The Festival of Weeks and Stewardship

from Deuteronomy chapter 16, if you'd like to find that. I want to begin reading at verse 13, excuse me, verse 9. Chapter 16, verse 9. What Moses is doing is giving a guide for the people of Israel, and they get in the land of promise as to how they are to organize their religious life. And they didn't have the kind of religious life we have. They didn't have churches in all the places in the land. They only had one temple. And they didn't go to the temple every day, because many of them lived a long great distance away from it. Some of them who lived in Jerusalem would go and offer sacrifices regularly, and might even go daily to the temple to pray. But most of the people of Israel lived a long way from the temple. And it wasn't like they could go every Sabbath and be present there, or that they could hear the scriptures taught or preached. But these requirements was for all of the males in the nation. The Jewish religion focused on the male leadership for spiritual matters. And so this requirement was given to all of them. The first festival was the festival of Passover, in which they would go and celebrate the event that remembered God bringing them out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery. And the second one of the festivals, in verse 9, count off seven weeks from the time you began to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then celebrate the feast of weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing the Lord your God has given you. And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place He will choose as a dwelling for His name, you, your sons and daughters, your manservant, your maidservants, and the Levites of your towns, and the aliens, the fatherless, and the widows living among you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees. This set of festivals was given usually in the beginning of the harvest, the grain harvest, the spring harvest, that they would have barley generally as a major crop that they would have. And it was intended to make sure that everybody would be able to get through the harvest successfully. So the first harvest that they got, that they received, and the first sheaf of grain that was offered as a sacrifice, they counted seven weeks from that time to the end, which would give them enough time for all of the harvest to be completed. So this was a spring harvest festival. Now, of course, the people of Israel, almost all of them were farmers. Their lives revolved around the farming activities. And the harvest of the grain was a time for the springtime which they would receive the primary food for the rest of the year. And to be able to make sure the harvest got in, God gave them plenty of time for that. And then the seven weeks after that was done, they were to come to celebrate this festival. It's called the festival of weeks. Sometimes it's called the festival of harvest. Here, not much detail is given with regard to what it is. But if you look back in your Bibles to Numbers chapter 28, you'll see a little bit more about how this was to be done. Chapter 28 of the book of Numbers, verses 26 through 31. On the day of firstfruits, and here it's called the offering of firstfruits as well as the feast of weeks, verse 26 of chapter 28 of Numbers. On the day of firstfruits, that is when the first harvest is gathered from anybody in the whole community, then they're to start counting. On the day of firstfruits, when you present the harvest, on the day of firstfruits, when you present to the Lord an offering of new grain during the feast of weeks, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. He means by that farming activities, things that would normally be chores that you would do. Offer two young bulls, one ram, several male lambs, a year old as a room of pleasing to the Lord. With each bull there is to be a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, with rams two-tenths, and with each seven lambs one-tenth, including one male goat to make atonement for you. Prepare these together with their drink offerings in addition to the regular burnt offerings and its grain offerings. Be sure the animals are without defect. Now you'll notice here that there is an offering to be made as it's exemplified for the atonement of sins to say to God, we ask you to forgive us of our sins and we make this offering so that we might receive forgiveness for our sins. You'll notice also there's a drink offering to be given and a regular burnt offering. Now the burnt offering would be one that would be given completely to God so that every bit of it was burned on the offering and that was God's food. It's kind of a way of saying this is our gift to you. They knew God didn't eat it but it was consumed and as the fire and smoke went up in the air, they thought of it as being something that was a meal with God. And a grain offering which they would pour on there that made a well-rounded meal for God. So he had meat and grain. It would also put wine or some kind of oil on it sometimes so that it would be a regular full meal for God. It's a way of saying because you've given us the harvest and all the grain to feed us, we come to share with you what you've given to us. You'll notice that all of the festivals are focused around a sacrifice from the people to God as a way of recognizing that all of these things are his. The Bible's method of dealing with financial matters begins with a proper recognition of who actually owns all that there is. If you recognize that all that you have belongs to God and he simply shared that with you and he asked you periodically to give him some part of it that you might remember that he really is the ruler and the Lord of all these things, then it reminds you that he is in charge of all the financial matters in your life. And you can trust him with that. So in this offering, what they're doing is the Feast of Weeks, the beginning of the grain offering, they're recognizing that the grain harvest is a blessing from God and they're taking some of it to take it to God and give it to him. Now, God does not need the grain. He doesn't need the animals. He doesn't live off these things like we do. So the purpose is not for God specifically, but the purpose is for the people who make the offering to recognize that God has the right to say, this is what I want you to give to me because it's all mine. What God is demonstrating is his divine authority over everything in the world. This is the means by which a person recognizes, I am a steward of all that God has given me financially and materially. And that's the key in the Bible's way of thinking to financial management, a recognition that I am under God