Worship: an example of eternity

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  What is your Sabbath like? We have been going through this Sabbath series for three weeks. This is our last one together, and we hope that even though this is the end of a series, this is certainly not the end of our Sabbath practice, but what has it been like for you? For most Western Christians in the modern world, the Sabbath looks a little bit like staying up late on a Saturday night binging.

If you’re anything like me binging the office lately, or maybe you try to watch a romcom with your spouse, maybe you spent the day or that night overeating and possibly over drinking. And so what you do is you wake up Sunday morning completely exhausted. Now, if you have children, you are rushing them to get out so you can get to church on time, and that’s if you even go to church at all.

More and more it’s common for Christians to not really see the necessity of a gathering. Certainly not gathering each and every week. But if you go to church, maybe right after you go to lunch, you go out and get some shopping done. You come home and maybe you watch the big game, or you go around and you do housekeeping.

You make sure all your emails are read, you’re prepped for Monday and you get your yard cleaned. And then maybe you sit down to end Sunday. You watch another movie or you continue your TV series and then you go to bed and with as much gentleness as I can, let me just clarify that. That is not. Sabbath.

In fact, Eugene Peterson in a Christianity Today article labeled that kind of Sabbath, a quote, bastard Sabbath. To put it nicely, it’s more of just a secular spin, emphasizing rest and having a day off to get all the other things you needed to get done. But it’s not a day set apart to the Lord. And I don’t wanna discourage you.

As we’ve been going through this Sabbath series, I’ve been so encouraged by you talking about your feedback, how you’ve been trying, how you’ve been failing. At Sabbath and there’s so much grace every step of the way. I wanna make sure we know there are baby steps to this, and for some of us, a huge version of success is just that we stopped working, let alone doing all the other things Sabbath requires.

But here’s what I want to warn us with.   📍 Without intentionality, community and the grace of God, we will always veer towards a lesser version of Sabbath.  And I think a reason of that is because rest is so foreign to us, we don’t know how to rest to reference session two of this series. We don’t.

We’re so used to Pharaoh telling us to do more. And so a victory is that you did lay on the couch and you watched TV all day. But I do want to assure you that is also still. Not what God has ultimately designed for your life on this seventh day rhythm of resting unto the Lord.

Neil Postman, he wrote this book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, and it’s really a scathing critique on Western culture, but more specifically Western media. It’s pretty fascinating. So in it, he argues he, he passed away 20 years ago. So I imagine his argument would he be even more robust today?

But he talks about the medium of television and with its focus on entertainment and especially superficiality, what it has done. Because we so constantly consume television, it has altered our. To think critically and to engage in serious debate and dialogue. And so he suggests that we are so enamored with amusement and distraction, that we have lost the capacity to engage in meaningful conversations and really think through important issues.

Now, what’s helpful here? So Postman’s main critique is how entertainment has warped our discourse. But I would also argue it has also very much warped our delight. How we view rest. It has really formed us into spectators, and as a result, things like laziness and rest are now synonymous. Which is not good for our soul and completely not in the biblical text.

Things like escapism is now synonymous with things like relaxation. And so we think in our natural thought, as I have been trying to introduce to some of you for the first time, others of you to remind you what Sabbath is. I think when we hear that God is inviting us to rest, we assume God is promising us instant gratification and easy escap.

and that’s simply not the case. And let me encourage you, if that’s what it’s been so far, we have intentionally been like holding back on what Sabbath is. We’ve just been sharing little by little cuz we really think it’s a bunch of baby steps that get to a better vision of what Sabbath is like for your life.

But I wanna point that out. So the last couple weeks we’ve really focused on resisting Pharaoh, really resisting this idea against being overproductive and working as your God. But I think something else we need to make sure we don’t fall into is another sort of resistance that’s even more stealthy.

And lemme put it this way,

  📍 If we overcome the obstacle of being too productive on the Sabbath,

we will soon find the opposite struggle to be just as menacing: being too passive on the Sabbath.

 And it’s been so fun cuz in our together groups I’ve even heard like you kind of transition from being too productive to being too passive.

