September 26 | Sabbath | Matt Smallbone

good morning 11 amers let's stand on up together and let's worship and sing together today [Music] i sing praises to your name [Music] praises to your name the name that's so much higher [Music] your name honor to your name the name that's so much [Music] come on sing be lifted up be lifted [Music] be lifted higher [Music] be lifted up [Music] i see praises to your name you along praises to your name [Music] [Music] so much [Music] is be lifted higher [Music] [Music] my life [Music] be lifted be lifted higher [Music] your name is life your name is [Music] your name is life your name is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] always finds me listeners [Music] jesus always [Music] one more time [Music] [Music] we lifted [Music] be lifted [Applause] [Music] let's sing we lift you up together we lift you up we lift you up [Music] in our lives we lift you up we left you [Music] father of kindness you have poured out grace you brought me out of darkness you have filled me with peace [Music] lord i can't help but sing faithful you are faithful forever you will be for you are all your promises are dressed in danger all your promises [Music] you have broken every [Music] [Applause] [Music] lord i can't help [Music] forever you be [Music] is [Music] [Music] all your promises are yesterday amen all your promised prayers and your promises my confidence [Music] is your faithfulness i will rest [Music] [Applause] my confidence is is [Music] all your promises are yesterday all your promises aren't yesterday faithful forever you will be your promises are yesterday amen all your promises are yes all your [Music] faithful you are faithful forever you will be [Music] faithful you are oh your promises are yesterday thank you jesus [Music] [Music] a wonderful friend of mine wrote this next song and she wrote it in a time when she was at her lowest of lows and her highest point of physical pain emotional pain and her husband started singing these lyrics over her and it was such a comfort to her the chorus asks the question and i want to read you some of these lyrics that says oh what can take away my hallelujah rhetorical question no darkness can contain my hallelujah your cross has made away from my hallelujah so whatever we're walking into this morning with that might be holding us back something that might feel like it's on the edge of stealing our joy keeping us from singing a crippling doubt a fear let's think through it let's sing past it let's acknowledge it and keep trucking along so if you sing this chorus with us and believe it with us it goes like this oh what can take away [Music] your cross has made a way from my heart [Music] peace be still come this soul i need you here [Music] lord increased my faith so i will run into the waves as courage comes and takes this place with perfect love [Music] [Music] hallelujah [Music] with armies of angels [Music] [Music] perfect [Music] [Music] no [Music] my [Music] shame can go there too [Music] shame can go there too [Music] i [Music] [Music] i know who i am [Music] [Music] your cross [Music] what [Music] your crowns my [Music] [Music] made a hallelujah for my heart [Music] [Music] there [Music] of is i believe there is power in the name of jesus to break every chain break every chain break every chain there is power in the name of jesus there is power in the name of jesus there is power in the name of jesus to break every chain break every chain break every chain come on one more time we say there is [Music] there is power in the name of jesus to break every chain break every chain break [Music] make every every change one more time to break every chain break every chain break every day [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] in your name [Music] [Music] there is power in the name of jesus [Music] there is power in the name of jesus to break every chain break every train break every chain to break every chain break every chain break every chain [Music] so jesus we proclaim that and worship this morning with our lips with our hearts with our lives you are the ultimate power you are lord of lord of king of kings so jesus i just pray just like out of that song we're just saying if there's fear if there's shame if there's anything heavy that we've carried in to your presence this morning i pray that you would just continue to even begin a new work in us got to melt those things off to cast those out through perfect love with the power of your spirit as we declare we proclaim the name of jesus and lord would you renew our faith in that wherever we are on the journey of seeking you of seeing you jesus would you just renew our hope and our faith in you this morning that you are who you say you are you're faithful and true your name is powerful has the power still even today even yet to break chains off of our lives anything that would keep us from your fullness from your presence so jesus let those things happen today in our midst would you continue your healing work your transformative work your delivering work in our lives so we make room for that for you to do what you do best this morning so we say come have your way god move freely in us and through us and all around us we pray in your name jesus amen so while you're still standing if you would just uh greet a neighbor around you as you feel comfortable just take about 30 45 seconds to do that and we'll get into it this morning so well hello hello good morning wow so uh good to be with you all this morning uh if you are online we just want to say thank you for tuning in uh with us we are so thankful that we can still fellowship with you if you're a visitor we want you to know that we are so thankful that you're here joining us today and we're just glad to be in the house of the lord together yeah my name is charles tolbert i'm the city students pastor here and my name is maggie i am a stakeholder here at church city downtown yes and by the way if you are a middle schooler or high schooler our students class is happening right now and it's through uh those doors just to the left you can follow the ramp up there we love you to join us today it's going to be a fantastic time all right got a few announcements for us the first is about community groups we are launching our community groups we're so thankful so excited and we have a map here of the city and where some different community groups are located and we're just thrilled that we've got some leaders lots of places where people can jump in we do want to encourage people to maybe jump into a group that is close to geographically where you live we think that would be amazing and we're asking people to sign up online you can do that by going to cltc.com and at the top of the page there's a button that says connect with us if you would uh give us your information and then let us know that you're interested in a community group one of our pastors will reach out to you walk you