Why We Still Need To Sabbath

[0:00] My name is Jesse again, and just wanted to say how grateful we are that you're here. If you're going to be listening to this later on this week, maybe you're one of the people that got hit by this nasty disease that's going, or illness, sickness that's going through.

[0:15] Maybe you're going to be listening to this later, so glad you are also tuning in. But we've started this new series, and it's a new series. We're looking at rest. Rest is really an important thing because, man, we live in a crazy world.

[0:29] We live in a world that is, like, nonstop. And it's hard. It's hard to rest. John D. Rockefeller, probably the richest guy of his generation, right?

[0:42] Millionaire tycoon. He was asked, man, how much money is enough for you? And his response was more. And I think that little moment encaptures our cultural moment today.

[0:56] Man, our cultural moment is always screaming at us for more, to get more, to do more, to be more. And we live for more. And it's because we never feel like we have enough.

[1:08] And we're actually enslaved to this idea of going after more and more and more. We look at who we are and what we have. And the message that is coming back to us is what you have isn't enough, and you aren't good enough.

[1:25] See, there's three big lies that come at us that we fall into believing. And these three big lies are what kind of drive us into the ground. And they're this.

[1:35] You are what you do. You are what you have. And you are what other people think and say about you. And at some point, if we really dig down into thinking about what motivates us, man, oftentimes, if we're honest with ourselves, we're motivated by one or more of those three things.

[1:51] And that's why we're overworking. That's why we're overconnected. That's why we're overcommitted. And those things, these three lies, man, we need to wake up to them because these three lies actually enslave us, right?

[2:04] And that enslavement, what it results in is that most of us are extremely busy. We're extremely distracted. We're burning out. Or we're escaping in very unhealthy ways, which isn't a good thing.

[2:16] And, man, for many of us, we don't rest because we're too scared to stop for the fear of being left behind, for the fear of being insignificant.

[2:27] Man, that is my biggest fear, if I just want to be honest. One of my biggest fears is that I'm going to end this life and find out that, man, I just had no significance. I didn't count in any meaningful way. Man, it's a huge fear.

[2:38] And it's a fearful motivation that propels me to overcommit myself and overwork and do all these things. And so maybe that's you too, or maybe that you're motivated in a different way, in an unhealthy way.

[2:50] So here's the question for us, man, how do we fight this? How do we fight this propensity we have to not rest and to overdo it all the time in every way? Because we need to fight back. How do we fight back? Because we can't just be playing defense.

[3:01] We've got to be playing offense. And so today, what we're going to look at is something that you may have heard about, right? And if you've heard about it, you may have like totally disregarded as irrelevant, like it's an old school thing.

[3:14] And it's this idea of the Sabbath. And a Sabbath is like a period of rest. It's an intentional period of stopping and resting. Now, if you're familiar with this subject, you might be asking, hey, Jess, isn't that legalism?

[3:27] Isn't it like an Old Testament rule thing that we're not under anymore? And on top of that, isn't that kind of like a day where there was no fun allowed? You weren't allowed to have fun at all. It was just basically kind of going to church and then staring at walls the rest of the day.

[3:43] But when we look at the Bible and we look at what God talks, how he talks about rest and introduces us to rest and unpackages that through it, man, we find out that wasn't his intent at all. It wasn't a boring day set aside to do nothing but stare at walls.

[3:56] It was actually way better than that. And when we look at our lives, man, we're a far cry from this really good idea of the Sabbath, except for Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A somehow is really good at that, right?

[4:06] They know how to take Sundays off. And it's cool. It's a bummer for the rest of us because, man, it would be nice to go to Chick-fil-A on Sunday. If you're hearing me out there, Chick-fil-A, that would be awesome. So today, I want us to take some time.

[4:20] I want us to take some time to try to understand why God started this, right? Why he says so much about it and why we need it so desperately. We don't have to look very far when God talks about and introduces this idea of Sabbath or a day of rest.

[4:36] Actually, it begins right in the beginning, the very first story, Genesis chapter 2. Verse 1 says this, And thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

[4:47] And on the seventh day, God finished this work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And so God blessed the seventh day, and he made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

[5:00] And so that word that's repeated there, rest, is the Hebrew word Sabbath. That's where we get this word Sabbath from. So what we see from the get-go is God had a rest day. And it says he blessed it, which means he made it a day of joy.

