Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
It's our hope that these sermons will draw you
more into the life of following God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and
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sermon. God bless. Thank you for your word. God,
thank you for times when we are reminded of your
great acts, your great salvation, bringing us
from slavery to freedom, from death to life.
Thank you, Lord, for the gathering of your people,
where we count the cross and the resurrection,
where we look to your word, or that we might
have direction in this life. And how we confess,
how often we dump this, we live wayward lives
wandering from you in the wilderness. And so
God, I pray today that as we sit with your word,
you'd speak to us again, that our hearts would
be moved and our lives would be directed by you
and that we would respond in worship to you,
Lord. Do all these things, God, we pray in your
name for our good, for your glory. Amen. All
right. Like most of life, moving is filled with
uncertainty. You all have done this, I'm sure.
It's filled with sort of unease. And it's not
just because it's a mess, though it is, right?
Stuff everywhere, stuff you're like, what is
this stuff? Stuff you're like, should we keep
that stuff? It's just stuff everywhere. And you're
wondering, of course, if your life is gonna have
a semblance of order ever again. Wondering if
you will get along with your neighbors, wondering
who they will be, if they will like you or your
children or your dogs. These are thoughts that
are going on through my mind, of course. I shared
with you, I know at least years ago, I shared
with you some of the stories of growing up. I'm
not gonna go into these stories right now, but
we had a neighbor growing up who was schizophrenic
and her visions only were sort of oriented towards
our family. And so the police knew us well by
name. Those are stories for another sermon. But
you can imagine moving brings up uncertainty,
of course. And many of you know that over the
past week or so, we have been in the process
of moving. We are actually just moving about
two blocks from the house that we first lived
in uptown near Italian Lake. Some of you were
in that a while back. Some of you have lent a
hand, and I just want to say thank you. That's
very kind of you. But it's been a bittersweet
thing, us moving. It's because, of course, we
brought Henry home to this house that we're moving
from, and we've had many dinners with many of
you, and sweet memories. But moving is filled
with this uncertainty, and largely it's filled
with uncertainty about who will be around us.
So we've had some opportunity to get to know
some of our neighbors a little bit, even this
week. And the couple just the house north of
our house are this older, devout Jewish couple.
And so Marian, The wife, she actually brought
us over a loaf of challah bread, challah, challah,
you know, that bread. It's sweet, it's delicious,
and they have it every Sabbath day. So Friday
night and into Saturday, they put like two to
four loaves between the two of them, which is
awesome. They've lived in that house for about
40 years. They actually got it from the son of
the man who originally built it, who developed
the whole neighborhood. And we heard that story.
Melissa and I yesterday walked a little bit on
our, while we were walking a dog, we talked with
Bert, the husband. And here's the thing, both
of the conversations, how they're going to be
celebrating Sukkot. Sukkot. And what they will
do is they'll take branches, leaves, and they're
going to build this little you know play fort
like we do and of course the top will be shaded
but you'll allow the rain still to come in and
one of the things that they're going to do is
they invite neighbors over to come have coffee
in the in the little fort or they have their
meals in there and they said you know it's a
great time and you can come over and sit and
chat with us and so that sounds great. Of course
some of you know that Sukkot is actually also
known as the feast of Booths, the Feast of Booths.
The Feast of Booths is the celebration of God's
provision to His people from their wandering
in the wilderness, how He cared for them, how
He provided for them, how He brought them out
in safety. But then also while they were wandering,
they were living in booths and God was providing
for them. And how they actually continued that
celebration once they went into the promised
land. And it was actually the celebration that
happens in the fall. Our text mentioned that
it's the first month the trumpet is blown and
that would have been blown to remind people that
we need to celebrate what God's done. He's brought
us into this new year and he's provided for us.
And we have this harvest, this long sort of declaration
year in year out that in the uncertainty and
the mess of life, God's provision is good and
kind to his people. So it's living into this
story of what God has done. It's also reminding
us through his word, the reading of His Word
and the study of it, of what He's done and of
His care. It's sort of a pausing in the just
busy, hectic reality of life to confess God,
to remind one another of who He is, what He's
done. It's a willingness in the craziness to
invite others in and to tell them the stories.