through the process of getting you connected into a group and we just want to encourage you guys that there's going to be several other people that are going to be looking to jump into a group with different stories different insecurities uh different sense of you know expectations of what to expect and so we just want to encourage everyone to be open-minded about the folks that you'll meet and be patient allow them to get to know you allow yourself to get to know them we can't guarantee that everybody in the group is going to love chocolate pudding as much as you do but what we can say is that we are brothers and sisters in christ and as we walk through this journey of formation we truly believe that community groups are super important uh just as we are committed to other people and allowing the lord to speak through others into our lives so if you're interested in that please sign up we would love love love to get you connected in a community group that's awesome thanks charles do you have any college students in the house this morning yeah okay a couple a couple okay well this is for you pay attention uh there's a lunch and a good hang happening after this service right out here by the coffee bar uh i did hear lunch is taziki's if you haven't been to tazikis yet it is one of my personal favorites i don't know if they're checking like fresh very fresh at the door yes uh but i i might try to okay cool cool but yeah you still have yours from back in the day i i actually don't know okay okay all right cool cool uh but yes after this service uh come here awesome uh this is also the time in service when we receive our giving and so we encourage folks to head over to cotc.com you can find a simple way to give through there if you indicate uh downtown nashville those funds will get to our congregation and we just want to say thank you so much for that generosity that you guys have continued to pour out on us it really does bless us and help us to serve in so many different ways there's also uh back at the connect desk there there's a box where you can drop in cash or check if that's how you would choose to give as well well if you would and are able please stand for the reading of today's word this is from matthew 12 1-14 it's going to be on the screens as well for you to follow along at that time jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath his disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them when the pharisees saw this they said to him look your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the sabbath he answered haven't you read what david did when he and his companions were hungry he entered the house of god and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread which was not lawful for them to do but only for the priests or haven't you read in the law that there are priests on sabbath duty in the temple desecrate this sabbath and yet are innocent i tell you that something greater than the temple is here if you would have known what these words mean i desire mercy not sacrifice you would not have condemned the innocent for the son of man is the lord of the sabbath going on from that place he went into their synagogues and a man with a shriveled hand was there looking for a reason to bring charges against jesus they asked him is it lawful to heal on the sabbath he said to them if any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath will you not take hold of it and lift it out how much more valuable is a person than a sheep therefore it is lawful to do good on the sabbath then he said to the man stretch out your hand so he stretched it out and it was completely restored just the sound as the other but the pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill jesus this is the word of the lord you may be seated and would you please help us welcome our lead pastor matt small bowl [Applause] cheers everybody good morning fam thrilled that you're with us i i hope that you felt jesus close uh this week as i age i'm realizing that's available and it's it's a it's a beautiful it's a beautiful journey you're on thrilled that you're here we're in a second week of a new series called formation uh i am who i am you are who you are because the systems in our life in this kind of complicated dance with our biology and our psychology i suppose are perfectly designed to form us into us your life is not the way it is by accident it's it's it's perfectly designed the systems are there to give you exactly what you're getting you know the words that people use to describe you like man he's a happy dude or she seems to always have a lot on her mind like the weight of the world is on her shoulders or they are always so tired they're they're the result in many cases of of how you have organized your life your lifestyle your daily rhythms are a powerful force of formation and they're making you who you are in this series we're looking at taking some steps to be intentionally formed into looking more like jesus by practicing the way of jesus we'll be doing what the ancients have always done and follow our rabbi jesus closely maybe even so close that we would be covered by the dust of our rabbis the first the beautiful first century imagery now we are all following everyone in this room everyone you know we're all following something or someone and we end up becoming very much like whoever or whatever it is that we follow uh we've we've talked about this over the last few weeks but if your rabbi is a political party you will start to look a lot like a political platform as you age if your rabbi is twitter twitter you will likely i'm australian if you're new i apologize i hope you understand something this morning if your rabbi is twitter you will likely become a cynical person capable of ex expressing impressive angst in a sentence or two if your rabbi is jesus here's the promise that over the years of your life you'll become more like jesus which means more loving joyful peaceful patient kind good faithful you'll increasingly get a sense that you have self-control even in those difficult seasons where the world is falling apart around you can you sense an invitation to a greater life this morning now the word uh the bible has a word for anything that you follow with more passion than jesus the word starts with an i anyone know what it is idol idolatry thank you front row you can make an idol out of anything politicians sport your art a relationship work we want to chat about the idol of work this morning you know idols according to scripture are a slippery slope to bad times uh psychiatrist jeffrey sutton overnoted idols ask for more and more while giving less and less until eventually they demand everything and give nothing and my life is a testament to those things that i've placed above jesus and end up being uh being empty they require so much and give so little so part of maturing as a follower of jesus is about reorganizing your life it's choosing