Sabbath Reflections – Are We Reflecting Our Heavenly Citizenship By Our Time Investments & Calendar

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Sabbath Reflections: Are we Reflecting Our Heavenly

Citizenship By Our Time Investments & Calendar

Philippians 3:17-21

As we open to Philippians 3, when Paul sat to write a letter inspired by God to the believers in Philippi, his letter was headed to a Roman colony.

Like an island in a vast ocean, Roman colonies were settled with citizens and soldiers who had served well and were given the great benefits of citizenship in the colonies of Rome.

CITIZENS OF ROME

A Roman colony was completely synched with Rome. Though hundreds or even thousands of miles from Rome, the citizens always sought to stay in step with the Empire’s culture.

Citizens spoke the language of Rome.
Citizens obeyed the Laws of Rome.
Citizens followed the Calendar of Rome.
Citizens wore the dress of Rome.
Citizens were Roman to the core.

Colonies became little islands of Rome scattered across conquered lands, populated by fiercely loyal and wholly focused citizens of Rome. This is one of the strong fibers that tied together the diverse and scattered pieces of the Empire.

Citizens were in step with Rome.

As we turn to Philippians 3:17-21, we can see the Apostle Paul using an image everyone could understand: “citizenship”, but Paul applied it in a completely new and powerful way.
Paul said that believers become:

CITIZENS OF HEAVEN

The Church of the New Testament was born into and grew up in the Roman World, an Empire that spread across most of the known world of the day. Part of being Roman was being associated with and adhering to the customs of Rome. Citizens cared about and followed Empire-wide customs, celebrations, laws, communications, and travel.

Transcript

But let’s open our Bibles to Philippians chapter 3. As you’re turning there, I always like to locate us on the map of where we’re going. And thank you, Phil. We are. In the midst of looking at hungering for God. Hungering for God is basically a description of what a Christian is. When we hunger for God, it is an acknowledgment that Jesus Christ is the bread of life. And so, we begin our spiritual lives. (Look at that. It changed color on me. There we go. Someday I’m going to understand the smart board.) But when we hunger for God, it’s an acknowledgment that Jesus is the bread of God come down from Heaven and all who partake of Him have endless life. Salvation is not joining a church, it’s not praying a prayer, it’s not getting baptized, and it’s not just becoming religious. It is when we personally become partakers of God. When He actually comes to abide within us. We have His abiding Word within us. And it completely changes us, from the inside out, at different rates, at different speeds. But all of us are in the process of hungering more and more for the Lord. That’s the evidence of our health.

If someone doesn’t have a spiritual appetite, There’s only two diagnoses. They’re lost or they’re sick. And so, what we’ve come to is much of what it says in Revelation. The churches of the 1st century, most, five out of seven, were filled with sick people. They were saved. They didn’t hunger for God. And there were a lot of reasons. But basically, when you want to come back to healthy, look at the components of hungering for God. There are three.

The first one is prayer. Prayer is how we got saved. We call on the name of the Lord. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord. Salvation doesn’t, it’s not osmotic. It’s not like through osmosis. It doesn’t just slowly come on us with no interaction with us because we’re around Christians. It’s when we come to a desperate crisis moment of acknowledging our lostness and looking to the only one that can save us. It’s like drowning. If you’ve ever been drowning and someone saves you, you know it! Unless you went unconscious. But then afterward you knew it. You understand what I mean? I meet people all the time. I say are you saved? I don’t know. I don’t even know when I got saved. Were you not drowning? Did you not know you were lost? And desperately headed toward destruction? Were you not aware that you could not make it? And you reached out in faith and cried out? See, that’s what salvation is, crying out to the Lord. Save me. That’s salvation. That’s prayer. Prayer is seeking God. It starts at salvation. It continues through life. Because as you receive the Lord, you still walk in Him. We realize that apart from Him, we can’t do anything. So, we’re, the more we realize that the more we’re praying and crying out to Him.

The second element of a healthy spiritual life that hungers after God is not only seeking God in prayer, but it’s fasting. Fasting is learning to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. And to live soberly, righteously and godly. That’s an indicator of health. If we are denying ungodliness, we’re spiritually healthy. Now, a lot of people are trying to deny everybody else’s ungodliness. That’s the politicking thing. We’re always trying to make pagans act like Christians. They can’t. Let pagans act like pagans. Just declare to them what God says. His righteousness, His judgment. How did Paul deal with a profligate Roman procurator? How did he deal with him? He told him about righteousness and judgment to come, and Felix started shaking. He was scared to death. That’s how we impact society. Tell them about God’s righteousness and His judgment to come. And we live the life of denying ungodliness. And that’s central to hungering for God. You can’t hunger for God if you’re consumed voraciously with everything else.

In fact, I was just speaking at Word of Life in this auditorium there, and I said, there’s a whole generation that hardly knows any words that are breathed out by the breath of God. But they know every word Taylor Swift has ever breathed out, by heart. And they can sing them forward and backward. But they don’t know what God has breathed out. Because they don’t hunger for God. And they’re either sick or lost. See, there’s no middle ground. Hungering for God is normal Christianity. Not hungering for God is lostness or sickness and needs to be remedied. And it starts by praying, confessing, acknowledging sin, returning in faith to the Lord, denying ungodliness, but that’s not where we are. I’ve just reviewed the last 5 months.

Resting in God, which is where we come to this concept, the Sabbath, is acknowledging God’s ownership of my time. There is enough time in every week, 168 hours, to accomplish everything that God wants me to accomplish. Not everything I want to accomplish, not everything everybody else imposes on me, but everything God wants me to accomplish. If I am hungering for Him, seeking Him, denying ungodliness, I will be able to rest in the fact that I am fulfilling His purpose for my life in this generation. We all live in our generation. And we all have, if we’re saved, a purpose God wants us to fulfill. And the only way you know that is by acknowledging a hunger for God. Praying, seeking His help and strength and provision. Denying, which is sanctification, denying ungodliness. And resting by allowing God to reflect His ownership of my time.

And what I’m talking about when I talk about the Sabbath day is this, that God is the one that invented the seventh day. He’s the one that made seven day weeks. There’s no anthropological reason in the world, paleo or modern, of why we have a seven day week other than God designed it that way. And He designed it not for us to rest on the seventh day. He did not design that. He rested on the seventh day. Because He wanted us to reflect on His ownership of all of our time. And He wants us to acknowledge His ownership of our time.