So, the first time that the Feast of Booze is
mentioned is in Leviticus 23. you all no doubt
know that Leviticus 23 is the great chapter about
how the people of God organized their time. Remember
that? Moses lays out sort of a weekly remembrance,
but also a yearly remembrance, a calendar. So
the beginning of that chapter begins with the
Sabbath, a weekly remembrance of the God of creation
and the God of salvation. But at the end of that
chapter, there's the section on the feast of
booths. And so I'm going to read a little bit
of it for you, okay? That's verse 39 of Leviticus
23. On the 15th day of the seventh month, when
you've gathered in the produce of the land, you
shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days.
On the first day 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
splendid trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs
of leafy trees, and willows of the brook. And
you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven
days. So this is a feast of remembrance. a feast
remembering the provision of God and the uncertainty
of the wilderness, but also kind of a continual
remembrance that God is with us in the uncertainty
and the crazy and the busy and the wildness of
life. You know, they were asking the question,
no doubt, will He be with us in those times?
Is He still present? Will He still provide? Will
God finish what He started when He brought us
out from slavery? Will He bring us to the promised
land? That's a Christian question too, right?
Yearly, just will the harvest come in? Will we
have what we need in this life? Will we be able
to eat? Can we sit together, linger over a meal,
dwell in one another's presence, welcome neighbors
in through the upheavals of life? And another
question is, will we sing? But we hear the trumpet
blast that the new season is here, that God's
promises are secure. Will we celebrate? So why
I'm going into all this is because Psalm 81,
most believe, is the Psalm of Sukkot, of the
Feast of Booth. And there's a number of reasons
to think this. Most specifically, it says, blow
the trumpet, which is the shofar, that horn,
you know, horn. Blow it at the new moon and at
the full moon on our feast day. And that would
have been the beginning of this season. So this
is a psalm that is happening right around, very
likely it's the one that would have been sung,
studied, prayed for right around the Feast of
Booths. So there's a number of reasons for this,
but what I want us to see this morning is that
this psalm presents us in some ways with the
same lesson of the Feast of Booths. It's sort
of the same question of what do we do with the
uncertainty? Do we know the story of God? What
do we confess? That's part of it, the act of
confession. But it also presents us with a concern,
which is you actually believe the confession,
and then it also presents us with a call. If
you believe the confession, you kind of press
through the concern, what is the outcome, the
call? Okay, so first the confession. That's going
to be in the middle of this psalm. And I want
to just say this confession addresses the uncertainty
of life with the story of God's salvation and
also the declaration from his word, okay? So
if you have your Bible open, look down with me
at verse six and seven. Okay. I relieved your
shoulders of the burden. Your hands were freed
from the basket. In distress you called. and
I delivered you. I answered you in the secret
place of thunder. I tested you at the waters
of Miraba." So, first I want you to see how this
psalm in the event of the Feast of Boos was the
occasion for this singing. That's the occasion
for it, right? That's when they're doing it,
but it's a confession of what has God done? What
has He done? What is the story of God's salvation?
Well, Maybe you saw this, right? I relieved your
shoulders of the burden, shoulder burden, your
hands freed from the basket. I mean, all that
shoulder burden, hands basket, all that is the
picture of what was happening under slavery.
Heavy laden. Hands were worn. They were burdened.
They were carrying around those things which
didn't belong to them. They were slaves. They
had to remember, they had to confess where they
had come from. Okay, so I thought, I think this
is a good time to say this, because I think it
makes some sense to the passage. One of the things
we do every week in this service is we confess
our sins, right? That's one of these things.
And sometimes people are like, why do you keep
doing that? You know, why do we do these same
things every week? And I have a number of answers
for that. One of the answers is that sin is always
distancing. Sin always distances. We know this
in our human relationships. We harm somebody
and you're like... I don't feel like we can be
very close. Or you can't be very close at least
until you name it, right? And you own it and
you confess it and you receive forgiveness and
there's a reconciliation. That's how life works.