And I think we feel this within us, is this really rest. And again, I would say I think this is a part of our journey, but today really pulls it all together and I think shows a better, more beautiful vision of what Sabbath should look like. So week one again was stop. So we talked about how it stopped day.

So it’s important to really create a Sabbath. Based on an actual time of day or else if it’s based off a checklist, you’ll never actually start Sabbath, cuz you’ll never stop those other things. Week two, we talked about rest, so go back to that message on formed by jesus.com. But essentially, We need to become a people at rest so that we can become a people of love.

And so resting our minds if we’ve used that all week or resting our bodies, there’s different practices we can engage in to begin to rest ourselves so we can open ourselves up to the grace of God. And last week was about delight. And quickly, it was just essentially we need to on Sabbath day delight in God, which is what we’re talking about more today, delighting in others, delighting in creation, and then also ourselves.

And so we really hope that you practice day inu at dinner this week. And if not, Participate in that in Sabbath. This upcoming Sabbath, whichever day that is for you. But number four. So it’s stop, rest, delight. Today’s about worship and worship, I believe is what brings all of it together and makes it a holy day.

So turn your Bibles if you have ’em, or you can just listen to it. As I mention it here online Genesis chapter two, this is the grounding text for us. It’s the first time we see the word Shabbat, which means literally to stop and rest. And that’s the verb form. And the noun is Sabbath. And so Genesis two, ch Genesis chapter two, verse one, it says, so the heavens in the earth and everything in them were completed.

On the seventh day, God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. Verse three is what I wanna focus on today. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy for on it. He rested from all his work of creation. Now notice two things in verse three, number one.

God blessed the seventh day. This word blessed can also be translated as to make happy. So I want us to remember last week, this is supposed to be a day of delight. To quote Matthew Slee in his book, 24 6 Sabbath is a Day That’s life. Giving not life draining. So he blesses this day, but the second thing to notice is he declares it holy.

Or your translation may say, made it holy. Now, when we think of holy, I think we all right away, and this is not bad, we think of a moral quality, right? We think of somebody who lives a holy life. We tend to think of a lot of the things that they don’t do right? This guy is holy. He doesn’t participate in the world the way that you and I maybe would be tempted to participate or whatever.

Now, that’s a perfectly good translation of holy, but that Hebrew word kadesh also can be translated specifically as quote, set aside for God’s special purpose. So you can live a holy life where your, all of your actions are set aside for God’s special purpose. But you can also have a holy plate where it’s you’re fine China, where on Sabbath, this we bring out the good plates and we just show we are signifying.

This day is different because this day is set apart for the Lord, right? So you’re have a holy life, like a moral sense to it, but also like holy time where it’s just set apart specifically for God and for his. , right? So notice God is the one who made the seventh day holy. He’s the one who set it. And so what’s helpful for us to know is if he made that day holy, which again, we’ve talked about

the

other ancient nere gods of this time would actually not bless time.

They would bless space. So it would be like declaring a mountain as holy or a temple. But what’s amazing about our God, the only God, the God of the Bible is he makes time holy so we can access him wherever we are, and he’s the God of the cosmos. I’ll stop nerding out now. God made it. So you and I don’t make it holy, but on the Sabbath, Exodus 20 verse A says, you and I, what we do is we keep the Sabbath holy, right?

We remember it. So this is what I wanna look at today. This idea of worship on the Sabbath is to keep it a holy day

  📍 to set aside 24 hours for God’s special purposes, making it all about Jesus.

 Now, the reality is we can sabbath, we can look like we’re doing all the right things, and yet we can dishonor that day.

We can desecrate that day because instead we’re making it about ourselves. And so the question we have to ask ourselves in Sabbath, especially as you really lean into this practice, okay, you just Sabbath. You may have been resting, but have you been worship? Sabbath is not. It is a bastard Sabbath if you’re using it just to rest and not to worship.

So turn with me to Isaiah. Isaiah. Chapter 58 is another really helpful passage for us. Now, Isaiah, as you’re churning there is written in two sections. The first 39 chapters are all about judgment and repentance, right? Isaiah is calling them to change their ways because of their stubborn heart.