In fact, it reminds me of Nebuchadnezzar I mean, Belteshazzar. You remember the handwriting on the wall in Daniel 5? When there was just a hand and a finger poking in the plaster? And Belteshazzar, the third in command of the nation, or the second in command was Banging his knees together. He was scared to death. And as he looked up there, he said, what does it say? And they said there’s someone that can interpret it; his name is Daniel. So, they called in Daniel and Daniel looked to him and said the most stunning thing. He said, the God of Heaven, that holds your king’s life breath in His hand. God holds your breath, your life, your continuing existence, every day is only at his allowance. He’s determined your number’s up, time’s up, you’re going. How would you like a message like that? You know what the king said? Put a gold chain around his neck, pass another round of drinks, sounds great to me. And that night he died. He never reflected God’s ownership of His time in his life. We should.

So how do we do that? Philippians 3. We are citizens of Heaven. We should have a different view of time than the world does. The world has the seize the moment thing. Live for my body. Most people live for their body. What they eat, what they drink, and what they put on it, and what the body looks like. And their whole life revolves around getting the latest things to put on the body, or toning and tanning the body, or, frizzing if you have something to frizz, or taking the body places and having the body enjoy stuff. And their whole time is consumed with everything here. It’s like everything that’s possible to do. It’s to enjoy, and to experience, and to feel, and to have. And everything is just like they’re piling around them as much stuff as possible in life. And they’re citizens of the world. In fact, the book of Revelation calls them Earth dwellers. They dwell here. You know what we’re called? Heavenly citizens in Philippians 3.

Go to Philippians 3 with me and I want to show you something. Because this little part of the scripture was written to a group of people that were citizens of Rome. See, every book of the Bible, the primary interpretation is who was it written to that got it the first time. That’s the singular interpretation of every scripture. There’s only one interpretation of any scripture, and it’s what it meant, what God meant when He wrote it to whoever He wrote it to. So, what did God mean when He wrote it to the Philippians? He said, you are a group of citizens of Rome. You are believers in the Roman colony of Philippi. And a Roman colony was like a little island. In the middle of a great sea. And see, Rome went out and conquered entire nations. And then they planted colonies of their loyal legionaries and centurions out in these colonies and had them live in that city and then they made everybody in that city a citizen. And those were colonies. They were granted citizenship in Rome. Now if you’re a citizen of Rome, you did all of your official dealings in the language of Rome. It didn’t matter if you lived on the fringes of Parthia or in Gaul in the furthest Western Europe. Wherever you were in the empire you spoke the language of Rome. If you’re going to do any official communication, it was always in the language of Rome. That’s how you knew you were a citizen. You obeyed the Roman laws. Even though you might be scores or hundreds or thousands of miles from Rome, you knew what the laws were and you followed them because you were a citizen of Rome, living in Philippi, citizen of Rome. See, that citizenship meant something to them, to us, our culture, everything is eroding. Back then, citizenship was paramount. It was everything for them.

Also, you wore the dress of Rome. Those little toga things. Can you imagine running around the little toga thing? They did. Even though no one else in their country wore that kind of clothes. They did. Why? They wanted everyone to see they were citizens of Rome. So, they spoke the language, obeyed the laws, wore the clothing, followed the customs and the calendar of Rome. They would be out in the fringe of the empire, and they’d be going through all these holiday festivities, and people around them would say, what are you doing? And they’d say, we’re celebrating, on the Roman calendar, the Roman festivals, the Roman everything. They were Roman to the core. In fact, historians say they were stubbornly Roman.

So that’s what a colony was. And that’s the group of people that Paul is writing to. And these colonies became little islands of Rome, scattered across conquered land, populated by fiercely loyal and completely focused citizens. Citizens that were in step with Rome. Okay?

Then Paul introduces something in Philippians 3. He said, you understand citizenship of Rome. When you got saved, you were transferred into new citizenship. You are now citizens of Heaven, living on Earth, citizens of Heaven. That’s a little conflict. And that’s what we’re reading about in the New Testament, and we will this morning.

The Church in the New Testament was born into and grew up in a Roman world. An empire that was spread across most of the ancient world of the day. And part of being Roman was being associated with and adhering to the customs of Rome. Citizens cared about, followed, and held to empire wide customs. Even if nobody else around them did, they held to them. Celebrations, laws, communication, travel. And into this world came the Gospel of Jesus Christ that called people to an eternal and higher citizenship. And that’s Philippians 3:17-21. If you’re there, let’s all stand together for the reading of God’s Word. You follow along in your copy. And I’m going to read from 17 down to 21 before we pray. Here we go.

Brethren, so he’s only writing to the believers in Philippi, join in following my example. And note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern. Verse 18. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Verse 19, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. Verse 20, For our citizenship is in Heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body That it may be conformed to His glorious body according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

Let’s bow for prayer. Father teach us what it means to be citizens of Heaven living on Earth. Help us to be those who glory in the cross. Rather than be enemies of the cross. Help us to be those whose god is not our flesh, our appetites, our body, our belly, as Paul called it. Help us to not glory in our shame, but to glory in our forgiveness, and cleansing, and liberation from those things that used to shame us. Oh Lord, how I pray that we would realize that healthy believers Hunger for Your appearing, hunger for Your Word, hunger for Your presence. And if we’re not, I pray that you’d begin convicting this morning and drawing some who have never eaten of You into genuine salvation. That they would call out to You like a drowning person. Like someone in a building burning down, crying for the ladder to come to their window, or for the place to jump to, a safety net to come beneath so they can jump into it. I pray they would fear for their souls and cry out to You today. And for the rest of us, that we would ask You to renew and restore our hunger for You. It fades if we don’t maintain it, and I pray You’d show us how today. In the name of Jesus, we ask all this. Amen.

You may be seated. As you’re seated, I think it’s amazing if you look down at verse 19, the contrast between the two groups. Paul is making clear. He said in verse 18, the enemies of the cross of Christ, those who are not trusting and have not jumped into the safety net or found Christ as a ladder of salvation, their end is destruction. Verse 19. That’s endless, eternal, blackness of darkness. Their god is their appetite, their body. They just want what they want, and they want it now, and they live for feeding their appetites.

Whose glory is in their shame. Any of you that, that read the New York Times, do you know what the cover was? It was a West Point cadet graduate man. who is now a U. S. female federal judge. And it was glorying that this person has transformed themselves into what they always wanted to be. You know what that is, biblically? Whose glory is in their shame. Did you know people now glorify what God says is shameful? That’s the culture we live in right now. And you know what? We shouldn’t be alarmed. Nothing new. It’s the same. We live in the same type of world the New Testament was born into. It’s just that we’re not living the same kind of lives they were living. See, we’re trying to change the Roman culture into a Christian culture. God says, I don’t change cultures, I change people. God doesn’t transform cultures, He transforms people. People, as they multiply, change a culture. But God changes people one by one.

