Embracing Joy and Beauty Through the Sabbath
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Sermon Summary
Bible Study Guide
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1. "Unfortunately our world is often filled with bad news and negativity but it's also full of goodness and beauty even if we sometimes forget to notice it and we're going to look at some of that in a moment with our kids." [13:52] (18 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
2. "Jesus wants us to experience this kind of joy. A joy so great that it overflows who we are, making us want to laugh, to shout, to sing, and even to dance. This overwhelming joy is what Jesus wants for all of us. Our challenge is that while sadness often finds its way into our lives easily, joy doesn't. Sadness is something we can't always control, but joy is a choice that we have to make. We need to choose joy again and again, even when life is tough." [23:21] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
3. "Joy is more than just a feeling, though. It's also part of who we are. In other words, it's a characteristic. It's a character trait. It's something we develop as we follow Jesus. In the list of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, joy is listed as the second fruit of the Spirit right after love. Love, joy, peace, and so on." [25:01] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
4. "The Sabbath should be a happy day. A whole 24 hours set aside to follow God's example, to stop, rest, and to delight in God's world. It's a time to focus on everything that is very good in the world. It's an opportunity to see the world through a lens of the world. A lens of goodness, of beauty, and of truth, and to take joy in our life as part of God's creation." [29:24] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
5. "The Sabbath is a beautiful invitation from God to experience joy, to delight in him and to taste the goodness of his creation. It's an invitation to fill our souls with the beauty of the world around us and to live from a place of gratitude and contentment. In a world full of bad news and negativity. The Sabbath is a practice that helps us to remember that, like God said, everything he made is very good. It's very beautiful. And as we embrace the Sabbath, we begin to see the world through his eyes, full of beauty, joy, and hope." [38:30] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
6. "Gratitude is an essential part of joy. The more we practice gratitude, the more joy becomes a regular part of our lives. Start by being aware of something you can be thankful for. You know, there are some who the first thing they do when they get up in the morning is thank you Lord that you've woken me up on another day. Be thankful for your health, your family, your work, beautiful sunrise or sunset, a good meal. Giving thanks helps us to see all the beautiful in the world around us." [37:08] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
7. "The Sabbath is an opportunity, a time to fight against the tendency to think about the negative, and remember all the blessings in our lives. The Sabbath commands us. Help us recognize just how much we have to be thankful for. And the Sabbath is a time to delight in God himself. To take joy in the fact that we have access to him through the life, the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit in our lives. To be joyful that through spiritual practices like the Sabbath, we get to participate in the love, the joy, and the peace that flow." [31:21] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
8. "So what does joy have to do with the Sabbath? Simply this. The Sabbath is one of the most important ways we can practice the discipline of joy, because it helps us to become people of joy throughout the rest of our weeks. Last week, we talked about stopping and resting as part of our Sabbath practice. And these are essential because they help us to slow down enough to make room for Sabbath in our lives, in our busy lives. They help us focus on what we don't usually do, like taking a break from our usual work and activities. This week, let's focus on one of the things we should do on the Sabbath. Delight." [26:43] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
9. "When we delight in something, we take great pleasure in it. Again, if we look back at Genesis 1. 2, we see that after God finishing the world, he looked at everything he had made and saw that it was very good, or very beautiful, and then he rested. In Hebrew, we learned last week that the word for rested is shabbath, which in addition to meaning stopping and rest can also mean delight. And so we can say that God stopped and he delighted in his work." [26:43] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
10. "The good news is that the more time that we spend in prayer and practicing the Sabbath, the more we will see how incredibly good God is. As we grow closer to God, we will find the full delight our hearts long for. I like how a guy called Dan Allender says in his book, Sabbath, the Ancient Practices, the Sabbath is an invitation to enter delight. The Sabbath, when experienced as God intended it, is the best day of our lives. Without question or thought, it is the best day of the week. It becomes the day we anticipate and look forward to in the days before, and the one that we remember on the days afterwards." [32:31] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
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2. "Jesus wants us to experience this kind of joy. A joy so great that it overflows who we are, making us want to laugh, to shout, to sing, and even to dance. This overwhelming joy is what Jesus wants for all of us. Our challenge is that while sadness often finds its way into our lives easily, joy doesn't. Sadness is something we can't always control, but joy is a choice that we have to make. We need to choose joy again and again, even when life is tough." [23:21] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
3. "Joy is more than just a feeling, though. It's also part of who we are. In other words, it's a characteristic. It's a character trait. It's something we develop as we follow Jesus. In the list of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, joy is listed as the second fruit of the Spirit right after love. Love, joy, peace, and so on." [25:01] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
4. "The Sabbath should be a happy day. A whole 24 hours set aside to follow God's example, to stop, rest, and to delight in God's world. It's a time to focus on everything that is very good in the world. It's an opportunity to see the world through a lens of the world. A lens of goodness, of beauty, and of truth, and to take joy in our life as part of God's creation." [29:24] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
5. "The Sabbath is a beautiful invitation from God to experience joy, to delight in him and to taste the goodness of his creation. It's an invitation to fill our souls with the beauty of the world around us and to live from a place of gratitude and contentment. In a world full of bad news and negativity. The Sabbath is a practice that helps us to remember that, like God said, everything he made is very good. It's very beautiful. And as we embrace the Sabbath, we begin to see the world through his eyes, full of beauty, joy, and hope." [38:30] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
6. "Gratitude is an essential part of joy. The more we practice gratitude, the more joy becomes a regular part of our lives. Start by being aware of something you can be thankful for. You know, there are some who the first thing they do when they get up in the morning is thank you Lord that you've woken me up on another day. Be thankful for your health, your family, your work, beautiful sunrise or sunset, a good meal. Giving thanks helps us to see all the beautiful in the world around us." [37:08] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
7. "The Sabbath is an opportunity, a time to fight against the tendency to think about the negative, and remember all the blessings in our lives. The Sabbath commands us. Help us recognize just how much we have to be thankful for. And the Sabbath is a time to delight in God himself. To take joy in the fact that we have access to him through the life, the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit in our lives. To be joyful that through spiritual practices like the Sabbath, we get to participate in the love, the joy, and the peace that flow." [31:21] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
8. "So what does joy have to do with the Sabbath? Simply this. The Sabbath is one of the most important ways we can practice the discipline of joy, because it helps us to become people of joy throughout the rest of our weeks. Last week, we talked about stopping and resting as part of our Sabbath practice. And these are essential because they help us to slow down enough to make room for Sabbath in our lives, in our busy lives. They help us focus on what we don't usually do, like taking a break from our usual work and activities. This week, let's focus on one of the things we should do on the Sabbath. Delight." [26:43] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
9. "When we delight in something, we take great pleasure in it. Again, if we look back at Genesis 1. 2, we see that after God finishing the world, he looked at everything he had made and saw that it was very good, or very beautiful, and then he rested. In Hebrew, we learned last week that the word for rested is shabbath, which in addition to meaning stopping and rest can also mean delight. And so we can say that God stopped and he delighted in his work." [26:43] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
10. "The good news is that the more time that we spend in prayer and practicing the Sabbath, the more we will see how incredibly good God is. As we grow closer to God, we will find the full delight our hearts long for. I like how a guy called Dan Allender says in his book, Sabbath, the Ancient Practices, the Sabbath is an invitation to enter delight. The Sabbath, when experienced as God intended it, is the best day of our lives. Without question or thought, it is the best day of the week. It becomes the day we anticipate and look forward to in the days before, and the one that we remember on the days afterwards." [32:31] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
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