Now, the last 27 chapters 40 through 66, are a lot more about comfort and restoration, and a beautiful vision of what’s to come because of the Messiah. Now, This is actually just fun. I know chapters are manmade, but the first 39 chapters represent judgment and repentance. What’s great about that is there’s 39 books in the Old Testament, and then 40 through 66, there’s 27 books in the new, and it’s all about, okay, finally introducing this Jesus, this Messiah, and so I just think that’s fun.

That’s for free. Now, Isaiah, especially in this last section, Does three things really beautifully. As an author inspired by God, number one, I think he really provides imagery of God. That’s personal, but it’s also really powerful. So think of like Isaiah 53. You see this theme of Jesus being the suffering servant.

You and I, when we would think of God coming to save the day, we wouldn’t think of a servant. We think of a master, right? Which he is a master, but he’s also a servant. We. . There’s a lot to unpack there, but talk to me if you want me to explain that more, but also suffering or you’d think he’d come and just conquer.

Wipe everybody out who’s evil. But instead he shows power by laying his life down. Totally a total paradox in which we see fully complete in Jesus. Isaiah sees this so many, hundreds of years before Jesus comes onto the scene. But one more imagery of that Isaiah uses of God that I think is really helpful.

Is the potter and the clay. And I think we have to think of this on Sabbath day, right? Okay, God, you are the potter and I am the clay, which means as the clay, you can mold me however you’d like. You’re in charge and I am not. And so on Sabbath day, it is a declaration God. You are sovereign, you are in control.

You are God, you are creator, and I am not. Now, the second thing Isaiah does throughout those last 27 chapters that I think are just fun, he mocks and ridicules the idols, the other religions of that day. And especially chapters 44 through 46 are just pretty great. He just talks about just how foolish it is that some wood you use to heat up food, other wood you use, let’s say for furniture and then the last part of the wood, you just decide.

We’re using this wood and worshiping it as a God. So he shows how foolish. Every other, religion is, and I think that’s really helpful. And then chapter 46 is great of just about how your gods need people to hold them up in a parade. Our God holds the world up. It’s so good. Now the last thing Isaiah does, and we’ll get into this text, is he also points often back to Genesis and Exodus, which I think is helpful for us as we keep grounding our Sabbath series in Genesis and Exodus, because it is the, it is.

Foundation of how God is creating his people and the rhythms that he is setting forth. And so that was written with such intention and purpose and really it’s a callback look. Remember God’s original design and how are we called to go back to that? So Isaiah 58. I’m gonna cut. Gotta skip ahead to verse four cuz really our main text is verse 13 and following.

But what we’re gonna look at is God is showing us what fasting is and what fasting isn’t, and then he’ll transition to showing here’s what feasting or Sabbath is and what it isn’t. So verse four, you fast with contention and strife to strike viciously with your fist. You cannot fast as you do today, hoping to make your voice hurt on high will the fast I choose be like this?

Here’s what fasting really. A day for a person to deny himself to bow his head like a reed and to spread out sat cloth and ashes. Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Isn’t this the fast I choose? And here it is to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppress free and to tear off.

Yolk. He’s saying, Fasten a way that honors God and a huge way that you honor God is to honor others. Verse seven, is it not to share your bread with the hungry to bring the poor and homeless into your house? To clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood. See what God is doing here.

And I think it’s helpful for us to remember in the book of Isaiah, he’s calling out a group of people who practiced fasting and Sabbath, but did not participate in the worship that comes from fasting and the worship that comes from Sabbath, right? And so they’re using something for its wrong purpose. I think one way we put this on Sunday is

  📍 God’s people were using spiritual disciplines for their own gain and not for God’s glory.

 That’s the warning we have here in Isaiah 58. You think you’re fasting. Here’s what real fasting is, and has a whole lot more to do with lifting up God and serving others, not trying to further your own agenda. And I think we’re really tempted to do that with Sabbath.

Especially. I’ve been trying in this series to convince you that Sabbath is just. Good for you, right? There’s data out there that proves it makes you way more productive the other six days of the week. It improves our relationships just because if you’re a dad or a son or whatever, right? It gives you time with the people you love, and so your relationships will naturally get better.

