Stop: The Cadence of Creation

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📍 God has been really gracious to us. One year ago, life was a bit chaotic at passion Creek. It’s actually almost the anniversary exactly of us telling our passion Creek family that we are probably moving to California in view of a call to pastor a different church. Now it wasn’t official, but we really felt compelled to tell our church family before anyone else.

And so we. Went against the grain and told you before we had our official preaching and view of a call service. And those are really hard time in life. I really did feel like God was calling my family. To move on. And it was so hard because we didn’t want to. The whole process of that calling felt like we were kicking and screaming and eventually we just felt like we had to surrender.

And we had to surrender you. We had to surrender our passion Creek family. And since then, by the way, only four days went by and we were back at church and we never even missed a Sunday. And there’s a whole story about that. That doesn’t matter today. Some people are saying, Trey, this might’ve been your Abraham Isaac moment sacrificing. What means the most to you? I don’t know.

But I just remember this feeling, driving back home from California. I had tears, tears from embarrassment and shame. That we just had to go through that whole thing to begin with, but also I remember having this underlying sense of joy. Because I knew what I was coming back to. I knew I was coming back to passion Creek. The people.

That we love so much as a family, the people that we’ve dedicated our life to. And in this past year, it’s really been a crucible. For our life and for the life of, it feels like every member at passion Creek, there’s been a lot of growth. It’s been amazing to see how love joy. And peace is kind of really seemed into the culture of who we are, but also there’s just been a lot of pain that can go on and on.

How much pain. How much suffering our people have gone through in general. And when I came back. Told myself 50 days don’t make any rash decisions about anything, but I then began to pray. Okay, God, I believe you are calling us into a new season. And I believe that that new season would begin.

At a new place. And I think that’s exactly what has happened now. At this moment.

Yesterday was our first official day at queen Creek junior high. And it’s been so incredible just to recognize that this is a new moment. This is a new season for our church family. And we’re still figuring things out. We didn’t, we weren’t able to record even the audio of the message yesterday, which is why I’m bringing this to you in this format today. But God has been really gracious just in the way that he’s orchestrated everything at the junior high. He’s blessed us with the finances to make it possible.

Y’all inflation is real. It was really difficult, but God pulled through. At an incredible way. He’s given us favor at the school and we’re excited that the staff and faculty. Are even just more than welcoming and they’re they just been incredible. And the family resource center we’re so excited, we already have a couple events lined up to serve them.

And so I was really praying and thinking about, what do we talk about in the first. Message at a new house. In a new season. And I really wanted the message to essentially say, let’s take the hill. And I was, I was praying through that thinking through what text I would use and starting to imagine I got our staff together and particular, the me and pastor Caleb were processing life at passion Creek. And as we kept our ear to the ground,

As we’re thinking through our conversations we’ve had with you at. Groups. Before service after service just everyday life. We actually realized more than the take the hill. Some of you just need to take a nap. There is a real sense of exhaustion that we are hearing. It’s just been the constant. And I’m not saying this to condemn us at all. I think this is a beautiful invitation from the Lord. And I want us as a church to take the hill.

But I really think we first need to take a nap and everything in me wants to capitalize on this moment and ask you. To do more. But I just kept feeling like the spirit of God was leading us to steward this moment by asking God, where do we need to do less?  Not so that we become lazy people.

But so that we become loving people.  This is a really great book margin by Dr. Richard Swinson. And he makes this compelling connection between broken relationships and our lack of rest. And really, he points every time we overload our schedule, we become very irritable with people. Every time we are just so busy.

There’s a correlation to us increasing how so hateful we can become. And that is troubling to say the least, because   📍 if we are not a people at rest, We cannot be a people of love  and that’s a serious problem because Jesus is chief command. To summarize the whole law and the prophets, right. To summarize the scriptures. He says, what.

To love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 2237. Loving God. It takes time. I’m learning more and more. It takes effort. It takes an attention span. That is just impossible. To have when we have a spirit of. Hurry and restlessness.

Not only that loving God loving. Loving others, takes patients. It takes gentleness forbearance. Talks about in Galatians, right? Like this. This awareness of people’s burdens and help carrying them. And I cannot. Kerry someone else’s burdens. If I am overloaded with my own. My worst moments are not after I’ve taken a full day off or a nice, beautiful vacation.