the best rabbi it's it's removing idols historically one of the ways that christians have achieved this is by creating an intentional rule of life a rule of life is simply the things that you do regularly you you already have one um and it may look a lot like this 7 17 am wake up exhausted after a disrupted night of sleep scroll through instagram and check email from bed 7 31 have a quick shower get dressed 7 42 grab a protein bar for breakfast as you race to your car for the 8 a.m meeting that you are leading 7 43 race to work rehearse your meeting opener changing lanes to make it on time 7 58 you park your car you race into the meeting 802 uh the meeting starts man it was a rough start for you but because you're so gifted you kind of saved it by the end and then you work all day 607 dinner with your sister uh where you both have to take calls and check email during the meal 7 17 claps on a couch and watch three episodes of your current netflix binge with a nice red 9 47 uh you fell asleep uh during episode two and slept for an hour and a half 9 48 you have a sore neck you check email in your groggy haze and someone from work is frustrated you with you because of something they think you said that you didn't say during the meeting and enough pit forms in your stomach because there is a difficult conversation coming your way tomorrow you lie in bed worried about this interaction you're going to have to have you scroll through instagram you try to sleep but you're just so worried about this email that you just should had no business reading late at night so instead of sleeping you re-watched the netflix episode that you slept through you fall asleep sometime around midnight and you have some disrupted sleep at 7 17 a.m your alarm goes off you turn over scroll through instagram check your email and think man i hate tuesdays we we all just one degree or another know the low-grade dissatisfaction that comes from a rule of life a schedule that looks like this eventually this kind of rule of life wears you down and if this is you i just want to say this you need a better rule of life and in this series i i want to be looking at at helping you build out your rule of life a little bit there's two life-giving rhythms that that i hope that by the end of the year by the time we get to christmas these these things um you'll have given them you'll have tried them on and you'll see the benefit of them because spiritual disciplines are always meant to be life-giving um make your yoke lighter life more joyful so here's the two things the first of all it's a daily bible study um through our formation journal as a church we still i believe we still have some actual formation journals available down the back if they're all gone by the time you get there you can just download them online but part of what we're doing with our formation journals is as a church across the city um we've given away seven thousand of these journals we will be reading through the gospels together um and then we'll be making observations about them part of the daily rhythm uh in involves prayer and gratitude so if you will just add this one thing into your life of daily bible reading you'll kind of get three or four uh disciplines that jesus did thrown in to your rule of life so that's one thing daily bible study the second thing that i want to challenge you on this morning is finding a deliberate approach to rest through a practice called sabbath you know everyone i meet is is busy and tired you ask people how they're going that's like man i'm busy pretty pretty tired and in our culture we actually wear those monikers as as badges of honor a couple of years ago it occurred to me that i had been tired since i graduated from the university of queensland in 1999 which was last century um i'd like to think of myself as a hard-working responsible person and man the adult the weight of adulthood turned me into a hard-working always busy too much on my plate kind of adult and i managed it pretty well for about 15 years to my mid-30s until i became a lead pastor and that's you know for me when the panic attacks started um there's there's something about lying on your floor on a saturday night concentrating on your breathing where you get the sense that maybe something out of whack and there's something going on um when your body tells you something it doesn't tend to lie and and you need to pay attention i realized uh that something had to change i had i had to learn that i had limits that i couldn't do all the things i i learned i couldn't officiate every wedding i couldn't preach every sunday i couldn't take every meeting i had to find it in me i had to find the inner steel to say no to stuff which is hard for me as a people pleaser but more than that i had to learn to slow down i i'd been a race car in the red for a very long time and and my body was actually starting to break down on me and again i'll tell you this when your body gets your attention like a panic attack um just know it's it's not lying you should try and figure out what's going on part of what i learned was that humans have have limits there are limits to what we can do um god on the other hand is is unlimited um and does not have limits part of the problem with us is that we really like to be god the god of our own lives and and go about life as if we are an eternal being that doesn't have limits in fact the core temptation for people always since the beginning has has been to be god god is unlimited um you know these omni words you would have learned about them at bible college or even at you know christian high school omnipresent is one of the omni words that describes god it means he's everywhere he's omniscient which means he knows it all he's omnipotent um which means he's all powerful and since the very beginning humans have desired these omni uh characteristics uh you'll be shocked to hear that it never goes well we are just not built to pull off any of that um but we can be like god just not in any of the all-powerful kind of ways we can become like god's character when you read through the scriptures you'll see the scriptures of god like holy you can be holy like god you can be loving like guarded you can be truthful gracious wise merciful these are the parts of god the characteristics of god that you can be theologians have called these very strangely communicable attributes let's say that together communicable attributes it's uh i'm making you say it out loud because i do want this to stick a little bit and write that down because in the same way that you can catch a communicable disease off someone these attributes can be caught from god simply you catch some of these things like holiness by a lifestyle of closeness to god abiding in the vine is jesus language being close to the holy spirit however we are broken as people and we would much rather be all powerful than holy we would rather be all-knowing than righteous we would rather be everywhere