The Shadow of the Almighty

[00:00:00] Narcissist question of the community. [00:00:21] How many of you have had the pleasure of studying some of the legal writings on the appropriate dimensions of the baptismal in the Baptist church? Has anybody had the pleasure of digging into length, the length, the width of the baptismal, the height, what material, how much water should be in the baptismal? Who has studied these things and the artwork behind it. What? And the artwork behind it. Artwork behind it. All right, so you haven't done the baptismal. How about the Episcopal Church legal writings and conversations about the height of the steeple and how high the cross must extend above the top of the steeple, how wide the arms of the cross can be, what material the cross must be made of? Who has studied it? [00:01:24] What do you guys do with your time? [00:01:29] Not that I mean, man, seriously, I expected, like, a pretty oh, I know why you haven't done it. I know why. [00:01:44] Because I don't think it exists. [00:01:48] There's no such set of writings until you showed up in Judaism and came to the synagogue and started learning about things like how high can the walls of your Sukkah actually be? [00:02:09] See, we do those things and have been doing them for a long, long time. We're still doing them, talking about how low is too low? How low can you go? How high? What must the roof be constructed of? How small of a Sukkah is too small? [00:02:31] Judaism is unique in this area. And let me just give you an example to really I want to set the excitement tone in here for you guys. This is from Mishnah. This is way back. This is material that was certainly not written down, but I can't say certainly very likely existent and being discussed during the days of Messiah and before Mishnah. There's a tractate that's called Sukha. And here's how it starts. [00:03:07] A Sukha I e its roofing, which is the main and most crucial element of the mitzvah. A Sukha with a roof that is more than 20 cubits high is unfit. [00:03:21] What do you think? [00:03:23] Exciting, right? [00:03:25] Who knows how high 20 cubits is? [00:03:30] Roughly? It could be 30, 40ft something, 40 foot sucka walls. That's too high. Don't do that. And then the question is asked when you get to the Talmud, it says, but from where do we derive these matters? How do we know these things? And then it gets really good, because now you get three rabbis weighing in. Rabba. Rava. And one more. And here's what they say. How do we know this? Well, Rabba says it's derived, as the verse states, so that your future generations will know that I caused the children of Israel to reside in Sukot when I took them out of Egypt. [00:04:09] Do you understand how he derived that from that? So that your children will know? [00:04:15] Here's the deal. What he says. If the walls are 40ft tall, when you look around you feel like you're inside a building. Your eyes may never make it all the way up to 40ft to see the roof, which is the most important part. You can't do that. Actually, you can. Someone comes back and tells him why he's wrong and he says, that okay, but that's one opinion. [00:04:40] Then. [00:04:44] That was raba. Rabba. Then Rava comes along and no in Sukkot shall you reside seven days. [00:04:54] For seven days, emerge from the permanent residence in which you reside and then reside in a temporary residence called a sukha. Do you understand how he derived that conclusion? That you can't have 40 foot walls from that. [00:05:11] If you're building a structure with 40 foot walls, that can't be considered temporary because you have to build permanent foundational structures to support walls that are that high. That's his justification. Makes sense, right? It's a good no, that's not it. Rabbi Zara comes along and he says this and this is my favorite. And there shall be a sukkah for shade in the daytime from the heat and for refuge and cover, from storm and rain. [00:05:50] Do you understand it? [00:05:55] If you understand it, come up and give the explanation. [00:06:02] Here's the problem. [00:06:05] The roof of the suka is the most important part. It's the mitzvah. If you have 30 or 40 foot walls surrounding you in a Sukha, guess where the shade is coming from? [00:06:20] The walls, not the roof. Therefore, the sukkah is unfit. [00:06:30] Shabbat. Shalom. [00:06:33] Let's stand up. [00:06:36] Sometimes I wish listen, who would want to study that? I mean, we can keep going because there are counterarguments. The guys are questioned on their opinion and they say, oh, well, no, but that not and it's incredible. Wouldn't you love to study that for hours upon hours? [00:07:00] Some of you would because you're weird. [00:07:04] No, this