The question today is not what are you advocating or canvassing for. It’s how much is God changing you? The power of one transformed life is hard to comprehend. Because all of us live somewhere in some arena. And if we live out Christ, people go, you are different. Why? And we share Christ. Citizens of Heaven is how we are to live.

Citizens of Heaven hunger for God. That’s what all the New Testament epistles are about, they’re a manifesto of what citizens of Heaven look like. That’s what Paul wrote all those epistles about. Hungering for God is at the core of all true believers. And all of a sudden, the guide we follow, just like the Romans followed the laws of Rome, these are the laws of God. This is the law written on our heart. If we’re truly saved, this, the Bible is not separate from us. There’s some people, they talk about the Bible like it’s out here. That’s an indication of not being saved. The Bible is written on our hearts. We have a new heart, and the law of God is written on it. We reflect the new heart that we’ve been given, and we grow, and we understand more, but we align with God from the inward person. True salvation implants a longing for God deep within us.

And so basically, if we are saved, we have had an operating system transformation. It’s just like going from a PC to a Mac. There’s a great difference. People like PCs are lovers of PCs. People that like Macs know it. And they talk about it, and they have little apples on their windows, they’re just into it. And to go from one to the other is a transformation, unless you get cross over, one of those, programs, but it really doesn’t work very well. But it’s a new operating system at the core. God says, when you get saved, when I got saved, my operating system, or the way I look on the world. See, the evidence of salvation is how you look on the world today. Are you living?

Do you know what? And it’s okay to say it, I won’t scream and yell but I hear people saying things that I don’t think they realize what they’re saying, they’ll excitedly say, we are going to build our dream house. And we’ve saved forever to buy the land and now we’ve Pinterested all of the bathroom fixtures and all the stuff and we’re starting on our dream house. Did you know I have a dream house being built? It’s just not here. It has foundations that are eternal and this world cannot hold our dream house. It’s not of this world. Yet Christians live like the pagans. Let them have their dream house. That’s all they have. There’s nothing wrong with that. They’re world based. They’re Earth dwellers. We’re citizens of Heaven. See, a different world view. We look on life completely differently. Our security, our satisfaction, our joy comes from something different than theirs. That’s why we’re not supposed to act like them because they say, you’re a Christian, but you’re just like me. You’re living for, you’re just trying to pile up and guard and have and experience and enjoy everything possible and not living [like] Christ.

Jesus came to serve, not to be served. Our culture says get as many people serving you as possible. Get as much money so you can just have everything to the very end being served. We’re supposed to be serving others, to be Christ like. God is the center of our worldview. We measure everything by how it relates to God. Not to me. Not to my future. Not to my security. Not to my comfort. Not to my convenience. To God. How does it fit? To God. Does that please Him or not? See, we are either pleasing God or not. That’s God centered. God’s glory is the focus of our life whether therefore we eat or drink, or whatever we do, how we go to school, how we work, how we relate to people. Does it glorify God? When it doesn’t, we agree with God that it didn’t glorify Him. We ask Him to cleanse us.

See, a Christian is characterized by constantly seeking to be cleansed from anything that displeases God. If you meet someone that never is consciously aware of displeasing God, they’re probably not saved. Because the Spirit of God gets grieved and quenched within us instantly. And we say, don’t take Your joy from me. I want to glory focus my life on You. And Your Word is what feeds me.

And again, the Bible is the evidence of health. Where in the last seven days has the Word of God fit? You can tell whether you’re spiritually alive or sick or dead. If the Word of God has no place in your life, unless it’s forced upon you, you see it on the wall or you hear it somewhere, that’s a good sign you’re spiritually dead. If the Word of God is something you know is out there and it’s important but you don’t get to it, you’re sick. If you hunger, you’re healthy. See, that’s the simplicity of the Christian life. Are we pilgrims on Earth? And strangers to Earth’s ways, or the other way around.

Let’s go to Hebrews chapter 11. You’re in Philippians, go… Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews. There it is, chapter 11. And look at what Hebrews 11 says, starting in verse 13. This is how the Bible describes normal Christian life. Christianity in the 21st century is not normal. We are not living the way the first generation lived, that we’re closest to the events and closest to the documents. We are living in the distance. Almost as spectators. Not, it’s almost like in the future someday if any of the electronic records survive, people will look on sporting events and they will never have known anybody that did those sporting events but they will watch the people playing, but they will never have played. They’ll just spectate. That’s like the majority of people anyway nowadays, but at least we know people that play. Did you know that’s how we have become in Christianity? Most of the players are paid. Everybody else is a spectator, mostly.

I’m not talking about you all. Ken said it well. This is a church filled with people serving the Lord. But Christendom in the world is primarily a spectator sport. They read about it. They don’t experience it. They watch it in the professionals, but they never do it. And God says true Christians are in the field. They’re not in the stands. They’re actually participating. And this is what they’re like. Look at verse 13.

These all died in faith. That’s the heroes of the faith that Hebrews 11 is all about. Not having received the promises. That, see, we’re saved in hope. We don’t have on Earth all the promises that God promised. There’ll be no sickness, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more, none of that do we have now. We have sickness and sorrow and sadness and tears and suffering and struggles and everything else. We agonize through life. The worldlings, at least they can drown all their agonies in substances and in fleeting moments of pleasure. We endure as good soldiers, hardness, going through life because we’re not living for this world. We seek those things which are to come. We’ve received the promises. We see them afar off. We’re assured of them. We embrace them, verse 13 says, and we confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the Earth. True born again people are strangers to Earth’s ways. They’re pilgrims. What is the context of that?

Abraham. Abraham lived, as far as we know, most of the houses in Ur of the Chaldees were two and three story homes. They had indoor plumbing. They’ve excavated the place. Isis is probably going to destroy it, but we still have pictures of it. And that was a highly civilized world 4,000 years ago with Abraham. Abraham left his home, his big dream house, and the rest of his life lived in a tent. After Abraham followed the Lord, he never owned a piece of ground except a gravesite for his wife. He bought a place to bury his wife, and then his sons buried him there too. But other than that, he didn’t build anything but altars to God, he didn’t own anything but a grave, and he lived in a tent. He’s called the father of the faith. Because he was, look at this, they who say such things, verse 14, declare plainly they seek a homeland. And truly if they called to mind the country from which they had come, they would have opportunity to return. But now, verse 16, they seek a better, a Heavenly country. And God is not ashamed to call them their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

See, we’re, like the little chorus goes, this world is not my home, I’m what? Just a passing through? My treasures are where? Laid up? We sing that. Do we live that on a daily basis? Does the world see that we’re pilgrims here? Strangers to Earth’s ways? Did you know why the early Christians were persecuted? Do you know why Nero burned them? I know it’s because he wanted to build the city in marble. But do you know what was underlying it? We know. Do you know how we know? It’s in the Roman records. Remember they spoke Latin; all their legal documents are in Latin. We still have those. The archives of Rome. Many of them are still around. We have the actual proceedings why Christians were killed. They’re written down. Do you know what one of the accusations was? They were haters of humanity. Now that sounds cruel.