And to be honest, it makes you feel better about yourself. It helps you get back to the rhythm of creation. All those things are true, but if that’s the only motivation, just to get ahead in life, just to improve your own. You have missed the point of Sabbath altogether, and that’s why we have to see here in this text and we’re about to really see it even more.

Sabbath is about worship. It’s about opening ourselves up to God to do what only he can do. Now, we are a church that talks a lot about spiritual disciplines, things like fasting and Sabbath, and I think this is a really helpful warning and encouragement from Ruth Haley Barton about what Sabbath should really do.

She says, quote,

”   📍 Like all spiritual disciplines, Sabbath keeping is a means of grace -a way of opening to the transforming work of God beyond anything we can accomplish for ourselves.”

 So the Sabbath isn’t the thing, it’s just a tool we use to get to God, which is the main thing, right? To worship and serve him and lift him up.

Okay, let’s look at verse 13. Verse 13. So now he is shifting from fasting to feasting, which those seem paradoxical, but they actually are very much joined together. To quote Marva, Don, we don’t know how to feast because we don’t know how to fast also with work and rest. Those two things seem opposite, but they go together.

Let’s look at verse 13. If you keep from desecrating the sab, So this is the opposite of keeping holy is to desecrate. How do we not keep it holy? How are we desecrating the Sabbath, the next line from doing whatever you want on my holy day? And so some of us. Our natural presupposition. Okay, this is a day to stop and rest.

And we start to think of all the, okay, good. I can say no to the pressures of the world and now I can say yes to the things that I’ve always wanted to do. Now hold up, that might not be the case. So this has always been a really hard concept for just us in general in the West and America because we love freedom, and I think we typically view freedom as.

So it’s like I follow God and because I’m forgiven, I can do whatever I want. , and that’s not the case at all. Coming to Christ. Actually, a huge part of repentance is saying to God, okay, God, the reason I’m where I’m at is because I kept doing whatever I wanted and it has, I am reaping the consequences.

I’m separated from you. I have damaged my relationships around me. I have hurt my own body from my own sin, right? So to be a follower of the way is to recognize the things I want. Like Paul in Roman seven. Those things are hurting. There’s something deeper I want, but I keep doing these superficial things that I want and they’re damaging my soul, right?

So on Sabbath, we have to keep fighting that as well. We can’t just do whatever we want in the Bible. Freedom from in the Spirit, right? The freedom of the Lord is not so much permission just to do whatever your flesh want. Instead, it’s power to do what the Spirit wants to do within. So it’s another way to say it is we have Sabbath so that we can access from God the power to not do what we want, and two, do what God wants.

Let me put it another another way. If you were to desecrate the Sabbath, what that is you use that day for 24 hours as permission to do whatever you want. Now, if you were to use Sabbath as a day of worship, You use those 24 hours, open yourselves up to God so that you are filled with his power to do whatever he wants.

Now, again, to bring back what we talked about in the beginning, what are the two things you and I want to do most on a day of rest? Like the whatever you want. I think one is to be overly productive. I think it’s very easy to worship the idle of efficiency. Let’s use Sabbath day to get. I think the second, even just as deadly as to be overly not productive, but to be overly passive.

It’s not the idol of efficiency, but it’s the idol of escapism. I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna binge, I’m just going to indulge. I am just going to just consume and that leads you just as exhausted as if you use those 24 hours to. So Sabbath is an invitation to keep it holy, to not fall into the idolatry of being overly productive, not falling into the idolatry of being overly passive.

It’s the freedom to say no to those things and yes to God and worship. So what I have found from my life specifically, how do I use the Sabbath day to not desecrate it, but to keep it holy and to make much of Jesus? I have found two things that have helped me the most when I think back on which Sabbath has was the most God honoring.

I did two things. One, I set aside time for silence and so for me, that’s in the version of a bike ride or a walk in my neighborhood. Or if I’m lucky, getting away and going to the mountains and just getting alone. This is time to process my life with God to talk out loud, but also just to listen.

And I think one of the primary ways that I seek to listen is to open my Bible and just simply to read. Every other day of the week, I’m pretty regimented on what I read and how much I read. But on Sabbath day, I just open the scriptures. I continue where I was the day before, but I have less of a.