And that's how life works with God too. We come
into a presence of a holy God and we say, Lord,
we're not worthy because we've erred and strayed
from your ways. Like philosophy, we've ran away
from you. So forgive us so that we can be bound
together again. But part of what we're also doing
is we're remembering where we were without God.
Burdened, heavy laden, shoulders heavy, hands
worn thin. We're saying outside of you, we are
just slaves. Unless you act, and before you acted
for us, this is how we wander. There's just something
good in reminding ourselves, what are we without
God? Where were we without God? So confession
is a confession of the story of God's redemptive
acts, his great act of bringing people out from
slavery to himself, God's deliverance of his
people. He says in verse seven, in distress,
you called and I delivered you. And it goes down,
I am Lord your God in verse 10, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the mouth, open
your mouth wide. I will fill it. So this confession
that's taking place is a recounting of God's
great salvific acts, his act of salvation, which
is to say that in the midst of the confusion
of life, they're to remember God can do that.
He hears your cry. He delivers you. He brings
you out from that. And he says, open up your
mouth wide. I'm going to fill it. I'm going to
care for you. An interesting thing, of course,
is that they come out of Egypt and they come
into the wilderness wandering time. And then
it talks about how God tests them at the waters
of Miraba, right? Verse seven, the last part,
I tested you at the waters of Miraba. Miraba
was the place of God's providing water for His
people in the wilderness, but it's also a place
of testing. Another thing is mentioned there.
It says the secret place of thunder. Most everyone
believes that that's the place of Sinai, where
the cloud comes and the loud sounds of thunder
as Moses is up on the mountain. But anyway, so
this is recounting in some ways this salvation
story of God. But also, actually, what would
have happened at the Feast of Booze is not just
recounting the story of what God has done, but
also recounting his work, his law. You could
say miraba, his acts, and Sinai, his words. How
were they to live? Would they continue as they
did in Egypt? Were the 400 years of the Egyptian
habits that they had sort of formed, were they
going to define their lives or were they going
to live according to God's words to them? So
they'd gather together in these booths as they
still do today, as we still do in a way each
Sunday, and they would recount the great works
of God and they would remember His words to them.
Our Old Testament reading this morning, the Rebekah
read for us was Deuteronomy 31. And I wonder
if you heard that because it's all the people
are gathered together and even says the little
ones. Everybody needs to gather together and
it's done so on the Feast of Boos and the law
of God is brought out and all of it's read. Sometimes
you guys think maybe the scripture readings are
too long in this church. It's all everybody is
listening. That's part of what's happening at
the Feast of Boos. And of course, we kind of
have a glimpse of that happening here in this
verse or in this passage too, in this chapter.
Verses four talks about the statutes and the
rules of God. Verse five talks about the decrees
of God. And then actually, if you go down, there's
actually sort of an echo, if you will, of the
10 commandments, sort of saying, here, the law
of God is put forward. Verses eight and nine.
And 10, here, O my people, while I admonish you,
O Israel, if you would but listen to me, there
shall be no strange gods among you. You shall
not bow down to a foreign God. And that sounded
like the Ten Commandments. Verse 10, I am Lord
your God who brought you up at the end of Egypt.
Again, like the preface to the Ten Commandments.
Which is to say that this is not just a recounting
of what God has done in his acts of salvation,
but this is also a declaration that we need the
words of God in our lives. We need direction
from God's words. There's some obvious questions
for us. What do you do in uncertainty? Where
do you go when mess feels too great? When the
burden feels like it's too much? What do we do
in our wilderness experiences? What do we do
when we're reminded again that we are not in
the promised land yet? What do you do when you're
wondering about your children's health or will
you get a job that you need? Sometimes it's hard,
right? Sometimes it's hard. Life can be incredibly
challenging and incredibly uncertain. And part
of what this text is saying is be reminded that
the Lord is strong, that He can take you out
from slavery. He can bring you to Himself. that
He gives you His words for direction in your
life, tell the story of God, recount His deeds,
listen to His words for direction. And think
about this, this happened for a week straight.
