Introduction
When I was a kid, we would sometimes have company over to the house. Usually, it was relatives who were visiting from out of town. (We had a lot of relatives who lived far away that would come visit once or twice a year.) Now, there were four kids in my family and my mom was a single mom who worked full-time, so our home was usually quite “lived in”. When we knew company was coming over, my mom made sure we all pitched in to clean the place up. Sometimes our relatives would arrive and say something polite like “Oh, your house looks so nice! I can never keep my place clean like this!” (I often thought to myself, you should have been here and saw how it looked yesterday! Oh, and don't open that closet door where we stuffed all our junk!)
We do that sometimes don’t we? We try to clean ourselves up to look good for people and keep up appearances. We don’t want people to see our problems, our faults, our mess. And if we have any secrets, we want to keep them secret. We might not want people to see who we really are on the inside.
Jesus came to set us free from all that and that’s what this blog is about . In Jesus, we have nothing to hide.
Leviticus 25:14-17
14
“When you make an agreement with your neighbor to buy or sell property, you
must not take advantage of each other. 15 When you buy land from your neighbor,
the price you pay must be based on the number of years since the last jubilee.
The seller must set the price by taking into account the number of years
remaining until the next Year of Jubilee. 16 The more years until the next
jubilee, the higher the price; the fewer years, the lower the price. After all,
the person selling the land is actually selling you a certain number of
harvests. 17 Show your fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I am
the Lord your God.
Real Estate in Ancient Israel
This is my third installment in a study of ancient Israelite laws for the Year of Jubilee. Every 50 years on the Day of Atonement, the priest would blow a sacrificial ram's horn, in Hebrew a jubil (or yobel; AKA a shofar). Everyone had a whole year off from agricultural work so they could celebrate, worship the Lord, and just enjoy life. Furthermore, all slaves were set free, all debts were forgiven, and any family land that had been sold was returned to the original family. It was a tremendously joyful occasion when everything and everyone in society was renewed. People were made right with God and with each other.
The year of Jubilee is something that sounds both amazing, but also strange to people today. It’s hard for us to understand some aspects of the Year of Jubilee, because Americans have different concepts of property ownership than the ancient Israelites in the Bible.
For one, America is the Land of the Free. We were founded on the principle that we are not bound to a king. Most people throughout history, including the early settlers who came to America from Europe, understood that they were vassals of their homeland’s king. They only came to America because their king granted them the right and granted them land in the New World to farm on behalf of their King.
The American Revolution was truly a revolution. Our forefathers revolutionized the way people in our country think about freedom, individualism, and property ownership. They declared that all men are created equal. IE. the common man and woman is equal to the king and queen. Furthermore, our founders declared people are free and not vassals who must serve a monarch as lord. In this new world order, people may purchase and own their own property as individuals (and not merely hold property in trust on behalf of their king). We take this idea for granted today. If you purchase a home, you understand that the property belongs to you. It doesn’t belong to the king (or to the president or the government) who generously allows you to use it. It’s truly yours to keep or to sell. We don’t even think about this. We just accept it. However, this is truly something new that started with the American Revolution when our nation broke free from the king of England. This was not the way most cultures thought of property for the vast majority of the world throughout history.
In ancient Israel, they had a totally different concept of property ownership. Ancient Israelites started as slaves in Egypt. Then God delivered them from slavery and brought them to the land in Canaan. God fought on behalf of the Israelites to conquer the Canaanites and gave the land to the Israelites. The Israelites understood that they didn’t really own their land. God owned it and granted it to the people of Israel. God gave each tribe, clan, and family a certain piece of land to maintain. Every Israelite family understood that their land did not really belong to them. They were merely stewards of land that belonged to the Lord God of Israel. They were to tend the land and live off the land and use it for the glory of God as they served as God’s representatives to the world.
If the circumstances of life required an Israelite to sell part of his family’s land, there was a problem. How can you sell land that doesn't really belong to you? So, in the way ancient Israelites thought of their land, they were really only leasing the land for a set number of years–the number of years until the next Year of Jubilee when the land would revert to the original land holder.