is just what we do. We study these things. But listen, here's the thing that I want you to take away from this. Judaism is unique. It's funny. It's even weird. We talked about it last week. The four species that represent your body and waving your palm fronds and your Etrog heart. And people walking in and saying, what are they doing in here? [00:07:31] We do funny things. But in this uniqueness is a beautiful way of seeing life in the commandments of God. The festivals, their observances, these kinds of things. And the little things like those three points, the little things that seem minuscule in importance can actually teach you lessons about your life and living the best version of it. [00:07:58] And I want to show you that today. [00:08:03] But each of those rabbis based their opinion on what? Where did they derive these opinions? [00:08:11] From a verse of scripture. They read the Bible. They thought through it, and here's what they thought. How do we make sure that God is pleased as we celebrate sukkot and that man is experiencing the full joy of the festival? How do we do that? We talk about it, and we write it down and we discuss it, and we make rules to make sure and interestingly. And amazingly, from all these rules, you derive cool and beautiful things. So weird, so awesome. [00:08:44] And I'll share that with you today. But speaking of today, it's another sort of odd holiday. It's called, as I've mentioned several times, Shmini. Atzerat the 8th day, the retention day, we stay behind one more day. It's Sukkot. No, it's not sukkot. It's the 8th day, but it's not Sukkot. And we can go and be in the Sukkah, but we don't say any Sukkot blessings. And it's sort of an OD thing. But guess what? It's in the Bible, and God said, do it. And he thinks it's a great thing to do. I'll tell you a little bit about why I've taught on that before, but I want to piece some things together as weird as arguments over about your Sukkah walls and send you out of here with a fantastic, amazing, awesome year of life ahead of you, but forewarning. You ready. [00:09:41] This is not deep teaching, and I know we have the extended Shalom Macon family here, and I should have spent hours upon hours finding some never before revealed mystery of God that would have you leave in awe, crawling out of the door under the glory of God that fell in the room. [00:10:07] But I didn't do that. [00:10:09] I'm just going to give you something that makes you feel good, because Andy Stanley and Joel Osteen and I are good friends. [00:10:23] I'm just kidding. I am in no place to judge either of those people. I just use them as a joke. God, if that was out of sorts, please forgive me. [00:10:32] But ultimately, here's what I want to do. I want to make sure that you're not building the walls of the Sukkah of your life too high. [00:10:41] Okay? And that's actually the point. [00:10:44] That's the point, to miss the message. [00:10:50] And so this will be my own addition to the Talmudic discussion of the walls. Judaism is about law. Halacha is the word. Cholech to walk it out, we have these laws. We write these things down, go in the library and read the Talmud. You'll be here for six weeks. We'd love it. You can sleep in there. The Talmud is huge. It's filled with laws and stories and incredible things. But Judaism is also about tradition and remembrance and memorial and experience and action. And so that thing that's still standing out there on the 8th day, the Sukkah, when you dwell, when you literally dwell in the thing, you're going to have shade from above. You're going to do it like your ancestors did. And in that process, that action, so that you properly get the most out of it, you're going to learn and grow, and even if it's not something you're used to doing, you're going to do it. That's a Jewish perspective. [00:11:51] I read this quote, people are at their best mentally tougher and spiritually sounder after experiencing many of the same discomforts our early ancestors were exposed to every day. [00:12:05] People are at their best. They're mentally tougher, spiritually sounder after experiencing many of the same discomforts our early ancestors were exposed to every day. Michael Easter said that that quote for Michael is likely talking about cavemen and primitive societies and hunter gatherers and hunters, people who didn't have electric cars and iPhones. He's talking about them as the ancestors, but it's a true statement. We learn from those who have come before us. You're supposed to. That's the way the system works. [00:12:40] That's why you stand in the presence of someone with gray hair. The Torah says, because they represent wisdom, you should be learning from them. And for us, we have a whole book, several books that are filled with lessons from the teachers who have gone before us, right? [00:13:03] We're supposed to learn lessons for them. From them. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Joshua, Moses, the children of Israel, the prophets, the good kings, the bad kings, the disciples. Yeshua, it's a long list, but the Bible teaches us lessons through their stories, and it also teaches us very important lessons through trials and tribulations that they go through families. Is every family in the Bible completely healthy? Not even close. Marriages? Not even close. Relationships? Not even close. Raising kids? Not even close. Living in a community? No. It's filled with lessons about how to do life better, building a community, loving God even when it's not going the way we want it to be. And you know what you do with those lessons? You become mentally tougher and spiritually sounder. That's what you're supposed to do. [00:14:00] Our life is full of trials, and I discuss it so many times. I'm not taking you down another one of those messages, but just let me say this. Every trial you have is not from the devil. A lot of them are from God. So that you will learn and grow. [00:14:17] That's the truth of it. It's actually part of Sukkot discomfort, uncertainty. [00:14:25] And, yes, I do know that Sukkot is over. I'll bring you around. Stick with me, okay? [00:14:32] So that your future generations will know that I caused the children of Israel to reside in Sukkot when I took them out of the land of Egypt. What does that mean? That means so that they will know that as a shelter in the wilderness, they were exposed and vulnerable in these shanties. But I was their cover. That's what it means, the roof. It's a tricky Hebrew word to say. [00:14:59] Yeah, practice that one while you're reading the entire Talmud. [00:15:03] But listen, so we build them, we eat in them. Some of us live in them. My wife's from Miami, Florida. I can't get her to sleep in the just. She's a city girl. [00:15:17] But we do things in there, right? So that we know these things. That's what they did. But the human tendency is, do we embrace trial? Do we say, yes, I love discomfort? No, of course we don't do that. We shy away from discomfort or hardship. And I'll phrase it this way. You ready for it. Tie in. We build high walls. [00:15:42] We build high walls to go it alone, to be our own protection and shade. [00:15:51] And that's the rabbi's message above. The shade in your Sukkah is from above. [00:15:57] Not the efforts that you put up and try to take his place. [00:16:04] And we do it. And we do it out of a fear, sometimes of discomfort. We construct a life that we feel no one can break into. Because I'm protected. I've done everything I can do. Look at these 40 foot walls. [00:16:19] I did it my way. No, thanks, God. Don't need your cover. And here's the lesson. You ready for it. I said this wasn't deep, but here comes the deep part. You ready? Do that. It'll never work. [00:16:32] It will not work. [00:16:37] That is at least one of the many messages we get from the holiday we just celebrated. Let God be the covering. God's got it. Okay. We experienced something during the holidays. I hope you did. I heard many, many great reports this year from the holidays. Yom Kippur we started at the Repentance Road and we walked it. We went up the mountain, and we were up there for the High Holidays, right? People had emotional experiences. The people proper emotional experiences where they changed and new things emerged in their lives and new patterns and ways to walk. It was super powerful. The mountaintop of the high holidays. [00:17:18] We did that and then Sukote. And you know what? Sukote is down the mountain. And I love it. I love it. I love down the mountain, back into the world. Okay? You had this fun, great experience up here. We did it. High Holidays. Yom Kippur we broke the fast and then down, but not so fast. Stop right down here. [00:17:44] Build this funny looking thing with a crazy roof on it and hang out there for seven days. [00:17:51] It's called the embrace of Hashem, the Sukkah. [00:17:57] We're going to simple shanty. And here's the application. [00:18:02] In a sense, what the sages are saying to you is make sure that your Sukkah is not too comfortable, not too permanent, not too planned out. It's supposed to be temporary. It's supposed to be makeshift. To derive the proper benefit. Make sure of one thing. Make sure that your covering is there and it's done properly. [00:18:24] That's the mitzvah. One of many. [00:18:31] You don't have the opportunity to build these 40 foot walls, but to look up and know that God's got it and maybe, you