Do you know what haters of humanity was? They did not follow, as pilgrims and strangers, there was more and more and more of the Roman calendar of gladiatorial events, where the entire empire came to watch bloodshed and carnage, where the entire empire came to watch things that offended God. And the early Christians said, you know what? We’ll be good Romans, we’ll pay our taxes, we’ll honor the king, but we will not participate in what grieves the Holy Spirit. And we want to be a stranger to the evil. And we want our lives to point that we’re going somewhere, it’s not here, and we don’t want to be attached to the Roman cycle of what they celebrated. Mardi Gras living. And they detach from it. That’s what Hebrews says is the sign of a citizen of Heaven.

Keep going to 1 Peter. So go Hebrews, James, and the next one. Go to the right, over James, and go to 1 Peter 2:11. And look what it says. 1 Peter 2:11. This is Peter talking to the same generation, and by the same generation they’re still struggling. They’re struggling with one foot in Heaven and one foot on the Earth, and the boats are drifting apart. And so, Peter drops to his knees in verse 11 and says, beloved, he’s talking to believers, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims. Sojourners and pilgrims. Pilgrims and strangers. It’s the same concept. Abstain. Say no to. Don’t expose yourself to what grieves God. Abstain from the driving desires of your body. Because that war is against your soul.

It’s an interesting word, the war there in verse 11, 1 Peter 2:11. Strateuōi. Do you know what that means? To continuously carry on a battle. It’s like a guerrilla campaign. Did you know the guy that just shot up, was that this week, the guy that shot up the train between Belgium and Paris? They didn’t know he was going to do that. You know why? He didn’t fly in a helicopter. He didn’t wear a uniform. And he didn’t drive up in a tank. It’s this underground guerrilla hiding and popping up warfare. And that’s exactly this word. This continual military campaign that knows no clock or calendar just endlessly goes on. That’s what our flesh is doing against our soul. See, our body wants to neutralize God from running the show. And our body is a traitor. Our body is for the world and the flesh and the devil. And our spirit is born from above and we’re working together in this thing. We need the body to get around in, but the body is rebellious. And so, we have to keep surrendering to God and denying the body. And look what happens when we do.

Go to Acts 17. Because when this starts happening, now you have to go to the left. I couldn’t get Acts after Peter. I tried. But and this is from the same time period. This is when Paul has just come from Philippi where he’s told them in chapter 16 that they’re citizens of Heaven. Now in chapter 17 he’s moved on and he’s in Thessalonica. He walked about 90 some miles from Philippi with that back all lacerated by the whipping he got in the jail time. And he gets to Thessalonica and causes a stir. And look what’s so neat. Look at verse 6 and 7 of chapter 17. It says, but when they didn’t find them, they were looking for the early believers, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren to the rulers of the city. And look how they describe Christianity. Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too. These people who are advocating a detachment from going the way everyone else is going.

Do you remember a few weeks ago I told you that the Broadway is like a river? Remember when I used to be little, once a year our whole church would go on a canoe trip, and they’d just drop us in canoes, we didn’t even get paddles, and we just floated down, and at the other end they picked up the canoes and put them on the little things and carried them back, and we got on the bus and went home. And that was a canoe trip. You didn’t have to paddle. The river was flowing. When you and I are born, we’re into a river that’s flowing away from God. When we get saved, the Lord hands us paddles, turns our canoe around, and says we’re headed that way, and everyone else is going that way. And when we start going that way, look what happens. They have turned the world upside down. They’re going the wrong way on the river. They’re bumping our canoe. They’re bothering us. They make us feel funny. They’re going that way, and we wonder why, and we want them to go that way. We don’t like them.

For us as Christians, it’s not that they’re worldlings and we’re Christians. They don’t want us to be Christians because we bother them in our world. We bothered them back then. Look at verse 7. Jason has harbored them. These are all acting contrary. Their canoes are headed the wrong direction. They’re bothering us. They’re, they don’t fit in. They’re not going the wide road that we are.

And they’re acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar. What did Caesar do? Caesar set out the customs, the laws, the language, the dress, the calendar of Rome. And they weren’t lockstep marching that way. They said no. We’ll have to check whether this is pleasing to God. And look at that, verse 7, saying there’s another emperor, Jesus. That’s what the Bible’s all about. We are walking to a different beat.

Before we go, let me ask you something. Remember Rome had a calendar? The whole empire followed it. Wherever you were. Did you know God has a calendar? Did you know God has a calendar that He instituted, that He is still following? And did you know that when God in person comes down to the Earth, Second Coming of Christ, every believer believes in that. Jesus is going to touch down in Israel on the Mount of Olives, rescue the Jewish people, no less, that the Church thinks He’s through with. He actually comes in person to rescue them, and then He sets up His kingdom on Earth. Jesus actually sets up a kingdom. And do you know what the kingdom is? It goes back to his calendar. Back to what we call the Jewish calendar. He follows that. And He says, if you don’t come to Jerusalem when I’m celebrating a feast, I will not let any rain fall on your field. Wow. It gets the world’s attention. And you know what they do? By Revelation 20, they all march on Jerusalem to destroy the temple. They don’t, they hate God’s calendar and the God it represents.

But how well do we know the calendar? God picked a calendar system that fills the Bible from cover to cover. Everyone from Moses through the Apostle John knew God’s calendar, loved God’s calendar, followed God’s calendar. It was a beautiful cycle of life that centered on God. Probably the best known and loved Gospel is the Gospel of John, or by John, the Gospel by John, John’s Gospel. And if you read that, do you know what you notice?

There are 879 verses in John’s Gospel. 660 of them totally are tied to the celebrations of the festivals of God’s calendar. All those beautiful stories that we read in John are all tied to these. In fact, every one of Jesus I Am’s, all of His expressions are tied to this calendar. You say, oh, that’s Old Testament. It is. And God wrote it. Both Testaments, He wrote. It’s amazing.

