Sukkot 2024: Resting and Celebrating
Tribe
2024-10-13

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Welcome to Tribe's podcast. Hey, we just wanna say thank you for making this message a part of your week. Our prayer is that these messages will inspire you to make the name of Jesus famous in your life and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. If you're ever in Jackson Hole, we'd love for you to visit our Tribe fam in person. To learn more about us, you can find us online or at Facebook by searching tribejh.com.

Welcome to Tribe's podcast. Hey, we just wanna say thank you for making this message a part of your week. Our prayer is that these messages will inspire you to make the name of Jesus famous in your life and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. If you're ever in Jackson Hole, we'd love for you to visit our tribe fam in person. To learn more about us, you can find us online or at Facebook by searching tribejh.com.

So great to see y'all here this morning. Thanks for joining us. They have church in a bar. I was I was given some news at the beginning of service before service started. We, as you know, this week, we're going to begin celebrating one of god's family traditions of Sukkot and we'll talk more about it in a moment but I had I had somebody come in to me and say, hey, have you checked the forecast for Sukkot?

And, you know, we've had some amazing weather this fall. Like, you get to you can you can do so much. You can, like, get in all those last minute, like, chores and projects outside and around the house. You can tick off hikes, climbs, bike rides, like, all of those things that you didn't get to do in the summer, just squeeze em in right now and and you better get em in because Sukkot rose around this week and bye bye goes the good weather. But you know what?

It'll be good, it'll be good sleeping weather at night. Yeah, it already is a little bit chilly. So, my name is Brian. I'm so glad that you are here, that you found us at the Virginian Saloon. If you notice underneath your biscuits there, there's a connect card and a pin and if you're brand new, if you're visiting, or if you haven't been in a while, we would love to have a record of your visit and so just fill out that connect card.

If you're a young adult looking to get plugged in to young adult stuff and things, there's a box on the back that you can check. There's also opportunity for you to write out a prayer request. If there's anything that you need prayer for, you can fill that card out. You can drop it in the back. There's a little box there.

You can drop it in the back. Also, at the end of service, there'll be members of our leadership team that would love to pray with you and agree with you. So, take advantage of that connect card. As we get into today's conversation, if you have your Bible with you, would you turn to the book of Leviticus? You know it's going to be a good sermon when the preacher says, turn to Leviticus.

Okay, thank you, B. Hey. Speaking of B, didn't she do a great job this morning? Oh, come on. Our ministry team has such a deep bench.

I just love that. Lissa is at home watching the live stream this morning. Good morning, Lissy. So, Leviticus chapter 23 and we're going to read verses 33 through forty four and one of the things that we like to do here at Tribe is really have this be a a team effort. Instead of just me doing all the stuff and the things or just whoever's on the stage doing the stuff and the things, I really like this to be a a team effort.

And so what that looks like is, in just a moment, you're gonna have an opportunity to read. We have a mic in the room. Who's on mic today? Hey. Sarah's on the mic.

Great. And you've got your super floofy cushy shoes running on. I noticed those earlier. So you're ready to run all around the room with the mic. So we have the mic in the room.

And if you're going to read, well, we'll hand you the mic and that's for all of our families watching the live stream. They'll be able to hear and participate. And also, if you have questions, comments or connections, something that you think is valuable to the conversation that you would like to contribute, guess what? We want to hear from you. And so if you just raise your hand, we will get the mic to you and you can ask your question or make your comment pertaining to what we are talking about.

Or what I really love. This excites me the most is when you have a connection. Oh, oh, oh. PB, something that you just said reminds me of a verse in first Peter. You know, you know, something like that or something that I just read recently.

I love to hear those connections because that just gets more of your neurons firing and more of your brain engaged and when your brain is engaged, then, you are engaged And there's nothing more valuable that you can do with your Sunday and with your life than to engage with this book. Because this is the only book that you will ever ever read that is alive. This book is alive. Now, from your biology class, when you think about a living organism, there's no respiration, so to speak. There's no there's no growth.

It's not like you have your Bible beside your bed and then you come back a year or two later and it's like bigger, right? I almost said it doesn't reproduce, but in a way it does. It's like a seed. Is a seed alive? If you put it in the ground, right?

The seed itself dies, but then life comes up out of it. In the same way, this is like a a seed that is alive. Number one, it's the only book that you will ever read that actually reads you, right? Have you ever been reading the Bible and you're like, wait, how'd that get in there? That's literally speaking right to me right now, right?

