Now, Next, and Beyond

Good afternoon, everyone. Nice to be here on this beautiful day with all of you.

Welcome to those who are visiting with us today. It's good to have you here with us. You've, as you've already heard, referred to a few times. You've sort of caught us in the middle of the fall Holy Day season, and we keep the Holy Days that we see laid out in Leviticus 23 in the Old Testament, and which we see, of course, reiterated in the New Testament as Jesus Christ and the New Testament Church, the Apostle Paul made reference to them, and we find great meaning in those days as they point to Jesus Christ and outline His plan for mankind. What I'd like to do today is spend a little bit of time on the topic that you see up on the screen in front of you. I find it helpful, at least the way my brain works, and the clicker works, too, to build a conceptual framework in the mind. And I don't know how many of you work this way, but for me, if I can sort of build a skeleton the way that things fit together, it's much easier to hang additional detail onto it. And what I'd like to do today is just step back a little bit and think about this time, the feast time, and consider a framework of what it is that we can learn from this time. And intrinsic in this is the idea that the Holy Days do not, in the fall Holy Days, point only to the future. They also have lessons for us today, and that's what I'd like to focus on as we go through this. So, as a starting point, what in the world is this?

What is it? This is to illustrate the importance of a framework, a perspective to have. And maybe some of you already have an idea of what this is. Maybe you don't. As you get this perspective on it, and the frame widens out a bit, it becomes a little bit more clear what the picture is about, rather than being a whole bunch of random dots on the screen. And, if we go one more step, for those who took art history way back, you might remember the painting method of pointillism. And this is a pointillist painting, which has to do with taking a bunch of little random dots of color. You could do it in black and white as well, putting it up on a canvas, and forming a picture of it, which under a magnifying glass, probably looks a whole lot more like this. But when you understand what it is you're looking at, it comes into a different focus. You understand it to be something completely different. And that's why I'd like to, for today, consider this framework of now, next, and beyond, as we look at the feast. And consider it through the idea of what the feast means, in terms of keeping that time, as well as thinking about what it means for our individual daily lives. And so I'm going to walk through a bit of a framework and suggest it for additional thought for you. When I get to the end of this first section, I'll have a little sketch up on the slide that, if you want to, you could try to reproduce in your notes, or I'm happy to send you a copy of it later. But again, standing for the idea that the feast has definite things that it points to, that we should understand through it, and also comes home to our daily lives in ways that we should live on an ongoing basis. So let's think about the first element of this three-part framework, which is now.

Now, probably now isn't the first thing we think about when we consider the feast, because we know that the feast points forward, to the time after the return of Jesus Christ, when His Kingdom will be established, first the millennium, then ultimately His Kingdom, over all of the earth. So why do we think about now as an important element of the feast? Finding joy even in the moment. Are you uncomfortable with the idea of going to the feast to have a good time?

Does it feel odd? Maybe to some people it does, maybe to some people it doesn't? But that is, without a doubt, one of the reasons that we're to go to the feast. Now, the Bible uses different words. It would be translated as rejoice, not really a word that we use very much in our day-to-day. But what does rejoice mean? It means have a good time.

It means be joyful. It means enjoy yourself. We can see in Deuteronomy 14 verse 26 exactly those words put forward, talking about the fact that we should take the money here talking about the tithe that was commanded to be set aside and spend it for whatever your heart desires. Find things that you enjoy. Find things that give you pleasure, obviously within the framework of God's laws and his way of life. Here it talks about oxen, sheep, wine, and similar drink for whatever your heart desires. We look at the context of this. It's talking about food and drink, things that you can share with others as you're there together. If we remember back in those times, the children of Israel would come together as a people for the feast. They would share food. They would share drink. They would share time together to praise God, to worship, and to have a good time, to rejoice, to have a nice time together. It talks here about eating there before the Lord our God and rejoicing together with our households. We think of the now. One of the now things about the feast is to go and to have fun. And to do it in the right spirit. A spirit of thanksgiving to God, a spirit of thankfulness to Him for all the things that He's done and given to us, and thankfulness for the people that we have to share it with and the fact that we can share those things. There's another element, though, and a lesson that comes home to us in our day-to-day life also. And that is, as we're living our lives day-to-day, we need to find joy in the now.

