Gospel Simplicity

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 All right, Lorelei, is Jesus your Lord, Savior, and Rabbi? Yes. Okay.

Upon your public profession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Go ahead and hold your nose. Buried in the likeness of Christ, raised to walk in a new life.

Go ahead and make your way to your seat. Thank you so much. We are all dried off now. Praise the Lord for that baptism. It’s so special. If you know Lorelei, man, she just exhibits the fruit of the Spirit. Amen. She’s incredible. We’re really proud of our kids ministry, but also of Tommy and Julie just being incredible parents.

Open your Bibles to Mark chapter 10. We’re finishing off our simplicity series, but certainly not the simplicity practice. The hope is that you’re picked up something that you’re gonna keep doing along the way as you journey with Jesus. But for the last three weeks, we’ve been arguing that you and I, especially in the modern age, we’re in the middle of a major problem.

And the problem is we are diseased from having a double mind, a double master, and a double tongue. Now, double mind is this biblical idea that it’s really easy to be distracted, right? To not have a single purpose, but kind of be pulled in different directions. And in week one, we argued nothing is quite distracting like the digital world.

And so the big line was the quickest way to corruption is to be careless with consumption. And so we’re trying to implement some practices. How can we focus our minds eye on the Lord and the kingdom rather than when everything else the digital world is calling us to? And that means for some of us, we’re literally putting away our phone to bed at night before we go to bed.

It’s not getting on it in the first thing in the morning. It’s putting your TV away from the living room, all sorts of fun things. The second thing is a double master, which we actually get from Mark 10, which we’ll talk about today. But it’s this whole idea that it’s impossible to trust Jesus and money at the same time.

And so if you say you’re a follower of the way, and yet your hope is found in getting more, there is a dissension there, there is a dysfunction that happens within the depths of your heart. And so Jesus says, it’s logically impossible. You either serve the Lord or you serve money. And again, the whole idea that day was staying in the posture of gain will keep you in the prison of pain.

More is not everything it’s cracked up to be. And then last week we talked about the double tongue, which is very convicting. Every time I talk to Caleb recently, he, I say something, he says, simplicity of speech. And I’m like, okay, whatever. Right. And so, and I’ll say it to me right now. But it’s, it’s double tongue where you say one thing and mean the other, or you use sarcasm.

Or, or gossip, or whatever, right? And it actually brings a lot of destruction to our life. And so we have to be very mindful. Some of us, the takeaway last week was, Okay, let’s simplify our speech and not say as much. Others of us, let’s actually use our words to build up. And so every week, the solution has been simple.

Simplicity. Right? And so it’s cut down your digital intake, limit what you own, give some stuff away, embrace a new form of speech. And we hope, and let’s just be real about these practices, we know, we’ve been trying to do experiments every single week, and we know that you’re not going to take all of these and just take them the rest of your life.

That would be incredible. Tell us that story if that’s true for you. But our heart’s desire is you at least picked up one of these practices, one of these experiments, and you realize, this is a better way to live, and this helps me apprentice under Jesus better. And so we hope that’s like a continual thing.

Um, but, I was actually reminded we were looking at James 3. 1 last week. And I really don’t like the verse one because it says that the teacher carries a double judgment. So we’re talking about a double mind, a double master, a double tongue. But I also carry around double judgment. And the last thing we want to do in this simplicity practice is to create like this.

Legalistic system where we don’t celebrate abundance, right? We don’t celebrate you getting a pay raise or all, you know, those sorts of things. Or we don’t celebrate prosperity. That’s not it at all. Like we do want to enjoy more, but not to where we’re worshiping more, where it doesn’t have a hold on you.

At the same time, we don’t wanna brush over this practice. Like our, our, our, it’s really, it’s easy to look at simplicity, especially in our world, and think this is pointless, it’s useless, it’s not possible. And so all week I’d just been giving my anxieties to God, like I was reminded that this practice really does rise and fall on the last line of our definition.

So let’s look at the definition of simplicity we looked at every week, and then we’re going to dive into the scriptures. But it says the following. This is kind of the whole idea of the series. The practice of simplicity, which has been practiced throughout history, by the way, is removing the number of digital distractions, material desires, and relational dishonesty.

So we’ve covered all of that. But look at this last part of the line. That keep us from living a joyful life in the kingdom with Jesus. And so if that has not been the whole point, this whole thing will be pointless. It’s living a joyful life in the kingdom with Jesus. And so we’ve talked about digital simplicity, material simplicity, relational simplicity.