[5:13] It's meant to be a day of joy. And he made it holy, which means he made it special. It's a special day. So literally, what we learn from the get-go and from this verse is God made this special, happy, holy day for resting.

[5:27] And what we learn from this is, man, resting is a part of God's good creation. Last week, we talked about how crazy it was. Alan did. Talked about how crazy it was that God rested.

[5:39] I mean, he's all-powerful. Why does he need to rest, right? He's not really resting because he's exhausted from creating the previous six days. No, God doesn't get tired, so that's not it. But still, he takes this day of rest.

[5:52] You know, one writer says Yahweh, which is a word for God, is Yahweh is not a workaholic. Now, could God have done more, right, after those six days?

[6:05] Could he have, like, spent an extra few days perfecting everything? Possibly. But he didn't. So you may ask, well, how do you know that? Well, in Genesis 1.31, at the end of the sixth day, he says, God saw everything he had made, and behold, it was very good.

[6:23] And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. So God finishes his creating, and he looks on it, and he says, man, this is very good. And in one sense, we could say, man, everything was just as it should be.

[6:36] Maybe that's what God is saying there, and perhaps that's true. Everything is as it should be. But what we see as we go on in the story is that God left the work unfinished, and he actually did that on purpose, right?

[6:48] He created man, and he puts Adam in his own homestead in the Garden of Eden, and what does he have him do? He has Adam tend it. He has him cultivate it. He has it bring it in. He has it.

[6:59] He's working to bring it into further and further order, right? He calls Adam into being a co-creator with him, which is an interesting thing. So God purposefully didn't finish everything in creation.

[7:13] Let's let that sink in. God purposefully didn't finish everything he had planned in creation. See, for us, if we let that sink in, we realize that there's always going to be more work to be done.

[7:27] But some of it can wait for tomorrow. Some of it, we realize, like, you know what? The work to be done is probably, it's not going to be accomplished in our time. God himself got to a point, and he was satisfied.

[7:42] He was satisfied with his creation. He said, this is good. This is very good. He didn't say it was perfect. He said it was very good, and then he stopped. God, he did work, and then he took some time to enjoy life.

[7:53] And this is essentially the first lesson God teaches man. Day six, he makes man, right? And then day seven, he rests, which you know what that means for us is that Adam was created on the sixth day, and then what does his first day of existence look like?

[8:08] A day of rest. He doesn't go right into working. Think about that. He doesn't work into rest. He actually, from his rest, then he begins to work.

[8:21] And he begins to, Adam first started enjoying God and enjoying the Sabbath day from the get-go. God works, and God rests, and he makes us to work and rest as well.

[8:32] And from the beginning, we see that, man, this wasn't a rule. It's just the way things were. But, you know, we're so bad about keeping rules, and we see that, that eventually in the story in the Bible, as it carries on, man's just not good at keeping the Sabbath at all.

[8:44] And so God has to tell his people, like, hey, you guys need to stop. You guys need to push pause, because you are crazy workaholics, and you're just going to keep on doing stuff and treating yourselves like machines.

[8:56] Exodus 20, verse 8, it says this, part of the Ten Commandments, remember the Sabbath day. My people, I want you to know this. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth to see and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

[9:13] Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Maybe you're hearing you're not even a Christian, right? But, you know, Christian, non-Christian, we all kind of agree that the Ten Commandments are kind of a good thing.

[9:23] We don't look at them and say, like, thou shall not steal or murder or lie or, you know, covet other people's stuff. We don't look at those things and be like, man, those are really bad ideas. No, we all get, like, the Ten Commandments, they're a really good thing.

[9:38] And we're like, yeah, we should try to keep them. But check this out. A few people, a guy named Allender said this, few people begin the week boasting in how many lies they plan to tell in the next five days or the end of the week, how full of pride about how much loot they have stolen.

[9:54] We live in a dark day. But it is still rare for someone to publicly tout his or her violation of the Ten Commandments. With one exception, our debasement with busyness. We love to tell others how much we work, how much we still have to get done, and how overwhelmed we are with the exhaustion of our labor.

[10:14] God doesn't want us just working. He also wants us enjoying. But he didn't give us rest. He just didn't give us the Sabbath day to make us happy.

