Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "Jubilee" | Sunday Service | January 26, 2025

Transcript

"Jubilee" | Sunday Service | January 26, 2025 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

0:58
SPEAKER_00: I wanna give a message this morning that I'm calling Jubilee.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Say Jubilee.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can't say Jubilee like that.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: You gotta say jubilee with a little bit of energy.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Say Jubilee.
1:09
unknown: Jubilee!
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay, pretty good.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: That's a three out of ten.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: We're going to seven.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Can we get to seven?
1:14
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Very good, much better.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to frame this around the fourth chapter of Luke, but uh, we're not gonna get there quite yet.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: I wanna start somewhere else.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And I want to introduce to you the idea uh here.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: When I was at home over the past nine days, seven days, whatever it ended up being, um, I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: And so we were ecstatic with the snow on day one, right?
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And so we went outside and did the same thing that you all did, which we we went outside, we did a double take, like, is this really happening?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And then we started throwing snowballs at each other, and we started making snowmen, and we did all the things.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I pulled out a lid from a cover that we have that keeps our wreath, like we have one of those Christmas wreaths, and we bought a special case that it goes in so that it won't break in.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And so we took, I took the lid off of it because it's a perfect circle.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yes, we are going to sled down our road with that.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: And so I tried my best to push my children as much as I could.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it was fun for the first two 12 hours.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: And then and then we started to realize that school wasn't starting the next day, or the next day, or the next day, and we started to have to come up with things that we could do because there's only so many snowballs you can make until it turns to ice, and then it becomes problematic, you know what I'm saying?
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And so we we decided as a family we would play some board games.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: We happened to get a bunch of board games for Christmas, and we hadn't been able to play all of them.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And my girls, who are again four and seven years old, really took to the bluey version of Monopoly Jr.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever played Monopoly Jr.?
2:55
SPEAKER_00: All of you have probably played Monopoly, and if you haven't played Monopoly Jr.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: in a minute, because you are of the age you are, uh, Monopoly Jr.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: is a far more boring version of that.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: A far more boring version of Monopoly.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: But we started playing Monopoly Jr., and the rules in Monopoly Jr.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: are that the youngest goes first.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: So my four-year-old Dylan, I mean, she is ecstatic about this because I don't know if you've played Monopoly in a while, but there's a severe advantage to going first in Monopoly.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Because when you roll that die and you land on a space, you get to buy it.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: And if the person behind you rolls on that same space, they have to pay you rent immediately.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's the four of us in our family playing.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Our youngest Dylan goes first, our second oldest uh goes Collins goes, uh oldest, oh my gosh, second youngest, oldest Collins goes second.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: My wife, who is younger than me, goes third, and then I get to pull up the rear.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: And as much as there is an advantage to going first, there's a severe disadvantage to going last.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Because that means three people have been able to go and claim up properties before you even get to roll.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the first game that we played, I lost miserably.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, absolutely, I was out of money before I even got back around to go.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like I just landed on everybody's thing.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: You only start with$16, and those dollar bucks go pretty quick, you know.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And so uh by the time I was done with that first game, I was like, okay, that was just, you know, that's the first game, whatever.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: So we played the next game and the next game, because this was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: We started playing it over and over and over again.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the fourth or fifth game, I started to realize that this was really rigged against me.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Because I had not even gotten close to winning one time.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: And I decided to invent a rule that when I got to the end of the game, or to the uh when I got around to go, so I got all the way around the board, I would just do a complete reset.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, all the money goes back to the uh back to the bank, and then we get to start over.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: And my girls thought that was less attractive than I did.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Because they were winning, and let me tell you, they can be ruthless when they're winning.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Probably got that from their parents.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of reset that Jubilee is.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And so, what I want to do is take you to your most favorite book in the Old Testament, which is Leviticus.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: You can laugh a little bit.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Your favorite book in the Old Testament, Leviticus.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are applying for staff, you better laugh right now.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And I want to show you what happens in Leviticus 25.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Hannah, if you'll put these up here for us.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Count off seven weeks of years, that is.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Seven times seven, so that the seven weeks of years totals 49 years.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Stop real quick there.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Seven is a number of completion in the Old Testament.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And this is, let me contextualize this a little bit.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: This is Moses speaking to the Israelite people.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Moses has gone up on Mount Sinai, he's talked to God, and he's gotten these instructions to bring down to the Israelite people because he is their leader.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: And one of the practices in the early Israelite nation is they would they would harvest the land for six years, and then that seventh year they would take a rest.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And this instruction is actually giving us a seven times seven.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: So maybe seven cycles of seven years.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: They call it seven weeks because it mimics the Sabbath, right?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh that we have on the seventh day.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: So count off seven weeks of seven years, that is seven times seven, so that the seven weeks of years total forty-nine years.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Are you following?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Seven times seven.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, forty-nine.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: So on the fiftieth year, then have the trumpet blown on the tenth day of the seventh month.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Have the trumpet blown throughout your land on the day of reconciliation.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: You will make the 50th year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: It will be a Jubilee year for you.