It's been in your Bible all along but it's alive and it reads you. And number two, it has the power to transform the human heart, to transform a family, a city, a nation, and the entire world. The truth contained within this book and the man that is the hero of the story, Jesus, Changes is in the business actively right now of changing lives all over the planet even in the place that we might think as like the the hardest to penetrate with the love of god. The the darkest place or the most anti god place that you can think of on Earth. Did you know that the fastest growing church in the world is not Seoul, South Korea?

It's not Biloxi, Mississippi. It's not somewhere in Indonesia. The fastest growing church in the world right now is in the country of Iran. The people are about to experience freedom like they haven't known since the sixties and the seventies. And guess who's leading the church in Iran today?

You're both right. Jesus as the head of the church, thank you, Justin. Give him a pinch. Uh-huh. And yes, you are right, Amanda.

Women stepping up and it's women and it's women not like this woman, mom, woman, but it's like this woman, a teenager, like Trinity. What year are you, Trinity? A in high school. Women in Iran who have been visited by Jesus in a dream to to tell them to tell them like, hey, what is in the culture is not the truth. And in Arabic, they call him Isa.

Isa comes and visits them in dreams and stands at the foot of their bed and gives them hope and freedom and offers salvation. They put their faith and trust in him. And when an Iranian or any Arab gives their life to Jesus, it's such a bigger deal than it is here in America. Because when they say yes to Jesus, even though the commitment is the same throughout the ages and around the globe, even though the commitment is the same, it costs so much more in Arabic cultures. It will cost you all of your friends if they find out that you follow ESA.

It will cost you relationship with all of your immediate and extended family. It could cost you most likely your job. It will probably cost you the town in which you live. You'll be outcast. And many times it will cost you your life.

At the worst and at the very least, disfigurement where where, men in the community, demonically inspired, will antagonize you and many incidences whether it's a young woman or even a young man to to come and to try to set you on fire or to throw acid in your face to disfigure you, to mark you as an outcast. That's the cost that people pay for following Jesus. So, with that in mind, today, we're going to have a water baptism. We are going to have a water baptism. So far, we have two candidates for baptism.

I'll tell you a little bit more about that at the end of service but it is going to cost him something because we'll be outside and in the Snake River and just be glad that you get to witness the baptism. Amen? Amen. Alright. Alright.

Where did I tell you to turn this morning? That's right. Leviticus. The exhilarating, the thrilling book of laws and what to do if you've got mold on your house or all kinds of crazy things. Leviticus chapter thirty three twenty three and would somebody please read verses 39 through 34.

Wait. Wait. You see. 23.

33. Through 44.

You said 39 to 34.

Leviticus twenty three thirty nine through 44. Isn't that what I said?

You said 34 but that's okay.

It's my list, Dexia, sorry. For those of you who call tribe home, you just know like, alright. Brian, we're, I have like a a room full of fact checkers that love me and their love language for me is to keep me straight.

The feast of booths starts on thirty three.

Oh, it's it's it's a big, long ramp up. We're going to get right to the the good stuff of verse 39 through 44. I love it that they're like, can we read more? Yes. That that makes me happy.

Are you ready? I don't wanna push things.

I am ready.

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day, you shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of the splendid trees, branches of palm trees, and bowels of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God seven days. You shall you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generation.

Generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

Okay. If you're taking notes this morning, you can write the title of the conversation that we're gonna start. This conversation that we're gonna have is gonna span over two weeks, and so we get we're getting really creative with the title this morning. It's just called Sukkot twenty twenty four, and we're gonna spend two weeks talking about this idea of resting and celebrating. Resting and celebrating.

Now I understand that if you are brand new to either tribe or to the feasts, I can understand that your mind is trying to run down bunny trails of, like, where is he going and why are we talking about this? And that's great. Let your mind run down that rabbit trail where the trail will weave back into the main path in just a moment. But what I'd like to do is to check-in with you and invite you to look critically at the words that we just read versus 39 through 44 and tell me, what are some interesting details that you noticed about these instructions given to the lord, given by the lord to Moses to share with the people. What are some details that you notice?

You don't need to like draw any kind of deep spiritual conclusions. I'm just looking for observations. You can raise your hand. We'll get the mic to you. Or if it's something really quick, just fire it off and I'll repeat it in the mic.

What do you notice, Nancy? Here comes the mic.

Oh, just some of the adjectives.

Oh, see, that's more than you're gonna need the mic. Well,

like, the adjective is describing the trees. It's not just fruit of the trees. It's the splendid trees. And it's not just the boughs of the trees. It's the leafy trees.

Yes.

So it seems like there's a little extra.

Okay. So, there is an invitation or it's part of the family tradition and we'll talk more about that in a moment where god invites those in his family to go on a week long camping trip with him and part of the family tradition is to make your own shelter or booth or tabernacle or in Hebrew, they would call it a sukkah And here's what God says. Don't just go pick up dead sticks from your yard. Don't just like cobble something together like, and it's good enough. He says, when you make this shelter, this little booth, put some effort and some creativity into it.

