Take Time - Part 2 [Notes]

The past few years have been challenging for us all. When the pandemic hit, the entire world was swept up into a new reality that included mask mandates, closed businesses, postponed weddings and honeymoons, and online classes and graduation ceremonies. We've experienced many losses, and we have grown weary. But what have we learned through this trial? Have we stopped to grieve? Are we better prepared for the trials we may face in the future?

Join us as we address some of these questions in a series of talks titled “Take Time.”  This encouraging series will help us slow down and learn what God may be wanting to teach us as we move forward.

Today's Takeaway: Take time to stop, rest, and delight. 

And he said to the man, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'Do not eat from it':The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it."
– Genesis 3:17-19 (CSB)

Takeaway: Take time to stop, rest, and delight.

So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.
– Genesis 2:1-3 (CSB)

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
– Exodus 20:8-11 (CSB)

The Lord spoke to Moses: "Speak to the Israelites and tell them: These are my appointed times, the times of the Lord that you will proclaim as sacred assemblies. "Work may be done for six days, but on the seventh day there is to be a Sabbath of complete rest, a sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; it is a Sabbath to the Lord wherever you live."
– Leviticus 23:1-3 (CSB)

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: "Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land I am giving you, the land will observe a Sabbath to the Lord. You may sow your field for six years, and you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce for six years. But there will be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land in the seventh year, a Sabbath to the Lord: you are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. You are not to reap what grows by itself from your crop, or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. It is to be a year of complete rest for the land. Whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year can be food for you — for yourself, your male or female slave, and the hired worker or alien who resides with you. All of its growth may serve as food for your livestock and the wild animals in your land."
– Leviticus 25:1-7 (CSB)

"At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how to cancel debt: Every creditor is to cancel what he has lent his neighbor. He is not to collect anything from his neighbor or brother, because the Lord’s release of debts has been proclaimed. You may collect something from a foreigner, but you must forgive whatever your brother owes you."

"If your fellow Hebrew, a man or woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, you must set him free in the seventh year. When you set him free, do not send him away empty-handed. Give generously to him from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. You are to give him whatever the Lord your God has blessed you with."
– Deuteronomy 15:1-3, 12-14 (CSB)

When someone became bankrupt in the ancient world, he was often forced to sell himself or his children into slavery in order to pay his debts. So it is stipulated that an Israelite who is impoverished to the extent of becoming a slave of another Israelite may only be held for a maximum of six years before he is released. In other words, he is not a slave in the full sense of the word but enters into a working contract as a bonded labourer (‘hired worker’, NIV) for a limited period of time.
– David. L Baker

You are to count seven sabbatical years, seven times seven years, so that the time period of the seven sabbatical years amounts to forty-nine. Then you are to sound a ram’s horn loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; you will sound it throughout your land on the Day of Atonement. You are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It will be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his clan. The fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you are not to sow, reap what grows by itself, or harvest its untended vines. It is to be holy to you because it is the Jubilee; you may only eat its produce directly from the field.
– Leviticus 25:8-12 (CSB)

Messiah’s Jubilee
The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him.
– Isaiah 61:1-3 (CSB)

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”
– Luke 4:20-21 (CSB)

“an intentional, conscious plan to keep God at the center of everything we do. . . . The starting point and foundation of any Rule is a desire to be with God and to love him”
– Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
– Matthew 11:28-30 (CSB) 

Graves into Gardens // I'm Listening // Death Was Arrested // I Won't Move

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