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Your Joy Will Be Complete
Your Joy Will Be Complete Deuteronomy 16:1-20 Key Verse: 16:15 “For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.” For the past several weeks we have been thinking about how God instructed His chosen people to live so that they would be set apart from the people living around them and reveal God’s glory to those people. As we have studied, time and time again, we have seen that many of these regulations point us directly to Jesus. Today’s passage is more of the same. Today we will think about three major feasts together with two special holy days that are associated with them that God commanded the Israelites to celebrate every year. More than any of the other decrees and regulations that we have thought about so far, these three feasts with the two special holy days point directly to Jesus. May God bless our study of Deuteronomy 16 and enable us to truly understand that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. First, an introduction to the Jewish festivals. In the book of Leviticus, God instructs the Jewish people about how they should worship him. This is a very detailed book and many people today find it extremely boring to read. However, in it, we can discover the way God wanted His chosen people to worship Him. In this book, we can also find the instructions for the priests who were to act as intermediaries between the people and God, and the sacrificial system that the priests were to carry out on the people’s behalf. Both the priestly office and the sacrificial system found their fulfillment in Jesus, so from a Christian point of view the book of Leviticus is very important. In chapter 23 of the book God gives the Israelites seven festivals or holy days that they were to observe every year. They were, the Sabbath which happened every seventh day, the Passover and the festival of the unleavened bread, the festival of the firstfruits, the festival of weeks, the festival of the trumpets, the day of atonement and the festival of the tabernacles. These seven festivals or holy days set aside for the Lord were not only important for the people of Moses time, they foreshadowed (or foretold) the coming of Messiah and the work of redemption that He would do. As Christians we are no longer required to observe these festivals, but we should still study them to understand their significance and importance for our Christian life today. In today’s passage we will not cover the Sabbath, the festival of the trumpets or the day of atonement, because the Jewish people were not required to gather together in one place to celebrate these. We will think about the other four – the festival of the firstfruits was traditionally held the day after the Sabbath of the festival of unleavened bread and therefore I will include it in today’s passage as part of one of the three main festivals that all the Jewish men were to gather in Jerusalem to celebrate. Second, the Passover, the festival of unleavened bread and the festival of the firstfruits. (1-8) Look at verse 1 “Observe the month of Aviv and celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God, because in the month of Aviv he brought you out of Egypt by night.” The first holy day the Israelites were to observe occurred in the very first month of their calendar. This holy day was called the Passover of the Lord your God, and it was the most sacred of all the Israelite holy days, especially for the people of Moses time because many of them had witnessed the events that took place on that day. That was the day the Israelites were to remember all the great works that God had done for them to rescue them from their bondage in Egypt. On that day they were to sacrifice a young lamb at twilight (just as the sun was setting) on the fourteenth day of the month. They were to do this just as the Israelites had done it in Egypt on the day God sent His angel to take away all the firstborn males in the land of Egypt. They were to eat the sacrifice together with their families, with bitter herbs, their walking staffs in hand and their sandals on their feet ready to move out. They were also to put some of the blood on the doorframes of their houses so that the angel of death would not see and not attack that household. As I said, this day was to be for the Israelites a reminder of all that God did to free them from their slavery in Egypt, especially the culminating event of the sending of the Angel of Death. God saved the Israelites from the Egyptians and their bondage of slavery, and the Angel of Death through the blood of the sacrifice of a lamb. The Passover would have been a great time of celebration and remembrance for the Israelite people, but it is even more than that. The Passover should point every Christian directly to Jesus. Jesus is God’s pascal lamb, who was sent to shed His blood so that the Angle of Death would pass over all those who would accept Jesus sacrifice in their hearts. We are all slaves of sin and are powerless to do anything about it, but God is not powerless and He wants to free His people. He has provided us a way, but even more than that, He foretold this event almost two thousand years before it happened and He told His people to celebrate a day to keep it in their minds until it was completely fulfilled. It was through reading about this Passover event 24 years ago, at an Easter Conference, that God suddenly opened my eyes to the truth of the Bible. Suddenly I realized that the Bible told just one story and that story is a story of redemption through the blood of the lamb of God. We were all trapped in slavery to sin, with no way out. There was nothing we could do, but cry out to God. God heard His people crying out and He did something about it. He sent His one and only Son to be the lamb of God who would die for the sins of the world. The sacrifice has already been made for us, all we have to do is put some of the blood of that sacrifice on the doorframes of our hearts so that the Angel of Death will Passover us and we can walk out into our own Promised Land kept for us in heaven. Immediately following the Passover, beginning on the fifteenth day of the first month, the Israelites were to observe the festival of unleavened bread. Look at verse 3. “Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.” Notice that Moses calls this unleavened bread the bread of affliction. Affliction is a noun that means “a cause of pain or harm.” (Oxford Dictionary of English) Why would Moses call this unleavened bread the bread of affliction? For the Israelites the Passover was not only a time of great deliverance, it was the beginning of some very sever hardships as well. We know that those hardships eventually lasted forty years because of the Israelites disobedience, but they didn’t have to be so long. The Israelites had to face some hardships, because the Bible tells us they were driven out of the land of Egypt by the Egyptians. Remember, Egypt had been their home for 400 years – they had no other place to call home. They were not only driven from their homes, they were driven away from their jobs and their sources of food. They had to