and responsible for what he has given me because it's all his. We're all just a little bit more careful with the things that belong to someone else. I mean, you have your own car. You might drive it around. But if you're in somebody else's car, you're really especially careful not to do something that would scratch it or damage it. So a recognition that these things belong to God gives us a special sense of stewardship. We are accountable for what we do with them. So when the first harvest came, everyone was to be responsible to make sure that they managed the things that God had given them correctly. And they began not with a specific amount. Now, this is in addition to the tithe, which say, oh, 10 percent of that. But this is in addition to that. As God has prospered you, you give and the same ways prospered you. So if you got a little bit, you'd give a little bit. If you had a lot, you'd give a lot. It's like we might say a percentage of your giving based on some percentage that you determine. Not anything that was required, a number of required or percentage, but just a matter of your sense of thankfulness that would determine the gift that you were to give to God. Now, in this offering, there was something else that was taking place. You'll notice that as he talks about this, he's talking about what they're to do. In Leviticus chapter 16, he says, And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place He'll give you, the dwelling place of His name. Now, this is to be not a church service, but it's to be a festival. It's very similar to what the Muslims do at their Hag, where they travel to make a pilgrimage to the city of holy cities. These were to be festivals by which they traveled. And when they went there, it wasn't a matter of having, in this festival, it wasn't a matter of having something somber and quiet. It was to be a joyous occasion in which all of the family, all of your friends were to eat together. It was the one way by which the people of God came to Jerusalem and felt like they were not alone out there in the world, but they were part of the family of God. That's the importance of gathering, of a church gathering together periodically so that people realize we are part of each other's life, the body of Christ. So, the people of Israel coming to this festival identified with the others around them, and they saw the vast numbers of people, and it encouraged them in their own faithfulness. But in this, they were not only to come in response to that, but they were to take care of the people that were there, the Levites in your town, the aliens, the fabulists, the widows, those living among you. This was a time in which because of the prosperity that they'd been given, they were to share the food that they had with the people who were in a position not to be able to provide themselves. The Levites were given no ground. They had no way to be able to make a harvest for themselves. Only the other people, the Levite tribe, did not receive anything to be able to farm on. They had some ground for cattle, but nothing for farming. So, it was the responsibility of all those who had the land to take some of what they had and take care of these Levites who were taking care of the temple. Now, in addition to that, there were the servants that they had, the slaves that they had, the men and women that were slaves, the Levites, the people who were aliens who'd moved into the community. They had no land because they weren't assigned any land because they were not native of the land. Children who had no fathers, no one to make a living for their family, and widows who had no way to be able to make a living for themselves. These were all people who were dependent on someone else to assist and help them. So, what this festival provided not only was a time by which they came and said, God, we give thanks to you for what you've given to us, but we now give generously to you so that you might give to the people who are in need what they need to have. Now, when we translate all this to say, what are the principles here? When God prospers you, He expects you to be able to be generous so that the people who are part of the family of God will be helped. You notice that He's not talking about anyone except the people of Israel, their maidservants, the people that are around them, except the aliens that live in the community. He's also not talking about the people who are not willing to work. He's talking about the people who, because of the circumstances of their life, they cannot care for themselves. In the Bible's idea of the spiritual community, we are responsible for each other. We're responsible to not only pray for each other, encourage each other, but in this community where there was not the kind of government help that we would look to today for some support, they're responsible for helping each other and taking care of each other. Now, whenever they came to the New Testament, the church carried on this very tradition. We are responsible for each other because we're all a part of the family of God. And you'll see in Acts chapter 2, beginning of verse 42, when it talks about the new believers in this new community of faith, they faced a situation that was difficult. If you left the Jewish religion and became a follower of Jesus, you still considered yourself a Jew, but the Jewish people in your synagogue might not consider you that way. So the normal help for people who were financially in need that came to the temple because of the gifts that the people would give to the temple was not available to those who were in the followers of Christ. This tells about these early believers. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and good they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes, ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Whenever you entered the Christian community, because of the persecution that came to you, you knew, first of all, that nobody came unless they really were devoted to being a follower of Christ. That's different than it is in our culture. A lot of people join a church not because they're devoted to Christ, but because of all kinds of different reasons. But in this situation, they said, these people are members of our fellowship, they've left their families and homes, they have no one to help them, and it's our responsibility to care for each other. And so they pooled their resources, made sure that every person who had a need had that need met. They felt the obligation on themselves, because God had blessed them, to use what God had blessed them to help those who could not help themselves. Now, Paul made clear in his discussion about what the requirements were, that this was not a matter of people saying, okay, anyone who has a need or wants anything, you can come and get it from us. For instead, there was a responsibility to those who were followers of Christ to live up to the responsibilities of being workers too. In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul in writing to this church, where they were having trouble because some of them thought that the Lord was coming soon and the end was near, and so they sort of decided, you know, since the end is near, there's no use for us to work and build our house or take care of anything, so they just quit. So Paul said, In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you receive from us. He wasn't talking about spiritual idleness. He was talking about their didn't work. