Howdy.
So, over this last week, it's been a bit of a hectic routine, a bit of a hectic schedule.
There were two days that I ended up going over to Austin.
There was a funeral to attend, but also a conference with other pastors to be at.
Sessions, learning, a lot of training to go through.
But then coming back, and there were early morning meetings here at the church, there
was an opportunity with the first grade boys from Meadowood here on a Friday morning to
do devotions with their dads.
There were lots of different things that needed to be taken care of, sermon to be written,
classes to attend.
And so at the end of it all, it's this feeling of, will there be a time of rest?
Will there be an opportunity to step back and to be able to just relax for a bit?
So to do so, I had to just drive away from everything, drive away from the house, drive
away from the church, drive away and try to find some place that I had no responsibilities
anywhere.
And spent most of the day at Herman Park.
I ended up enjoying a little bit of time on a paddle boat, but also discovering there's
a Japanese garden over there.
I didn't even realize about it.
It's beautiful.
It's absolutely lovely.
But spending this time, this chance away, realizing that it's so easy to fill up more
of our time with tasks to do.
And it's almost like you have to force yourself sometimes just to be able to rest long enough
to get your mind back where it needs to be.
Because that's what we oftentimes see is that without a time of rest, we're not able to
get back to the work at hand with any sort of energy or joy.
It just becomes more tasks to be done.
And that's what I want us to look at a bit as we understand a little bit more of what
the Sabbath day is.
Because the Sabbath has three main areas that are important to understand.
A time of rest, a time of worship, and a time of completion.
And I think that the time of rest is an area that we understand for the most part.
But the time of worship, we may still be learning about.
And a time of completion, I'm not sure that we've truly grasped just yet.
The need for a time to rest.
Resting on the Sabbath day, it's something that's important because we realize that without
it, we're not able to be prepared for what the day has, what the week has in front of
us, without a chance to step back and to be able to allow our minds and our bodies to rest.
And this idea of needing to be able to have a day away, a Sabbath, that is something that
we see referenced in our letter from the Hebrew, the letter to the Hebrews for today.
As we're looking at chapter four, and it speaks about the Sabbath, the people of Israel were
very, very grateful to get away from the land of Egypt, a place where they were continually
being pushed, that they had to be working as slaves for the Egyptian Pharaoh, that there
wasn't an opportunity to step away and to be able to rest.
So as they were leaving, as they were getting away from Egypt, they were grateful for an
opportunity to be able to step away and to be able to rest from the labor that was there.
This is something that we oftentimes take for granted.
How often is it that we do not actually allow ourselves a Sabbath rest?
Because maybe throughout the week, maybe we weren't working hard enough in our minds.
Maybe we weren't getting enough things that were done, enough things that were saying,
you know what, I really didn't get enough done on Thursday, maybe I didn't get enough
done on Monday, I really don't have time this weekend to be able to rest and step away.
And so we justify in our minds that we have to get more done.
We can't spend time with family, with friends, with our church because there's just too much
that needs to get taken care of because I didn't take care of it during the rest of
the week.
But even more than that, is there's also a level at which we're not sure that God is
necessarily going to provide.
That if we don't go in and make sure that we're working even harder to get stuff done
before the next week, we're not really sure what God has in store.
See, the Sabbath day was not just something for physical rest, but it was also to put
trust back into God.
To be able to say, I am just a human being, I can't do any more than what one human being
can do, which means that if more is needed, then I have to leave it in God's hands.
But that idea of trusting God with our Sabbath day, is that really something that we're quite
willing to do with our soul and with our spirit?
Because when we end up spending time in worship and we're looking at what that time is to
be in God's presence, do we truly grasp what worship is really meant to be?
The idea that worship is meant to be spent in God's presence being restored by God,
rather than seeing worship as just one more task that needs to be done.
How often do we treat Sunday morning like another part of our work week?
The thing is, is that we will oftentimes look for any and every excuse and opportunity not
to be in worship.
There are all sorts of reasons that we might have, and when we look at it as something that
we need to get done, then we end up missing what it was for.
It's sort of compared to whenever you think of spending time with the kids, with the family,
or with friends.
Whenever we think of time with our family, with our children, with our friends as another
thing on the to-do list, then we end up missing the point.
We end up missing that there was a reason why it was that our friends invited us to the
party that was going on this week.