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Say Jubilee.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we remembered.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: It will be a Jubilee year for you.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: One more time here.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Each of you, sorry, each of you must return to your family property and your extended family.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: All right, next one.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: The 50th year will be a Jubilee year for you.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Say Jubilee.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Because it is a jubilee, say Jubilee, it will be holy to you.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: There's some people making fun of me over there.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: You can eat only the produce directly out of the field.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Each of you must return to your family property in this year of Jubilee.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Hold up.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Each of you must return to your family property in this year of Jubilee.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: You've heard something like that just a second ago.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: When you sell something or buy something from your fellow citizen, you must not cheat each other.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: We should follow that every day.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: You will buy from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the Jubilee.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Say Jubilee.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: He will sell to you according to the number of years left for harvest.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: You see the fairness happening.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: You will raise the price if there are more years, or lower the price if there are less years.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you heard of a price lowering?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you heard in your life about a price lowering?
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Certainly isn't with eggs right now, okay?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh or lower the price if there are less years because of the number of harvests that are being sold to you.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: You must not cheat each other, but fear your God because I am the Lord your God.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: You will observe my rules.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: You will keep my regulations and do them so that you can live securely on the land.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: This is important.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: You will observe my rules and keep my regulations and do them.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Why?
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm a bossy guy?
8:58
SPEAKER_00: No.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: So that you can live securely on the land.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Let's uh let's do a little reader's digest chat GPT here.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Every 50 years.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Seven cycles of seven years.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: 49 if you didn't pass that part of third grade, right?
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Seven times seven is 49.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: That next year is the 50th year.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Every 50 years, 7 times 7 plus 1.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And then these things happen.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: You would release the captives.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures say release the slaves.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: That's the word it uses.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And there are sources that back up the fact that this the captives would be um, they would be Israelite slaves and they would get to return home to their families.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: So if they were indebted to somebody and become enslaved to that person, then they would be set go on this 50th year.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: There are some sources that also say they would release the prisoners, which sounds crazy in our world, but that's actually been in the news this last week or so.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: So there's there's some there's some precedent for that as well.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Release the captives.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: If you are held captive by anybody or anything, you would get to go free on the Jubilee back to your family.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Then you hear this land restitution.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Land restitution just simply means giving the land back to the people who once owned it, to the family who once owned it.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: This is a crazy idea.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to hear this because you're probably not used to this.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: But here's how in our world land works.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Can you go with me on this?
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Here's how land works.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: If I own land, I own that land until I sell that land.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: What happens if I don't sell that land?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, then I'm gonna give it to my children, and they're gonna have land.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And then when they pass away, they're gonna give it to their children.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you know anything about real estate, but the value of land, because it is a limit in a limited quantity, goes up every year.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you've ever been involved in the selling of a house or your parents have ever sold a house or something, you know that that's a major way of creating wealth within the family is to have land and then either keep it for a long time and then finally sell it because you've got all of this wealth that's been built up in this land.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: That's the way land works in our world.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: My family has a farm in Severeville, Tennessee, that we've had since 1848 with acres and acres and acres of land.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to know what that thing is worth.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: We still own it.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Passed down, passed down, passed down.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: I worked in a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I looked, I worked in a very wealthy area of Charlotte, North Carolina.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And every house has a deed to the title, right?
12:03
SPEAKER_00: It has a statement of who has owned this in the past and who owns it now, and exactly how much land there is and exactly what buildings are on that land.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: All of this is kind of in that title process, and and every deed in that neighborhood that I worked in could be traced back hundreds of years to the people who own the land.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Passed down and passed down, passed down.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: But in ancient Israel, at least in the Leviticus time, this is what's given to us here, is that at the 50th year, the land would go back to the people who once owned it.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a monopoly reset.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a monopoly reset, which I still think was a good idea and would have given me far better chance of winning just one game.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Just one game is all I was asking for.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that happens in a Jubilee is that you give the land rest.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Rest.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: We just came off a winter retreat in which we talked about stillness and we talked about uh the importance of trying to find that rest and hear the voice of God and that rest.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: The land needs that as well.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Just as the Sabbath day, they would have that every seven years, and then every 50th year give an extra rest to the land.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jubilee is.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Here's this verse.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: This is uh verse 10, I think.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: You will make the 50th year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: It'll be a jubilee, say jubilee.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Year for you.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: The 50th year is the Jubilee, but do you see that first word?