He's inviting us to express ourselves creatively. Like, make it like, what would, like, Chip and Joanna Gaines do? Like, like, make it Magnolia pretty. Lizzy pretty. Oh, way better than that Magnolia stuff.

Make it Lizzy pretty, right? So, I love that you see that god is inviting us to be creative with our hands. So, that's really cool observation. What else does somebody see? Permanent generation to generation.

This is a permanent feast that he wants us to carry on from generation to generation. Now, I'm going to throw the ball, toss the ball back to you, and ask you, if you were to take this feast and filter it through the cross because you know what I'm talking about. What do you think happens to this feast when we filter it to the cross because because god says from generation to generation.

I mean, I think it's it's obvious. It's permanent. It says in generation to generation. So I think it filters through the cross and remains the same. And then we've seen in other scriptures that we don't have time to get into today that it's even something we'll celebrate in the millennial reign when Jesus returns, after Jesus returns.

There's scripture later in the Bible that talks about it. So, yeah, through the cross, it remains the same.

I I love that you brought in that detail. I think it's in Zechariah somebody can, one of my many people that express their love language towards me by fact checking me can Google it and find there's, in, I think it's Zechariah, It might it it says that that in the millennial reign, when the Messiah is ruling and reigning from a leadership headquarters in the city of Jerusalem that that feast will continue. And any nation that doesn't honor that feast, the king, Jesus, can cause the rains to not arrive in the fall over that land. Talk about weather control. So those of you who just chuckled, I see.

I know who you Joy, what do you have?

This is piggybacking off of both Amanda and Nancy. I think the through the cross filter is what continues on is that idea of remembering. Like you were saying, the remembering and the and the celebrating that we it's always important to remember. And then in the inverse 40, when it is talking about the trees, mine says, willows that grow by the streams which reminded me of Psalm one and and I'm going a little deeper than your.

No, this is great. This is. Request. What I would call a a connection. So, you read this and there's a hyperlink in your brain that connects to Psalms one.

I love it. Continue.

Okay. So, Psalm one it says, in verse two and three, but they delight in the law of the lord, meditate on meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves, I love this promise. Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all that they do.

And so my thought was with the trees, choosing these trees that are flourishing and making your sukkah out of it, It's a it's a it's like a pecky day board. It's a it's a moment of remembrance of how god has been so faithful for these people that their leaves would never wither and they would prosper and all they do. It's this reminder of the prospering and how god has delivered them before and will continue to do it again.

Woah. So, alright. Alright. We'll go to the back. Joy, that's so great.

Okay.

First, your Zechariah verse is 14.

Okay. Alright. Come on.

16 through 19. That's the the feast of tabernacles that you were talking about or Sukkot and the hyperlink that I received was similar only it was in Jeremiah. Oh. And that was Jeremiah seventeen seven through eight. And it says but blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.

Whose confidence in it is in him. And isn't that like the representation of the booth, like the covering of the Lord on us and trusting in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when he comes. Its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought or you know, let's add all the other things that we see on the news. And never fails to bear fruit.

Woah. That's good. And then all the way from Dubois, right behind you.

Oh, sorry.

I'm actually coming from Afton today.

Oh my gosh. On her way to Dubois. I was talking to her last week, and and we were at the TMC last week, and she was looking at our little bookshelf, like our little bookstore. And she was like, oh, I'm looking for something for an audiobook. And I gave her a couple of recommendations thinking, oh, that would last her, you know, weeks or months.

And she's like, yeah, I can crush an audiobook about one commute. And I guess that would make sense if you're going from Dubois down to Afton for work. Whoo. Mercy.

No. So my other job, not in Dubois, is for the Forest Service, and it really hyperlink into a couple of things. The message you preached a bit ago about the burning bush and how, like, the bush was alive, but nothing that could assail it, would survive. And, of course, I'm thinking about forest management and the audiobook I was listening to is, like, how often do you imagine what the new heaven and the new earth will look like? And I was all like, I can imagine the Bible talks about animals being redeemed and the lion and the lamb lying together.

But I was thinking like how the trees will get redeemed and how forest will be managed the way that god wants to manage them and like, I was like, okay. So, how, I mean, I'm just nerding out in my head about like.

Come on.

How how how are you gonna manage for forests that require a fire regime? And that talking about the the fire of the lord coming on the bush and like just making everything perfectly aligned and then connected to this of like God's covering in the leafy things. Like God can be over those and keep everything that is bad from coming into that leafing covering that's gonna be over the people and how that'll be, like, generation to generation into when there's a new heaven and a new earth and that I don't know. So I, like, hyperlink five different things because Yes. I have a long commute to think about this.

