Leviticus 25:23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
When my wife and I were first married, the first and most expensive thing we purchased was not actually something we purchased. We rented it. It was a rental car. We spent a week in Colorado without spending too much money. We were able to eat inexpensively. So, because I was 22 years old and insurance being what it is, the rental car was the most expensive item of our week out west.
If you have ever driven a rental car, you know that most people do not treat a rental car nearly as well as they treat their own car. They think, “Hey, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t belong to me. I don’t own it. No one really owns this car.” Just as in life, how you treat what you have depends upon who you believe to own it. That is true today, and it was certainly true in the time of the Exodus.
Leviticus 25 talks about things from the premise of God’s ownership of us and ours. Verse 23 says, “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.” The context of Leviticus 25 is the sabbatical year and the Year of Jubilee. The Bible says of the Year of Jubilee, “ye shall hallow the fiftieth year.” Then it says, “Ye shall not sow, neither reap that which growth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.” It was a year of rest.
Two things are important in this chapter about the Year of Jubilee. The first is that God says, “The land is mine.” So, they were told in Leviticus 25:23, “The land is not to be sold.” Why? It was because the land was God’s.
When I was a kid, we would sometimes trade with the neighbor kids. I would trade a matchbox car for maybe a football card or something, and one of the governing rules of our trading on the Ranch was that you could not trade away something given to you by your grandparents. There was a sense of obligation when something had been given to us by someone special. In life, God is saying, “This land which I have given you is not to be sold. It is mine.”
A second highlight that speaks to the ownership of God is about a brother who becomes poor and might be sold into being a servant. Verses 38,39, and 42 say, “Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant; but as an hired servant… for they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.”
Earlier God reminds them, “I am your God. I brought you out of Egypt. You knew what it was to be in bondage. You knew what it was to be poor and trodden under foot. I am giving you this land as a stewardship. Don’t oppress others.”
In short, God says, “The land is mine and these people are mine.” When we acknowledge God’s claim on our life, it gives us a sense of gratitude and a sense of responsibility. There is a sense of gratitude for God’s generosity and a sense of responsibility in that all we have is a stewardship.
So, how do you treat the things in your hand today? The answer is that how you treat what you have depends on who you believe to own it. All of us should remember that God is the One who owns us.