There was a reason why it is that our children wanted to play with us.
There was a reason why it is that our spouse wanted time just with us one-on-one.
But how often do we think of it as, well, I better get that done because I don't want
to get in trouble, or, well, I guess I have to put in my time.
Well, I guess I didn't see them recently, so I better go make some time for it.
And then we end up looking at our watch the whole time, wondering how long we have to
stay before it's time that we can finally leave, because we missed the whole point of
what that time was with them.
And that's what we end up also seeing with the people of Israel.
It speaks in Hebrews 4 about how they had disbelief, and we're wondering to ourselves,
you were in this 40-year walk where all you have is God and one another.
And how is it that you did not realize who God was?
We end up looking to them and wondering how could any of them have lost their belief when
every day they had manna falling from heaven, feeding them.
Whenever time and time again, the smoke cloud is wandering through, leading them to where
to go.
Whenever they are being told of the battles that they can fight and the places that they
can get through safely, and we wonder how it is that they could be worshiping God every
week in his presence with his tabernacle.
And yet they struggled with faith.
Is that what we oftentimes do as well?
Do we see our time away from work, our time with God as just another task to get done,
because if we do, then how much are we truly misunderstanding who God actually is?
Is it any wonder that people struggle with faith when they don't even see a reason to
be in God's presence in the first place?
Whenever we welcome people, not just to hear God's word being preached, but also to commune
together, to serve together, to live, to worship with one another.
And yet people don't even seem to believe that God must be in this place because if
they did, why wouldn't they want to be here each and every week to join him?
But you see, those are two of the areas of what the Sabbath is for.
Rest and worship, but the third part is completion.
And that's what Hebrews four ends up referencing here.
The idea that the Sabbath is referring to when Jesus will come back again someday is
that there is a day whenever we know that Jesus will come back and look to see all that
has happened and that our time and our labor on this earth will be done and it will be
finished.
But notice what it says about Joshua in Hebrews four that Joshua did not lead the people of
Israel to the promised rest, the promised Sabbath.
Now isn't that a little bit strange?
They spent 40 years getting to this place.
So why is it that they're trying to emphasize that it was not the promised rest?
Because think about where the children of Israel's hearts really were.
They spent day after day complaining about the tasks that were ahead of them, even though
they were being led to a land that would be their own.
And when they got there, what did they do?
When they got to the promised land, what did they do?
They just stopped.
We're here now.
I guess we're done.
What we ended up seeing is that the people of Israel got there, found places that they
could end up living and then just ignored everything else.
They didn't want to be bothered to go through the rest of the promised land and to make
sure that anybody who was practicing these horrible areas of sacrificing their own children
or doing things that were wretched with their bodies and with their lives, that they were
saying, that does not belong in our land.
They didn't bother.
They just left them because they'd already gotten what they wanted.
And then we end up seeing in the following book of judges that those people had no idea
what they were even doing.
The very children of Israel just, they followed what everybody else was doing, and it was
just fine.
And they ended up completely destroying themselves.
And that's one of the things that we end up seeing so much in our world today is that
this is good enough and we don't want to be bothered.
How many things do we look at where we don't even know what our own goals and purposes truly
are?
What is it that we're even living toward anymore?
How often is it that we're just wanting to make sure that we get more money for something?
For what purpose?
Whether we're just looking for a time or a life of leisure, whether we just want an opportunity
to make sure we don't have to cook tonight, whether or not we just want to have opportunities
to step back and complain about the world around us whenever we don't want to even be
bothered to go out and make a change in it.
We see the world that is around us and how much they are in need.
And what is it that we oftentimes are looking to do?
How can I get back and hide away from it?
Because I got to make sure that I've got more Netflix to watch for tonight.
The thing is, is that we are not at that final completion.
Jesus hasn't come back yet.
There are tasks to be done, things that are important.
If we wonder why it is that those who are the most extreme in our world are the ones
who keep getting airtime, who keep getting listened to, it's because they're the ones
who are willing to be bothered when the rest of us can't.
And we see that even especially in our own faith.
When the Lutherans kept emphasizing that grace is free, what was the response from the Roman
Catholic Church at the time?
If you make grace free, then no one will be bothered about the way that they live.
And the Lutherans had to go and prove them right.
How lazy do we become?