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone else's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling, so we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this not because we do not have the right to have such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule, if a man will not work, he shall not eat. So the requirement was, if you're able and you don't, you get no help from the church. If you're able and you refuse to, you get no help from the church. But if you're not able, and the circumstances outside of this, then the church freely, all through the New Testament, took care of the people who could not help themselves. The Bible makes it clear that part of our obligation to each other is not only pray for each other, but to help each other in all the different matters of life. And financially, that's one of those things that we're required to do. So what God's talking about here is, first, I'm going to give you assets that you need. I want you to look around you at the people who are part of your community of faith. And if they're working, and if they're taking care of themselves, they're responsible for helping others too. If there's some who, because of the circumstances of their life, they're widowed or orphaned or whatever circumstance might be, all of you have an obligation to take care of them. This is really the source we had in the beginning to use our family ministry fund. That we would take an offering every time we had the Lord's Supper. That's our kind of time of celebrating the presence of Christ. Every time we had the Lord's Supper, we would take an extra amount of money and say, here's what we give. And if somebody in our congregation has a need, a need that's arisen not because they don't work or not been doing something they shouldn't do, that we will give them help to get them through those times that are difficult. Because it is a biblical requirement. And this is what the celebration of the weeks was really about. The time in which the harvest comes and the people say, thank you God for the blessing you've given us. We offer it to you as a way of showing it's that you own all that we have. And we look around us at the responsibility you've given us to take care of those who are also a part of our community of faith. Now, the next feast was the Feast of Tabernacles. Sometimes called the Feast of Tents. During the harvest time, the people went out, the way the structure was in those times, most of the cities, people lived in the cities. You didn't, like here you drive five miles to see a farmhouse. Drive a couple of miles to see another farmhouse. They didn't do that. Because there was no way by which they could have protection against marauders or criminals or crooks who would come to steal and rob from them. So what they did was wherever their plot of land was that they farmed, they would walk out there every day to take care of it or to farm it or to do whatever they needed with it. But at the nighttime, they came to the city and lived in the city because there was a crowd of people and protection was possible for the people who were farmers too. The daytime then, they would go out to the fields and they would harvest. Now, they harvested by taking a big sickle and cutting the grain and stacking it in stacks. And it was a very labor-intensive process. So when the time for harvest came, they went out and lived in the fields. And when they would live in the field, they would build a little shed that they would have to live in, maybe out of limbs or bushes, whatever they could get, just to give them some shade in the daytime and some protection from the wind and the rain, if it happened to rain. So these little tents or tabernacles they're called, sometimes some places tabernacles, really those temporary lean-to tents were a symbol of the harvest time. It was also a symbol of how the people of Israel lived during the time of the Exodus. They didn't have any homes. They lived in tents that were temporary. When they would move, they'd pack everything up and move to the next place where there was water. And then they would make a temporary dwelling for themselves there. So God required of them this third festival, which is called the festival of tabernacles. Verse 13 of chapter 16, Celebrate the feast of tabernacles for seven days after you've gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your wine press. Now, what he's talking about here is it's 50 days from the time the close of the Feast of Weeks until this next festival. During that time, all the grain is taken out of the fields. It's taken to the threshing fields and they're threshed and everything now stored. And now then the grapes and the other fruit are coming. Their season is in hand, the harvest for them. So now the second harvest, where everything is now stored for the winter time, this harvest is the final one. So the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Pentecost, and the word Pentecost comes from the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, which counted 50 days, seven weeks. And the 50th day was the day that this festival would start. On that day, it was a holy day. Nothing was done, no work was done. It was always counted a special Sabbath, even if it didn't fall on a Saturday, a special Sabbath. And this Sabbath day, they were to do no work, but simply to celebrate what God had done for them. And then it started the seven days and a sacrifice every single day of those seven days. So it was a week-long time of joy and celebration and what we might call in our country a harvest festival. It was the final harvest for everything that was done was now finished. The last day of the harvest, then this festival was a very solemn occasion. It was called, I've got the name for it now, Solemn Assembly, Solemn Assembly. They would have a solemn assembly where they would come before God and acknowledge his supreme authority and listen