And I blow up at my children, know it is when I’m overloaded. It’s when I am annoyed. That is when I am at my worst. And I wonder how many of us are just constantly at our worst, because we are simply exhausted. I think that’s why Corrie 10. Boom. She family see said.  If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.

And so I’ve noticed that overload everywhere, even as we were picking up the trailer, which God’s Providence in a major way to get a huge trailer, like we have to get all the things we have to make that space our own at the junior high. We actually were talking to the owner and he was helping us get this trailer at a discount. And we were talking about Jesus and he was a follower of the way. And so we were really hitting it off and it was a beautiful moment.

And then in the middle of it, it just seems like it’s the constant theme I’ve been seeing everywhere in the middle of talking about how good God was. He took a coffee cup. And drank it. And as he drank the coffee, I looked at what the cup set and this could just be joke of course, whatever, but it really says something the cup said, I just need a day.

Between Saturday and Sunday. And I think most of us feel like we should agree, but the problem is. We believe God actually created everything as it should be. And there’s a reason. He only created seven days, not eight. And we know if we just added another day, we would just overload our schedules. This is a problem we have. And it’s even this problem of restlessness. And even our secular culture is beginning to notice and like 20, 15 to 18 or whatever that range is.

I imagine you would know time is really weird since 2020. But in that era, influencers, YouTubers, those who made it big had. They all had something in common, they were propagating a hustle culture. And during that time, it was you’ll sleep when you’re dead. Look while they’re vacationing in August.

We’re going to work. We’re going hard. Who cares about vacation? You know, posting the car. This is because I take no days off and all of this hustle culture was going. Everywhere. And then today’s influencers as it’s pretty incredible. I think COVID has to blame, but it’s almost flipped where the people who are really getting a lot of attention, some of it’s good, some of it’s, whatever.

Are saying like, Hey, you need to sleep eight hours a day. The right. Hey, what if we go through restful practices, like taking an ice bath to help with your mental health or what if you stare at the sun as sunrise, which I still don’t think you should do? I was. It’s so ingrained in me that it’s going to make you blind. So don’t do it. I still think it will, but there’s something about the circadian rhythm and everything has been about resting.

Why because I think experts. Are starting to notice. So we are the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked and spiritually malnourished people in history. And that’s a problem because if that’s the case, if that’s the case also for the church, how can we expect to shake the gates of hell?

An advance God’s kingdom here on earth. If we’re just simply too tired to do it. And so I want to bring good news. I believe that rest is possible. I’ve seen it. In bits and pieces in my life. And I believe ultimately it is possible through the person of work and Jesus. And when we be part one way that we participate.

In the person and work of Jesus is actually through the practice of Sabbath. And that’s what we’re going to look at as a faith family together for the next four weeks. And then the eight weeks following, we’re going to have a podcast conversation with people from our church, talking about us as practitioners. How does Sabbath work? How did it not? What are you struggling through?

This is not something where all of a sudden, just fully figure out it’s a journey. And we want to talk to you. At different parts of the journey of what that’s like, but for the next four, four weeks, we’re looking at this Hebrew word Shabbat, which means Sabbath. You see, in a verb form also in a noun form in the old Testament. And there’s really four movements. There’s four parameters to a, like a healthy, holy Sabbath really took this from Marvin J Dawn, such a great book. If you go to form by jesus.com, all of our resources are there for our favorite books on the Sabbath, but this one’s my favorite.

It’s called keeping the Sabbath wholly w H O L L Y. But Marvin Jadon is such an incredible book and she puts it into these. Four words. And so we’re going to talk about today, how it’s to stop. But then also next week is to rest and then delight and then to worship. And so these four movements of the Sabbath are, we want to invite you in.

On those movements with us. And so actually the first time we see that word Shabbat is in Genesis chapter two. And so I’d love for you to turn there with me. If you’re listening in the car or whatever, you can just, hear me say it out loud. Genesis chapter two verses one through three. So the heavens and 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. God blessed the seventh day and declared a holy for on it. He rested from all his work. Of creation. I want you to notice right away. Cause I know this is a huge pushback. Whenever we talk about Sabbath.

Notice how God did work. And then he rested. God worked and then stopped. And so to our detriment, I think we pit one against the other Ecclesiastes, even talks about how we have that temptation to do that. We have to realize right away and we believe this one cannot exist without the other. And there’s something about working six days and only resting one.

But notice these. So got that other way. Notice these four verbs here in Genesis chapter two, verses two through three in Genesis, by the way, one through three is foundational to understanding humanity, understanding our problems we have today just as one through 11 is a beautiful picture of just what it looks like.