That's so great. One of the many things that I love about Jesus is he is not a sterile religious figurehead of a gold statue or that hangs on a wall in some weird building that you have to be like really quiet and reverent in and like like don't make Jesus mad because he's up there and he'll come down from his statue and you know, smite you or something. Jesus is alive. He is real. And and I and he it is perfectly acceptable for you to integrate Jesus into your world of forest management.

He fits beautifully there. He fits beautifully in the midst of you as working as a property manager or a UPS truck driver or working at JHMR in the marketing department or as a full time mom, wherever you are, whatever you do, Jesus fits in there beautifully. If we would but allow him to get out of the mausoleum and into our life and into our heart, he's got something to say. He's got beautiful things to share with us that we can relate to from our life. And I just I I just so love that you are thinking about forest management in Jesus, in green leafy things, that just makes my heart so happy.

Anybody else? You ever tried bringing Jesus into, like, like, lift access skiing? You ever tried bringing Jesus onto a sailboat or down the river? Like, he just fits beautifully there. Alright.

So if you've been lost so far and you've been running down this rabbit trail of what in the world are we talking about? All right. I'm gonna gently guide us and steer us back into the mainstream path. It was shortly after COVID that the world was like, alright, I guess we're done with this. Like, whether it works or doesn't work, I'm taking my mask off.

I gotta get back to like normal kind of life. And especially in the church world, we saw a dramatic decrease in attendance. Almost two thirds of many congregations around The United States off ramped during COVID and have not been back since. When we all took our masks off and we're like, okay, I guess it's kind of like the flu and we've been dealing with the flu for thousands of years. Let's just get back to like life.

The church world scrambled desperately to try to to take this this the new wine of the world that we were living in and fill back up their old wineskins of the way that they had always done church. We emotionally went through collectively, globally, a pretty traumatic thing and I know that just a moment ago, I made light light about like ripping off mask but if we didn't have somebody that succumbed to COVID, then I know that we know of somebody that had a relative or friend that didn't make it through COVID, that super tragic. But we collectively, globally went through something pretty traumatic, including emotionally and mentally. And instead of allowing ourselves to like understand and shift and adjust, it seemed as though there was this mad rush to get back to productivity. This, I gotta make up for lost time.

I gotta catch up for lost ground like our sales dropped off and and in this quarter, we've gotta do five times as much so that we can make up for the like work and strive and work and work and go, go, go, go and it really left many of us without the the bandwidth or the emotional capacity to process and they go from standing on the rail of the treadmill to try to like running full speed. And like really for many of us emotionally, that's what we tried to do. The treadmill never slowed down. We just tried to jump on and run full speed. And what does that usually result in?

That's right. A great TikTok. And so, as a leadership team, we found ourselves like like trying to go and not take a a a face plant on the treadmill. And we're like, wait a minute. What are we doing?

Why are we just jumping onto this treadmill that has been cranked up to speed 10 to try to make up for lost time? I think that we are running according to somebody else's schedule. And then collectively, as a leadership team, we said, okay, instead of just jumping right back on the treadmill at speed level 10, Lord, what do you have for us? We want to get synchronized with you. And the Lord said, here's a great place to start.

Honor my feasts. And we were like, okay, that's wait, what? What does that even mean? And he's like, they've been in your Bible this whole time. Just look for them.

And so as a leadership team and as somewhat as a tribe family, for the last several years, whenever one of the feasts of the lord comes up, we take time to remember it, to to honor, and to recognize it and as we begin to dig into the feast, the lord said, there are three main reasons why I want you to honor these feasts and it's not up on the screen but just by way of review, what's one of the reasons why we honor feet the feast of the lord? To remember, to remember what he's done in our lives, to remember what he did for the nation of Israel, to remember what he did for the prophets, to remember what he did in Jesus' life, to remember what he did in the early church, to remember what he did in the church that Paul wrote letters to. When we honor the feast of the lord, it helps us to remember all that god has done in our life and all that he has done for the saints that have gone before us. What is one other reason that we honor the feast of the lord? Not only to remember but to.

To To recalibrate. And that was the big thing. Instead of just jumping off the treadmill, having it jacked up to speed level 10 and trying to jump back on the trip, we recalibrate. Why are we running at at the world's pace of level 10? When we honor the feasts of the Lord, and when we just sink down into them, like a warm, like hot tub on a cold day, or like just settle right down into that hot tub.