[10:27] There's really another big reason he gave us the Sabbath day. Consider what he tells his people in Deuteronomy 5, verse 12. So, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.

[10:39] Six days you shall labor and do all your work. Familiar language. But the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant.

[10:50] Cool. Or your ox or your donkey or anything. Even your pets. Like, they need a Sabbath as well. Kind of weird. Right? Or the sojourner who is within your gates.

[11:01] That your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And really pay attention to this part. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.

[11:15] And the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath.

[11:27] See, what God's getting at here, what He's telling them, is rest keeps us free from the slavery of work. Right? So, we see that work is a gift. We know that from the beginning.

[11:37] God created work before there was sin. It was a good thing. Man, this work can enrich our lives and be a huge blessing to us. But what we often do with work is we turn a good gift from God into a really bad thing.

[11:48] We overdo it. We overcommit. And we make it a sinful thing instead of a gift thing. And work itself can turn into this cruel slave master. And we're so prone to forget this thing.

[12:03] That we were once slaves in Egypt, so rest is good for us. Right? That even work can become this slave master. We're prone to forget this. So, God helps us to remember that through intentional rest.

[12:14] God says, when you force yourselves to rest, all of you, you'll remember how all of you were slaves. And I set you free. Remember?

[12:25] Hey, Israel, remember when you hadn't had a day off in over 400 years? Do you remember that? For 400 years, slaves in Egypt, right? See, the thing is, man, slaves, think about it.

[12:36] Slaves don't get a Sabbath. And if you can't rest, guess what? You're a slave. In Egypt, the Israelites, they were the people, they were the machines that built the empire.

[12:47] They worked all day until they died to build someone else's empire. And you know what, guys? We're really not that different today, if we're perfectly honest. I want you to think about this.

[12:57] We enslave ourselves through debt and other financial liabilities. Banks own us. Credit cards own us. Our homes, our mortgages own us.

[13:08] Funny thing I just learned about the word mortgage is a Latin derivative, which literally means death pledge. It's like, you know, back in the day, to have a mortgage means like, hey, guess what?

[13:19] You're going to be in debt until you die. Anyways, I'm not saying mortgages are a bad thing or anything. I'm not saying mortgages are a bad thing. But the idea there is like, man, you know, we're indebted to all these things, you know?

[13:32] All these things can own us. We can live so much on tilt that we aren't free to stop working because we got to pay the bills that we know are coming up.

[13:44] There's this movie, Thank You for Smoking. And the main characters, he was asked, man, how do you live with yourself selling tobacco products? How do you live with yourself selling a product that is proven to kill people?

[13:59] And his reply was, well, I'm just like you. I need to pay the mortgage. See, he justified overworking at a job that he found ethically problematic because, like the Bible says, the borrower is the slave of the lender.

[14:16] He didn't have the freedom to quit. I mean, he was a slave. He was a slave to the stuff. He was a slave to the lifestyle he wanted, and he was a slave to that dream of more. He had bought into it.

[14:29] And I would challenge us to say, guys, we're not so different from that. We aren't. Where have we lost the freedom? Where have you and I lost the freedom to say yes and no to the good things of life?

[14:42] Because we live on tilt. We have no control over those things. Those things have control over us. They dictate it. And God wants his people to be free.

[14:53] He wants his people to be free from that lie of more, from those three lies that you are, what you do, what you have, and what people think and say about you. He wants us to be free of that, and he wants us to remember that our identities aren't in those things.

[15:06] It's not just found in our work. Man, we're more than that. We're more than what we do. And so when God's people rested, what they were declaring is that they were not just free from Egypt, but they were free from the way of Egypt.

[15:21] See, they found their identity in belonging to God. In that moment of rest, stopping and finding your identity, kind of getting rude in that reality again of belonging to God instead of treating, they didn't treat themselves and others like machines anymore, right?

[15:36] They didn't work nonstop. And a Sabbath rest, what it tells us is rest in what you have, rest in what you've done. Rest from all the hustle to get more and more and more and be more and more and more and do more and more and more.

[15:49] And it tells us, man, guys, God is all you need. God is all you need, and he is yours. He rested, and he wants you to rest as well. Now, some of the kickback that I get into in discussions on Sabbath rest is that, hey, pastor, we're under grace.