God gives us so much. It's easy for us sometimes to take a look out at the things that are going around, going on around us in the environment, and to get pulled down by those things. We heard in the fantastic first message today how the cares of the world can come in like weeds in a garden and just start to engulf us. That's not something that God wants because one of the things that God has called us to is joy. If you want to go back to the fruits of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, what is one of the elements of the fruit of God's Spirit? It's joy.

There should be joy within us because we have God's Spirit, we have an understanding of His plan, most of all, we have an understanding of victory that Jesus Christ has won over everything that's in this world. And despite the things that might be happening in any moment, one of the lessons for us to understand through God's Spirit living in us, through going to the feast and having a great time, is that we are to find joy in the moments that we have in life. That's one of the things that God has called us to. It's an actual fruit and outcome of God's Spirit operating in our lives. Let's look at Matthew 6, which underscores this principle. In this case, it's talking about it as freedom from anxiety, freedom from worry, and what greater gift can we have in the world today than a freedom from anxiety and worry? Matthew 6 in the Sermon on Mount, Jesus says, So in an appropriate way, God is saying, live in the moment. You know, we reflect on the Lord's Prayer. What does the Lord's Prayer instruct us to ask for?

Our daily bread. It doesn't say, give me my weekly bread. It doesn't say, give me my annual bread. It doesn't say, give me bread to last me for the next decade or for the rest of my life. It says, give me my daily bread. There's a lot of meaning in that when we think about it. And the reality of life is sometimes we have today. We have a good day. We have good things to give thanks for. And the next day we'll bring other things. Might be better. They might be worse, but another day to be thankful for. And so we shouldn't worry because at the end of the day we know that God has won the victory. God has given us his spirit. One of the things we picture through these feasts that we keep is the fact that God's plan will be fulfilled. His promises are sure. And we can take comfort in that and have lack of anxiety and worry because of it. We see also that this is a motivator for how we live our lives.

The fact that we give. And we take that those things that we've been blessed with and we look for ways to share them with others. Luke 6, we read, give and it will be given to you. Good measure. Press down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. So finding joy in the moment is not just about something for ourselves. It's also for something that we share with other people as we encounter them in simple ways on the day-to-day, as we have opportunity to help people in more material ways. And what this is referring to when it's talking about good measure, press down, shaken together is, you know, when you think about if you've ever used maybe a flower sifter. I'm old enough that back when I was in middle school I'd actually take home ec class, if you can imagine that. What a disaster. A bunch of 13-14 year old boys and girls with sewing machines and needles and kitchen, and not to mention what we did in shop class, but we won't go there.

Five fingers on each hand. On each hand. Ten in total. I survived it. But remember what a flower sifter or what it's like when you pour some flour into a bowl. If you just pour it in, there's a lot of air in there, isn't it? And what happens? You start tapping it on the counter and it starts to settle out, doesn't it? You have maybe even as much of a quarter as a quarter cup of volume that you can add in there. And that's what this scripture is talking about, what God wants to do for us. Talk about giving it in in good measure, pressing it down, making room for more. That's the way that God wants to bless us. It's the way that he wants us. In all of the moments that we have to look to bless other people as well. So living in the moment, enjoying the moment, using the feast as a way to remind ourselves of this. It's a great opportunity that we have coming, time away, to leave the turbulence of the world that's out there today. It's another step to escape from it. I'd encourage you to not tune into the TV news twice or three times a day or have it on in the background all the time. Take some time to not look at the banners that might come across your phone all the time, telling you the latest news coming across. And spend some time in those moments of just experiencing that joy and thinking about what it is that God is bringing for us. And find ways and reflect on ways to bring that into our everyday lives as we're looking to experience that joy in the day-to-day. So here's the diagram I spoke about a minute ago. I'll pause on this for a moment if anyone wants to try to draw a quick stick figure in their notes.