There’s less of a rush. I’m really just allowing God. I think Robert Mahoen talks about using scripture not just as information, but formation. And so you’re not just bulldozing through a text, you’re taking it line by line saying, God, may I just enjoy these scriptures, but also hear from you. So silence and solitude, it’s really prayer and Bible.

If your Sabbath is not really consumed with those two things, I would argue there is a great possibility that you ne need to shift some things. But the second thing that I have found is just as important, silence and solitude, but also community and fellowship. And so for me, for a long time it was just my family.

We would just participate in Sabbath, I think. Big reason is we didn’t introduce it to our church community yet. And so we were figuring this out on our own. And it was fun. Like we would just do fun days with the family. As you guys know, Saturday morning breakfast was so special. That was the day, right?

Like for us the morning just to have music worship on in the background. And we are just enjoying our kids talking, having no agenda. And me and my wife just keep saying Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord for these gifts. Thank you, Lord. Wonder. Now we have actually shifted and we’re looking more and more to develop a Sabbath community.

So a handful of people that we Sabbath with each and every week. Is, that’s been huge. So last Sabbath, we had friends over and we did day inu at dinner. We had dinner, we enjoyed it, we lit the candle, and then we were sitting around our living room, which is small, but that’s okay. And we just were saying day inu, like it would’ve been enough that if God would’ve done this.

And he did. But man, God outdid himself and he did that. And so those are the two elements I think personally that have kept me from doing whatever I want and instead doing what God. And your wiring, there will be one that’s easier than the other. So for me, silence and solitude is easier, but for my wife, community’s easier.

But so she has to do the easy one and the hard one and the same for me. I have to do the easy one, which is silence, and sometimes the harder one, I enjoy you, I promise. But sometimes I like to be in a cave and just read a book, right? Marva Dawn, she says this in her book on the Sabbath,

”   📍 Both in silences of solitude and in the true fellowship of community, God becomes more real to us.”

 And you need both. And our natural flesh doesn’t want to do that. Let’s keep reading the text. If you call the Sabbath a delight, again, last week’s topic and the holy day of the Lord honorable. So keep this delightful day. It’s amazing, but it is holy to the Lord, so you must delight in it in a way that worships God.

This next line is really telling, if you honor it, not how do you, not how? How do you honor it not going your own. Not seeking your own pleasure and not talking about business. Even Friday night, I had a friend over and we were talking about church stuff. We said, no more right? We’re not talking business.

This is the day to the Lord and not our own progress, not our own agendas. If you do those, if you honor, then you will delight. It says, then you will delight in the Lord. And I will make you ride over the heights of the land and let you enjoy the heritage of your father, Jacob. He’s using poetic imagery here to show you just the beautiful promise of what happens, the promises of what happens when we delight.

Now, see this correlation here? If you honor, then you’ll delight. But if you dishonor, you cannot delight. This is a spiritual principle.   📍 Dishonor and delight can never coincide.

 And that’s a huge message we have in Isaiah 58. He’s saying, look, you cannot honor me, but then neglect the poor. That’s dishonoring.

So to, to delight means you live a life of honor both to God and to others. And that’s why honoring such a huge value at our church. I encourage you, if you haven’t yet, come to our nine 15 prayer at nine 15. We get together and pray. But before we pray, we spend, I don’t know how much time, a lot of time lately, honoring one person in the room, just speaking life into them.

Why do we do that? We want to be a place of delight. We wanna honor the Lord and we honor the Lord by honoring each other. And so here’s one practice to do this week and encourage you to do in your groups,

  📍 Make a dishonor list and then make a delight list.

 So what would be some things that are dishonoring and write those down and say, okay, in this season of life, my stage of maturity, we’re just not gonna be doing these things on the Sabbath.

So one way to think through a dishonor list is what is entertaining to me, but would dishonor. And I think for honest, some of the movies we watch and the TV shows and the radio and different things, I think it, if we were truly honest, I know we have freedom and grace and all those things. I think it’s dishonoring to the Lord, especially cuz it often dishonors others.

And another way to ask it is what is restful to me, but dishonors my neighbor. Is there something I do that I find joy, but it actually perpetuates a system of oppression. It I know for some people this means they don’t shop on Sabbath Day because they want those people to not have to work on Sunday, right?