When we settle into the feast of the lord, it helps us to recalibrate our heart. When you're sitting in the sukkah that you'll make this week, and we'll talk more about that in a moment, you get to look around at the beautiful leafy boughs that are over your head or that make up the walls of your sukkah. And you just get to consider. You get to ponder. You get to invite the lord into these special moments in seasons.

And it's almost like that thick skin of your crusty old heart gets a little bit thinner and a little bit softer, and you can hear the voice of the Lord in special and unique ways. So God has invited our tribe fam, and really I believe it's an invitation for the world. And there are other churches around the world that are are picking up on this, but I would say not a ton. To remember, to recalibrate, and then what's the last one? To rehearse.

Just like a wedding rehearsal, you have a rehearsal the day before. Well, what are we practicing? There are events that will unfold in human history that we have that Jews have been rehearsing for three thousand five hundred years. So that hopefully when we see these things play out on the world stage, those with eyes to see will be able to say, oh my gosh, this is that that we've been rehearsing and we'll talk a little bit more about the rehearsal aspect in a moment. Now, I understand that if you have been going to church for a long time and you would consider yourself a Christian and you know that just going to church doesn't make you a Christian, right?

I'm a step on your toes because I love you. I don't care how many check marks are on your church attendance report card. It ain't about the money that you tithe and give. It ain't about how big your Bible is or that you have a Bible. It's about the condition of your heart and the relationship, the authentic relationship with Jesus by just coming before him and being real and raw and vulnerable and asking him to speak to you and telling him that you will live your life according to his precepts.

That's the changed life. But if you have been a Christian for some time, you probably haven't heard a whole lot about the feasts because you've probably either been taught or you have thought, well, that's like Old Testament. That's like Old Covenant or like that's for the Jews. Those are Jewish feasts. Well, they're actually not.

It was just the Jews that got to be the first people to celebrate them. What did I miss in the window over there? There's room, brother. Come on in. Repent and be saved.

We're doing a baptism. Oh, yeah. There they are. We're doing a baptism today. It's your chance.

Church in a bar. So, they're actually the feast of the lord. The Bible says that. These are my holy feast, god says. It's just Jews that got to be the the first ones to receive the invitation and think of them.

If you have a hard time with the language of like Jewish feast or feast of the lord or festivals, just keep chewing. Don't just spit that out. Keep chewing and your heart will get softer but think if it helps you, think of them as god's family traditions. Every family has some quirky traditions. One of the traditions in our family is whenever somebody is driving and we have to send a text message, you know, you do like the speech to text And one day when when Kai was little, I can tell these stories about him because he's off at college.

But when Kai was little, he was being rowdy and rambunctious in the back seat. I think Lissa was driving, and Lissa was sending a text and he was like, you know, on the seat in the back and Lissa is like doing this speech to text and right in the middle of this text, she goes, Kai, I'm going to strangle you and then like that, like showed up on the text. She didn't check it and press send, and then whoever was sending the message was like, getting this nice text message and then it says, Kai, I'm gonna strangle you. And they texted back and this is like, oh. And so now, one of our fun family quirky traditions is if anybody's in the car driving and they're doing a speech to text text message, just in the middle of it, we'll randomly say, strangle you.

They, we love it. We just love it whenever a family member does that. So, I don't know. Maybe there's some weird weird family quirky traditions of you that are in your family. But did you know that God has family traditions also?

He's a father. He has a family. And seven times a year, he invites his family to partake in these family traditions. And I got a chart here, and and and I wanna walk you through it just really quickly. You can see across the top, you can see these feasts.

One of the things that you'll probably really notice is Jewish tradition and it's blank. I'm working on that. So by the next feast, I'll have some more built into that. So that's that's to be filled in. Right now, we are in the last of the fall feasts and it's over there far on the right and it's called Sukkot.

Sometimes, it's known as the feast or the festival of booths or of shelters or of tabernacles and there's not really a Christian church equivalent because they're like, is it really that special? Ah, we've just been missing out as a Christian church almost for fifteen hundred years on this beautiful family tradition of Sukkot. A few other highlights from this chart that you can look at, I have there are seasons there when it happens. We operate according to a Greco Roman calendar that is solar based. Right?

The Jewish religious calendar is a lunar calendar base. And so it's not separate. Like every year Christmas is on December yes. Twenty fifth. I was thinking the twenty fourth, but yes, Christmas Eve twenty fourth because that's when we have our Christmas Eve service.

But every year, December 25 is Christmas. Well, that's not the that's not how it works in the Jewish calendar. Their dates and their feasts and festival change, so it's in a range. It could come at any time, seasonally. So you can see Sukkot.

