Embracing Sabbath: Freedom, Presence, and True Rest

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Jesus taught them to be like little children as a capstone course long after the sermon on the mount after the transfiguration after Jesus fed the multitudes even after the disciples original 2x two ministry took place Jesus had to come back to them and said "Hang on you're not doing it right unless you become like a little kid." Which just goes to show yet again that disciplehip is not an unbroken up and to the right kind of progress you can be doing this stuff for years and then find yourself one day back at square one and Jesus says the way to graduate is to be always thinking like a kindergartener. [00:42:41]

Now God didn't rest because he was like tired out or anything it's not as if God needed a nap and an IV or something god rested as a way of looking back upon what he had done as a way of delighting in his work and as a way of marking a sacred space on the calendar the Sabbath is something like a temple in time and God dwelled in that place and he looked at all that he had done and he saw that it was very good. [00:46:48]

But scripture says that God created the Sabbath as a way for men and women to have an opportunity to do what God did which is to rest and enjoy the fruits of their labors to to recover and to take pleasure in doing something different on that day now in a particular way honoring the Sabbath became important during the days of the Israelites wanderings uh the ten commandments given after God had rescued the Israelites out of Egypt. [00:48:05]

At the Passover God took the Israelites out of Egypt and with the commandments God is continuing to take the Egypt out of the Israelites and in a special sense the third commandment to observe the Sabbath day and to keep it holy was designed to ensure that they didn't start doing the same kind of enslaving to each other that the Egyptians had done to them they wanted everybody to be able to stop. [00:48:44]

Observing the Sabbath is kind of unlike any other sort of calendar event because pretty much every way other than the Sabbath that we have of marking time so we talk about days and months and years all of those are based on the movements of the heavenly bodies but there really is no astronomical correspondence to the seventh day there's nothing you can point to in the natural world to suggest that life should be measured in a weekly cycle. [00:49:37]

So the whole thing was intended to point toward God's grace you received a blessing without earning it therefore the Sabbath was meant to be this kind of weekly counterpoint to the notion that God gives you a blessing as a reward for your performance toward God the third commandment reminded the people that God gives good things just because God is good in giving. [00:50:43]

But like so many of the principles recorded in the Old Testament this good guideline hardened into a legalistic expectation over time and the spirit of the Sabbath obscured beneath the laws about Sabbath in some sense Sabbath started to become well it started to become a little bit like Marie Baron's Couch. [00:51:44]

What God had intended to be a sacred space of liberty became instead 24 hours of bondage what God had created as a pointer away from performance-based religion became a firing squad of fingerpointing and community accusation. [00:53:44]

It sure seems to me as I read the Bible like Jesus is actually provoking conversation about the Sabbath he wants to have the talk with the community and I think it's because Jesus is a change agent and because Jesus wanted to restore the Sabbath to God's original vision see regardless of the day of the week Jesus says hungry disciples should eat. [00:55:06]

The Sabbath was intended to be a vehicle for experiencing goodness and delight and Jesus refused to let his disciples think about it as a cage of condemnation so he concluded his exchange this way the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath and so the son of man is lord even of the Sabbath. [00:55:44]

And just to kind of widen the lens a little bit I think that Jesus wanted his followers to know that Sabbath living has to be more than just a one day a week break i think Jesus intended Sabbath to be a lifestyle marker of disciples it is a practice of pursuit. [00:56:58]

Again picture this there is a line of people at the doctor's office the triage room is packed with people stumbling and swelling and sneezing and Jesus decides to put the closed sign out and go off and walk in the woods surprised i don't blame you if you are we don't talk about Jesus in this way very much but this is the real him. [00:58:25]

What's happening is that Jesus has the wisdom and he has the guts to say no to people who really want his attention jesus always chooses the important thing over the urgent thing put another way Jesus was not a people pleaser. [01:01:50]

Most people pleasers aren't really out to serve other people they're out to gain the approval of other people we're all people pleasers because we just want something for ourselves and this means that we come to rely on other people for our sense of worth and our self-esteem and that means we are willing to trade our time and our energy the Sabbath that God gives us in order to get the approval that only you can give us that means that our apparent selflessness is actually just another form of selfishness. [01:03:14]

Because if you live a Sabbath life nobody can manipulate you anymore you cannot be controlled you have crossed the Red Sea now you're accountable only to your heavenly father jesus could not be made to follow any human rules he could not be coerced by any human movement but that doesn't mean that his disciples are immune and that's why as we wind down we need to talk about that other word in our messages title. [01:07:41]

The world will tell you that if you deny yourself rest you can be more productive that if you stop practicing Sabbath you could help more people and certainly help yourself but Jesus says "Don't you believe it apart from me you can't produce any fruit." And he says literally in John 15:6 it's right there in the words he says literally if you are separated from me you will end up in burnout. [01:10:42]

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