We’re gonna round it out today talking about gospel simplicity. Will you pray with me? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for your grace. Thank you for your love. Thank you for the baptism we had. We, we pray for even more. We pray for more light bulbs on the Jesus letters. But God, if we just ask you, um, I just know the enemy does not want us to receive this word especially.

That God, you designed us to live a joyful life in the kingdom with you. And so we just ask you that you would soften our hearts. May we be good hearers of the word, but even better doers. May we cling to you and you alone. In Jesus name I pray. Everybody says, Amen, Amen. Richard Foster, in his introduction of this freedom simplicity says the following.

He says, While simplicity provides an answer to the modern dilemma, it does not provide an easy answer. I hope you felt that, right? This is not super easy. Now, we must never confuse simplicity with simplism. If you came to this book, this book or this series, I would argue, and hoping to find four easy steps, you will be sadly disappointed.

As I read this line over and over, I really resonated with it because that really is true. It sounds like it’s supposed to be simple and yet it can be super complex. But also felt a bit of resistance, especially in the way we package the gospel. Anybody else feel like the gospel has been maybe even oversimplified?

When I grew up, the gospel was very, very simple. And usually that’s an okay thing. It was the ABC’s. Admit you are a sinner. B. Believe Jesus died for your sins. And C. Confess that He is Lord. Now, that’s not wrong. It’s not really wrong at all, but what’s fascinating is I’ve kind of dug through history this formula this really quick ABC Didn’t really become popular until after World War two We began to like really feel it’s kind of interesting because it’s also in In line with marketing strategies how everything has to be simplified you you your business need to be known by one thing It has to be said in one phrase and the church kind of followed suit And so we began to kind of take away different parts of the gospel and try to boil it down into an elevator pitch Your sin deserves hell christ died in your place believe and you’ll go to heaven when you die And there’s nothing wrong with everything.

I just said it certainly is the gospel It’s just incomplete. Think about it. What about Jesus was born of a virgin? There was a recent study that showed, like, I don’t know the percentage, but it was, like, a shocking, like, 40% of Christians didn’t know that Jesus was born of a virgin, or didn’t think it was important.

But if Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin, he’s not fully God and fully man, therefore he cannot save us. What about Jesus lived the perfect life that we were designed to live? And a big thing that we emphasize at our church about the gospel is he’s our rabbi. Which in a rabbi, during that time, it meant three things.

If you were to follow a rabbi, you wanted to be with him at all times. You wanted to become like him in every single way. And you were called to do exactly what he says to do. And as our rabbi, we’re called to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus says to do. And then we have to talk about the resurrection.

I remember I actually shared the gospel a lot in this room, in this cafeteria. I was a junior high student a few decades ago here in this room, and I would share the gospel, and my youth pastor said, Hey! Have you been talking about the resurrection? And I realize, I literally just talked about you’re a sinner, he died, believe.

I didn’t even talk about like the most important part, he rose again, which means he defeated sin, Satan, and death. Do you see how like, we try to make this simple, but yet we’re taking out a lot of stuff that’s really important. It’s also important to know that Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, daily making intercessions for us, after he spent some time here on earth.

And then, we also know Jesus is coming back again. Ushering in the totality of the kingdom, and in all those things I mentioned, it’s hard to boil down into three little quick phrases, and so we kind of skip over it, and I think that three step formula, ABC, is good at helping people make decisions, which is great, but it’s done a poor job at making disciples.

I think you know we’ve missed the plot line when we start to pick and choose what to follow, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount. Turn the other cheek. That’s a little too weak. Not my kid. He’s gonna end that fight. Amen, right? Lusting, being the same as adultery. That’s a bit restrictive and overdone.

Loving your enemies. Sure, it made sense for him to love their enemies back then, but do you know our enemies now? That seems a bit too impractical. This is what Jesus is calling us to, a radical living. John Ortberg, in his stirring book, Eternities Now and Session, actually we give out every time somebody wants to get baptized, it’s in the blue box.

He laments how we’ve tried to simplify the gospel so much that we’ve actually lost its power. He says the following, he says, can you imagine Jesus himself teaching this? Believing all that I teach is true, that’s optional. Believing that I can run your life and allow me to do so, that’s optional.

