Celebration as Witness
5 min read
40 Moses told the Israelites all that the LORD commanded him.
Numbers 29:40
And “all that the LORD commanded” Moses was for the people of God to celebrate the goodness and mercy of God. Because as King David wrote:
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
— Psalm 23:6, ESV
And yet, even our celebration is witness. And the nature of that witness of celebration makes all the difference in the world. That is, our celebration can be a positive witness or a negative witness.
Our celebration of the Lord is a negative witness when the work of celebration becomes more important than the reason for celebration. Because celebration does take work.
When the work of celebration becomes more important to us than the reason for celebration, we can lose sight of the goodness and mercy of God. And when we lose sight of God, we focus on ourselves, especially me-myself-and-i. Then, the work of celebration can become drudgery, not joy.
The celebration that the LORD commanded Moses was daily, weekly, monthly, and several times annually. In the seventh month, the celebrations were on the first day, tenth day, and the fifteenth day. Then, they celebrated for seven days, and then they celebrated again for one more day.
That’s a lot of work. And yet, the key command that the LORD gave was to “do no regular work” on the Sabbaths. Regular work may be drudgery, but celebratory work should be joyful.
And to remind the Israelites why they were celebrating, the LORD commanded “Include one male goat as a sin offering” (verses 5, 11, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34).
Every day, we are faced with the onslaught of spiritual enemies trying to draw us and our loved ones away from the Lord. Every day, we are faced with the onslaught of the devil’s lies and schemes so that we lose sight of God’s sovereign grace, mercy, and power. Every day we are faced with the temptation to be a negative witness even with the good things that the Lord has given us to remember His love, mercy, and grace.
Worship is warfare. True worship is witness that points to Jesus Christ and everything He has done to reconcile us to God.
Father, I pray that out of Your glorious riches, You may fill us with power through Your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And I pray that we, being rooted and establish in love, may have power, in unity with all the saints here, to grasp how high and long and wide and deep is the love of Christ—and to know that love that surpasses knowledge. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