There are some Old Testament verses that speak about Sukkot, and there are my favorite part is seeing Jesus in each of these feasts. And you can see the from the spring feast, the crucifixion of the Messiah, the burial of the Messiah, the resurrection of the Messiah, the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and then in the fall feast, we see the return of the Messiah and the rapture of the saints. Those two things happen at the same time when Jesus returns. The liberation of Jerusalem and the salvation of Israel. Everybody say, And then the millennial reign of the Messiah.

That's the the the that's the rehearsal for the return of Jesus. If you look down there, one, two, three, four of the feasts of the Lord have had their literal prophetic fulfillment. For example, let's look at Passover. What historically happened at Passover? With the blood of the lamb?

Right. Okay. So, why is the box checked now? Because it's done. How did it get done?

Jesus shedding his blood on the cross was the fulfillment of that feast and the hope in god's heart was that when Israel saw Jesus being crucified and his blood being shed that they would go, this is that that we have been rehearsing for millennia. And some did. And some did. We can see four of the feasts have been fulfilled. Right now, I would consider us to be in the church age.

And if you look and if you're very familiar with eschatology or the study of things at the end, end times, these three feasts will be fulfilled in rapid fire succession. It's not like, okay, the feast of trumpets, Rosh Hashanah was fulfilled. Yay. And now we've gotta wait another hundred years, two hundred years, a thousand years. If you're if you're familiar with the Jewish feast at all, all of three of these feasts happen like, look, within the month of September, October.

This is not generations playing out. These will be fulfilled right back to back to back at the return of Jesus. We see the governmental roles of the prophet and priest that Jesus fulfilled at his first advent, his first coming. And then we will see a new facet and feature of Jesus that has been talked about and has been in our Bible all along but many will be shocked at and not everybody will have a stomach and an appetite for when he comes as a returning king and conquering warrior. Just read Psalms one, Psalms two.

He says, he laughs that the at the nations that try to conspire against him, and he rules with an iron rod and that he can smash the nations like a clay pot. Wait, what happened to the felt board Jesus with like the little kids sitting on his knees? It's yes and. When we honor these feasts, it helps enlarge our perspective of the Messiah and prepare a place in our heart for roles that he will fulfill in the coming days. You got that?

Okay. You'll see it Five or six, seven times a year. And it'll get better. Let's zoom in on verse 39. I have it here on the screen.

Verse 39, remember that this seven day festival to the lord, the festival of shelters begins on the fifteenth day of the appointed month. After you have harvested all the produce from the land, the first day and the eighth day of a festival will be days of complete rest. So consider this passage, and I'd love to I'd love to hear from you what stands out to you. What detail just pops out in color? Maybe it's a word or maybe it's a phrase or maybe there's a connection in your heart about something.

What when you read this, what do you see or what stands out to you? So we're gonna start with rest and we're gonna end with rest. I like it. Great observation. Colin.

Yes. Now how many of you actually one of you do kind of farm. But for the rest of us besides Zoe, how many of you are like heavily involved in agriculture and you like are growing and planting and reaping and threshing and canning. I don't even know what all the words are. Right?

Okay. Lenny's like, well, I can. From the groceries, from the, from the groceries you harvest from the store. Okay, I get it. This is difficult, challenging for us.

But in Jesus' day and in the days of of Israel, think Old Testament, the land of Judea, it was an agrarian based society. And at the end of the summer, almost like if you look at, you know, the ranches out out here, they get that Lockhart Ranch, thank you, and other ranches, you know, they get that last cutting of hay towards the end of the season there and they're letting it dry out. They're bailing it. Everybody is storing hay in their barns right now. That's as close as we can get to, like, a ranching context.

But in Israel and Judea, they had an agrarian society in the last of the fall crops were to be harvested during this time. And then when do we celebrate the feast of Sukkot or booths or tabernacles? When? Colin, you said it. When?

It's right there. At the end. At the end when it and it's pretty specific. After you have harvested, not some of the produce, not the good stuff, it says what? All of the produce of the land.

Now is that easy work or hard work? We can imagine it would be really hard work. Just think about ranching and baling hay and loading up a hay barn. Hard work. So we see rest.

We see at the end of harvesting any any other details that that you see that are noteworthy? Oh, this feast is to last seven days. And, I'll I'll ask you a follow-up question. Why, like, why did you notice that detail? What is interesting to you about seven days?

There you there you go. I didn't even I didn't even see that. Seven days that that the number seven has great significance. It's the number of perfection and completion. Number six, just before seven is the number of man.

I can't quite get there. Seven? Perfection. That's that's really cool. I love that.

Lanisha.

Ask your question. When do they build if the first day is complete rest? Do they build on the fifteenth day and then the next day they're like, okay, Rest. Go sleep outside.