know what? I'm not on the mountaintop anymore. I'm certainly more exposed out here to the world's trials. But God's got it. And even when you see through the holy roof W-H-O-L-Y you get it. [00:18:55] Holy. Not that, the other holy. The roof. Has, like, sort of holes in it on purpose. For what reason? [00:19:06] You need to be able to see the sky. You need to be able to see God's incredible creation above you in the sukkah, in this place of temporary dwelling. You need to be able to see up and see out. And what's so interesting about that is that's sort of the way I see God in my life, and maybe you do in yours. [00:19:29] That roof doesn't even keep the rain out. You know it. [00:19:34] But God doesn't shield us from all discomfort and adversity. That's not the way that works. [00:19:43] But I look up and I see the world through God, through the lens of God, like the roof of the sukkah. And when I see that, I see that in this unique roof down here, we have challenges. Rain, storms. But I look up, I see the beauty of the world through him. He's the roof over my head. Divine protection. Not constructed walls. The things I've built around me that all diminishes the ability to just look up and see. [00:20:14] And that lesson of discomfort I don't have everything I want. You don't either. But you build these relatively short walls around you. They must be people try desperately to protect themselves, as I said, from every adversity, to build these high walls, to dwell in the sukha of their life with 40 foot walls, no injury, no hurt, no discomfort. To do it themselves, build a permanent structure. And guess what? I already told you you can't do it. [00:20:42] You can't do it. You can't be protected from every bad thing that happens in the world. But I agree with Michael Esther. [00:20:49] We get tougher, mentally tougher spiritually sounder. After experiencing some of the same discomforts our early ancestors were exposed to, our biblical heroes were exposed to many, many trials and temptations and problems and holy roofs and no water in the desert and across. [00:21:10] Those biblical heroes didn't try to do it themselves, even. Yeshua, God is your protection, not your 2020 cubit walls. So here's the thing. Sukot is over. [00:21:23] It's time to leave the sukha. [00:21:27] It's time to leave. But here's something really cool that I love. Remember Shabbat Shuva? You know what Shabbat Shuva is? That was the shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, right? And we read Hosea 14, and it's called Shabbat Shuva because Shuva means to return. And Hosea 14 says, return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you've stumbled because of your wrongdoing. Take words with you. Return to the Lord and say to him, take away all guilt. Receive us graciously so that we may present the fruit of our lips. And that's what we did. [00:22:01] From Elul to Rosh Hashanah to Yoshabat Shuvad to Yom Kippur. That's what we did. We did the confession. We did all that. We changed. We got better. We returned. He received us graciously. But I love how hosea 14 ends. [00:22:18] It starts with return to me. [00:22:22] And then he says I will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely because my anger has turned away from them. I'll be like dew to Israel, blossom to the lily. Like the lily. He will take root like the cedars of Lebanon. His shoots will sprout. Majesty will be like the olive tree. His fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon. Those who live in his shadow is how Hosea ends. Return to me. [00:22:50] I've given you a blessing. [00:22:53] Dwell in my shadow and you will be blessed. [00:22:57] It's beautiful, but you see, you got to appreciate the shadow. You got to appreciate the shade of the Sukkah. And you got to know it's going out with you. That prophecy is to Israel, but it's beautiful for us. We thrive not in the shelter of our created walls or their shade, but the shade above us. Psalms 17 2657-639-1121 all talk about the shade and shelter of the Most High God. [00:23:26] It's a thing they really mean it dwell in the shelter and shade of the Most High God. [00:23:38] The roof matters. It's the shade. It's the same shade that guarded our ancestors, our heroes, and their struggles. And that's the message we're taking forward. We've done that. We've done that. We dwelled in the shade. We celebrated sukot. Now we got to move further down the mountain because you can't stay on the mountain of the holidays. So we moved to Sukot, who enjoyed Sukot. [00:24:00] Excellent. Bad news. It's over. Got to go further down now. Got to step out of the embrace of God. But not so fast. [00:24:09] Got this 8th day thing I want to do with you. Not