than the one place the only place that we can be and what we tend to do is is we assume the position of god in our own lives and and when we do that we've given ourselves a promotion that we are just not built to handle the outcome is distractedness anxiety and exhaustion i've made a bit of a study of this i think mostly you can you can be god of your own life as an adult for about 10 years and then the wheels start falling off in a theological sense chronic distraction is a frustrated aspiration to omnipresence it's the outcome of trying to be everywhere at once anxiety happens when we wish to be like god and be all knowing of nation in our own lives exhaustion happens when we try to be omnipotent or powerful so i thought as we begin as i as i try and build a case uh to beg you to consider the rhythm of sabbath i thought we'd do a little exercise that will place us appropriately on the god human continuum and i'd ask you to repeat these things after me and you're probably going to feel it a little bit some of this is going to be pretty uncomfortable this first one's really hard but this is true of us number one is this could you repeat after me i am not god how'd that go oh we want to be though don't we give me a little more juice if you can on this next one if you agree with it i can only be in one place at a time i cannot possibly know everything i cannot possibly do everything i have limits it's true though it doesn't feel good but it's true this week i want to camp out on this idea and chat about one specific type of limitation and that we all have and it's the limitation of time i want to ask you to lean in because what we learned from jesus today about time management i guess has the potential to to change everything for you a few things we know about time time is limited you can't create more of it you can't slow it down there'll only ever be 24 hours in a day seven days in a week there will never be any more they'll never be any less and there's guys there's some really sobering realities that come alongside this as an american our current average life expectancy is 78.7 years uh if you want to live a little longer you should move north to canada at which point that number grows to 82 a but perhaps even more sobering is a metric called healthy life expectancy in 2018 researchers found that the average american born today can expect to live illness and injury free for a mere 67.7 years oh and there's worse news that's not true of us in tennessee we're actually number 45 on the list in america of healthy life expectancy uh we can only expect 65 years if you're a typical tennessean we only outperform louisiana mississippi alabama oklahoma kentucky and west virginia which is at the bottom of the list at 63.8 years all in all i think you'll agree this is bad news for the sec roll tide i i tell you these numbers to remind you that how we use our time matters if i'm an average 44 year old tennessean i only have 21 years of good health left the good news is i still refuse to put gravy on my biscuits 44 years old 21 to go most social theorists now how you use your time really matters most of the social theorists from the 60s assumed that by the year 2000 technology would be so advanced that most of us would work part-time spend most of our lives in leisure this never eventuated and we now work 37 more than we did in the 70s 40-hour week is a thing of the past of course labor-saving devices like email and iphone have actually made it possible for us to carry our offices around with us in our pockets and this means that that for most of us we are being formed into functional workaholics we're all becoming something uh many of us have become functional workaholics because of these technological advances we're so busy uh filling our 65 years of health with work but we're also busy with play nashville is a hot spot of hedonism almost any type of pleasure entertainment food experience can be found within a 10-minute walk of where we sit right now so what has happened is we've filled our life to overcapacity with career and email entertainment and email netflix and email and as we speed through life at this frenzied pace we we are losing from what i can see our grip on joy and peace wayne muller observed this a successful life has become a violent enterprise we make war on our own bodies pushing them beyond their limits war on our children because we cannot find enough time to be with them when they're hurt and afraid and need our company war on our spirit because we're too preoccupied to listen to the quiet voices that seek to nourish and refresh us war on our communities because we're fearfully protecting what we have and do not feel safe enough to be kind and generous war on the earth because we cannot take the time to place our feet on the ground and allow it to feed us to taste its blessings and give thanks a successful life muller argues has become a violent enterprise so today i i want to propose an act of rebellion against the frenetic pace and exhaustion of our warp speed cultural moment i want to talk about a way to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough and to quote one of the great philosophies of the mid-80s remember this life moves pretty fast if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it today i want to chat about an ancient and revolutionary idea called sabbath sabbath is one of the first big ideas you read about in scripture in genesis 1 we meet god in creative mode the first thing that he does is separate light from darkness at this point time becomes measurable and most of us know how the story goes from here god works for six days creates the universe and then uh on in verse 31 we read this god saw all that he had made and it was very good some of you guys need to hear this about yourself uh this was this particularly after humans were created you are very very good according to god and we all understand the satisfaction that comes from a productive week where you've just nailed it and you're sitting the satisfaction of a job well done i i like to imagine that that's what god was doing here goes yeah nailed this those people can you believe them they're amazing mountains that was a good idea you know the ocean they're gonna they're gonna love this i love those people and they're gonna love that but then this happens genesis 2 thus the heavens and earth were completed in all their vast array by the seventh day god had finished the work he'd been doing so on the seventh day he rested from all his work god rested from his work now to be clear this doesn't mean that god was exhausted and kind of just ran out of gas after pumping all-nighters and five hour energy drinks and all that um you know because god's all powerful for sure but he rested the hebrew word for he rested means to rest from work this is this is where we derive the word sabbath to sabbath one thing you want to write down here it literally means to rest from your work