I think that they are building their sukkah couple days or a week. They're listifying it up, before the feast so that when the feast starts, they get to sit in there and like, oh, and enjoy it.

I I was just thinking as I was looking here, if you see on the traditions again, makes and it's this is just speculation, of course, but it makes my heart happy and in love with the Lord even more because there's so many connections and treasures for us to find in Yes. Yes. God's word hidden for us, not from us. But if you see on the the last three there, like Rosh Hashanah or Rosh Hashanah, the feast of trumpets, it makes perfect sense that the lord would return with because the Bible says with a trumpet blast. And then the harvest, you know, we see in scripture the harvest of souls Like, that just makes perfect sense where the church as times get harder, the church gets better.

You know, like, we have the church has not big c church not seen her finest hour. And then Sukkot, I just had this thought reading Leviticus. It's like the millennial age seems like it will be a perpetual Sukkot. You know, like like we just chatted. We've been chatting about like we're under God's shelter.

Jesus in the flesh is working alongside us under leafy things and all all those beautiful agricultural references. But gosh, it just makes perfect sense. The Lord's return with the trumpet, a harvest of humans, and then, yeah, just the millennial reign being a perpetual Sukkot where we rest in him, yet we do work. You know, it's a both end. It's really beautiful, for my little heart today.

Thanks for listening.

That's so good. I loved it. So to to fill in a little more color, if you're like, I'm kind of coming up to speed. I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. So as part of the prescribed way to celebrate this particular family tradition, God says, I want you to leave your normal house, and I want you to construct a sukkah, a shelter, a little a little booth, not a bomber, like like like storm shelter, but just a simple would you go back to that, like, very first slide?

Just to see how like some kind of visual reference that doesn't have any text or anything on it. There you go. So, so just a sukkah made out of something simple, something kind of flimsy, something that is pretty that you get to be creative in. This is like pretty dang fancy. If you were to go to Israel in this next coming week, you would see sukkahs all over the place.

People make them on their balcony, out like on their apartment buildings and they just have some little reed mats, just some simple little lights strung up but here's the idea behind it. God invites us to build a sukkah and we are inviting you as a tribe family this coming week to like make a sukkah in your backyard, on your back deck. It's a family tradition that that we've been celebrating here at Tribe and hopefully you have your like like Thanksgiving decorations and your Christmas decorations and oh, here's our sukkah box with our little sukkah decorations that we can put out and decorate our back deck. And here's what God is getting to behind this. He says, I want you to leave the safety, comfort of your home and all of the conveniences that are in your home, and come spend some time with me away from all of the busy schedule of life, and all of the modern conveniences.

Sit out in the sukkah. Enjoy your morning coffee. Enjoy your evening meal. Have a little campfire at your solo stove there and just get out and disconnect from all of the modern world. There's nothing wrong with a home and electricity and running water and hot shower.

There's nothing wrong with any of those things. But when we sit out in a sukkah, god says, I want this to remind you of the forty years that Israel spent wandering in the desert, a forty year camping trip where they would set up their camp and take down their camp. They'd set up their bed, take down their bed. They would travel day by day by day until I brought them into the promised land. And the goal that God said in the wilderness was your your your clothes never got holes in the elbows.

Your shoes never wore out. The Bible says there was not one sick among you all those forty years. Really? All we need is to just sit under the shade of Jesus in his hand of blessing and protection. And when we construct a sukkah, when we sit out in a sukkah this coming week, it starts on Wednesday, it lasts for a week, we are reminded viscerally that Jesus in simplicity is really all we need because Jesus is the fulfillment of the feast of Sukkot.

In fact, there are three things that god invites us to rest from. God invites us to rest from our own plan. God invites us to rest from striving for our own salvation. And God invites us to rest from trying to earn his love. A moment ago, I said that Jesus is the fulfillment of that feast just really quickly as we begin to land the plane, I wanna talk about how Jesus is the perfect and most beautiful embodiment and fulfillment of those things.

So our own plan. Proverbs chapter three, verses three through five says this, trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding, but acknowledge him and in all of your ways, he'll make your path straight. So here's the idea. You can spend thirty two thousand nights sleepless, tossing and turning and scheming, and fretting, and trying to figure out your own way of how to do life or how to get yourself out of this situation or how to make it better or to just fix it.

We just strive and strive and strive with our with our own plan. This week, god invites us to just, he's like, you can pick up your own stress and worry like later but how about for just one week, set it aside and rest from that. Because we see that Jesus fulfills that feast. In Proverbs three five, he says, don't worry about your own understanding. The Bible says, there's a way that seems right to man but it ends straight in a ditch.