[16:08] We're not under the law, right? Sabbath is a law thing. We're under grace. I ain't got to do that. Okay, fair enough. True. The Sabbath day was a rule for Israel in the Old Testament under the law, and that didn't carry through in the same way to the New Testament church, to you and I.

[16:24] And some people that cry out against Sabbath legalism, they're like, hey, I'm free not to Sabbath. I live under grace, right? Okay, cool. But I want to ask you this, too.

[16:34] It's great you're free not to Sabbath, but I want to ask you, are you free to Sabbath? Okay? What do people who live in the freedom of having to Sabbath often do?

[16:48] You know, those guys like, hey, I'm under grace. I'm free not to Sabbath. What does that look like? Well, I'm free to check my email all weekend long. I'm free to stay up all night online shopping.

[17:00] I'm free to never turn off my phone, get pulled into social media for hours upon hours upon hours nonstop. I'm free to never stop watching the news, which, by the way, doesn't make you love people more.

[17:13] It usually makes you more angry, if we're honest, right? Like, hey, man, I'm free. I'm free to never stop. Man, what does that sound like? Does that sound like freedom, or does that sound like slavery?

[17:27] I mean, if Sabbath only looks like a rule, then we've really missed the blessing and the privilege of it, because God wants us to know that resting is a privilege. Resting is not a chore.

[17:37] The question shouldn't be, man, do we have to do this? The question should be, why are we so intent to push ourselves to live without margins and limits? Why are we so intent to treat ourselves like machines instead of creatures, created beings with limitations?

[17:53] And the Sabbath is telling us, God is telling us, man, it's not something that you have to do. It's something that you get to do. We get to do this. We get to rest.

[18:03] We get to Sabbath. And God intended it for our flourishing. It helps us to resist the slavery of our culture to busyness and running after more all the time. So why are the vast majority of Jesus' healings recorded to have occurred on the Sabbath?

[18:19] I mean, think about that. So many of Jesus' healings happened on the Sabbath day. Why do you think that happened? Because the Sabbath, it shows us the Sabbath, it's a day of healing, and it's a day of restoration.

[18:33] I think that's what Jesus was getting at. That's what God was trying to show us when Jesus was healing on the Sabbath. Let that sink in. The Sabbath is a day, it's a moment for healing, and it's a moment for restoration and restoring yourself.

[18:48] Now, we've said that, but let's consider how we can practically grow in this, right? Let's consider how we can practically grow in doing the Sabbath well. Now, we can start by making the most of tomorrow, the rest of the day, not staring at our phone all day long.

[19:03] That's great. But then what? What do we actually do? Is it just staring at the walls? Again, sounds really boring, right? And that's not how God intended Sabbath, right? Sabbath can sound like a good idea, but man, it can feel like, gosh, it's an impossible thing to pull off and do on a regular basis.

[19:23] And that's true. Resting doesn't come naturally or easily to us. Many of the things that are good for us are things that we don't like doing. Think about that, right? Exercising. Exercising.

[19:34] Like, some of you like exercising. That's cool. A lot of us don't. Like running. Who runs for fun? All right? The only joy I get out of running is when I'm running to the refrigerator, right?

[19:47] Otherwise, it's like a chore. But when we make something a habit, think about this. When we make something a habit, the duty of it can turn into a delight.

[19:57] And oftentimes, it does turn into a delight, especially the things that are good for us, that are hard to do. It may start with duty, like running, you know? You run, and you run, and you run, and you're not enjoying yourself, and you're just like, gosh, you're going to the gym exercising.

[20:10] You're just like, ah, I hate doing this. But after a while, you begin to see the effects of it. You start to feel better. You start to have more energy. You start to think clearer. And then that duty becomes a delight.

[20:21] You see the benefits of it, and you're just like, oh, my gosh, this thing is so good for me. And you may dread going to the gym and doing the workout, but usually, like, during and afterwards, you walk away going, man, I'm so glad I did this.

[20:34] You don't even have to. Let's take it outside of the exercise thing. Community groups, right? I cannot tell you how many times. This is confession time. Your pastor's not the perfect guy here, okay? I go to community group wishing that this was the week off, right?

[20:47] Like, oh, man, I really don't feel like going. But then I get there, and I go, and I'm just like, man, I am so glad I did that. I didn't realize how much I needed that.