so in the genesis story of creation god worked for six days and then rested for one and in doing so kind of built a rhythm into the fabric of creation itself that when honored it seems to improve things any good farmer will tell you you just can't use that field for seven years in a row you use it for six and then you give it a break and then everything's awesome um there's been studies done on in 2005 national geographic did this study on people groups that lived for longer than a hundred years and and had all these healthy years of life among them were the seventh day venice uh in california and and they realized that their practice of sabbath was one of the reasons that they were healthy for so long actually live four to ten years longer than the typical californian now it's important to highlight something in this story before we move on check this out in genesis 2 3. then god blessed the seventh day that's fascinating a day called blessed and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done seventh day is blessed work depletes your energy but rest on the other hand blesses us and renews us with creativity all sorts of emotional health even when you love your job eventually it will weigh you down now in this verse we learn first of all that sabbath is blessed and secondly that god made it holy now this is the first time that the word holy appears in in scripture one of the strategies that the ancient rabbis used to understand scripture was a hermeneutic principle they called the principle of first mention the basic idea is that the first time a word appears in scripture it disproportionately informs how that word is to be understood from that point on so that means that as rabbis the ancient rabbis read this they paid a lot of attention to the word holy probably attached the word sabbath in their minds to holy when when they would read the word holy later on sabbath and holiness go hand in hand which means that beyond which means that sabbath beyond being a day for resting from work it's also a day for worship there are always two questions you should ask yourself on sabbath is is this rest am i resting from work and is this worship and if the answer is yes then you should do it with joy if the answer is no then you shouldn't do it there are six other days of the week for that god is serious about people and sabbath resting ceasing from work in exodus 16 we read about an exchange between god and moses after some of the israelites refused to stop working on the sabbath so they're out there in the desert right and some of the some of them are just keep on working you know exodus 16. then the lord says to moses how long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions bear in mind that the lord has given you the sabbath note two phrases here first of all how long will you refuse to keep my commands regarding resting from work and secondly the lord has given you the sabbath so when you tease this out you see that for the desert dwelling israelites sabbath is both a command and a gift something god is asking them to do but also a gift for them it was it was given to you now i bet there are some folks here who are raised in in church surrounded by great people who never rested from their work ever who are probably thinking all right for real though there is no command to sabbath anywhere in the new testament and and you do you make a pretty good point except for when jesus said this in the sermon on the mount do not think that i've come to abolish the law or the prophets i've not come to abolish them but to fulfill them so there's that and remember the third of the ten commandments is remember the sabbath and keep it holy but but just for fun let's forget about that for a second and go with the reasoning that in the new testament there's technically no sabbath command let's assume it's compulsive it's not compulsory but rather it is actually just a gift from god let's let's go with sabbath is a get to not have to and i think that's actually true for us parenthetically i must say this there is no command in the new testament to sleep eight hours a night or to drink water or to remember your mum's birthday you don't have to i suppose but if you want to live an emotionally healthy life it's necessary so while you can actually make a pretty good theological argument that sabbath is a command for us today we have to ask how is always working panning out for us oh really how how's it going check an email even on your day off how is checking email 24 7 forming me into a person that's more like jesus now sabbath is a gift from god i think we can agree with that and but it's a gift that very few of us in the west actually want it's it's kind of like when your rich uncle gives you stocks in at like your eighth birthday party that seems super weird at the time but when you you know 20 years later it seems like the greatest thing that ever happened to you you know post-modern christians we know how to work and play but we don't really know how to rest one reason we don't sabbath is because we've misunderstood some things that jesus said about sabbath that maybe you've learned from the church about sabbath i think in our minds we imagine sabbath is being locked away in our house not having any kind of fun or adventure and just kind of sitting still you know i want to try and repaint that image that you may have because for me sabbath is is by far my favorite day of the week as as we read the gospels together in our formation journals for the rest of the year um i want you to i want you whenever the word sabbath shows up i want you to to see what jesus was doing he was always out and about eating great meals uh with his mates getting himself into all sorts of good trouble uh with the religious elites uh on the sabbath um so for one thing it's not it's sabbath is not about just kind of hiding and being bored right you can forget about that matthew 12 1-3 at that time jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath his disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them when the when the pharisees saw this they said to him look your disciples are doing what is unlawful uh on the sabbath the pharisees here are trying to build a legal case against jesus they want this guy gone he doesn't seem to care about observing sabbath in their way now what's fascinating is the pharisees knew the torah very well and as if you read it carefully you will read no law against snacking on the sabbath all the old testament says about sabbath is is don't work here's the original text remember the sabbath day by keeping it holy six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the sabbath day to the lord your god so what's actually forbidden is work not snacking but one thing that makes all of this really complicated um is the broad semantic range of the word work the word work means lots of things and different things to all of us what i consider work you may consider play