We are citizens of Heaven living on Earth, and most of us in this room have a cultural grid of American holidays that frames our annual calendar, and we know more about it than God and His calendar, and His Word. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about how enculturated we are? We eagerly check the dates so we can make plans for our vacations, and our special family gatherings, and our travels. And most of our life is amazingly, either consciously or unconsciously, built around American cultural celebrations. And we’re unashamedly talking about them. We know about them. We follow them. We plan our calendars. We plan all of our events. We are a part of this American system. And we almost think it’s the only system. If you travel it all overseas, people do not think America is the center of the world. They think we’re fat, and over consumptive, and proud. That’s what most outside the country people think of us. I don’t think we think of ourselves that way, but that’s how they think of us, and that’s why they don’t like Americans.

But there’s a cultural grid we follow. It starts on New Year’s Day. That’s what we call it. It’s a time when we think about a fresh start and getting a new edition of our calendar, if you have one. And then we bump into other holidays, and they all affect us. Valentine’s Day. Any married man thinks, what am I supposed to do for Valentine’s Day? Does my wife think I still love her? I’ve got to do something. And if you’re dating someone, you’re afraid they’ll think you’re too or not enough Valentine-sie. It has a wide array of meanings. And then St. Patrick’s Day, what is that? Wear green or get pinched, wow, that is an amazing holiday. Easter. Wow. Now we’re almost in the Bible. Memorial Day. Yeah. Fourth of July. They don’t celebrate that most of the world. And on and on we go. Plus, we have all those federal holidays when everything closes, like the post office and the banks, and the government services. And then we have, all the calendar of our school openings and closings and athletic stuff.

The question is, are we more in tune with Earth than Heaven? If the whole Bible is written on a calendar that probably 95 percent of all believers don’t really know anything about, they’re almost like, if you have a calendar that has other countries holidays, you go, what is that? And you uncheck that box. You don’t want, Polynesian, Gugu Day or something like that. You go, oh, take that off my calendar. I, what is Gugu? We are disinterested except in our own stuff. But the whole Bible has this grid.

In fact, I call it God’s background calendar. It’s actually His timetable. And I’ll read it to you since we’re running out of time.

There, there are seven feasts that are an elegant demonstration of God’s prophetic timetable. Our Lord was crucified on the feast of Passover. Our Lord Jesus Christ was buried at the start of unleavened bread. He was raised on the day of First Fruits, which always in a Jewish calendar is a Sunday, always. The First Fruits is a Sunday from Exodus onward. Isn’t that peculiar that it would be a Sunday? And the Lord sent His Spirit to birth the Church on the next feast, the fourth of the seven feasts. There are only seven feasts. He was crucified on one, buried on the next one, rose in the next one, and started the Church on the next one. Did you know if there’s seven things and they’re all getting bang, bang, bang, bang like that, you might think he’s going to bang, bang, bang the other three. And do something significant on those. That’s a fascinating thought.

Jesus said in Mark 2:28, He’s Lord of the Sabbath. He said, I didn’t come to abolish it, I came to fill it with meaning. He said, the Sabbath is a picture of salvation, of entering into My rest, of acknowledging My ownership, of living in harmony with all of My plans. I didn’t come to abolish that; I came to fill it with meaning. Now, does that mean we’re all supposed to get little fringes out of our belts, all the men, and wear one of those prayer shawls, and grow our, and wear Jewish clothes and act Jewish? No. The middle wall is broken down. But we don’t throw away. We just understand.

What is it? Let me just give you real, the richness, I call it, of God’s calendar. And we’re going to cover this, Lord willing, next week, but here is it. This year, this is 2015. These are the seven feasts overlaid with our calendar. Passover was on April 4th, Saturday. First fruits was Sunday, April 5th. This is one of the few years in great stretches of time when we’re actually hitting on the biblical calendar with Easter. Why? Because the Roman Catholic Church was so virulently and vitriolically, in every other word you want to use, against Judaism, that they changed the Church calendar so it had no correspondence to the Bible. And they wanted to remove any Israel influence. Like most Christian schools nowadays. They’re more into Palestinianism than into Israel and the true chosen people of God that have a future.

But, unleavened bread is a feast. And Jesus was, His body was put in on the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is concurrent with Passover. He rose on the day of firstfruits, actually. Remember, Jesus was crucified before sundown and I’ll go into all that later. That’s how they get to three days and three nights. Exactly fifty days later, on a Sunday, is when the day of Pentecost is. Exactly on a Sunday. So, the Church was born on Sunday. Christ was risen on Sunday.

The other unfulfilled, yet, by Christ, feast are the Feast of Trumpets, that’s their New Year. Did you know Jesus, every apostle, and everybody you know in the Bible, their New Year’s was on The Feast of Trumpets. It’s a very significant time. Do you know what all Jewish people do? They all go by some body of water and the whole family stands there and they take little breadcrumbs and they throw them on the water, especially moving water, and they say, take my sins away. Take my sins away to God. That’s what they do. Can you imagine the impact to every year have a holiday when you say, I need God to take my sins away? That is a part of God’s calendar for His people. The Christians don’t know anything about it. They go, what is this Rosh Hashanah stuff? Old Testament, with incredible New Testament meaning. And on and on we go.

What we see in the scriptures is that there is a richness that we know very little about and our time should reflect God’s ownership. The Sabbath, His ownership should reflect that our calendar is surrendered to Him. Now let’s get practical. I hear a lot of people say, I don’t have time to pray. I don’t have time to read the Bible. We have time to do anything we want to do. What we should say is, I don’t want to read the Bible. I don’t want to pray. I don’t want to memorize the Bible. Then we’d be telling people, we’re sick. Pray for me. Did you know we don’t really tell the truth to people? What we should say is the truth. I feel far from God. I don’t have any spiritual hunger. I need, either God to do something or I need to get saved. But nobody says that. What they say is, I just don’t have time this week. And we say, we pat them on the back and say, I don’t have time either. And that’s not helpful. How would you like someone to say, I’m bleeding. And you go, I am too. And just walk away. What do we do? We drag them and compress them and do our…, we medicate the physical and we placate or even ignore the spiritual hemorrhaging. God says, I want you to reflect. I hold your life, breath, in My hands. And if you are truly born again, you hunger after Me. And you want to reflect My ownership of your life in your calendar. When you make room for Me.