[20:58] And if it was up to me and I had my way, I probably would have just stayed home, and it would have been the wrong decision. And that happens. I mean, think of stuff that we do that's hard to do.

[21:10] Prayer is the same way. Guys, man, sometimes I fight to pray. It's just like, oh, prayer. I don't want to do prayer. I don't want to be consistent in prayer. But then I start doing it, and I grow in prayer, and it becomes a regular thing, and I begin to experience the benefits of prayer.

[21:25] And I'm just like, actually, you know what? This is so good. I'm going to actually set aside some time every single day to make sure I spend some time praying and enjoying God and hearing from him and listening to him speak to me.

[21:37] And then prayer ceases to be a duty, and then it becomes this delight. So my point is the first step to changing our perception on rest and on the Sabbath is just to start practicing it, right?

[21:51] Rest takes practice, guys. It's not just going to magically happen. And I just want to charge you, make rest a habit. Let's make rest a habit. And that means being intentional and planning it into our lives.

[22:03] Even Jesus did this. Jesus was the best at this. Luke 4, 16 says this. He, Jesus, came to Nazareth, right? He went to his hometown where he had been brought up, and as was his custom. As was his custom.

[22:15] It was his habit. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Not that he happened to go. He went to the synagogue. This is what he did. That's how we rolled.

[22:26] It was a regular part of his routine. And here's the thing. We have to start somewhere, okay? If we're going to be intentional about resting and making sure we put in good rhythms of rest into our lives, we have to start Sunday.

[22:39] And I want to say this, guys, man, pick a day. Pick a day that's going to be your rest day. Start there, right? Man, for a lot of us, Sundays that day, a lot of Christians, Sundays that day just works out, especially in our day and age.

[22:52] You work for most of the week, but you often have Sundays off. That's not true for all of us, I realize. Even for me as a preacher, this is my work day. I take Mondays off. That's my day off.

[23:03] And that's the day I set aside to Sabbath. And if you're like me, it's a hard thing to do because I have this big to-do list, right? So I finish preaching, and I go home on Sunday, and Sunday night, I'm thinking about the next week.

[23:17] I'm just like, okay, we got another sermon to get ready. We have all this stuff to get done, and the to-do list goes from like this to this in five minutes, right? There's a lot of stuff to do. So it's hard. It's hard to stop. It's hard to commit to a day because there's so much stuff for us to be doing.

[23:31] And to rest regularly, we have to actually schedule it in. We just have to because when you schedule something in, you avoid double booking. So what if, hypothetically, Sunday afternoon was already booked with rest for many of us?

[23:47] You know, we put that on our calendar, and we said, cool, this is what I'm doing. I'm busy with resting in this chunk of my day. That's what I'm doing. So if somebody comes and says, hey, what are you doing today?

[23:59] Can you help me? You're just like, actually, I'm busy resting. I'd be like, wait a second. That sounds like an oxymoron. No, no, no. That's good. Be busy resting. That's a good thing, all right? And in the Bible, they were so intentional about it that before their Sabbath day, they did all their work in preparation for the Sabbath day, right?

[24:18] They had a preparation day. They got all their shopping and their cooking and their preparation and all the cleaning that they needed to do. And they didn't do that on the Sabbath because you were not able to do chores on the Sabbath.

[24:29] They did that on the day before. So, you know, for me, since I have my day off on Monday, it kind of looks like this. I do my chores on Sunday night, getting ready for my Monday. So, if any cleaning that needs to be done, any cooking that needs to be done, I try to do those things, and my family tries to do those things that we can just have a fun day of resting.

[24:49] And here's the thing. It's just resting that way isn't going to happen without real intentionality and planning. Okay. So, now we've got that down. You've got to schedule it. You've got to plan it.

[25:00] But then what? Then what do we do? Are we just staring at the walls? Well, here's the thing. Rest, restoration, all that good stuff, man, it looks differently for each of us.

[25:11] Some of the stuff that you do for fun may feel like a chore to me. Some of the stuff I do for fun may feel like a chore to you. So, I'm not going to tell you these are the things that you should be doing. I know some people that they love to cook.

[25:22] That's not me. But they love to cook. It re-energizes them. It restores them. It gives them joy. And that's what they do on their rest day. I like to exercise, right? Now, if you're confused, I also like to eat a lot of junk food.