But now, next and beyond, these are the this is the framework that I want to talk about in each section thinking about what is it that we can think about and experience and do in the context of the feast?

And how can we take it and apply it to our daily lives? Because again, the feast is not just about saying, won't it be great when? It's won't it be great when? And how can I live this, put it into use in my life today?

The diagram will be back, so if you haven't finished it, you can sketch out the shape by memory and we'll come back to it after the next section.

So let's go to next. Recognizing God's blessings and multiplying them. So one element of the feast is to think about the now. Just sit back and enjoy the moment. Enjoy the plenty. Enjoy the chance to be with a lot of people who have liked mine. Hopefully to connect with family and friends in a way that we don't get to do on a regular basis in our day-to-day lives. And also to think about how to bring that joy into our lives. But next, we also think about what it is that we should be producing, what we should be thankful for, what should be going on in our lives. This is a picture a friend of mine in New York sent me. They don't just have Home Depot. If you're in New York, they have Suka Depot, where you can buy your own pre-made booth. Of course, we know that in the Jewish religion, literally following the Old Covenant instructions, they do build sukkahs, the temporary dwellings that the Israelites used back in that time. Today, we use temporary dwellings in a different way, so we don't stay in a booth out on our balcony in our backyard, but we do go to temporary places, hotels, other places that we might rent. And in the same way, we try to learn some of these same lessons that are there for the feast as we think about the next. What is it that we're supposed to then take with us, reflect on, consider as we're at the feast? Leviticus 23. We'll start in verse 41. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord, talking about the Feast of Tabernacles, for seven days in the year. It'll be a statute forever in your generations, and you'll celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths. And here's the important reason why.

That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God. What is it that they were supposed to remember about coming out of Egypt? There's so much symbolism, so much depth there, we're not going to have time to do more than touch on it briefly. I'd encourage you to think more about it and look at it. But if you remember, the children of Israel ended up wandering for 40 years out in the desert. And what God was saying here was, once you're in the land, you've got to think back to how it is that God miraculously delivered you through all those things. Let's go to Deuteronomy, which lays this out in very specific terms. Here in Deuteronomy 8, and we remember Deuteronomy, many of us are reading through Deuteronomy this month as part of the reading program. Deuteronomy is an expression, a reminder, before the children of Israel entered the Promised Land of all the things that they should remember, think back on, consider about the journey that they were on. And in verse 11 of Deuteronomy 8, it looks forward and warns the Israelites of things that they have to be careful of once they enter the land. Verse 11, beware that you don't forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, his judgments, and his statutes which I command you today. Lest, when you've eaten and are full and have built beautiful houses and dwell on them, when your herds and flocks multiply, your silver, your gold are multiplied, all you have is multiplied, you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Continuing on, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, he talks about the serpents, the scorpions, the lack of water, being fed with manna, that he might humble you and that he might test you to do good in the end, and then that you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have given me this wealth. So you can see that as God was working through Moses and the last instructions that he gave before his time serving God and the children of Israel was ended, one of the big things that was focused on here was what's just normal for us as human beings. We tend to get surrounded by what's going on in our day-to-day lives, and we tend to forget. That's one of the big themes of dealing with Israel, and so many of the things that are laid out for them to do is so that they might remember. That's interesting. When the Holy Spirit is given, and one of the things that Jesus Christ lays out in John is that the Holy Spirit is given to us to call things into remembrance.