And by the way, tonight, Dave Scott asked a question a few weeks ago, when I got seven or nine questions on Sunday night. Do you know what he asked? He said, what does the Bible mean by the last generation? And how come it lists off, in Psalm 83, those countries? Let me just tell you, tonight, we’re looking at Psalm 83, and did you know in January, while everybody was worried about Charlie Hebdo, or whatever his name was, the cartoonist that got killed in Paris? Isis infiltrated the final country in Psalm 83. The Caliphate, you’ve heard of. The Islamic state of Iraq and Syria in the Levant. Do you know what that is? That is an exact description. God names every country that borders on Israel all the way around. And Psalm 83 tells us that when they march, to obliterate. Are you reading the news? What did the Ayatollah of Iran say? Obliterate. There is no place on Earth for any Jews. That should just send thrills up your spine. Because God will not tolerate the Jews to be exterminated. And we’ll see that tonight. Because God has a calendar. And it’s in the Bible. And it’s time for us to go. Our calendar says it’s time to go.

So, let’s all stand. For a closing word of prayer. And as you stand, at the end of this service, there will be men and women standing at the front, godly men and women. And this is why they’re here. Some of you need to think, while we’re talking about it and while it’s still in your mind, do you have a hunger for God? Have you ever eaten of Jesus Christ personally? Not, have you gone to church, been baptized, joined, prayed something. Have you begun an internal experience of God? Have you begun hungering to know God and hear His voice through His Word. If you are right now not hungry, either you’ve never been born again or you’re sick. These are spiritual medical professionals. They are doctors and physicians of the soul. That’s who Titus 2 women and elders are. They are soul physicians. And they can help you either connect to God or get out of the coma that you’re in. And if you need to talk to someone, that’s why they’re here.

And if you have never called the name of the Lord, He’s actually right next to you wherever you’re standing right now. He said, I’m only an arm’s length away from everybody. You can reach out to Him right where you are. Let’s bow for a word of prayer.

Father, I pray that some here today who are not saved would feel you near, and even right now, by faith, reach out, call out to You. Say, I’m drowning in my sin, and only You can save me. And for others have no spiritual appetite, but are Your children, I pray that they would repent of living for their body instead of for their soul. And that they would begin to let You be at the center of their plans and lives and calendars. And I pray that we would live in these last days for Your glory, even as we’ll see tonight. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray. And all God’s people said, amen. God bless you as you go.

NOTES

As we open to Philippians 3, when Paul sat to write a letter inspied by God to the believers in Philippi, his letter was headed to a Roman colony. Like an island in a vast ocean, Roman colonies were settled with citizens and soldiers that had served well and were given the great benefits of citizenship in colonies of Rome.

Citizens of Rome

A Roman colony was completely synched with Rome. The citizens, though hundreds or even thousands of miles from Rome, always sought to stay in step with the culture of the Empire.

Citizens spoke the language of Rome.

Citizens obeyed the Laws of Rome.

Citizens followed the Calendar of Rome.

Citizens wore the dress of Rome.

Citizens were Roman to the core.

Colonies became little islands of Rome scattered across conquered lands, populated by fiercly loyal and completely focused citizens of Rome. That is one of the strong fibers that strongly tied together the diverse and scattered pieces of the Empire.

Citizens were in step with Rome.

As we turn to Philippians 3:17-21, we can see the Apostle Paul using an image everyone could understand: “citizenship”, but Paul applied it in a completely new, and powerful way.

Paul said that believers become:

Citizens of Heaven

The Church of the New Testament was born into and grew up in the Roman World, an Empire that spread across most of the known world of the day. Part of being Roman was being associated with, and adhering to the customs of Rome. Citizens cared about and followed Empire-wide customs, celebrations, laws, communications, and travel.

Into this world came the Gospel of Jesus Christ that called people to an eternal and higher citizenship. Listen to God explaining that though Paul in Philippians 3:17-21.

Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. ¹⁸ For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: ¹⁹ whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things. ²⁰ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

Pray

The New Testament Epistles are the manifesto of what we are as Citizens of Heaven.

Citizens of Heaven Hunger for God

Hunger for God is at the core of all true believers.

We have the words of our King as our guide.

True salvation implants a longing for God deep within us.

Our operating system or worldview is God-centered, God’s glory-focused, and God’s Word-fed.

We have God’s Word engrafted, and were given by God a love for His truth that the world never gets. That means:

God and His Word are at the center of our lives

Jesus said those who partake of Him as the Bread of Life will have endless life.

Salvation is a life of hearing Christ as the Good Shepherd, following Him as our way, truth and life; and finding in Him eternal joy, peace, and security.

At salvation we became pilgrims and strangers to Earth as we walk Christ’s narrow path, and our lives are tugged heavenward a bit more each day.

Pilgrims on Earth & Strangers to Earth’s Ways

Look at Hebrews 11:13-16. We live on Earth as pilgrims headed to a better place and strangers to this place everyone else calls home.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. ¹⁴ For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. ¹⁵ And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Peter begs those early believers to remember the same truths in 1 Peter 2:11. They are in this world but connected more deeply to the one to come.

Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,

 

Like Jesus said His Word is the food for our soul’s survival (Mt. 4:4).

Like Peter said we have the same focused hunger as a baby needing to be fed (1 Pet. 2:2).

Like Paul said we have had our citizenship changed. We are now citizens of Heaven. Like the Romans we follow the laws of our King written in His Book the Bible.

We speak the language of His kingdom which is prayer.

We follow the customs of Heaven, and are in step with the calendar of God.

In Acts 17 we find that when people were saved those who knew them felt like they were following a new set of customs. They were accused of “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6), and of having another King named Jesus” (Acts 17:7).

How Well Do We Know God’s Calendar?

God picked a calendar system that fills the Bible from cover the cover. Everyone from Moses to the Apostle John knew, loved, and followed a beautiful cycle of life that centered on God.

Probably the best known and loved Gospel is the Gospel by John. If you read with an awareness of the Feast of God you would find that the overwhelming majority of the content is given to Jesus’ ministry at the great feasts of Israel.

As a matter of fact, of the 879 verses found in John’s gospel, more than 660 are directly related to events occurring at these feasts in God’s Calendar.

Jesus Christ came to earth as a Jew—one who lived and ministered in the historical and cultural setting of the Jewish nation. And the Old Testament is a backdrop painted with symbols, customs, types, and prophecies that cause the Life of Christ to glow with amazing details.

It was as Jesus lived the perfect life on earth as a Jew, that God chose to reveal the rich detail of His promised Son. In no other book do we get such a distinct picture as in the Gospel by John. In John we see that Jesus was the message and fulfillment of each of the seven feasts. When we listen to what He said and what He did at each feast, we find that each takes on a new depth of meaning. Also each of Christ’s sign miracles confirmed His credentials as God’s promised Messiah foreshadowed in the symbolism of the feasts.