13:58
SPEAKER_00: He says, You will make the 50th year holy.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: There's something holy happening in all of those things we just mentioned.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Right?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: The release of the captives, the restitution of the land, the rest.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: There's something holy in that.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: I want to show you where this comes up later in Luke's gospel.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: This is the fourth chapter.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you've heard of him, returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: And news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: If you're not familiar with what Jesus did in his ministry, this is early on in his ministry.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: This is chapter four.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Early on in his ministry, he's traveling around, and people are listening to him talk and teach, and they're kind of following him in first in small numbers and then later in large numbers.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus returned in the power of the spirit.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Some people think that the Holy Spirit only shows up in Acts 2, and then after that, no, no, no, no, no.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: He returned in the power of the Spirit.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Right here.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: This is Luke 4.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: This is Luke 4.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: In the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Next verse.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: He taught in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: I love that because you generally, when you read a story and a narrator gives you a sentence like that, it may be a clue that things are about to change.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: So he says he taught in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: It always starts really good.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Just what comes next?
15:31
SPEAKER_00: All right, next verse.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went to Nazareth where he had been raised.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And by this we don't mean raised from the dead yet.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: This is chapter four.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: He just means where he had been raised as a child, right?
15:42
SPEAKER_00: To Nazareth, his hometown.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: This is his home synagogue, right?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And on the Sabbath, he went to that synagogue as he normally did, and he stood up to read as he normally would.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: This is in the middle of a worship service.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: The synagogue assistant gave him the scroll from the prophet Isaiah.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: He unrolled the scroll and then he found the place where it was written.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not just Acts 2, it's not just Luke 4, it's Isaiah 61.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: You hear some familiar language here?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's almost as if Isaiah is talking about all the things that happened during the Jubilee and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: What happens next, Hannah?
16:55
SPEAKER_00: He rolled up the scroll, he gave it back to the synagogue assistant, and he sat down.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And I love, I just love the way this is told narratively.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Like it's like a script to a movie, you know?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Like he reads the scroll and I proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: And then I put the scroll and I give it back to the assistant, and I go and sit down, and every eye is on him.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: You see the drama?
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, are you getting this?
17:23
SPEAKER_00: James Cameron could have written this, right?
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh the every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And he began to explain to them.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: This is the next verse.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: He's been talking about the Jubilee, or at least he's reading from the scroll of Isaiah that is foretelling of the Jubilee, and it's saying all the same things, release of the captives.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: He's saying everything can be reset, redone.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: This is a holy moment, right?
18:00
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening in Isaiah.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: And then he sits down, every eye is on him, and he has the biggest mic drop moment of the entire thing.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: He sits down and he goes, and today it's all been fulfilled in the hearing of this word.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Who's he talking about?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Himself.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the fulfillment of this Jubilee.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Think about all the things that Jubilee brings about.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: It brings about justice.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: It brings about freedom.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: It brings about fairness.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Equality.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: It brings about restoration.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And he reads it.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: He says today says, hey, today it's been fulfilled in the hearing of this word.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's like, what?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: This idea of Jubilee is countercultural.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I just told you about how land is done here.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: How land is done in our world and property is done in this world.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: I just told you about that.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So it's a countercultural idea to say, hey, I'm gonna take this and restore it to where it should have been.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this person who's been held captive because of their debt or because of something they did to me, I'm going to let them go.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound crazy?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And yet, that's exactly what God prescribes.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus says, hey, in that restoration, that's happening in me.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: In me.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: It's so against the way of the world.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: I love this because Luke's gospel is generally describing what we call an upside down kingdom.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: That means that, like, the ways of the world, the ways that we just expect everything to work in our world, they've been turned upside down by Luke's narrative here.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Luke, Luke is trying to tell us that Jesus provides for us a different way, something that we're we're not used to, something that's maybe gonna make us a little uncomfortable, something that seems out of the out of the norm.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: That's what Luke's describing here.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, yep, yep, yep, that's me, bro.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: That thing you guys have been practicing for years, that's me.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Find it within me.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about that this week.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Because there was a pastor this week who gave a sermon that made it all over the news, and all she did was quote the Bible.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And I I recognized because of all of the anger and aggression that happened to her, because of what she said.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: I realized how countercultural the entire narrative of scripture is.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: The entire way of following Jesus is totally against the ways of the world.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Because the ways of the world celebrate things like ownership and power.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, let it go.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm your Jubilee.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, let it go.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Stop focusing on that.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Give it back.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Let them go.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Forgive them.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: At his death.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: When they're about to kill him, what does he say?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: He says, Father, forgive them.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: They haven't even asked for forgiveness.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a completely upside down kingdom.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: That's the world I think Jesus is inviting us into as people who follow Him.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, I think we need a little Jubilee in our lives.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Say Jubilee.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: We need a little Jubilee in our life.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: We need a reset at that monopoly game, you know?