Intending to actually obey me, that’s optional. As long as you believe that my death paid for your sins, you don’t need to worry about doing what I’ve said as far as heaven is concerned. Friends, in an effort to make the gospel simple, I fear we’ve made it superficial. And we are dealing with the consequences.

Barna Research, this was actually before 2020 and 2019, they actually concluded they were studying the millennial generation, which that’s me, so don’t talk bad about us. I know we get a lot of flack. It’s fun to start watching it go towards Gen Z when you realize we’re not, we haven’t been in college for a while, right?

But we love all the generations here. But they actually looked at a study of millennial Christians. So this isn’t just trying to figure out how many Christians are millennials, which is very few, but even within those who are Christians, it actually said only 10%. of millennial Christians today would be considered, quote, resilient disciples.

Now, when I hear resilient disciples, I get excited. This is people probably who give above and beyond the tithe, who show up to church not just once a week, but twice or three times a week, who learn how to teach, they’re serving in the kids ministry. That’s not what they actually define as a resilient disciple.

They only have four basic things. Attend church at least once a month. Trust the Bible as the authority. Affirm Jesus rose again to conquer sin and death, and express a desire to change society. Those four… Only 10% of millennials are actually doing. Now, this is not to pass judgment. We actually love the fact that there’s some people in this room that are not a resilient disciple, that don’t even church, attend church monthly.

So don’t hear me wrong, but maybe we’ve watered it down so much that we can only get 10% to do kind of basic Christian stuff. But I have good news, and this good news is that the gospel is simple, but it’s certainly not superficial. Hope you’re there. We’re in Mark chapter 10. We’re gonna be looking at verse 13 all the way probably to verse 31.

Are you with me? Wonderful. Simplicity of speech, silence. You guys are amazing. Alright, verse 13, Mark chapter 10. It says people were bringing little children to him. In order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. They really believed, and this is true, Jesus had like this anointing on his life.

And so if you were to just touch, touch him, you would be healed. You would be delivered. You’d probably have a brighter future. All these things, and the disciples are getting annoyed. They’ll be rebuking them. What are these kids doing here? Verse 14, When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the little children come to me.

Don’t stop them because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Notice this phrase, kingdom of God. Boiled down, kingdom of God just means God’s rule and reign. You actually see this all throughout the New Testament. Kingdom of heaven is the same thing as kingdom of God. Salvation is the same thing as kingdom of God.

Eternal life is the same thing as kingdom of God. In fact, kingdom is the predominant theme in the New Testament. You actually see in Acts 1 3 what happens. Jesus rose again. He’s spending some time with his disciples before ascending. And it says in verse 3, the only thing he did, While he was spending his last time moments with them is he was preaching and teaching about the kingdom.

You see kingdom throughout the whole Bible. You also see at the end of Acts, Paul’s journey. He spends his two final years doing what? In Acts 28, 30 through 31, proclaiming the kingdom. This kingdom language is important. It’s all throughout the Bible. And it’s this idea, this kingdom means there is a king who rules and reigns, and we are called to live under his rule and reign, do what he says, to be with him, and to become just like him.

And I also love this idea of kingdom is a lot less individualistic. It’s this idea that we are in the kingdom together. So he doesn’t just save me, he saves us. It’s not just our people, it’s all tongues, tribes, and nations. I can go on, but let’s keep going. Verse 15. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them. This, like a little child, this is really important. That’s why I love we actually baptized a child this morning. I think it’s a perfect picture of what is going on. Notice how he says childlike, like a little child and not childish.

Childlike means trusting, loyal, totally dependent, right? My kids have no idea what’s for lunch today, but they know it’s going to happen probably, right? They just, they don’t know. They’re just in the moment, right? Totally trusting. Childish is being stubborn. Like, you know, our kids do this every once in a while, right?

Lacking self control, complaining, not retaking, not taking responsibility. So it’s really helpful here to know childlike is not childish. And so Jesus is saying the gospel is simple enough for somebody who is childlike to enter into the kingdom. And so to see the difference here between simple and superficial, Mark transitions to another story.

Let’s look and continue in verse 17. We’re actually learning. A lot of people will call this the rich young ruler. We actually learn about this man in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew actually tells us he is a young man. Mark says he is a man with great wealth. And then Luke is the one who adds that he is a ruler.

So he has all sorts of power and authority with him. Verse 17, as he was setting on a journey, a man ran up.