So we see this theme of remembering being incredibly important, and as a part of this time, the feast, the booths, the temporary dwellings, were given as remembrance so that even at the same time as the children of Israel had permanent homes, land that was generating crops, livestock out in their fields, what did they do? They picked up that tithe at the end of their harvest period, and they carried it away, and they left their own land. If those of you who received Tim Pebor's message, you heard him speak a bit about this. Putting distance between their day to day, taking things with them so they could reflect on the fact that even though they had plenty, it wasn't just because of what they did. Certainly they put effort into generating it, plowing their fields, and so forth, but fundamentally the increase came from God. God had placed them on that land. The way they came to that land was by being delivered through all of the things that happened to them in the wilderness, and that's one of the things that they were asked to reflect on and to consider during the Feast of Tabernacles. So what does that have to do with our day to day? Let's first just wrap up this thought in terms of some things to consider during the Feast. How is it that God has blessed us? It's a great time to sit back, to have gratitude, to think about the blessings that God has given each one of us. It's going to look a little bit different for each of us as individuals. I remember my parents, one of the things they did for several years when I was little, is they would keep this list over the course of the year of things that they felt that God had blessed them with, and they would look back at it, and they would read it and reflect on those things. I think there's a lot of value in doing that.

Is God bigger to us than the things that we leave behind? Part of the lesson of the Feast is to leave our day-to-day behind and to reflect again on Him and the fact that He's the source of all good things.

In the way that we lead our lives day-to-day, do we miss all the things that we have? Of course we will. We're human. But is God bigger than those things? And then what are we doing? That's the turning point we're going to go next in terms of our day-to-day lives. What is it that we're doing with the blessings that God has given us? Let's turn to Matthew 25. Some of you are saying, here we go again because I tend to turn to the parable of the talents a lot.

But I find it very meaningful. Here we read in verses 14 through 18 of Matthew 25.

This man traveling to a far country, delivering goods to his servants and giving them things to multiply. One's given five talents, another two, another one, each according to his own ability. This, of course, is a parallel for God and how He calls us and He gives to each of one of us, as He knows us.

Different types and different amounts of talents. Then here in the parable, the man goes on a journey. He who received five went and traded, made another five. He who received two gained two more, and one received one and dug in the ground and hid the money. We know, of course, in the outcome of this parable that both of the first two servants, the one who received five and doubled it, the one who received two and doubled it, were told the very same thing, which was that they were profitable servants.

So it wasn't about how much they were given, it was about what they did with the things that they were given and the fact that they multiplied those things. It was the servant who didn't understand what his master was about and simply hid his talent, who was called unprofitable. Now, we read and considered the parable of the sower in the first message today.

And the parable of the sower does a great job of laying out all the specifics. The soil means this, the seed means that, the one who laid the seed is this. The parable of the talent is very different. It never tells us what any of this means. We're left to figure it out for ourselves. We're not going to spend detailed amounts of time going through that today, but generally speaking, and you can read more on this yourself if you're interested in it, but generally speaking, the talents refer to resources that are given to us.

A talent at that point was a weight of measure, and it would be used to measure out things of value. Most people think in this case it would have been silver used as currency. You can probably remember, my dad was born in the 1920s, and I can still remember going to the store, and if something cost a quarter, and back, you know, when I was a kid, I guess there were things that still cost a quarter.

Did anyone ever hear the term two bits? People would call a quarter two bits. And check me on this, but my understanding of that is that back in the old days, when silver was currency, you could subdivide it into eight parts. Each of those eight parts was called a bit, so a quarter would be two bits, and you would measure out currency in that way.

You'd have an established weight, and then you could subdivide that weight of a precious metal, and you could use it to transact in ways that were smaller than just, you know, one chunk, in this case, of silver. And so in this case in the Bible, the talent probably refers to a certain weight of silver that had a certain amount of value to it.

Now, applying that to our day-to-day lives, God gives all of us resources. Those resources can be a wide variety of different things, whether it's the things that we're capable of doing ourselves, just natural aptitudes humanly that we're born with, whether they're gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit, whether it's material things that we have, a car, a home, additional food, money, time. And what God wants us to do is to assess the resources that we have and consider how we're using them.

Are we using them in a way that multiplies for His will, that helps others, that grows and develops things? That's something that we have to think about on a daily basis, and take that perspective to the resources that God has entrusted us with.

This goes all the way back. We think about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. What were they asked to do? Tend to the garden and keep it? Be fruitful and multiply? Build, grow, care for, develop.