I mean, that sounds hard to do, doesn't it? Like,
we have a hard time sometimes just making weekly
worship a habit, though it was our Lord's habit.
And then they're saying a whole week, gather
together and do this. Even that feels like such
an uncertain thing. How would you plan for that?
How would you prepare for that? How would you
do food for that? A lot of people are traveling
to Jerusalem like Jesus did in John 7. For that,
that sounds like such a mess, such a crazy time.
But God's saying, do this because this will settle
you in the midst of uncertainty. Some of you
are familiar hopefully with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
He was the chief rabbi over the UK. He passed
away a little while ago. He was also a member
of the House of Lords. He wrote this, if I were
to summarize the message of Sukkot, I'd say it's
a tutorial in how to live with insecurity and
still celebrate life. How do you live with the
uncertainty that our life presents us with time
and again and still celebrate? Life, he continues
on, life can be full of risk and yet still a
blessing. Faith doesn't mean living with certainty.
Faith is the courage to live with uncertainty
knowing that God is with us on that tough but
necessary journey to a world that honors life
and treasures peace. How do we do this? How do
we live faithfully in uncertainty? Well, I think
part of what this text is telling us is that
we recount collectively. the great acts of God's
salvation. And we give ourselves to His word
for our direction. So that's kind of the first
thing is I think there's a confession here that
this is what we need. And this is what God has
given us. He's given us salvation. He's given
us His word. But there's also a big concern in
this psalm. There's a big concern because as
much as it is an invitation to this midst of
uncertainty and this invitation of this confession,
This is a Psalm with a deep concern. Did you
notice, this was brought up in our staff meeting
this week when we looked at, did you notice how
dramatically different the beginning of this
Psalm is than the end? It kind of starts really
high and then it goes pretty low. And it does
that because the concern is, will you listen?
Will you listen? Because so often people of God
actually just don't listen. We'd rather hear
other voices. We'd rather listen to our stomach
and our sort of carnal urges. We'd rather listen
to our neighbors, what they're saying. Think
about this. I think actually some of these are
mentioned here in this text. It mentions Miraba
here, and there's two events of Miraba in the
Wilderness Wandering. There's one at the beginning.
There's one at the end, and most people think
they're different places. They have different
names. The first one is Exodus 17. Exodus 17,
the people are quarreling with Moses. Remember,
just two chapters earlier, they're letting Miriam,
the sister of Moses, lead them in singing. Two
chapters later, they're saying, oh, I wish we
were in Egypt again. They're quarreling. They're
testing the Lord. They say, why do you bring
us to this place only to kill us? And it's actually
because of this quarreling and because of this
testing of the Lord that that Meribah is called
Meribah Massach, which means literally quarrel
testing. So this mentions Meribah and you're
supposed to go, oh, so you can actually know
the story of salvation. You can receive God's
word and you can just quarrel and say, Lord,
I don't really believe it. I don't believe you're
gonna care for me in the midst of all of this
uncertainty of the wilderness. The second mirabai
can be found in numbers 20. And there again,
we kind of have the same thing. There's a little
detail that's kind of interesting though, because
there they're saying, you're gonna let our cattle
die out here in the wilderness. Which say their
uncertainty wasn't just about their own welfare,
but their stuff. I've got all this uncertainty
around my stuff, Lord. Are you gonna care for
us? Does God care? Of course, my guess is that
all of us know that question. Do you care for
us in the wilderness? And if you know those stories,
they're both really interesting stories because
they're both stories of judgment and stories
of grace. The second one, Moses and Aaron are,
you know, Moses isn't allowed to go into the
promised land because he strikes the rock with
his staff. You know that story. The people of
God are judged at the first one. There's judgment,
but there's also grace because God doesn't provide
for them. Which is to say all of this mention
of Mirabah here in this passage is to say that
Mirabah is a place of uncertainty where their
stomachs wanted to be satisfied and so they quarreled
not believing that God would actually care for
them in the midst of that uncertainty. So they
test God. What about the place of thunder that's
mentioned here? I said that that was Sinai. Think
about this. This is the time when they're not
just listening to their stomachs instead of trusting
the Lord, they're listening to their neighbors.