for example on my sabbath i like to do a 20 to 30 mile bike ride is is that work or rest well it depends on who you are we all define work a little differently now i want to say this the way you sabbath is nuanced and unique to you and this this level of ambiguity it just didn't work for the pharisees they loved writing lists they wanted to drill down and give their followers total clarity on the command so the pharisees added hundreds of additional rules around the practice of the sabbath when moses all he had was remember the sabbath day and keep it holy and they just started list writing in fact to this day there are 39 categories of activity prohibited on the shabbat and on sabbath and the details are contested um between conservative and progressive observant jews and and also within evangelical churches everyone's like that's not how your sabbath man you know whatever uh here's the list of 39 things that you can't do that that was teased out of remember the sabbath day and keep it holy no carrying no burning no extinguishing finishing can't finish anything writing erasing cooking washing sewing tearing knotting untying shaping ploughing planting reaping harvesting threshing winnowing selecting sifting 39 things here which is really thorough um man the jewish religious elites you got to give them clarity you got to just applaud their their concern for bringing clarity to people but i got to tell you on behalf of all the enneagram sevens out there that's all insane to me what my enneagram one friends are like considering judaism after such a great presentation of clarity you know 39 is is a lot a lot of things but you should google this and wade into the raging debate about what is okay and not okay in each of these categories um there are layers of detail here that you've never even imagined for example under point 20 or 21 is the question of whether it's permissible to sort a bowl of mixed raisins and peanuts from each other on the sabbath right man i say sort away you know listen i i think this approach is problematic um for one thing it's just impossible it's it's a heavy yoke you think you're going to be in trouble all the time it's impossible to achieve while simultaneously for most of us being completely uninspiring on this stephen mosley noted more broadly about christianity i thought this is the best quote of the day right here tragically conventional religious goodness manages to be both intimidating and unchallenging at the same time intimidating because it may involve 39 separate rules about practicing the sabbath and unchallenging because while we may devote our lives to observing all of the rules we may never open up our hearts to love or joy i assume that all of this pleasing the sabbath dealio that the pharisees were chatting with jesus about it all started out with a good heart all lists do it's a problem to be solved how do we lead the people well but along the way uh the purpose of sabbath a day set aside for ceasing work and worship was lost and jesus understood this this is why he said this haven't you read what david did when he and his companions were hungry he entered the house of god and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread which was not lawful for them to do but only for the priests so he builds part of his response on a recent understanding of of church history he uses an example from david's life but then drills down into the very essence of the sabbath law for the son of man is the lord of the sabbath mark's version goes even deeper it says this then he said to them the sabbath was made for man not the man for sabbath sabbath was made for people not people for the sabbath so the son of man is lord even of the sabbath the big idea here is that the sabbath is made to help people not the other way around and jesus says to him guys you're taking this snacking bit a little bit seriously you have this all backwards sabbath is a gift that is meant to serve people well and fill our lives with love joy and peace so what do we do about this some of us i will say have made our work into an idol um and i want to be clear here that that i'm i'm thinking of people who love their work and don't want to stop i'm not thinking of someone without much money who has to work three or four jobs and work seven days a week to have enough to feed their children right i i we're not talking about that in fact some of these things that the fair that these 39 points was a really heavy burden for for anyone um who was poor to carry it ended up really making the sabbath law was really hard for poor people right so i just want to say some people have made work out to be an idol uh perhaps most at risk for work idolatry are the over employed so what do we do next well as i said earlier before the end of this year i want to challenge you to start practicing sabbath in in some way you know most of us have the exact opposite problem of the pharisees and their 39 rules of uh what to do on the sabbath we we simply don't take any sabbath at all let alone have a thoughtful approach to it so here's some tips for you as as you add sabbath to to your rule of life first of all you have to prepare for it if you've never practiced sabbath your life is not organized in in a way that it's even possible you must think through what it looks like what it looks like to get away from work for an entire day for most of us that means getting away from email laptops our phone you probably have to run a loop with your boss if he's used to having he or she's used to having access to you you'll need to run a loop with your spouse or housemate so they don't think you've been abducted when they text you a funny meme and you don't respond bosses i will say this if you require 24 7 access of your people if you're serious about following jesus you're going to have to rethink that for you and for them next thing you do is you pick a day and or i will argue in a bit a part of a day to begin don't get hung up on the day but it should be one it should be six days of work and and one day of rest that's the rhythm for most of you i'd suggest sundays sleep in come to church have brunch with friends take a nap in the afternoon exercise read do whatever is life-giving for you but be sure to worship god with us here or so or somehow in some way i personally i don't sabbath on sunday because as good clean fun as this all is it's a work day for me i start my sabbath on a thursday night on friday you'll have a hard time finding me i don't check email or anything if it's not life giving which for me usually means if it's not fun i won't do it because sabbath according to scripture is a gift for matt smallbone and the gifts i love best are different from the gifts that you love best so let me say this if you're not looking forward to a sabbath or if you're having a feeling of angst about it uh you you're thinking about it wrongly so your homework this week is to map out a sabbath something that you