Things that we think about at the feast as we consider back all the blessings that come from God that allow us to be there with plenty, and also lessons as we look to our day-to-day lives. And we consider how it is that we live, the values that we live by, the resources we have, and what it is that we do with those resources.

So, pausing here for a moment, you could fill in these additional boxes if you like to draw out the diagram. We see in this category of next we understand God as a source of our blessings. And on a daily basis, we have this mindset of multiplying the things that it is that God has given us. So, let's go to the third dimension of our framework then, and look at the idea beyond. Because, without a doubt, one of the fantastic things about the Feast of Tabernacles is what it points to in the future. As we've seen in the first two segments, that's not the only thing we think about at the feast, but the feast would, by all means, be incomplete if we didn't look forward to this world that's going to be coming when Jesus Christ returns. Isaiah 11, verse 9, They shall not hurt nor destroy my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It's almost incomprehensible, isn't it, when we look at the world around us today. We look at everything that we know as human beings, and even think about a situation where there would be no one who would hurt or destroy. And it's so different from what we experience every day in life. And it seems like even when we don't really mean it as human beings, even when we aren't being, you know, as some people can be, just deliberately mean, even when we're just trying to look out for ourselves and care for our families, we can inadvertently hurt and destroy. And that happens throughout the history of mankind, whether it's deliberate or whether it's a sort of carelessness and collateral damage, if you will. But imagine a world where that no longer happens, no one hurts or destroys, and everyone has access to the knowledge of God. What a fantastic time that will be. Talk about having joy as we contemplate living in a world that's like that. Let's look at Revelation 21 verses 3 and 4. Again, looking forward to this incredible time to come.

There will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There will be no more pain, for the former things passed away. You know, all the things that we see on the news in front of us, you know, it's heartbreaking seeing people's entire lives have been washed away in the last week. We see war, we see threats of additional war, we see all kinds of things that happen in this world. While we don't want to dwell on it, we have to be realistic about the human condition, and unfortunately, where it brings us, at the same time, we can be grateful that there is something coming that's so much better than that, and end all that sorrow, and end the pain, and end the destruction, and end of the ongoing struggles that we might have in life. And we all have them in different measures, in different ways, and they will come to an end. And that's a hope that has to sustain us on a day-to-day basis as we live our daily lives. So just as we look forward during the feast, in a special way to that coming kingdom, and everything that it brings, let's think for a moment about our daily lives, and what that's supposed to mean for our every day. And this is really how we can have the joy in the middle of everything else going on. You know, we think of that account in the Gospels of Jesus Christ in the storm, and he's sleeping in the boat while this storm is raging all around the boat. And the disciples just can't even believe, you know, how is this guy just sleeping in the boat while we're being rocked back and forth and afraid for our lives? That's God's spirit at work. That's the same spirit that dwells in us. That's the kind of calm that we can have when we put our trust in him and have this anchor. Hebrews 6, starting verse 17, thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, he confirmed by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it's impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. So it's in that understanding that that promise that God has, a being that cannot lie, who promises to be with us through everything, we fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. And this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. So even while all those storms are going around us in life, we can drop that anchor. That's why God gives us these holy days, this promise, this thought of his coming kingdom, to return to every year and also every day as we pray for the coming of Jesus Christ and as we think about what that means for this world to be delivered from its pain and its suffering, as well as for us as individuals to receive that same blessing.

So filling in the last part of our framework as we think of the beyond, this is the ultimate hope of God's kingdom. You know, we think of the Feast of Tabernacles, we think of that fantastic time when even God himself will come down to a purified earth to live with mankind, to rule forever, and to set us on a completely different trajectory as his sons and daughters, making that opportunity of knowing him available to everyone who's ever lived. How fantastic that is. And in our daily life, then, that plan and that hope can anchor us, even in the most difficult trials that come our way. We can still look forward to that. We can drop that anchor and not be moved because of that understanding that's within us. So what's that triangle on the bottom all about?

Let's talk about one last element here. Finding the balance, the challenge of living now, next, and beyond. You know, as I reflect on the way we approach life, how it is that we think about life can depend on so many things. It can depend on the circumstances that we're in at any moment in time. It can depend a lot on our age as well.