Notice a few things first. This man ran up to Jesus and knelt down. This is good stuff. Right? He wants to come to him. He calls him good teacher, which means rabbi, which means I am willing to believe you, to be with you, to become like you, and to do whatever you tell me to do. And now the question is, what can I do to inherit eternal life?

Eternal life also means kingdom of God. How can I be under your rule and reign? So these are all really good things happening so far. Verse 18, Why do you call me good? Jesus asked him, No one is good except God alone. And then he says, You know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal.

Do not fear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And he said to him, Teacher, I have kept all of these from my youth. So when you read this, you think there’s probably no way. How in the world did he not do all of these things? So you expect Jesus to rebuke him and say, okay, no, here’s all the ways that you failed in the Ten Commandments.

But look at what he says next, looking at him. Jesus loved him. When you think about that, this is a moment of mercy and grace. And then said to him, you lack one thing. Go. So all you have and give to the poor also notice not. So all you have, and then like diversify, it was literally give it away, give it all to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come follow me. Now, before this terrifies you. This is not a, a command that is extended to every single believer, but it just might. You also see different, uh, um, different examples. You have, uh, Jesus with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. Anybody veggie tales, pray for us, right?

We’re broken. Um, but he’s on this treat, but he’s rich, and he comes, and Jesus saves him, and then he says, sell half of your possessions. So, so for this man, sell everything. For Zacchaeus, sell half. We also know Nicodemus in John 3, very rich man. Jesus doesn’t tell him to sell anything, right? So he’s looking at the heart here.

So what is Jesus saying? Okay. Okay, great. You did this. You did the commandments. You have one thing. There’s one reason why you’re not entering into the kingdom. There’s one reason why you are not experiencing eternal life, and it is trusting in one’s possessions. This idea is that he thought he owned his things, but his things owned him.

Now, we have to remember here, this story, oh, let’s see what he actually replies here. We have to remember that this story, he is a good man, he keeps most of the commands, he’s morally right, especially in this day, if you were rich, most people assumed it meant God loves you, he’s blessed you with prosperity.

But look at verse 22, everything seems to be the perfect situation, but he was dismayed by this demand and went away grieving. Because he had many possessions. What is the key difference here between the children and the rich young ruler? That’s the simplicity of the gospel. What is the difference? Well, the children aren’t very helpful.

They’re not as useful. They don’t have as much money. Right? They’re not a ruler, so they don’t have authority. It looks like the young ruler is who you want. And yet Jesus says no, like he, this walks away but yet the children, what is the one thing the children have, is the children were more trusting. They had nothing to boast in.

Write this down. Living a joyful life in the kingdom with Jesus is not about passing a test. It’s about placing your trust.

Think about it. This man passed every test. He knew the Bible. He followed the Ten Commandments. But he wasn’t willing to place his trust and give up the thing he trusted most, which is money. Right? This series has been really hard because we’re talking about simplicity. And I think a lot of us, especially during this economic time, are really fearful and kind of hoarding of money.

And I’m going to be, I’m not going to lie, like this month has been hard for us. So I’ve been thinking like, this is such a hard series. Why are we talking about money? Right? But it’s this idea that it’s not that the money is bad. But if that owns you, that’s when it leads to all sorts of destruction. But I want us to understand what this young ruler missed.

He missed the simplicity of the gospel. Because when he came to Jesus, he thought there’s just one more thing he needed to add. What do I need to do? I did all of this other stuff. What’s the one thing? And Jesus is saying, your only hope is to subtract. You don’t need to do anything else. You just need to give it away.

I think this is a real temptation for us. I think… When you look at him, not murder, not committed adultery, this, that, the other. I think it’s really hard. We can get into this as a Christian church for us because some of us can say we’ve kept the Sabbath. We’ve been reading our Bibles every day because of the series.

I got rid of my smartphone. And yet, Jesus, there is a possibility where he says to you and says to me, okay, cool. You still lack one thing. Alright, this, this gospel is not about passing a test, although we’d love for it to be that way. It’s about placing your trust. And trust. Often looks like letting go.

This week I was trying to say, okay, I need to apply this sermon. This one’s really hard. Uh, is there another passage I could preach? Right, this is tough. And so I was kind of giving it to the Lord, and, and, and I fear kind of sharing these stories sometimes, but this is just what I did. And so I was like, okay, I have this thing called Patreon, it’s like a monthly support thing.