We Are Citizens of Heaven Living on Earth

Most of us in this room have a cultural grid of American Holidays that frames our annual calendar. We eagerly check the dates so we can make plans for vacations, special family gatherings, and travel. Much of our lives are amazingly either consciously or unconsciously built around our culture’s traditional celebrations.

This cultural grid we follow starts with what we call “New Years” and at that time we think about a fresh start, getting new editions of our annual calendars. Then we bump into other holidays such as Valentines Day which has a wide array of meanings and motivations, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and on. Most of us know and in some ways follow many or even all of them.

Plus there are those Federal Holidays when things change like Post Office and Banks are closed, then there are those school opening, vacations, and end of year dates, Sporting Event dates like Super Bowl, Basketball playoffs, and so many others.

Are We More in Tune with Earth than Heaven?

Listen to this list and see what jumps into your mind as I read the names of the major American & Federal Holidays:

Thursday, January 1: New Year’s Day A federal holiday in the United States, New Year’s Day has its origin in Roman times, when sacrifices were offered to Janus, the two-faced Roman deity who looked back on the past and forward to the future.

Monday, January 19: Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. A federal holiday observed on the third Monday in January that honors the late civil rights leader. It became a federal holiday in 1986.

Valentine’s Day (2/14)

Monday, February 16: Washington’s Birthday. A federal holiday observed the third Monday in February. The actual date of Washington’s birthday is Feb. 22. It is a common misconception that the federal holiday was changed to “Presidents’ Day” and now celebrates both Washington and Lincoln. Only Washington is commemorated by the federal holiday; 13 states, however, officially celebrate “Presidents’ Day.”

Mardi Gras (2/17)/Ash Wednesday (2/18)/Chinese New Year (2/19)

St. Patrick’s (3/17)/Palm (3/29)/Easter (4/5)

Mother’s Day (5/10)

Monday, May 25: Memorial Day became a federal holiday in 1971. It originated in 1868, as a holiday dedicated to the memory of all war dead.

Father’s Day (6/21)

Friday, July 3: * Independence Day, as the day of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, celebrated in all states and territories.

Monday, September 7: Labor Day was first celebrated in New York in 1882, as the day be set aside in honor of labor.

Monday, October 12: Columbus Day commemorates Christopher Columbus’s landing in the New World in 1492.

Halloween (10/31)

Wednesday, November 11: Veterans Day was established in 1926 to honor all men and women who have served America in its armed forces.

Thursday, November 26: Thanksgiving Day was the first such national proclamation issued by President Lincoln in 1863. Most Americans believe that the holiday dates back to the day of thanks ordered by Governor Bradford of Plymouth Colony in New England in 1621.

Friday, December 25: Christmas Day is the most widely celebrated holiday of the Christian year, Christmas is observed as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus.

Think about it.

God’s Word Has A Calendar in the Background

We so easily talk about and celebrate holidays like Labor Day, Memorial Day, Valentines Day, Columbus Day, Ground Hog and St. Patrick’s Day and yet haven’t even the slightest awareness that next month, yes, September 14^th2015, at sundown is the New Year’s Day that Jesus, all the Apostles, most of the early church, and all the Old Testament saints celebrated each year! And what was it?

It was an annual time to start over. Each family spent time in self examination and reflection. And then in a solemn ceremony they all went to the nearest body of water and with stones in their pockets stood one at a time and threw their stones into the water saying, “My sins are buried in your mercy Oh God!”

This annual cycle begins again every year in the Hebrew month of Nisan. According to Leviticus 23 (see also Exodus 12:1-14), God made the lunar period which corresponds to our March-April to be the first month of every Jewish new year. This was the month God delivered His people from the slave fields and brickyards of Egypt. Ever since, Jewish people throughout the world have remembered this “season of our freedom” on the 14th of Nisan.

The Jewish calendar is built on a series of sevens. The seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, and the seventh week after Passover brings Pentecost. The seventh month brings the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths. The seventh year is a Sabbatical year, and after seven Sabbatical years comes the Year of Jubilee.

God’s Timetable

Thus the seven feasts are an elegant demonstration of God’s prophetic time table. Briefly:

Our Lord was crucified on Passover,

Buried on Unleavened Bread,

Raised on First Fruits, and

Sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Those are the feasts we have seen fulfilled. It may be possibly in up-coming days He will hold the Rapture on the Feast of Trumpets and return in His Second Coming on the Day of Atonement.

Finally, the Kingdom itself will be characterized by the triumphant Feast of Tabernacles.

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath Cycle

When Jesus said in Mark 2:28 that He was the Lord of the Sabbath,

He gave perhaps[1] the greatest testimony to His messiahship. His claim to be Lord of the Sabbath could only have been interpreted by the Jews of His day as a declaration of deity. Why? Because all of those Sabbath observances were pictures of the final and eternal rest of the children of God, the time when Messiah would come to earth to set His people free and establish His divine kingdom. Every time a Jew celebrated a Sabbath he was reminded that some day he and all his fellow Jews would be released from all bondage-whether the bondage of political oppression, the bondage of continual sacrifices, or the bondage of labor to make a living. The entire Sabbath system pointed to the true, perfect, and eternal rest that Messiah would bring to His people.

God’s Word builds the entire life of the Old Testament Jewish covenant people around a Sabbath cycle. These various expressions of Sabbath worship had a basic meaning of rest or cessation. This ceasing to worship God became the center of Jewish life. The Sabbath was not merely the last day of the week, it was their entire calendar of feasts and holy days built upon this concept of cessation or Sabbath. The seventh day of the week (Ex. 20:11) and every other Sabbath observance was a time of rest and worship.

The Richness of God’s Calendar

Passover (4/4/15). The religious year opened with Passover, which pictures the death of Christ. Israel sacrificed the Passover lamb on the 14th and then, under the light of a full moon, left Egypt on the 15th of Nisan. Ever since, observant Jewish people have remembered this deliverance by removing all traces of leaven from their homes. Their actions are more than tradition.

The feasts of God may well be the most comprehensive roadmap ever made to point at Jesus Christ. For example, every year around the world every Jew observes Passover. At that Biblical feast each person holds in his hand a piece of bread. Here is a description of what he holds:

A matzah is a thin unleavened bread, pierced through with holes, marked with stripes, broken carefully from one piece into three, the middle piece or 2^nd of the unity is hidden or buried throughout the meal and then found or raised from the hiding place.

What does that sound like? The sinless life of Christ (or unleavened bread). “Look upon Him whom they pieced” (bread with holes pierced through it), “with whose stripes we are healed” (bread with brown stripes baked into it), God the Son (second of three pieces), crucified and buried (the middle piece of bread hidden in a cloth), and risen (the middle piece pulled out of its hiding place at the end of the Passover mea)l.