start a completely new life overnight. Could you do that and not suffer at all? Of course not, there would be a lot of affliction, so Moses called the unleavened bread that they were to eat for seven days during the festival the bread of affliction. In the New Testament, yeast is often associated with bad or evil influences. For instance, Jesus tells his disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees. In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Paul teaches the Corinthians, “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Like the Israelites, when we accept Jesus sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, our lives must completely change. We are driven out of that land of sin that we knew so well and must start a new life. This is not easy. We have to get rid of that old bread we enjoyed so much, leavened with all of our old sins, and eat unleavened bread with Jesus. This is not easy, but the reward is an eternal Promised Land which can never be taken from us. The day after the Sabbath day that mark the end of the festival of unleavened bread, the Israelites celebrated the festival of the first fruits. This festival is not specifically mentioned in today’s passage, but because it is traditionally associated with the Passover and the festival of unleavened bread I thought we should take just a moment to think about how this festival points to Jesus. The festival of the firstfruits was to remind the Israelites of the abundant blessing that God had given them when they entered the promised land. They could remember what God had done for them and they could show this to the world by offering what they had been blessed with back to God. In this case, the name says it all. In 1 Corinthians 15, Jesus is referred to as the firstfruits twice – in verses 20 and 23. In Romans 8:23 and 11:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, James 1:18 and Revelations 14:4 believers are referred to as God’s chosen firstfruits. These verses show that Jesus is our firstfruits leading us into eternal life and all believers are God’s firstfruits to bring Him glory and reveal His glory to the world. Third, the festival of weeks (9-12). Look at verses 9-10. “Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.” Many of you may not realize that this festival has a different name. The name that many native English speakers know and would immediately recognize comes from the timing of this event. It was to be held 50 days after the festival of the firstfruits, and from this we get the Greek word Pentecost – more on this word and what it means to Christians a little later. During this festival, the Israelites are to appear before the Lord with freewill offerings to present to God. According to verse 10 these offerings were to be in proportion to God’s blessing upon their lives. How were they to present these offerings? Look at verse 11. “Rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you.” They were to bring these offerings, rejoicing before the Lord. Again and again, as I study this book I see that God’s heart’s desire is to bless His people and see them rejoice before Him. Too often, I think we think of Godly people as very serious people who are never joyful, but as I read the Bible this is not how it should be at all. We should be rejoicing always in the abundant blessings God has given us. This is what God says again and again both in the Old Testament and the New. More on this when we get to our key verse. This festival also has a direct correlation (connection) to the New Testament. It was during this festival that the apostles received the promised Holy Spirit. As the observant Jews were observing this festival, the Holy Spirit came with power on the apostles who were all together somewhere in Jerusalem. When the Spirit came upon them, they all began to speak in foreign tongues, proclaiming the gospel boldly to all the people who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival. The people were all amazed because these uneducated men were speaking the gospel in their native tongues when there was no way they should have been able to do this. The account in acts 2 does not use the word rejoice or joyful, but if you read it carefully, especially verse 41 where it says that about 3000 were added to their number that day, I think you will find that there were many people rejoicing before the Lord for the abundant blessings He had poured out on them. Fourth, festival of tabernacles (13-17). The final festival mentioned in this passage is the festival of tabernacles. Look at verses 13,14. “Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.” This festival was to take place after the final harvest of the year. Again, the people were to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate this festival as a community. If you look carefully at verse 14, this festival wasn’t just limited to the Jews, even the foreigners among them were to celebrate this festival and they were commanded to be joyful at this festival. Once again, we see that God wants His people to be joyful and celebrate the abundant blessings he pours out on them. What did this festival consist of? For seven days, the Israelites were to present offerings to the Lord and they were to live in temporary huts around the city. The offerings were made to remind them of God’s material blessing on their lives and living in huts was to remind them of their past – they lived in temporary shelters from Egypt until they came into the Promised Land. Let’s look at our Key verse 15. “For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.” We see once again that God’s heart’s desire is to bless His people and make their joy complete. As I’ve said, this is a theme that we see throughout the Bible and I think it is one far too many Christians overlook. In the book of Psalms alone I found eight references that make this point abundantly clear: Psalm 32:11, 35:9, 40:16. 64:10, 68:4, 70:4, 96:13 and 97:12 – this was just doing a quick search using the words rejoice in the Lord and this doesn’t include the 30 other references that came up. But even more than these verses in Psalms I think of Jesus words to His disciple in John 15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Jesus came to give us His joy and make our joy complete. The Christian life should be a life of joy and thanksgiving for all that God has done for us, so let’s do our best to forget about the burdens of this world and think about the blessings of God. To set our minds on things above to that we can live joyful, thankful lives looking forward to the eternal reward he has waiting for each of us. Today we thought about three Jewish festivals that God commanded His people to celebrate about 2000 years before He sent His son into the world to be the Lamb of God who would save His people from bondage to sin and death. Through these festivals we can see Jesus and God’s great plan of redemption for each of us. Because of this, we should always rejoice before the Lord because He has set us free. May God help each of us to live joyful Christian life for all the world to see. |
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