And I was like, okay, what is the hardest thing that I don’t want to let go of? But it does kind of like take me away from my purpose. I was like, shoot, thanks, Holy Spirit, Patreon. So I told everybody, hey, stop giving to me every month. I’m shutting this thing down, and the moment I did it, I thought I would experience freedom.

Like, you know, Rich Young Ruler, like, he was dismayed, I was, like, feeling great. No, it’s, like, kind of terrifying, you know what I’m saying? It’s not like, oh, immediately this is so great, this is so good, but this is life with Jesus, right? It’s just simply laying down. What you trust more than Jesus and saying, okay, God, even if it’s not an immediate reward This is what I’m gonna do because I want my heart to cling to you Not to cling to anything else and what this is this idea is called disciplines of abstinence Which is really what simplicity has been all about.

It’s this intentional letting go of your habits of your mindsets in order for freedom. Jan Johnson, again, we still have that book in our church merch box, uh, The Abundant Simplicity. She argues the following about why we need disciplines of abstinence, of letting go. She says, quote, If we don’t practice abstinence disciplines regularly, we find ourselves stuck.

We become reliant on our own devices, like yelling and manipulation. Hello to last week, right? To get people to do things, or we turn to inappropriate sources of satisfaction like our job or internet porn. We’re unable to experience transformation no matter how much we pray or meditate because there’s all this stuff in us that needs undoing.

Jesus is saying, I don’t, you don’t need to add any more. What you need to do is to let go. And yet the rich young ruler. Dismayed by this demand, went away grieving. And notice how Jesus acknowledges how hard this is to do. Look at verse 23 with me. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

The disciples were astonished at his words. Again, to believe you had wealth was to say that God favored you. And so this was a total mind blown moment for them. Again, Jesus said to them, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

When I was in Israel, I learned that they had these synagogues and it was so crazy. These, these doors were about this tall and that only like that wide and like this long. And so to go into worship, you had to literally crawl and get through. And why did they do this? Well, because they didn’t want the camels, the donkeys, all of that to come into worship service.

And so they had to make it hard to get through. But it’s also this idea, like, to come and encounter God, you have to let go of everything else, humble yourself and crawl through. And when I was there, the tour guide was like, this is what we call the eye of the needle. And so it’s this illustration, like, when he was saying this, the people were thinking, Oh, like how we go into worship, the camel can’t get through.

Right? So I’m so excited to share that story with you. And then, like, five commentators said this week, that’s not true. Like, they don’t call it the eye of the needle. So everything I said, just forget it. No, there is this idea where that’s pretty cool. But it’s even more insane. We try to, like, think through, man, like, man, can a camel fit through?

He’s saying, no, it’s literally like the eye of a needle and a huge camel. It is literally… Impossible. Saying it’s like the door is kind of ruining the whole illustration. It’s impossible to enter the kingdom on your own. So then, now what are we going to do? Right? So, uh, they were even more astonished saying to one another, then who can be saved?

Right? Who can be in the kingdom if it’s impossible for us? And looking at them Jesus said, with man it is impossible but not with God. Because all things are possible with God.

That’s why Jesus, in Matthew 7, 13, he says the entrance into the kingdom is a narrow gate. Meaning you can’t earn your way in, you can’t bring anything with you. The only way in is to let everything go. And say nothing in my hands I bring simply to Christ, I claim. I bring no other argument. I bring no other plea but that Jesus died and he died for me.

And the rich young ruler, killing it. Great church member. It says, I feel like I’ve earned it. I don’t trust you, I’d rather, I’d rather keep doing, and Jesus is saying, you’ve missed out on the whole plot line. Look at verse 28. Verse 28, it says, Peter, who’s always the first one to talk, right? Began to tell him, look, we have left everything and followed you.

I want us to see the heart of the gospel. There’s so many different ways we can share the gospel. We can look at John 3, for God so loved the world, right? You can look at Matthew 22, where Jesus says, love God, love others, that’s the simplicity of it. But here, I think, is such a beautiful picture, because if we were to judge who was going in the kingdom, the children or this rich young ruler, we would say the rich young ruler all day.

And yet, it’s because he didn’t trust in God with everything. He’s not entering into the party. And so I want us to be faithful, really, as we close. What are you called to let go of and surrender? This, this passage is hard, right? This is not your typical whatever. But, I think as we finish off this simplicity practice, this gets to the heart of it.