What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? How did we all get here? What is our problem? And what’s the hope, what’s the solution which we find in Christ but let’s now look at Genesis chapter two, verse two. There’s four verbs here. On the seventh day, God had completed this word can be also translated as finished. This is a verb here.

Completed his work that he had done. And he rested. That word rested is Shabbat. Some people literally translate the Shabbat as stop. When really book a really good book that I’ve enjoyed about Sabbath call Sabbath stop day, because that’s like the most literal translation of the word he stopped on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And then God blessed the seventh day.

What’s fascinating is this is very important. This is actually the only, the third thing that God blesses so far. And Genesis one through three. And so you have he blesses animals and chapter one, he blesses man in chapter one. And now in chapter two, he blesses Sabbath. And what’s fascinating about this is in the ancient near east culture, all the other gods, all the other religious manuscripts.

Would actually talk about God, not blessing their God, whatever it is, territorial, God will not bless time, but would bless space, right? It would be a mountain, it would be a temple, but what’s amazing about God. Is he blesses? Time. Which has all sorts of implications. And I’d love to nerd out with you sometime, if we want to hang out and talk about it.

But what this is pointing to essentially is that God is the God of the cosmos. And it’s pointing. I believe even future with the holy spirit, he can be accessed anywhere. We don’t have to go to some temple. God has come to us and we can access him by resting and engaging with him wherever we’re at.

Anyways, and then he declared it. Holy, this declare he hallowed it, he set this day apart. Now notice something here that God rested, or I think an even more literal translation is God stopped. So a lot of us think oh, but we’re such high capacity leaders and we cannot slow down because they won’t be so productive. God stopped.

But I got up, I got five kids and so the weekends are the only time we can. No, no, God stopped. Our list of excuses can go on and on, but if we’re made in the image of God and God is greater than us. And he is the one in control. And if he stopped, who are we to say that we cannot stop?

What’s amazing. I think this is so good is that God from the beginning established a rhythm of working and then stopping. He’s not a workaholic, God. He has this beautiful rhythm. And the reality is when we ignore this rhythm, we suffer the consequences because even if we want to deny reality, reality will always win.

Wayne Mueller. He has this like really haunting line. In his book about Sabbath. And, and part of me loves it. And the other part of me is. Quite terrified about it still, but he says the following, he says, if we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, Illness becomes our Sabbath.

Our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us. Now, of course you can take this way too far. And I think a lot of people have if you’re sick, that means you didn’t rest. That’s not always true, but there is something about that. I have talked to people in the past that said, you know what?

I really think this happened. And I don’t know if God orchestrated or whatever, but I know he used it because it was a wake-up call that I was going too fast, too much. And maybe your body is breaking down. Because you are not following the Sabbath. We suffer the consequences. If we do not partake in the rhythm.

Of creation or what I want to call the cadence of creation. The second example in 1793, during the French revolution. They were trying to just re understand everything. And one thing that they implemented was a 10 day workweek. Their idea was to up productivity really become a powerhouse. And so they think that.

Everything would get better if it turned into a 10 day workweek. And the reality is productivity plummeted. The quickly found that suicide rates. Uh, increased exponentially. It was one of the worst things they’ve ever done. And it’s fascinating when you look at all cultures throughout the world throughout history, the seven-day workweek is the one that just seems to work.

another example is in America. I was talking to my grandpa before he passed away. And he remembers a time where everything was shut down on Sunday. They just participated in a Sabbath. And it’s pretty fascinating when you begin to study kind of America’s disposition,

Of depression and mental health, it begins to plummet. The moment that culturally, we just stopped Sabbath thing. Now, I’m not here to say that everyone Sabbath and it was perfect. And of course there were so many other things wrong in the fifties. I think we romanticize that past era way too much.

There’s still something to that. But so God has a rhythm. And what’s incredible about it is when we go against that rhythm, we suffer. We begin to burn out. We stress. We even can possibly incur diseases. We have broken relationships. We, we feel distant from God. But on the flip side, and this was what’s really encouraging to me is when we do participate in that cadence of creation, there are incredible rewards. One example is there was a study done on the healthiest communities around the world. And one of them was actually in Loma Linda, California, and it was a seventh day Adventist community.

And they actually determined that they lived on average 12 years longer than everyone else in their area. And so they were trying to determine what was it? And of course, like so many communities they ate better, they slept or whatever, but the big thing that stuck out for this community is that they Sabbath they kept a literal Sabbath.