And so they're waiting on Moses to come down
from the place of thunder, right? The mountain
Sinai. And they're like, this is taking too long.
Aaron, why don't you listen to us and let's thank
a God of gold. They're saying, I don't think
this God's gonna provide for us. His timing is
not what we desire, what we thought it would
be. And so let's do each other and make a different
plan. And they reject God. They reject his worship.
They reject his timing. Of course, there's all
kinds of times when we think we know better than
God. If you only would do this at this time.
There's times where we think, oh man, we had
it so much better back then. But the concern
of this passage is not that they don't just know
the story and they haven't received God's word,
but that they really aren't listening. Instead,
they're listening to their bodies, or they listen
to their neighbors, or they're listening to that
which is not the Lord. So, verse 11, but my people
did not listen to my voice. Verse 13, oh, that
my people would listen to me. Verse eight again,
hear, O my people, while I admonish you, O Israel,
if you would but listen to me. So here's the
concern, they won't listen. I mean, it's this
act of gathering together, of recounting the
deeds of God, of hearing His word, but they're
just going through the motions. Here, I mean,
they know this stuff, but they're not really
listening. And how common is that for us? I mean,
how common is that in the life of the church?
Yeah, I know that. I know that story. I've heard
that story so many times. One thing, again, that
was mentioned this week in our staff meeting
is how often the Bible tells the same story itself
again. How I brought you out from slavery to
myself. They're hard at hearing. And they're
hard at hearing because they lack faith, because
listening is an act of faith. Listening is an
act of saying, I might not know it all. I might
need someone outside of me to direct me, to teach
me, to train me. To not listen is to say, I know
best. I can do it. They wouldn't listen to God.
Here, okay, this is one of the meditation quotes
inside of your bulletin, but hear this quote
from Henry Nowen from his book, Bread for the
Journey. To listen is very hard because it asks
of us so much interior stability that we no longer
need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments,
statements, declarations. True listeners no longer
have an inner need to make their presence known.
They're free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
Listening is much more than allowing another
to talk while waiting for a chance to respond.
I've done that plenty of times as I'm sure you
have. Listening is paying full attention to others
and welcoming them into our very being. The beauty
of listening is that those who are listened to
start feeling accepted, start taking their words
more seriously and discover their own true selves.
Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality
by which you invite strangers become friends
to get to know their inner selves more fully
and even to dare to be silent with you. And this
past is saying that the Lord Himself is saying,
would you listen to me? Would you listen as an
act of faith? Not having to be defensive. What
are all the other things? Not having to think
through your own arguments or your statements,
your own declarations, but listen to me. So there's
this confession, right? About what God's done.
It's great acts of salvation. There's this confession
about His word and how we need direction from
it. And then there's this concern because people
are like, We don't really want to listen. That's
the pattern. We don't really care to listen.
Now the song begins with a call. So we're going
to end at the beginning. Okay. So sing aloud
to God our strength. Shout for joy to the God
of Jacob. So let me get back to Sukkot. Feast
of booze. One practice of observant Jews is to
take three different branches, often to bind
them together, and then to take a fruit. Normally
it's a citron, like a large sweet lemon, when
you go into the booth to celebrate it. It's part
of celebrating the Feast of Booths. And actually,
if you heard, this is mentioned really specifically
in Leviticus 23. I read it earlier, but it said
this in verse 40. the fruit of splendid trees,
branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees,
and willows of the brook. So there's like three
different branches. There are specific ones and
then a fruit. Okay. And the names that Jews give
these things are the lulav, the hadas, the areva,
and the etrog. So here's something that I read
that was really interesting is that all of these
different species are There's no one place in
Israel where all of these species can be found.