Like remember when like GPS was a new thing and in that episode of The Office where like Michael Scott was like trying to follow his GPS to the letter of the law and he was just so focused on the GPS and says, turn left here and where did he end up? Yep, right in a lake. When you're focused so hard on trying to do it yourself, you'll just end up right in a ditch. Rest from your own plan. How about this?

Striving for our salvation. Now, if you're a Christian, you may think like, well, of course, salvation is found in Jesus alone but we live in a city and in a world that even though they don't know it. If you were to like do a man on the street interview and say, hey, how are you striving for your own salvation? They would look at you like, what? You're crazy.

I don't know what you're talking about but I gotta go because I've gotta like like get one hundred days on my past this year. I've gotta go because I'm late for a business meeting for a big deal. I gotta go because I'm off to recycle. I gotta go because I'm off to volunteer at the soup kitchen and I gotta do this and then and they were like working, striving, and striving, and striving, trying to be a good person. Now, if you were to ask that question of the people of this city, you'd get answers all day long.

Hey, how are you working to be a good person? Oh, they got a list of mama. I drive. Stop. Just stop because Jesus and salvation in him is where we enter the ultimate rest.

Hebrews chapter four, let me read just a little bit of that to Hebrews chapter four. God's promise of entering his rest still stands. So, we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. The Bible says that god resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Resisting the proud means, if you insist and persist in trying to earn your own right relationship with god based upon your works but god, I'm a good person and and god, I'm certainly a lot better than than the like the people that I see that that you know, the here and there and and I'm trying to be like god's like, bleh.

Quit striving. There is a rest that you can enter into because it's not about your good works. I have a little sticky note at the front of the of my Bible that says, my sin doesn't change my righteous nature anymore than my goodness changed my sin nature. For this good news that god has prepared this rest, think Sukkah, has been announced just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn't share the faith of those who listened to God.

For only we who believe can enter into that rest. Verse six, so god's rest is there for people to enter. Rest from your own plan. Rest from striving for salvation and then finally, perhaps the most important, would you just quit trying to earn his love? Maybe you come from a family to you're do to And then there's some that.

Sort of performance based thing and and you felt like when you were a good kid, then mom and dad or stepdad or stepmom, whatever, loved you. If you're a bad kid, they didn't love you. That is not how the kingdom of god operates. He loves you not because of what you do what you don't do. He loves you because of who he is.

His love for you is not based at all on your performance and that's good news for those of us that have messed up royally and big time. And seemingly over and over. Last verse. Song of Solomon chapter two Chapter two verse 14. The young man is speaking and this is an allegory of Jesus speaking over us.

And he says, my dove, he's speaking of you, is hiding behind the rocks, behind an outcrop on the cliff. Jesus would say to your heart today, let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. For your voice is pleasant and your face is lovely. Would you rest from of from wearing this mask of trying to earn god's love?

Would you step outside of your carefully constructed world house and sit in the simple shelter of the truth, of the reality that you cannot earn god's love but he just loves you. Would you receive his love today? Jesus fulfilled these feasts so that we can sit and rest in simplicity and receive his love. Laying aside our own plan, quit striving, quit trying to be a good person. When it comes to earning right standing with god, not saying don't be a good person.

Continue to stop for the tourists when they step out in the crosswalk. I know you want to bumble. I know. I do too. Jesus loves you.

Anyways, Let's take a moment and and in a really simple beautiful way. Let's construct a sukkah in our own heart right now. Let's step aside from our pride. Let's step aside from the the stories and narratives that we tell ourselves and we try to convince other people love. Let's step out of that into a simple sukkah of just resting in his love.

Will you receive his love this morning? Take just a moment, close your eyes. We're not going to dwell on this for long because you're going to get spend all week in it but in the stillness of your heart, invite his presence. Jesus, thank you. I just feel like the Holy Spirit is whispering to my heart and he's saying, this is what I've longed for.

That there are some individuals in here this morning who are running themselves ragged. But have for just a moment exhaled, relaxed, and stepped outside of their busy, carefully constructed lives and the lord's like, I've been waiting for you. Oh, I love you. Just spend time with me, dear one. Remember all that I've done for you.

Recalibrate the rhythm of your life according to my way. And let's practice and rehearse for when my son comes again to claim his bride, the church. Establish his governmental authority on planet Earth, and begins to renew the earth including social justice government, society, and even forestry. Thank you for your brilliance, Jesus. We love you.

And father, I pronounce a blessing over each and every member of our tribe family here. Help us. Help us. Help us. Help us to rest in the finished work of the cross.

And enjoy you so that we can move into a time of wonderful celebration. We pray these things in Jesus name, the strong son of god and everybody said, amen.