[25:34] So, that kind of makes sense, right? For my wife, she loves to get away for a couple of moments during the day and go to Starbucks and read. That is what just replenishes her.

[25:47] And she doesn't read junk. She reads good stuff. She reads stuff that doesn't poison her soul. She reads stuff that, like, gives life to her soul. So, here's some simple Sabbath tips I want you to think about, right?

[26:00] I want you to take home, talk about, think about, and think about adopting some of them. You don't have to adopt all of them, but some of them. So, the first thing is, man, get out into creation, right?

[26:13] A good Sabbath day isn't sitting home and binging on Netflix all day. Man, get out into creation. Put away the technology, okay?

[26:24] We're already so overconnected for the rest of the week. Trust me. A few hours or a day away from your phone, you'll more than make up for it the next six days of the week, right?

[26:35] Let's be honest with ourselves. And you know what? The phones that we have, you know what they are? They're like portals of narcissism, if we're honest, right? You know, the world would be, we'd all benefit from a few less selfies, right?

[26:50] Just put the phone away. Don't answer emails. All that stuff. You can unplug for a few hours in your week. The other thing about getting out into creation, man, it's fresh air, right?

[27:04] We don't live in Los Angeles County where you're breathing in smog. We live in a place that's like amazing, fresh air and sun. And those things have been proven scientifically to be good for you. It's part of the restorative process, right?

[27:15] The sun gives us some good vitamin D and it lifts our spirits. Like I had, my mom had a friend who lived in Oregon and she had to get a sun lamp because there was so little sunlight through most of the year she would get depressed, literally get depressed because of that, right?

[27:30] Seasonal depression, it's a real thing. And so just in getting out into creation, enjoying God's good gift of creation, that's a good thing. Another thing is, man, just spend time with God.

[27:40] Spend time worshiping God and enjoying Him, right? It doesn't have to be eight hours of your day. I'm not saying that, but just set aside some time, man. If it's five minutes, great.

[27:52] If it's 10 minutes, what does that look like? I don't know. Do what connects you with God. Maybe that's turning on some worship music, putting it in your ears or on the stereo, whatever it may be, and just praising Him along with that music.

[28:05] Maybe that's you or maybe it's some time in prayer. Maybe it's, you know, reading, reading the Bible or a good book, but just enjoy God. Spend time with Him. Find a hobby that's fun for you.

[28:18] I'm really bad at this. I wish I was better at it. Maybe that's golf. Maybe it's surfing. Maybe it's writing. Maybe it's reading good books. Maybe it's sleeping in. It's a great hobby.

[28:29] It's all good. But a hobby that's fun for you, man. Find out what that is and think about scheduling that in and some of your days off. The fourth thing is, man, don't spin it away from people all the time, you know?

[28:45] Take time. Your friends or your family should be a part of that rest, enjoying it with them. You can do dining room table talks, enjoying a meal together, board games, outdoor adventures together, fun excursions, things like that.

[28:58] Man, it's so much fun and restorative and healing for all of us. And then, in direct contrast to that, my last point is, do get some alone time, okay?

[29:10] Do get some alone time. And again, that's not binging TV or movies. See, a lot happens to our heart through our eyes.

[29:22] Love for people can start with looking. You can look and love and have compassion on people. But you know what? Lust and anger also start with looking as well. So watch what you fill your mind with, you know?

[29:33] If you're binging on news, if you're binging on Netflix, and that may not be the most helpful thing for your soul to bring healing and restoration on your day off, just think about that. But learn to get away.

[29:45] Learn to get away and be still sometimes in your rest. See, there is some value, and I'm learning this more and more as I get older, to getting away and just being quiet and being still. Because we are constantly going, going, going, going in our lives.

[30:00] That there's stuff and there's junk that's building up in our souls that we don't realize. And until we stop and take some time to stop and be quiet and still, that actually, that noise in our souls, we begin to hear it.

[30:15] And you can't really deal with it until you do that. And I want to encourage you to think about that and really do that. So however that looks. So just a few tips for you guys to take home. So you don't have to do all these things every single Sabbath.

[30:27] This is not a checkoff list. Here's a successful Sabbath. I did this, this, this, this, this, just like Jesse said. Ta-da! No, no, no. These are, these are some suggestions. And you build those into the rhythms of your Sabbath.