We want to live a joyful life in the kingdom of Jesus. How do we do that? It starts by trusting. How do we trust? Usually trust means letting go. What do we need to let go? So I want you, I invite you, Holy Spirit, to speak to us. But I want to suggest three ways to start. Number one, let go of your past. For the rich young ruler, he actually needed to let go how good he was in the past.

I’ve done all these good things, God, you must love me because of that. No, let that go. But for many of us in this room, it’s letting go of the condemnation of the sin, what we did wrong. Maybe it’s in our parenting, maybe it’s in the time alone, in the secret, it’s our secret sin, whatever it is in the past, and the enemy has spoken condemnation over us.

Has spoken lies that there’s no way out, but friends, there is no condemnation for those who put their trust in Jesus. We are who we are because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, not what we’ve done yesterday. So I encourage you, even just as we kind of close this series, maybe you need to spend some time this week.

God, I give you my past. I let it go. Also, is to let go of your future. Your need for security, the worries you have for tomorrow. The scripture says that in Christ we have an inheritance of the new heavens and the new earth. And so I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s happened in our life now that means our future is already different than what we imagined and so it bothers us.

We didn’t know we’d be this type of person. We didn’t know we’d have that type of future because of X, Y, and Z. And some of us have a different future because of wounding done to us. It was nothing we did. And what we need to do in this moment is just to give it to the Lord and say, God, okay, I give you my future.

It may not be what I thought it would be. And then also maybe letting go of your present. Acknowledge that you are not where you thought you would be. I was talking to a mentor of mine. He’s in the middle age period of his life. So he wants to buy a Harley, all those fun things, right? And he’s like, no, seriously, to minister to the middle aged group of your church.

You need to acknowledge that life is not what you thought it would be. It’s like a hard season of life, right? Like your, your parents are starting to pass away. Your young ones, they maybe are not around as much, right? Maybe you’re not just really content with the present. And Jesus is saying, maybe for some of us, let go of your finances.

Let go of whatever, but maybe it’s letting go of your present. Letting go of what you thought would happen by now. I know for me, it’s letting go of my self image or my public image. And just knowing Christ sees me, He knows me, He loves me. And this is the essence. Isn’t this such good news? It is not, here’s ten more things you gotta do to be saved.

It’s literally, give up, let it go, and in the free fall, you’ll experience His grace. I had this line I wanted to end with. It says, You can be set free from the dis ease. of a double mind, a double master and a double tongue because Christ has given us a double portion. Isaiah 61 7 says, in place of your shame, you will have A double portion.

So I encourage everybody. I’d love for us to go up at formbyjesus. com slash simplicity We’re gonna try to do a practice together this week that I think is kind of difficult But I really think it’s a great act to say okay God I trust you over the last six months if you’ve been with us, we’ve gone through three practices Sabbath scripture and simplicity and 24 hours where we stop rest delight and worship Scripture, right?

Reading the word every day and then simplicity. So what we want to do is we want you to bundle all of this up into a 24 hour period. It’s going to be great, okay? So I want you to pick, hopefully you Sabbath this week. Start with a Sabbath, okay? Pick 24 hours. And as you start the Sabbath, which is the first practice we learn, start with Scripture.

I would suggest either Psalm 119 or Romans 8. Begin your time with your loved ones or whoever you’re with, and begin by reading Scripture and saying, We have now begun the Sabbath. Now starts the 24 hour clock. And during that time, just enjoy the Lord, right? Enjoy His goodness through the practice of simplicity.

Digital simplicity, get rid of your phone, get rid of your TV, anything digital, turn everything off, go full on, uh, Amish, you know, that’s what we’re rockin with, okay? For 24 hours, take everything off, and spend time with people, right? Think about relational simplicity, just get, schedule a dinner with people in the room.

There is a way to do all of these practices together, and we really think this is an opportunity. And during those times, when you’re in the Sabbath, we just ask you to go before the Lord. I love it. I was so blessed. Somebody from, from church this morning talked about how they tried silence this week and it was such a moving time in their life.

But to literally during the Sabbath, just say, okay, God, I give you my past. I let it go. I give you my future because I trust you and I give you my present and see what the Lord can do. What would happen if we began to do that? To begin to live a life, a joyful life in the kingdom with Jesus. Let’s pray.