Plough Sunday All-Age Talk Outline

Please look away now if you are planning to come to church at Saint John The Evangelist, Bodle Street Green on the Lord's Day.

What do we need to do if we want to get a harvest from the land?

[make a list on flip chart]

The Sabbath of the land (Leviticus 25)

OT reading: Leviticus 25:1-7, 18-22

NT reading: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, 18-22

The Sabbath of the land is wisdom

It improves the land

It provides for the needy and for wild animals (Exodus 23:10-11)

But it looks like utter foolishness

How would they eat?

Keeping the Sabbath of the Land was an act of obedience to the Lord.

It reminded the people of God’s authority and right to command. The land (and everything else) belongs to him and it is his to do with it as he wills.

It required ancient Israel to live by faith not by sight, to depend on the promise of God

It required God’s people to depend on his gracious blessing and not on their works

It reminded them of their utter dependence on God every moment of every year

It reminds us that getting as much as we can how ever we can is not the name of the game

The Sabbath of the land reminds us of the rest we all need

And pictures our ultimate Sabbath rest in the New Creation