhere, right? That's the goal of Monopoly. The goal of Monopoly is to fill up all the board with our stuff, to own everything. And if we live under the American regime, we live with and play our economy by the rules of Monopoly. But those are not God's rules of Jubilee. God says every 50 years, there's some stuff that you got that you need to give back.

58:55 And why is that? you got to return you return their stuff so that you can then also return to me as the source of your supply what is that what's the spiritual principle it is that they could they're in the land they're in the covenant but they don't trust god enough to allow others to flourish and to live in prosperity and abundance so they hoard everything and the and and so the principle is return the stuff so you can come back to me okay y'all don't like that that's right see we want to hold on all the stuff we want to we want the monopoly board blessing we want to own all the cars. We want to own all the houses. Amen. We want, and God will do that. Hear me tonight. I'm not, it is not a condemnation of God's ability to bless us with material stuff. But here's the question. This is, let me say it another way. This is the spiritual principle. The spiritual principle is the principle of return, return what doesn't belong to you, return what was ill gotten, return what, amen, was not originally entrusted to you. And in so doing, you return to me. Here's the principle. So many of us are in church, but we're not in God.

1:00:01 so many of us read the bible but we're not really in the word huh and so the call of god even for those of us who are here in church tonight watching online it is a call to return back to god what wasn't that isn't that the reminder isn't that the word that god gives to the church at philadelphia you've forgotten your first love right you've forgotten your first love and that is the command of god that is the call of god that is the that is where the blessings of god reside that the blessings of god reside psalm 133 says how good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity and the last verse of the psalm says that it is there that god commands the blessing now don't miss me you do need to be in church but more than you need to be in church more than you need to come back to church you need to come back to God and that's true for not just people who are watching me online who haven't set foot in church in three or four or five years that's true for folk who's singing the choir that's true for folk who usher that's true for folk who sit on the deacon board because you can be in church but not in God and God's call is come back to me return to me come back to your first love come back to the place where you can be amen chasing where you can be corrected where you can be amen lifted and stirred and and strengthened and made better and made stronger come back to me who's that word for somebody in here tonight who you need to make your commitment lord i need to come back to you i need to i need to i need to give my heart to you again i've let the world corrupt my heart i've let the world corrupt my interpretation and my perception of you hallelujah god's command is return back to me let go of what is bothering you let go of what is holding you down and then trust me enough to rest to rest in the promises that i've made to you and his word is true we can trust him

1:02:06 we can we can have confidence in the fact that the blessing of god is commanded toward us that's what that that's his promise i will shut it down on this that's his promise because the questions come okay if i release it if i rest in it amen if i if i trust you enough to give it up to come back to you if I return to you if I release it amen if I if I trust you enough to do to take the uncomfortable steps necessary to live in blessing what what am I gonna eat in the in-between time that was their question what we're gonna eat in the sixth year what we're gonna eat rather in the seventh year if we can't sow what we're gonna eat and God says I'll command the blessing on you in the sixth year in the sixth year that it'll bring forth fruit for three years this is this was the promise this is where we wanted to settle on sunday and i think it's still true for us to hear now the commanded blessing is not god blessing our greed the commanded blessing is not God blessing even our godly ambition it is not God blessing our godly ambitions the commanded blessing is God's provision for people who make a decision to trust him the commanded blessing is not about the end it's about the journey to wherever god is taking you thank you holy ghost i said the commanded blessing is not about the end game it's not about the house it's not about the car it's about the journey to being better it's about the journey of trusting god with your time trusting god with your resources trusting God with his word and learning how to rest and release and to return to him so that Sabbath command is stewardship is stewardship for our souls and for our hearts

1:04:12 and for our minds that are busied by the world so busied by the world that we forget how to rest in God. That's the word that I want to give to somebody as we open the doors of the church tonight. Somebody here who needs to make a commitment to rest in God. You can rest in him tonight. You can be perfectly blessed with peace of mind, with joy that is unspeakable, with those things that cannot, watch this, that cannot be quantified, blessings that can't be quantifying as well as material blessings that you don't qualify hallelujah grace blessings that you don't qualify for the greatest blessing is what christ on the cross to invite us into relationship with him so if you're here tonight you're in the sanctuary and you say i need to release some stuff that's old it don't fit me no more it fit the old me but i'm growing in the things of God. Amen. It was milk for me when I was a baby, but I'm ready to eat on the meat from the table where the feast of the Lord is going on. If that's you tonight, you want to release it. You want to grow where you're going, or you want to just come back to the place, come back to your love, come back to that place of relationship with God, or you just want to rest in him because you're tired of running, tired of running in the world, tired of running from God. You can get your place of rest tonight. We've got ministers down front of you in the sanctuary with an extended hand that says, guess what? Your place of rest, your place of release, your place of return is right here at Friendship West. If you're watching us online, you can use the information that's on the screen to connect with this family of faith. Amen. You can send us an email, join us at friendshipwest.org. You can call to join. Amen. You can use that QR code that's on the screen as well to get connected with the God who says I'm so I'm so in love with you that my request of you

1:06:21 is not just to give me your time your talent and treasure but first will you give me your trust and if you trust me if you trust me if you trust me you can rest in me let's pray a prayer of faith tonight for someone making a decision for Christ father we thank you that all of the blessings that you've given us. A reminder of the