to his scriptures and then leave with their focus on who he was. This festival started really the first day with the Day of Atonement. They would come to this festival of weeks and a festival of the tabernacles. And the first day of that festival was a celebration of atonement, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. We have, that's what you see on your calendar. People of Israel would come and they would make a sacrifice for all the sins that they'd committed they weren't aware of. High priests would go into the Holy of Holies and there make a sacrifice for them. This was the day they felt that God cleansed all the sin that had accumulated in their life for the whole year. Then the next four days, they took time, everybody built their shelter. When the sun went down on that first day, their day was from sunset to sunset. So when sunset came that second day, after the first day, they would begin to build their shelters and they had four days to build them. Then they lived in these tents. Even people who were in Jerusalem who had a house would build a tent in their front yard. They were remembering the fact that they had been delivered from slavery and at one time had no homes, but now they had a house. And for this one week, they lived in these tents to remind themselves of the great gift of deliverance that God had given them and the permanence he'd provided for them. In this festival celebration, then after that first beginning of the week, a big sacrifices were made every day. There was plenty of food to eat. These people did not have meat regularly. Because the only way they could keep meat was to salt it. So there wasn't very much that they could have regularly all year long. But in this time of the festival, there was meat everywhere. Lambs, goat, cows, bulls, everything that they would ever be able to eat was sacrificed that week and there was more of it than anyone could eat. This was a time of great joy and celebration. The Festival of Tabernacles. Two things they were remembering. One is the plenty that God promised them when he said he brought them out of Egypt and he was going to give them a land flowing with milk and honey and now they could experience it. The second thing they were to remember was that once you were a slave and now you have been given a place to live. Once you had no home and now you have a home. Once you were without me, far away from me, and now you've been forgiven of your sins and you live in relationship with me with nothing between us except my love and care for you and your obedience to me. It's a time of great revival for them. Started the week with this solemn day, ended this week with a solemn day and in between a time of great festivities. The worship of the people of Israel was not always sad nor sorrowful. It always had great joy with it too because it was a time in which they remembered not only what they owed to God but they remembered what he did for them and he made them a nation of people and they come together to be that nation to love and care for each other and to celebrate all that God did for them. In our communities, we don't have the kind of festivals that they had because we don't farm the way they did then. It's only one family here that has farming. She didn't know anything about that anyway, so it wouldn't help her at all. The rest of us don't. So we have to reshape the kind of way we think about what God was trying to do. How is it that we remember how God has changed our lives? Forgiven us of our sins, made us his family. To as many as believed him, to them gave he power to become the children of God. How is it that we remember this great thing that God has done for us? We celebrate the Lord's Supper and Jesus said we were to do that in remembrance of him. He didn't mean just him as a person but what he did. But what he did. So the celebration of the Lord's Supper is a time whenever the people have been forgiven of their sins and know that their life belongs to God in which they remember what he did. He died on the cross for us. He gave his life for our redemption. This is our exodus. We left sin to come into the kingdom of God. We left the world of loneliness to become part of the family of God. This is what God wants. A time in which the people of Israel celebrated so we celebrate in a different way. Not with a festival of offering sacrifices where you see Christ took the place of all the sacrifices. No more need for that. He is our sacrifice. They used to have to offer sacrifices every year but there has been one sacrifice made and that's all that ever needs to be made. And we come to celebrate that. Not as individuals but as parts of the body of Christ. When you look around the people have taken the Lord's Supper. It's why only for those who committed themselves to Christ. It's for them. For if you've never committed your life to Christ and are not a part of the family of God it's not the right thing for you to do because it's saying I am a part of the family of God. You look around to people who are taking that and you say that's a brother or sisters giving themselves to the Lord like I have. We're going to be together not only here in this world but together in heaven forever. That's what our memory is. The deliverance God's given us. Jesus commanded us to do this. To remember him. And as often as we take the meal he didn't tell us how often we did it but as often as we did it we were to remember him and what he did. That's our command. Just as the people of Israel were commanded what to do when they made celebrations of their presence of God in their lives and among them. So we too are required of that. God wants us to remember that he's in charge. He wants us to remember what our responsibility is. To recognize that everything we have belongs to him and to use what he's given us to make sure that his children are cared for. Let's pray. So father we ask that you would have mercy on us. So father we ask that you would help us to remember that we are stewards of what you've given us. None of it belongs to us. It's all yours. Make us generous with you and make us generous with those who are your children. That we might be able to be seen as a family of people who cares for their own. We know in the early days of the church that because people did this there are many others who saw this as the world they wanted to be a part of. And we want everyone who looks at us to say I want to be a part of that kind of family. The family of God. We pray that our love for you and our love for each other might be a great witness to the whole world of the fact that you're a God who loves and cares for his people. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.