So let’s not be a part of the problem. Let’s not go out so that maybe businesses will catch on and they will shut down on Sunday so they can be with their family and with the Lord. For the delight list, what is joyful to me and gives God. For me, I, man, what is joyful to me, I just, I love time alone. I love going on a walk.

I love bike riding. Last Saturday, I rode my bike an extra five miles. I was filling it and I just cranked up the music as loud as I could. I had the, I have the air AirPods where you can’t hear anything, and I just sang as loud as I wanted. . Now I might have dishonored a neighbor cuz they might have been annoyed, but it was in the middle of nowhere and I just, I, it was so joyful and I know it gave God glory.

What’s easy for you and blesses your neighbor? Is there a way where your Sabbath day can be a blessing to people around you? So that list is gonna look different for everyone and I’m excited for you to go through that in your together groups this week now. So I hope this makes sense. We need to make the Sabbath day, a day of worship, a day that is holy unto the Lord.

And in your groups this week, pastor Caleb Great, wrote a great together [email protected] slash Sabbath. Check it out, the one on worship. , it’s gonna be helpful, I think, especially his thing on fixed hour prayer. It’s gonna be so good. Before we close though, I just wanted to give you five things that I just haven’t found the perfect spot to share yet, but I think they’re really crucial.

Okay this is not great communication. You should probably weave this in a better way, but here we are. So five exhortation for you on how to Sabbath.

  📍 Number one, I want you to notice the sequence of Sabbath: stop, then rest, then delight, and then worship.

 And I think that sequence is really helpful. So it starts with stopping.

You’re not gonna go anywhere if you keep your tasks, you keep going with your life like you always have been. It’s gotta be a day where you stop so that it’s wholly unto the Lord. The second thing is to rest. Engage in these practices that we’ve been talking about. That helps ease your mind, that rests your body, right?

Figure out these rhythms that help you enter into rest. I would say number one is to turn off your phone and throw it away for 24 hours. I think that helps turn off some anxiety and enter into rest. You will soon find when you enter into that rhythm of rest, your energy comes back, and now you have the ability by the spirit of God to.

In God to delight in the people around you, in the creation that God has created and even delight into what God is doing in you. And that delight naturally births a sense of gratitude or a sense of worship, where you begin to thank God and you sing out loud and you engage in his thoughts and you engage in his word.

This is the sequence of Sabbath. I know for me sometimes I don’t feel like I’ve really hit that rhythm of worship until the 20th. Some weeks are tougher than others, and so I give myself that grace to step into each sequence one at a time. The second thing I wanna encourage you with is

  📍 Sabbath is a gateway discipline.

 To be crude is the gateway drug where you do that and it leads to so many others. This is why we’re starting with Sabbath because man, if we get Sabbath into our rhythm of our daily lives, I think it will open us up to so many of the other means of grace that lead us to the throne.

For example, bible reading. I know for me, when I Sabbath consistently, my spirit, even the other days of the week, slows down. It has the ability to look at the text, and now because I’m operating from a place of rest, I’m not rushing through my Bible time and I’m able to enjoy it. Also I have found the more I Sabbath, the more I fast because I have energy and I have motivation.

I think, look, I can fast. I know this is just as important for my body. And the beautiful thing is if I fast this week to the Lord, I just know Sabbath’s gonna be even better when I feast. , so many other things Sabbath opens up where it rearranges your schedule where you’re thinking you can’t stop for 24 hours.

That means your other six days you’re doing too many things that probably are pointless, right? Starts removing things in your life. Sabbath. Another thing I think someone mentioned a few weeks ago, Sabbath, they realized their house was so messy and so they spent, they would ruin their Sabbath cuz they’re cleaning their house and they realized, I think I have too many things.

And so that’s that practice of simplicity where God’s inviting us. Probably less is more. I can go on and on. Sabbath opens you up to being generous to, to practicing so many other disciplines that we are going to be walking [email protected] over the next few years or so, over our whole life, let’s be real.