That’s, what’s really major distinctive of seventh day Adventists. So on average, They live 12 years longer. One doctor tallied up. And recognize the average span of a lifetime. If you were to take every Sabbath day of an average person’s life, it would equal up to 12 years. And so one doctor concluded for every day that this community.

Gave God. The Sabbath God gave them back another day. And that’s so cool. Like what a great way to advertise for your church. Imagine, Hey, come to passion Creek, you will live on average 12 years longer. And so I love it. So God gave back the rest Dr. Sleep. He’s the one I read this about.

In his book, 24 6, he says living 24 7 is life draining. But living 24 6 is life-giving. And so what if that’s why God, in all of his grace instituted a Sabbath for his people? In the wilderness. Turn to Exodus chapter 16. See, I think. One could argue the only way that Israel really survive the 40 years of wilderness. And I know that generation wasn’t allowed to enter the promised land, but even that younger generation, as they were raised was because they kept the Sabbath.

Achad Haam actually makes this argument throughout history for Israel. He says we can affirm without exaggeration that the Sabbath has preserved the Jews more than the Jews have preserved the Sabbath. Let’s look at an Exodus 16. We’re going to start at verse 21 context of this chapter that the people are complaining about the desert. They longed to go back to Egypt, even though.

You know, it was literally slavery, but they forgotten that, right? Because, oh, everything was just better over there. We do that with our own sinful lifestyles but God graciously sends them manna. He says, look what issue do you have? You think you have no food, but I’m going to provide from heaven itself.

And so incredible. Now you have verse 21. It says they gathered it. This is the manna every morning. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat, but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food, four courts, a piece, and all the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He told them this is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake, what you want to bake and boy, what you want to boil and set aside, everything left over to be kept until morning. So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded.

And it didn’t stink or have maggots in it. Now, this is pretty incredible because just before I think at verse 20, it turned into maggots when it was in the middle of the week and they were trying to hoard this food. But now that it’s Sabbath, it is God’s provision and he will take care of it. Verse 25, eat it today. Moses said, because today is a Sabbath to the Lord today.

You won’t find any in the field. So for six days you will gather it. But on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none. Yet on the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any. Then the Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commands and instructions understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day, he will give you two days worth of bread.

Each of you stay where you are. No one is to leave his place on the seventh day and I love verse 30. So the people rested. On the seventh day. Now there’s two ways to read this passage. The first way is how most of us read it. It’s how most of us misunderstand the old Testament. Is we think Sabbath is about passing a test.

It’s actually how most of us interact with God, right? We read these seemed like rules. And if we pass all these rules, then we’ll be saved or within will be favored. Or then all of a sudden, then I’ll receive this inheritance, pass this test, then you get saved. But. If that’s why you’re resistant to Sabbath, I would be as well.

That is a rule keeping. This is actually, I think very far from the heart of God. It’s very far from the heart of Sabbath. And I don’t think that’s at it. That’s it at all. Because the other way to read this passage and read the old Testament and the new and in perspective of God’s grace, his Sabbath is not about passing a test. Sabbath is about placing your trust.

What is God doing? He is training their minds, hearts, and bodies to rely on God for centuries. They were learning to under the oppression of Pharaoh, how to take care of themselves. And now God is training them. To rely on a good heavenly father. They’re not used to that. Eugene Peterson, he puts it best. He says Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us.

It is about God. And how God forms us. So they have to learn to let God take care of them in freedom. They’re used to taking care of themselves in slavery. And so I want to ask you the question. What is Sabbath for you? It is it a day to pass a test or is it a day to place your trust?

And you’re going to hear this every week. And I think you should write this down. I think it’s really helpful.   📍 Your vision of God shapes your version of Sabbath.

So even just right away, how you just unintentionally engaged with the Sabbath or even think about Sabbath, really points to how you view God. Is God. Is God your task master. All these things that you have to get done and he wants you to work harder. Well, what are you gonna do on Sabbath? You’re probably gonna work.

There’s no time for rest. What about is God. A record keeper of all your past failures and mistakes. You’re going to worry on the Sabbath.

Maybe in your mind, your vision of God is that he is unemotional. And so on Sabbath, you cannot leave room for silence. You cannot leave room for your heart to begin to well up and to share with you the deepest struggles you’re going through, because that would leave room for tears. And if a God is unemotional, you need to be unemotional as well.