So, suppose there were still 40 years left until the next year of Jubilee, then the land might be worth $40,000. But if there were only 10 year left until Jubilee, the land was only worth $10K. Or if the Year of Jubilee was only 1 year away, the land might only be worth $1,000, because once the ram’s sounded on the Year of Jubilee, the land would have to return to the original owner.People are people; they always have been–even thousands of years ago. People will always try to take advantage of each other when it comes to business deals. If you work in business or sales you probably experience this–whether you sell cars, sell houses, or other things. You know how it works. You see some really nice people, but they will try to take advantage of you to work out a deal that’s better for them but not necessarily fair for you. That’s the old sinful selfish nature inside us. It’s been their since the fall of humanity way back in the Garden of Eden.
God wants His
people to be different. He wants us to be holy as He is holy. And
so Leviticus 25:17 reminds us, “Show your
fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I am the Lord your God.”
For the ancient Israelites, this meant making sure their real estate deals were fair and honest. Buyers shouldn’t take advantage of sellers. And sellers should not take advantage of buyers. Everything needs to be open and transparent. This meant they must always consider the number of years remaining until the Year of Jubilee, because this affects the value of the property.
John 8:31-3231 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Being a Christian
Christians follow
Jesus' teachings. We aren’t saved by being good people. We are
saved by God’s grace when we have faith in Jesus and choose to follow
Him. Following Jesus means being faithful to His teachings and
Jesus taught us to be people who repent of sin and live lives of moral
integrity.
Ironically, the people who opposed Jesus the most in the New Testament were the Pharisees–people who were seen as the most righteous people around. Jesus said the Pharisees were like whitewashed tombs. They were all bright and pretty on the outside, but inside they were like rotting corpses–full of filthy evil deceit. The Pharisees claimed they were completely devoted to the God of Israel, but when God sent His Son, Jesus the Messiah, to save them, the Pharisees rejected Jesus. They were even willing to kill the Son of God in order to protect their position and power.
Jesus and His followers shouldn't be like the Pharisees. We should be people of integrity. We don’t need to pretend we’re perfect. Jesus didn’t come to save perfect people. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. So if you lost, He came to save you. If you’ve got some flaws, it’s ok. If you can admit your sins, you’re good; repent and believe in Jesus and He’ll forgive you and save you.
But if you’re sweeping your sins under the rug, pretending to be something you’re not, there’s a problem. How can Jesus save someone who pretend they're already perfect and don't need forgiveness, healing, and salvation? This is true spiritual blindness and hypocrisy.
It’s a heavy
burden to live a lie. You’ve got to keep up appearances. You’ve got
to guard your secrets. You’ve got to always worry when someone might see
you for who you really are. It’s so much better to just come clean. Then you have nothing to hide! Sure, you lose the lie and maybe some people won’t think you're the hero they once
thought you were, but there will be many more who respect and admire your
honesty. Most important of all, your heart will be right with
God. Jesus said, “You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.” You are truly free when you have nothing left to hide.
Jesus should know. He is the trumpet that calls people to repentance and announces God’s Great Jubilee when all slaves to sin who answer the call to repentances are set free and every person is restored to a right relationship with God and their neighbors.
Invitation
Won’t
you hear Jesus calling you to repent today? Won’t you accept His
invitation?
I invite you to use Psalm 51:1-10 as your prayer to God today. This famous Psalm was a prayer written by David recalling his on repentance aft a serious sin. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband to cover up his sin. God accepted David's repentance. There were consequences for David's sin, but their was also healing and restoration. Whatever sin you've committed, what ever mess you've made of your life, God can forgive you and restore you, but you've got to repent and believe.
Psalm
51:1-10
“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my
transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my
sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you,
you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are
justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was
born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. You desire truth in the
inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me
hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your
face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart,
O God, and put a new and right spirit within me."
Amen.
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