The etrog comes from the plains, the lulav near
the springs in the valley, the chadas in the
mountains, the areva near the wadis and the major
rivers. So to worship this would mean that all
of God's people from all of these different corners
had to come together. They had to come together
to feast. to celebrate, to sing. And when they
came together, they were making a collective
statement. Here's one thing I read. Because there's
different thoughts about what's going on with
these branches. I mean, there's different thoughts
historically in terms of commentaries and also
even just different thoughts now that I found.
But this is one thing I found. The lulav has
taste but no smell. So you can study the word,
meaning you can kind of know it a little bit,
but you don't live it, right? The haras has some
smell, but no taste, which is to say you live
part of it, but you don't really know it. The
hadas has no smell and no taste. And so you can
not know it and not live it just like it, just
reject all of it completely. And then the etroch,
which is the fruit, has both taste and smell.
And there's an invitation in all this, right?
In that symbolism, there's this invitation. What
are you going to be? Are you going to know it
and live it? Are you going to know the story
of salvation and delight in the direction of
God's Word? Are you going to hold them together
as something lovely and tasty? And this is how
this song begins. Let me read verse one again.
Which is to say that this confession and this
concern, sort of the answer in a way to whether
or not you've really heard is, do you worship?
Do you desire to sing? Are any of you wondering?
And the answer is yes. Are there more tambourines
up here to shake? I actually mean that because
what do we do when our team wins the game? We
don't sit still. We celebrate. And if you know
God's great acts of salvation, if you know His
word for you, you can either reject it or you
can come to the feast. Those are the options.
Reject the idea that He will actually provide
for you the midst of uncertainty or show up and
sing loud. It's a call to worship. This is a
psalm for a feast. And the question was, will
you feast? Will you celebrate what God has done?
Will you come to worship? Will you come to declare
the God who meets us in our need, who saves us
from our slavery? And think about this. This
was a call to the people of Israel, right, who
had been brought out from slavery in Egypt. But
how much more is this a call to us? who confess
that God Himself takes on flesh for us. God Himself
goes to a cross for us. He pays for our sins
for us. He gives us His righteousness, as we
heard from 2 Corinthians 5, right? You might
become the very righteousness of God. If you
know that, frankly, actually let me say, a test
of whether or not you know that is will you feast?
Will you sing? Do you find worship to be life
in the midst of a dry land? joy that can exist
in the midst of uncertainty and of sorrow. How
do you face the fact of uncertainty? That's part
of the question of this. And the invitation is
to this God who does act for His people, who
does speak to His people. And the invitation
is, come and worship the Lord. Sukkot was a test
for the people of God, and worship in a way is
a test for us. We lay aside the uncertainties,
lay them at the foot of the cross, and trust
that if God gave us His very Son, how much more
will He not give us all things necessary for
life and for faith? And so right now, I just
want to say, if you are living in the mess, the
busyness, the craziness, the uncertainty of life,
which I'm sure many of you are, come and worship.
Come and feast. When you do so, do not give up
the habit. Go to the feast. I think our Lord
Himself does this in John chapter 7. He's like,
ah, they might find out who I am and get all
mad. And so he gets all disguised and he still
goes to the feast to declare what God has done,
to hear the words, to celebrate. Those sisters,
I think this is the great answer to our uncertainty,
living into the life of God, living into the
story of God, hearing the words of God and celebrating.
Let me pray. Lord, I pray that we would learn
how to at a table in a way as you Lord God have
done as we read Psalm 23 in the presence of our
enemies in the midst uncertainty and the chaos
of life that would be those who are able to still
celebrate what you have done to take time and
remember and and to listen to find life in the
midst of chaos. God, I pray that you would be
at work in us, that you give us listening ears,
not just hearing, but really listening to you,
learning from you, being reminded of your great
acts for us, and that you transform us through
this, we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening
to Second City Sermons podcast. We hope this
sermon has encouraged you to worship God and
to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please consider
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God bless.