[30:38] You can adopt, you know, some at different times. But just like, there's just some good things that you should be and think about incorporating and intentionally doing. And if you can't do all of those things, man, the most important thing to remember is as you rest, remember God.

[30:53] Remember Him. In the fun, restful activities, remember to thank God that He created rest. And don't stress when you rest. Man, don't think about tomorrow. All right? Jesus said, don't think about tomorrow.

[31:03] Tomorrow's going to take care of itself. Just chill out. You're not that important. Remember that God's in control. I learned this from some friends in Costa Rica.

[31:14] They have this cool saying, there's more time than life. And I asked them what they meant by that. It's like basically this idea that, man, life, life is short. You know what? You're going to die.

[31:25] And when you die, time's going to keep marching on. And it's going to forget about you. So with the life you have, enjoy it. Make it count. Our gravestones. Our gravestones have this little dash between our date of birth and our date of death.

[31:39] And that little dash represents our life here on earth. Don't let that dash. Don't let your life be characterized by chasing after the culture's empty promise of war all the time.

[31:53] That you can't rest. That you can't enjoy life. See, the reality is this can only be done when we realize that Jesus is the more we really need.

[32:05] He is enough. He's enough. True rest comes by coming to Jesus. So friends, I want to tell you, the world is telling us to chase more.

[32:17] Jesus is saying, don't chase more. Come to me. I am enough. If I could have the band make their way up as we consider responding. Augustine said this, our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.

[32:31] Our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee. Unless you and I rest in Jesus and rest in his finished work on the cross, we're going to end up being like Cain.

[32:42] And Cain is described in the Bible as a restless wonderer. Man, we can either come to Jesus and be satisfied and rooted in him. Or we could be like Cain.

[32:53] Restless wonderers, always chasing after more and never being satisfied. But resting in Jesus takes intentionality. It takes intentionality, but it's worth it. So if you're here and maybe you're a seeker, maybe you're here exploring Christianity, you wouldn't call yourself a follower of Jesus.

[33:10] Maybe you're a cynic of Christianity, exploring the truth claims of Christianity. Or you're here and you're already a follower of Jesus. Man, I invite all of us to come to Jesus wherever you're at.

[33:21] Come to him and lay down your burdens. Put away that idol of more and stop chasing it. And come to him. He says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. He died on the cross.

[33:33] And when he died on the cross, he said it was finished. He said, enough has been done. You don't need any more. Come to me. If you're here and you're a believer already, you're a confessing believer in Jesus, we're about to come and take communion.

[33:49] And communion is Jesus' body that was broken, represented in the bread. And communion reminds us of Jesus' blood that was shed on the cross, which is represented in the cup.

[33:59] And we come remembering that Jesus' blood that was shed on the cross. Man, the heaviest burden was laid upon him so that we wouldn't have to live under that heavy burden and be crushed underneath it.

[34:13] Why? We get to lay our burdens down at the cross. We get to rest in him. It's a beautiful thing. So as we take time to respond before we come and take communion and respond, there's several ways you could possibly respond.

[34:26] Maybe it's just praising God and adoring him because he's a God who created rest and we get to enjoy it. Maybe it's confessing that you're not doing this very well.

[34:39] Maybe it's just giving thanks to Jesus who is enough. Maybe it's crying out to God, saying, Holy Spirit, I need you to help me in this. Man, I so struggle.

[34:49] I so struggle with these lies. And it's driving me into the ground. And it's ruining my relationship. And it's ruining my life. And it's burning me out. Help me, Holy Spirit, to believe the true lie and the true identity that you are enough.

[35:03] And then when you're ready, come to take communion. Let's pray together. So, Jesus, we thank you. And we thank you that you are the ultimate rest, that we get to rest in you.

[35:15] We get to rest in your work on the cross. And help us, Lord God, not to take ourselves so seriously as people. And we work way too hard. We're overconnected, overcommitted, overworked.

[35:26] Help us to not believe the lie that this culture is saying that you're not good enough. You need to be more. You need to have more. Help us fight against that and to rest in you, to be satisfied in you.

[35:40] And to be satisfied in the good gifts that you've given us, Lord God. This isn't going to be easy, but help us, Lord. And I pray that you would help us help each other to do this well.

[35:51] Amen. Amen. Amen.