And age and circumstances are bound very carefully together as well. So what do I mean by saying that? Let's look at people in different stages of life. You know, young people tend to be more around, what can I enjoy today? You know, we think of people, teenage and younger, and it's just fantastic. This is the way God built young people. Let's go have fun. Toddlers, they want to go out and play.

They love to laugh. They love to meet new friends and just do fun things. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's exactly what young people were made to do. Think of what people living in their 20s, maybe even through their 40s, are built to do by God. They want to say, what's next? What kind of education can I get? What kind of job can I have? Who can I marry? How can I have kids and build a family, maybe buy a home and build a future? Again, those are things that God wants. He built those things within us as human beings. Living at different ages.

And then we think of that beyond. Many of us start to fit in this category as our hair turns gray, but as we turn older, our mentality shifts, doesn't it? The things we're focused on shift as well. You know, we've gone through at that point in time some of the difficulties of life. We realize that not everything is quite the way it seems.

All the glitz and glamor kind of turns into something a lot more shabby. And we start learning that we have to look through those things that might look shiny and new on the outside and focus more on the deeper meaning that's there. And when you put it in the context of God's way as well, we tend to be more focused on the future than we are on this life. Because over the course of time, as we're buffeted by the different things that happen in life, we realize that there's less and less to cling to in this life and more and more to look forward to in the next life.

There's a challenge that goes with that, though. And I'm just going to use one scripture which is directed at young people as my example here, but there are other scriptures that we can look at and don't have time to today. The point I want to bring out is that we all need to look at where we sit in life, and we need to maintain this balance of now, of next, and beyond. And what that means for us in different stages of life or different things going on within our own sphere at any point in time is going to be different, but it's something we need to reflect on carefully.

Here we see in Ecclesiastes 11 verse 9, a passage that's written towards younger people, and says, Rejoice, young man, in your youth. Let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart. So what Solomon is saying here is, young people, you were built this way.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy life, going out and making the best of your life, enjoying the excitement that comes from day to day, but know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. So what he's saying is, go explore, enjoy, and do it within the framework that God has given you. Think of the next. Don't just do something now that could end up being destructive to the next stage of your life, and consider the beyond. And by extension, what's happening here is, whether we're looking at our lives, whether we're looking at the feast, we have to keep these things in balance.

Wherever we are in life, we have to look at all of those things. If we're young, we can't just look at the now. If we're in that middle age period of time, we can't get so wrapped up in the things that we're trying to build in this life that we don't think of enjoying life, spending that time with our loved ones and making sure we're making the most of it, as well as keeping a future focus on what it is that God is bringing.

And for those of us who are in the later chapters of life, we also have to remember that it's not right to ask young people to just think about what the world's going to be like in the future and how bad it is today. They need to live now. People in the middle of their lives need to live next.

All in balance. And we, as we're getting older, also have to remember that we have to keep in balance. I think it's in Job 27 where Job says, as long as I have breath, I'm going to continue to praise God. I'm going to continue to walk with Him. We can't get to the point where we retire from Christianity and we sort of sit back and wait for the next thing to happen. So whatever stage of life it is that we're in, we have to maintain that balance. We have to think of these elements of now, next, and beyond.

We have something to offer to God. We have the ability to rejoice in today. We have the ability to do things for others and look hopefully to the future no matter what stage of life we're in. What that balance looks like between those three things will definitely look different for each and every one of us, depending on our age, depending on what it is that's going on in our lives. But those elements have to be there throughout all that we're doing.

So as we look forward to the feast, hopefully the framework that I've laid out, by far not the only one that's there, lets you take a look at the Holy Days and specifically the feast through a slightly different frame of reference and find more meaning in it, just as you can now look at these dots up on the screen and see something different than the first time you looked at it.

So as we go through this next week and prepare to keep the feast, I encourage you to think about what it means for us now, next, and beyond, not only at the Feast of Tabardacles itself, but in our daily lives.