Alright, maybe just God’s disappointed at your level of maturity. It’s never good enough. So what are you going to do? You’re going to be a worker bee on the Sabbath. You are going to try to impress God on the Sabbath. See your vision of God. Shapes your version of Sabbath. So how do you view Sabbath?

In a sense shows how you view God.

So if God is full of compassion and patience, Steadfast love and grace. How has your Sabbath reflecting that? Here’s what’s really cool. So your vision of God shapes your version of Sabbath, but I found the inverse to be just as true. Also

📍 Your version of Sabbath shapes your vision of God.  So if I have created a rhythm of Sabbath where I am.

Unengaged with the worries of this world. It begins to shape my heart and my mind to understand that God is for me, that I have no need to worry that God will take care of me. I memorize Matthew six, that if he takes care of the sparrows, of course, he’s got to take care of me. And so Sabbath thing is how we train our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our souls.

Either towards God’s grace or away from it.

And so the hope at passion Creek is that we do this together. And so what’s beautiful is we’re going to all have different ways to Sabbath. I think that’s the beauty of the grace of this. I think it’s according to age stage, season of life. What you do for a living. For example, if you’re working with your hands all week, when we’re challenging you this week to stop, I would say, stop working with your hands and start engaging your mind.

Or if you work with your mind all week, I would ask you to stop working with your mind and engage with your hands. And so again, if that means, if you work with your hands, maybe read a book on the weekend. If you work with your mind, maybe go on a hike. But the way we’re going to stop is gonna look different for some of us. It’s we’re going to stop TV altogether. For me, a huge practice is to stop engaging with my phone and social media.

Maybe stop just staying in the house. You need to get out and enjoy God’s creation. For some of us, it means we’re going to sing worship songs. Others. We’re going to go on a silent retreat and that’s the beauty of it. And I want us to all learn from each other as we practice this Sabbath together, but here’s the key.

Eugene Peterson again, he puts it this way. I think it’s so helpful. He says, if there is no Sabbath, No regular and commanded, not working, not talking. We soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying. And God’s work is either forgotten or marginalized. When we work, we are most godlike, which means that it is in our work, that it is easiest to develop God pretensions. One more line.

our work becomes the entire context. In which we define our lives.

So that’s why God is calling us to stop because we were not created to carry the weight of godlike pretensions. It’s a beautiful invitation. And so I want to challenge you as we are closing landing the plane, as pastors would say. To stop. And so I was thinking through, what does it look like to stop for me?

If I get real honest, I think the major things that I need to stop on the Sabbath. And hopefully it begins to stop every other day of the week is I need to stop impressing and improving. I realized I, I like to tinker. With everything. I’m a part of, it has to keep getting better and better and better.

And there’s something beautiful about that, right? Like just this enjoying of working with God and creation and making this place a beautiful thing. But I realize a lot of times my improving makes me not enjoy what it is. I’m not ever grateful and content. Like I got to keep improving, but then even deeper than that, I think the reason I’m improving is because I’m trying to impress not myself, not God.

To impress other people. I really value people’s opinions, which is not the gospel. Reminds me of Paul. Man, I’m not my own judge and God is the judge. You’re not my judge. And so on that day, like I try really hard. In rest, ironically, it takes a lot of effort to stop impressing. And so even a practice for me is to go to Walmart and sweats, just a.

Like, Hey, I’m not going to care. Another part of, it’s just not being on my phone. Doesn’t have an opportunity to communicate to the world. Hey, I’m here. And even to stop improving, I don’t think about the projects I’m working on. I try really hard not to just like. I just want to exist and recognize that God loves me right where I’m at, but for some of us.

It’s to stop working and stop worrying. Some of us can never put our phone down. Can never stop thinking about the next project or just worrying about tomorrow. And so we have a role in our house. We just don’t talk about the things that are like, life is a struggle, and we’re honest about those things, but we’re just not even gonna think about them on Sabbath. Like we’re just going to praise God for what is.

And find the beauty in the ashes. And then some of us though, I want to challenge. Maybe we need to stop coping.

There’s something you’re doing that you think has given you rest, but at the end you are leaving even more exhausted. Easy example is Netflix bingeing or desserts? I actually think it’s beautiful thing for dessert to only be on Sabbath. Learning how to fast and restrict yourself the rest of the week makes that Sabbath day even more beautiful. But what are ways that you’re coping? How can you stop that on the Sabbath? And with that, what about comparing.