Number three,

  📍 When you Sabbath, you’re never more than six days away from rest.

 it’s beautiful, right? Life gets really hard sometimes, but if you really hold to the discipline of Sabbath, it gives you this extra strength to push through because typically what I have found right after I Sabbath those first three days, I just have so much energy and I love working. I’m doing well, but then the last three days I kind of tire, but I also have energy because of anticipation. I can do this. I’m almost to the finish line. Sabbath day is coming.

Number four,

  📍 Morality is a requirement, but maturity is a request.

 What do I mean by that? If you are stealing or committing adultery, it is required of me as a pastor and my pastoral team to confront your sin and to call you to righteousness and to not turn a blind eye.

Matthew 18 style. We would work through that process with you. However, things like Sabbath and fasting and Bible reading, we believe. That is more of a invitation to step into maturity in Christ. And so if I find out you’re not Sabbath, all we will do is just say, okay, great. We love you. We’re rooting for you and I’m praying for you.

And I really hope you think again and I really hope you take this invitation to Sabbath. Cause I just think it’s what’s best for you. And I. It’s the life that Christ lived, and that’s what we’re called to do for followers of Jesus. But we’re not gonna treat you any different. We’re not gonna look at you weird, right?

You are a, you are part of the family and we love you, and we’re rooting for you, right? So a requirement is living a holy life. You’re not hurting others, adultery, stealing, et cetera. Maturity, things like Sabbath thing, changing your rhythms in life, your habit. We love you right where you’re at. We just pray that you take each little step and we’re gonna celebrate the success of each little step that you take looking more like Jesus in your everyday life.

None of the last encouragement

  📍 TODAY, not someday, is the day for Sabbath.

 Hebrews four seven. Hebrews four. If we had one more week, we would’ve done a deep dive on Hebrews four. But it is a great exhortation for us to practice Sabbath and to enter strive to rest. I love that imagery there, but he really says in verse seven today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

I think there’s something to that we really need to actually s. If you’re anything like me, when I first started, I have found that Sabbath is probably an idea that you love, but it’s a practice you loa. That’s how it was for me when I first heard about it in 2017. I thought that was awesome. We should all Sabbath.

And then six months went by and I realized I had never Sabbath myself. I talk about Sabbath, I’m reading about it, and yet I wasn’t doing it for myself. And I, we have so many excuses. . I think one of it is our stage of life. If you don’t have kids, you think this is hustle season, right? And man, I’ll Sabbath once I have kids.

Trust me, it gets a lot harder when you have babies. Oh, just wait till I get outta the baby phase. Friends, I what I hear we’re like at a really beautiful zone with our kids. Honestly, Sabbath has been easy, but I hear that teenage years is even more difficult. There’s never a perfect time. And if you’re single, you’re probably thinking, how do I s.

What if you’re called to a lifetime of singleness? Sabbath just looks different and I fear I’ve been giving too much advice just based off of the typical family with kids, and so I apologize for that. But for single people too, Sabbath there today is the day to Sabbath. It will just look different for all of us, and that’s what I love about the new covenants.

What I love about the grace of Jesus, we have that wiggle room, that ability to, however that looks, we can all have our own version as long as we’re submitting to the Lordship of Christ to stop to. It’s a delight and to worship, and I think that’s why it’s called the discipline for a reason. There will be days where you don’t wanna do it, but those are the days where you must say yes.

Put your yes on the table and say, no, what? Today is the day for Sabbath and I’m not gonna put it off any longer. And so again, I just really encourage you, if you’re watching this video, probably there already to go to form by jesus.com/sabbath/worship and you’re gonna look more at the practice this. . But the last thing I wanna leave as we are just ending this series, but again, hopefully not ending this practice is Sabbath.

Rest is very much a day, but more than that, it is ultimately a person and that person is Jesus Christ. We can enter into Sabbath, the ultimate Sabbath because Jesus worked on our behalf, right on the Sabbath. We declare because of Christ, I’m. I am restored. I am renewed. My soul is at rest, and there’s nothing I have to do.

I just receive the grace that Jesus has for me, this grace of healing and salvation and rest. And I want to end with this paraphrase of math of Matthew 1128 through 30. Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.

I’ll show you how to take a real rest, walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. I just really pray that our church and that you specifically would take this invitation to Sabbath so that you and I could become a people at rest, so that we could be empowered to be people of love.