would look forward to because according to jesus the sabbath was made for you it will help you bring sanity to your life and i challenge you to write out your plan in a format in your formation journal so my sabbath i just want to tell you what i do my sabbath starts on thursday night i put my laptop away for 24 hours um i finish i've forced myself to finish writing this talk by five o'clock on thursday i put my lap that's actually i think what gave me the panic attacks at the start i would just be in a constant state of creation and writing so i'll put my laptop in its bag and then hide it from view like i'll put it in my closet or something because it just whispers to me you know open up just check one thing you know it's just one thing you'll know about so i put my laptop in its bag it goes out of sight i get off social media right now on thursday nights i'm in this volleyball team called volley parton um we just came up with it um and that's really how sabbath begins for me it's life-giving and fun and we are taking the mediocrity out of east nashville stand volleyball um on fridays i don't set an alarm praise jesus mary does the morning routine with the kids alone that day gets them to school i'll enjoy a great breakfast go for a ride think listen to an audio book pray laugh formation journal right now i need you to know this because of my stage of life that we're in as a family i sabbath alone uh in this season mary's in the final stretch of getting her masters in marriage and family therapy and right now uh she she has no autonomy over her schedule at all like she's she's at the bottom of of of of the list uh in the stage of her study that she's at so she she doesn't really have any agency over when she does or doesn't work right now um ideally hopefully we'll be able to organize things next year so that we can sabbath together on a friday but it's just not possible and this is a super important point that i want you to hear when you sabbath you must honor the phase of life that you're in and to be real with you it's very difficult with preschool aged children you'll need some help to be organized enough to take some time away from it and you'll need to be very creative sometimes i'll know the lawn while listening to music on my sabbath now some of you the inner pharisee has raged up and you go that's work that's definitely work well not for me and i'll tell you why you pharisee i want you to pray about all of this by the way don't just assume because i'm saying that this is like spot on take take take the bits this is this is where i'm at right now in this phase of my life um mowing the lawn is not work for me because my work requires my brain and my heart and tons of leadership so i rest by doing other things and for me physical things is fun i i rarely read on my sabbath like i spend all week reading you won't find me uh with a book on my day off audible saving me people who have who whose work is physical work if you mow lawns for a living i wouldn't do that on the sabbath but people who have physical work tend to rest by exercising their minds um they may write blogs on their sabbath which would just be misery for me um i try and have a restful day that doesn't require complex reasoning or problem solving or writing or reading i've got six other days for that so when i sabbath well here's what happens i slow down enough to feel like an analog speed human again i feel like i can actually manage my life when i sabbath well i have margin uh increased margin to handle the hard things that life throws at me when i sabbath well i'm confident i have another 20 years of leading a church in me and that i'll actually be able to enjoy the journey not just look back on it with fonder memories than they actually were in real time and just a fun fact for you and this is by no means a promise for you it's just my experience but i haven't had a single panic attack since i started sabbath pastoral insight for you i didn't love my first month of practicing sabbath i was actually pretty miserable away from my phone for an entire day i felt all the common signs of addiction i was really irritable i couldn't i couldn't do without the dopamine hit from scrolling through instagram i'd do something epic and i couldn't share it with the world and i'm like how's the world doing without me you know in my non-distracted state which i hadn't experienced in years when i really listened in the quiet it occurred to me that i was actually really lonely and that i hadn't had fun in a while and what you do is um you know the truth is you can only work on your heart when you slow down long enough to know what's going on and when you get a sense of what's going on you you pray about it i go god why why am i lonely i literally have four children and a wife who loves me like what's that about and you and you you go deeper into that emotion so i say that to say this please don't give up on sabbath when your first sabbath is miserable it it probably will be but it's because you're just kind of changing the speed that your life is at and it will get better quickly if you do sabbath right it will be your favorite day of the week you should sabbath because at the very least it's a gift and it's just weird not to accept good gifts i can't tell you exactly how to do it because working and rest and worship looks different to all of us you may need to hike to the falls you may want to go to an open mic you may need to swim or kayak you may want to do a puzzle you may there's crazy people who may want to go for a run for me there's no fun in run you just need to figure out what you need to do to rest while honoring your stage of life no one can show you how to do that but you do have to slow down long enough to make a study of yourself and go what what would what does it mean for me to cease from rest and and worship and to be filled uh in this 24 hours off work so i've got some questions i'd love you to help you map out your sabbath here so if you've got your formation journal pull it out and and write these down question one is this what are the main obstacles that prevent you from practicing sabbath you probably sat there listening gomez is pretty you've been uh pretty ideological here matt like literally my life is so busy like everyone in this room is saying that just so you know but what are the main obstacles that present you that prevent you from practicing the sabbath there'll probably be something that immediately comes to mind and you've just got to figure out what's what's unimportant starting point is what is unimportant and you just don't do that ever again right what are the main obstacles that prevent you from practicing sabbath second what would practicing sabbath look like in your stage of life so if you're a college student it's it's way different than if you've got a little kid at your knee all day what does practicing sabbath look like in your life i think question three is important for