A lot of us, we need to stop comparing our journeys. We need to stop comparing. Ah, just the lot that God has given us. Like we. We Rob our souls of joy. When we keep looking at. What the neighbor has and that we don’t. And so my favorite part. About stopping. On stop day. Is there, there is no guilt or shame. And if there is guilt or shame, it’s from the enemy. It’s not from God because God is telling us to stop.

And so I would encourage you as you are part of our passion Creek family, we are not asking you to do more, but we’re asking you to do less.

Now. The natural thought. I know this sounds selfish. So hear me out. I know the natural thought is to stop doing things at church, but let me push back against that. And that might very well be, and we want to be there for you. But there’s so many things we’re all doing in our lives. It’s those things that take a long time to think about those of things you probably need to stop. It’s those things that you think there’s no way I can’t stop that.

That’s probably where you should start your list and really start to think actually, what if I need to stop all of these other things I think are out of necessity. But it’s just the culture telling me that. And maybe that’s not what I need at all. As I just invite you to engage in this practice over the next two years, this is the start of something that we’re really grateful for and excited about for the next two plus years, we’re going to look at nine practices of Jesus.

And so we want to start with Sabbath. Cause we think Sabbath is like the gateway discipline. Like you start to figure out the Sabbath that really opens up so many avenues because you’re a person at rest. Like it really does empower you to be a person that love. And you’re a lot more aware and all sorts of things.

But in this form by Jesus journey, like we’re going to have a podcast again and talk about your journey. Through different stages of the practice. We’re just really excited about this. We encourage you to really participate with us because the scriptures are very clear. The person who hears the word and he does nothing about them. That’s like the man who built his house on the sand, but the person who hears the word and does it.

That’s the one that builds their house on the rock. And so I think for too long, we’ve just assumed the Christian life is about having the right information. And so if I have the right insight, now, everything will change in my life. And as simply we need insight, but it’s not the whole thing. It’s the same thought process of thinking.

Yes, I can golf because I watched five hours of golf on YouTube. That’s great. You can learn all sorts of things about golf, but it’s one thing to know what a good swing looks like. It’s another thing to get it into your muscle memory. That’s another thing to get out there. And so we want to re we want to help.

Maybe reshape the way we view this Christian life. And it’s not just the list of thoughts, but it’s the way that we live. And so this form by Jesus, starting with Sabbath is our best attempt at really getting the love, leadership and lifestyle of Jesus. Really just embedded into our hearts, our minds and our bodies.

And so to the point where like our knee jerk reaction is to love not to hate. This is the idea. So the practice is up [email protected]. In your groups this week, you’re going to discuss what does it look like for you to stop? Lastly, I think there’s we encourage you to stop for 24 hours. There’s something about a full day.

We understand if you need to start at 12, whatever, we want to celebrate every little step, but there’s three different traditional ways like to Sabbath. One is the Sunday Sabbath. I think this just should be for most of us. It’s an all-day Sunday. I would encourage you maybe start Saturday night and then it ends up Sunday night. I think a great way for our setup team is right when we’re done setting up, we’re going to go have dinner and just start the Sabbath together. And it goes through Sunday, but this is great because.

Corporate worships included. And I think that’s a huge part of Sabbath. You can also do the traditional Sabbath like the Jewish nation, where they start on Friday night, a sunset to Saturday night at sunset. And I love that by the way that it’s, according to a time like sunset. Because if we do it, like according to task, like once I finish all these things, then I’ll Sabbath. You’ll never Sabbath.

And so you cannot wait for this checklist. No, it’s okay. No matter what I’m doing, I am stopping and just trusting in God’s provision. Friday night to Saturday nights, a beautiful practice. Also weekday Sabbath. Maybe your schedule is wonky. You work a lot on the weekends. Just pick some sort of 24 hour.

Gap where you can rest in God’s favor. But the key, especially for this week is to stop. It’s stopped day. And so if you are part of our gathering, I really hope you can make it in person. Because we have Sabbath boxes, they’re still available for you in it. We have a Sabbath. Booklet, which you can also access online a form by jesus.com/sabbath, but we encourage you in this box.

There’s a few goodies. We encourage you to start your Sabbath by taking the candle we provided and using the matches that we provided. And to commemorate the start of Sabbath. By stopping. Meditating on what we provided in that booklet, lighting a candle and declaring for the next 24 hours. We’re just going to stop.