me, him. [00:24:15] Just one more hangout, one more transition from the mountain. High Holidays sukkah shminiyatzerat on the cusp of going fully back out into the world. But I want you to stay behind with me for one more day. Dwell with intensity in the shade and shadow of your God. [00:24:37] That's Shmini atzerit. That's what we do. [00:24:42] It's beautiful. If you see it, you got to put it in the big picture and you know, you'll go out and you'll get busy again. But there's one last final step. [00:24:57] High holidays. Sukkot Shmini atzerit and tonight or tomorrow, depending on your custom, what do we do? [00:25:10] We reroll it. We roll it back. We start over. And what do we do? We learn again from our ancestors, from a fresh and breathing book that will teach you new things in the upcoming year about how to best dwell in the shade and shelter of the Most High God. What do we celebrate tonight? Well, first of all, we do something really weird again. We're going to take all the scrolls out. We're going to dance and sing and wave flags and probably have some intoxicating liquor. That's a thing that happens at Simchat Torah. If it offends you, don't worry about it. [00:25:47] It's a thing. But that's really weird, isn't it? What are we celebrating. We take these out, we run around. Hey, God gave us a book that gives us commandments to tell us things to do. Yeah. [00:26:08] No, we're celebrating that. God's got it. Always had it, taught it to our ancestors. We learn it, and God willing, we teach it to our descendants. [00:26:22] That's the journey, and it's time to go. [00:26:31] God's got it. He's the shelter and shade. I play that Stephen Curtis song because I love what it says. It's the perfect thing. [00:26:42] You bring me up here on the mountain for me to rest and learn and grow. I see the truth up on the mountain and I carry it to the world far below. So as I go down to the valley knowing that you'll go with me this is my prayer. Lord, help me to remember what you've shown me up on the mountain. [00:26:59] It's awesome. [00:27:01] He finishes up with this last verse. I cherish these times on the mountain, but I can leave this place because I know someday you'll take me home to live forever up on the mountain. Now that part, if he's talking about the messianic age, that's true. That's true. It's sort of true if Stephen's seeing it from that way. Because how do we know that we're going to live forever on the mountain? Isaiah two. It will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it. And many people will come and say, come, let's go up to the mountain of the Lord. Come, let's go up to the mountain. I told you there was a purpose to the house of the God of Jacob, so that he may teach us his ways, his ways that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah. That's what we're celebrating tonight when we get to Simchat Torah. But until that time, we have our holidays, we have our festivals, we have our remembrances, our memorials, we have our Sukot High Holidays Shmini at Sarah, 21 days a year on the mountain. [00:28:20] 22 maybe from the beginning of Rosh Hashanah till Simchat Torah. And I hope that there are many more mountaintop experiences for you this year. I hope your life is filled with them. But you know what? That's also not usually how life goes, is it? This is more an appropriate life curve, right? [00:28:41] April townsley made me a little beautiful piece of custom art, and it has mountains on it, and that's what they do. They go like this. It's the graph of life. You know what it says underneath it? Every descent is for the sake of a future ascent. [00:29:01] Okay, so we got to go down. We go down. It doesn't mean into some dark and depressing valley, but it's the valley nevertheless. It's somewhere else than where we've been, and it's where we need to be. [00:29:15] Most of your life will be spent down there knowing, though, living, loving and leading. Knowing that God's got it. He's the proper shade and shelter of the generations before. So here's the deal. You got work to do now. You're celebrated, you're rested, you're refreshed. Tonight you'll go home having rolled the scroll back and have that new beret sheet. The first Torah portion is coming next weekend. [00:29:43] You're ready, you got a full tank. You're going to walk out of the Sukkah. You came down the mountain, out of the Sukkah, through the Shminiat Serat Simcha Torah, into the world. Knowing this one thing, one who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will lodge in the shadow of the Almighty. [00:30:05] I will say to the Lord my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. [00:30:13] But for now, one more CHAG Samayach and Shabbat shalom.