We can't be bothered to meet with people to study the Word of God.
We can't be bothered to look for anything outside of our church walls that we can serve
in.
We can't be bothered to go and tell people about the gospel.
All we can get out is, well, you like our church.
The pastor has nice hair.
How often is it that we end up proving people right?
There are so many churches out there that we know that they don't quite get the gospel.
And yet the things that they do where they study the Word, they serve other people, they
worship regularly, and how often is it that we struggle with those?
We should be the ones who do it the most because we don't do it with fear.
We don't do it with thinking that God is somehow needing to be proven to love us.
We should be the ones to be doing it the most because we have the least dread.
And yet how often is it that we struggle even to have spiritual disciplines?
And as soon as somebody points it out, is that then someone wants to come and say, why are
you focusing on our works?
Are we willing to admit where we've gotten it wrong?
Because the Sabbath day is not just to stop working.
The Sabbath is about affirming what we're living for in the first place.
You know, I've been to different birthday parties before.
And there are some birthday parties where you go and you eat cake and you eat some food
and you say, hazzah, you're alive.
That's great.
And then there are some where they end up talking about the whole last year, about all the things
that they were doing together.
You can see their friends and their loved ones who are there who are talking about, oh, well,
you remember where we went to or you remember what we did here.
Do you remember when this happened and that the celebration is about their entire life
being lived?
But when we come to worship, are we celebrating this whole last week that we were living in
God's presence?
Are we celebrating all the things that we were given by God that we were able to do?
The time we were able to help the person who was elderly that needed some food.
The time whenever that there was a child who needed somebody to mentor them.
The time whenever somebody was just frustrated and angry and we went to go calm them down
because if we didn't, we knew that they were going to cause an issue that they might never
recover from.
The time whenever we know somebody needed a job and they just needed somebody to look
over their resume or even just to introduce them to someone that maybe might have a position
for them.
How many things that we can come into God's presence and celebrate that we were able to
do for his glory and for his honor?
Because that's the thing is that the Pharisees missed the point.
The Pharisees in the times of Christ kept confusing work with works.
They kept getting so obsessed with saying, don't work.
Stop what you're doing.
That they missed out on everything that you do is onto God.
And that it's not something to try to prove to God, God, I'm going to keep working and
I'm going to keep showing you that what I've gotten and what I've done is worthy of your
time.
And instead is to say, no, you rest this day, trusting what God has done and being prepared
for what he has to do for you through you tomorrow.
See that's the thing about the two edge sword.
We get uncomfortable with it.
We see it coming at us and we know that that sword can get right inside of us.
It can end up splitting apart the times and the ways in which we couldn't be bothered.
It can see everything happening inside of our hearts and all the times and the ways in
which we lost our energy because we lost our purpose.
The way to find more energy and joy is not by avoiding the work to be done, but rather
by asking how the work to be done has purpose and meaning.
And that's the place that we end up finding ourselves is that the more that we end up
living these lives with effort toward God, the more we're worshiping because we know
that each and every piece of our life is then offered to him.
See that's the thing that we end up seeing about the high priest.
See Jesus is the high priest is coming to suffer and to give of himself because he is
loving and merciful and because he understands where we're at.
That's the thing about being human that Jesus being human has taken on himself that cross
and has given of himself for us.
And then as we see that sacrifice, does that mean now that we just walk away?
Do we look and say, well done?
Great job.
I'm going to go ahead and leave now.
Or rather is that now this cross has given us a life that's worth living because now
each and every single thing that we have to do has a meaning and a purpose that goes to
eternity and that someday we will be in God's presence looking and hearing him say, well
done my good and faithful servant because that's the thing about the Sabbath is that
in the presence of God, we know that everything has been done and now we understand the meaning
of everything we do.
So I don't know what it is that the times whenever you've needed an opportunity to rest
and to step away.
God's love and God's grace and God's mercy means that that's okay.
You are not now judged by God because you needed a chance to be weak and to be strengthened
again.
But it also means that now that you've been strengthened, so that now you have a life
to go toward that means something more than what all the rest of the world tries to distract
us with, but that this life and what we learn and how we grow has meaning and purpose that
lasts into eternity.
So may we as the people of God get to the work that God has given us because there is
meaning and purpose and we want to serve the God who has given us everything by his grace.
Thanks be to God.