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are in that place right now, like you've got a relationship or a friendship that's just kind of on the rocks.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And the normal way that human beings would go about it is just by being petty and vindictive.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: The normal way about going about it would just be to just like try to claim power and gossip behind each other's back.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's the normal way.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: That's normality there.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Let me invite you into a Jubilee, into a reset.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: One that can only be found in the world of Jesus, within that realm.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Only within that realm.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Let me invite you into that reset.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are going to need a reset on your student debt.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Talk to your government.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: I say that jokingly, but man, I don't know if you pay attention to the news, but student debt is gripping our nation, our world, debt in general.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: It's gripping all of us.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And many of you are counting up the numbers in your mind that you signed that paper on when you decided to come to school here.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: You're not alone.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: You're not alone.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: That reset would do a lot for you.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: We could help reset each other in that too.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: There are lots of other opportunities for debt forgiveness and scholarships and things like that.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: That's something we could help in together.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: My word, do we need a reset, a jubilee in our mental health?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: One of the opportunities you're going to have, and I had planned this message before he couldn't be here this morning, but I think he's going to come next week.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: His uncle passed away, so he had to go to a funeral.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: But uh, the new representative of uh Capital Area Justice Ministry is gonna be here, I think, next week to share with us about what they do and hopefully get us to participate in the work that they do.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: One of the things they focus on right now is affordable housing in Tallahassee for underprivileged people.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Man, you want to participate in a jubilee.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: How do you bring about and call for justice for those who got left out of those land deeds?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might be in a place right now where you just need a fresh start on your life.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Some of you need that spiritually.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: I talked to several of you on Winter Retreat.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: This is dangerous.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: I talked to several of you on Winter Retreat about that, about trying to find a fresh start in your spiritual walk.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Like just trying to find time to find that stillness in your day-to-day life.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you might be invited into the Jubilee that Jesus offers you in a reset.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: To lay down the kind of the world's expectations of you and just come forward to Christ and say, God, I just need this reset in my life.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: We all need that.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Somehow, some way, we all need that.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Let me encourage you that Jubilee is not just some ancient tradition from the Israelite people.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not just something that Moses heard from God on a mountain many, many thousands of years ago, and then he came down and he told the people, and then it just existed there.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: No.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: What Moses was describing was a holy way of living, and Jesus came and he said, Hey, that's me.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: I got you.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is an opportunity for you to say to Jesus, Man, I just need that reset.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: It's the beginning of a semester.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: I just need that reset in my life.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Will you give that to me?
26:23
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I know about Jesus is that he is the great sustainer.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: You need that reset?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna give you that sustenance needed.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: You need that startover?
26:36
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna hold it over your head where you've been.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna give it to you.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons we have communion here every week.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Because we come to this table where Jesus provides for us in the grace and the love and the mercy that he gave to his very disciples when they needed that.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And he gives it to you every day, every week, every time you come to this table.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: On the night in which Jesus was betrayed by his friends, he took the bread that they were eating there together and he gave thanks to God for it.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: He broke the bread.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Take it, eat this.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: It's my body given for you.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He did the same thing when he took the cup that they were drinking.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: He gave thanks to God for it.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Take, drink this, all of you.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: This is the blood of the new covenant.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: It's poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: He says, as often as you eat this meal, remember me.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe as often as you eat this meal, take part in that jubilee.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over this meal.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, in remembrance of what you did for us, we offer ourselves just as you offered yourself.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: God, we ask that you pour your Holy Spirit on these gifts of bread and the cup, that they may be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we might be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by your blood.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, make us one with Christ in one in unity to all the world until you come in your final victory, and we get to feast at your heavenly banquet.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: To you, God, we give all honor, praise, and glory now and forever.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Amen.