us as a church family to consider deeply uh whose sabbath could you make easier who is it that you know that is just frazzled and listen we we were poor when we moved to america live below the poverty line for a number of years sabbath and being poor resting from work is really hard uh when you don't have any money so i just want you to think about certain people that you may know that aren't maybe not be as blessed financially as you are and they just can't afford a babysitter or something like what is it that you can do to make someone else's life easier and again i just want to kick this out to employers like if you're following jesus and there's someone that you need to answer their phone 24 hours a day seven days a week you you cannot build a case for that in scripture and i just i just want to lean on that assumption a little bit that you own the that you own the people that work for you it's it's just not true you you can't you can't you can't find that uh in the new testament so there's there's a challenge uh for probably a select few but whose sabbath could you make easier and finally what does finding refreshment mean for you like this is this is the fun stuff like when you think of the rhythms of your year you probably have this in your year like for me if i can get to the beach for 10 days like i'm i'm really good like what is the what is the weekly scalable version of that where you go can you believe it that god has maybe commanded but definitely gifted me with being able to do this every day not just on vacation but but what is it what what is it that refreshes you most and what's your version of that what does it mean to be refreshed so that's your homework work on these questions and if you've never taken a sabbath this week i challenge you to do this block off one hour on one day that's all i'm asking and for one hour on one day rest from work put the computer away put the phone away and then slowly build up to a whole day by the end of the year i'm going to close with this from barbara brown taylor stop for one whole day every week and you'll remember what it means to be created in the image of god who rested on the seventh day not from weariness but from complete freedom the clear promise is that those who rest like god find themselves free like god no longer slaves to the thousand compulsions that send others rushing towards their grave when you live life from a place of rest when you slow down uh you'll see numerous benefits physical spiritual uh emotional this is something i want for myself my family my dear church family but the truth is this is a get to rather than a have to the choice is yours but i just ask you to spend some time on this uh this week because when you i like making a study of older people people who've done different things because i think you you see the proof um of someone of decisions that people make it's it's clearer when they're in their 80s than when they're in their 30s right um when you a and b the life of someone who's who's really worked seven days a week versus someone who's figured out how to rest um this this often leads to a lot of money and a lot of broken relationships and and not ever really being ought to be present um [Music] strangers in their own house kind of life over here the people have learned how to prioritize rest they become these joyful non-anxious presences joyful about the simple things able able to enjoy life no matter what phase they're in so we'll tell you this this is probably a get to not a have to um but the course you are on by the time you're in your 80s will have will have formed you in an entirely different type of person and from where i stand i i would choose as i look at live's 80 year old lives i will choose the non-anxious presence version every day of the week but is a choice uh you get to make and and you'll like all of us get to live live with that choice ceasing work regularly in our culture is an act of faith um but that's exactly the journey we've signed up for nothing will help you kill the idol of of work uh more than than a life-giving sabbath so that's the challenge in front of us and if we can hold our communion right now and let's stand let's stand [Music] our together system is founded at the foot of of a roman cross an instrument of torture and in this moment we remember that it's by grace we are saved as as we hold the bread um i want us to pause for a moment and just just be thankful for the life we've got in front of us for all the good things that we actually have right now i i pray that we won't be blind to those things as as we eat the bread together let's remember the body of jesus broken for us and the blood of jesus spilt for the forgiveness of sins setting us free from our idols let's let's drink to freedom let me pray jesus uh we love you thank you uh for the lives that you've given us and and for for the rhythm of rest i i pray for rest on our church family that will be people um who find a way to sleep well rest well that we will work hard and rest well jesus [Music] for you and your kingdom god i pray for anyone here who's feeling deeply convicted by this um that if there is a change that is needed radical change in their life that you'll you'll speak clearly to them i pray to surround them with kind loving people um who can who can help lead them uh to a more healthy place jesus would we be there for each other but god we thank you for the gift of jesus for the cross we thank you that you love us so much that you would gift us with with rest a day made for us you ask us in your precious name amen guys i love you i encourage you to stay in the word this week stay close with jesus and and see what the right next step is for you on this one because that's all you can take i love you look forward to seeing you soon [Music] let's sing this together it is so sweet to trust in jesus just to [Music] [Music] jesus jesus jesus how i trust [Music] him [Music] [Music] trust in jesus just to take him at his word just to [Music] faith if we rest and trust in you thank jesus [Music] jesus jesus precious jesus oh for grace to trust him moral for grace oh for grace to trust him more so jesus this week would you send us into your rest from your rest into work into the rhythms that we have and god i just pray we would follow your way the jesus way teach us how to rest well and to work well god just even rearrange things this week new rhythms new routines just even a new system for some of us to learn how to sabbath as you've commanded us to but we just pray teach us we're listening we're open god thank you for the promise of your rest we trust in you and we trust in that we pray in your name amen so you all are dismissed go in the peace of jesus we'll see you next week no that's a really good

Channel: COTC Downtown

Views: 405

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: u9ahSVxth0s

Length: 92min 27sec (5547 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021