 

Firstfruits (Sunday 4/5/15 same as Easter this year). On the day following the Passover Sabbath (a Sunday), the Israelites celebrated Firstfruits, picturing our Lord’s resurrection from the dead. According to Leviticus 23, God linked an anticipation of a future day of harvest, Moses called for a Festival of Firstfruits to be kept “on the day after the Sabbath.” Once Israel was in their land, they were to celebrate in the same Passover week three festivals: the first one for their freedom; the last one for their separation from sin. In the middle was this one to remember God’s ability to provide for His people. With the offering of the firstfruits of the barley harvest, the Lord reminded His people of His ability to provide, as well as of their dependence upon Him for the harvest to come.

 

Unleavened Bread (4/4-11). The week following Passover was devoted to the Feast of Unleavened Bread when all the leaven was put out of the houses. This illustrates the sanctification of believers as they put sin out of their lives. All of this took place in the first month of the year. As Moses called for the Passover lamb to be sacrificed on the 14th, he required all Israel to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread starting on the 15th. For the seven days of unleavened bread following Passover, the children of Israel were to remember that God had not only given them freedom but called them to a new way of life.

 

Weeks (Sunday 6/8/15). Fifty days after Firstfruits is the New Testament Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Church. Then God tied a fourth holiday to the first three. The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew and Pentecost in Greek) was to be kept seven weeks (on the 50th day) after the Passover-week offering of the firstfruits. At this festival, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were to be offered to the Lord. It marked the end of a critical period of the annual agricultural cycle during which many unpredictable natural factors could have ruined the crops. Over the centuries observant Jewish people have seen in these four holidays a rich picture of God’s provision. And ever since the first century, Jewish Christians have seen not only evidence of God’s provision but of the coming of His long awaited Messiah.

 

Trumpets (9/14/15). In the seventh month, three feasts were celebrated. The Feast of Trumpets opened the month, reminding us of the gathering of God’s people when the Lord returns. Not until the beginning of the seventh month does God call for another festival. Throughout the Jewish world, this first day of the seventh month is known as the Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah. It is a day of spiritual awakening. The ram’s horn (shofar) is blown, followed by ten days of repentance and reflection.

The Scottish[2] preacher Alexander Whyte once said that “the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.” God gives His people opportunities for new beginnings, and we’re foolish if we waste them.

Unlike our modern New Year’s Day celebrations, the Jews used Rosh Hashanah, the first day of their new year, for prayer, meditation, and confession. They sought to make a new beginning with the Lord.

The Hebrew word for seven comes from a root word that means to be full, to be satisfied. Whenever the Lord “sevens” something, He’s reminding His people that what He says and does is complete and dependable. Nothing can be added to it. The basic interpretation of this feast relates to Israel, but we can make an application to the church.

 

Day of Atonement (9/23/15). On the tenth day was the Day of Atonement, illustrating the cleansing of God’s people. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is observed. In Israel it is the highest holy day of the year, and the whole nation comes to a standstill. It is the only festival which is not a feast. It is a fast. On this day Moses instructed the people of God to afflict themselves (in awareness of sin) while waiting on God for personal and national forgiveness.

 

Tabernacles (9/28-10/5). Five days later, the last of the seven feasts begins, and from the fifteenth to the twenty-first days, the Jews joyfully celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, picturing the blessings of the future kingdom. God’s people are a scattered people who must be gathered, a sinful people who must be cleansed, and a suffering people who must be given joy. The long period (about three months) between Pentecost and the Feast of Trumpets speaks of this present age of the church, when Israel is set aside because she rejected her Messiah. Known as the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot in Hebrew), this is Thanksgiving Day in Israel. The Feast of Tabernacles signals the most happy holiday season of the year. The harvest is in; the barns are full; and spiritually sensitive people know that the hard work would not have paid off if God had not given conditions necessary for the harvest. Moses instructed the children of Israel to live in “booths” for seven days during the Feast of Tabernacles to remember their days in the wilderness. For generations to come this annual national “camp-out” would be a rich opportunity not only to remember what God had done for them in the past but to anticipate what He would yet do in the future.

Sabbath Reflections in the Calendar God Gave

Seven holidays.

Seven reasons to deepen our confidence in a Provider God. These offer a way to take us back to our spiritual roots and to prepare us for days which will soon come to pass.

So this morning I invite you to reflect upon the truth that, according[3] to the New Testament, Jesus a rabbi of unparalleled character, used the festivals of Israel to declare Himself the spiritual Deliverer and Messiah of His people. As Jewish evangelism ministries always remind us:

On the Feast of Passover, He became our Passover Lamb (paying for our life with His own).

During the Feast of Unleavened Bread He remained in the grave (putting away sin for us).

On the Feast of Firstfruits, He rose bodily from the dead to become the evidence of God’s ultimate provision and the promise of a last-days resurrection harvest.

And at the Feast of Pentecost, on the 50th day, the Holy Spirit united 3,000 Jewish believers into the body of Messiah. While these Jewish believers became the first members of an international body called the Church, they were themselves firstfruits of a future regathering pictured in the remaining three holidays.

What a picture of provision, of history, of the work of the Messiah.

Seven holidays. Seven reasons to stop, to think, and to remember that everything we have comes from God.

Everything good comes from the One who is our Passover, our Unleavened Bread, our Firstfruit evidence of a resurrection to come. He is the one who has given His Spirit, and who now works in us in anticipation of a future sounding of the trumpet (shofar) that will begin the last-phase work of Messiah and fulfill all that the prophets have foreseen.

 

 

 

Are We Hungering for God Today?

When I hunger for God it is displayed in three areas of my life.

When I hunger for God I find myself drawn to communicate with Him through the Word (where God talks to me), and Prayer (where I talk to God).

That is Biblical Praying.

When I hunger for God I am sometimes drawn to abstain temporarily from good and useful things for the better and eternal things.

That is Biblical Fasting.

When I hunger for God I make time in my schedule each day for God. I make room for God, His Word, and for responding to the truths and ways of God.

That is Biblical Resting.

How would you like to jumpstart your spiritual life? God has left three basics that always spur spiritual growth. They are the elements that reflect our Hunger for God.

Praying: that is Seeking God. Inviting God to be at work in my life.

Fasting: that is Hungering for God. Denying myself to respond to God.

Resting: that is Making Time for God. Slowing down so there is room for God.

 

[1] MacArthur, John F., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (Chicago: Moody Press) 1983.

[2] Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Holy, (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books) 1994.

[3] All of this section quoted and adapted from Mart DeHan, RBC newsletter, 2/97.

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