Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:07] So, Evan, this last week talked about how walking with Jesus is about where does our attention lie. It's easy to say that we walk with Jesus, but if our attention is being pulled in all these different directions, it can be difficult to walk in the way of Jesus. And I am going to supplement that one, that first week with this second week. And that is the topic of rest and Sabbath. And the reason that we want to talk about this is for a lot of reasons, but it starts with this. And this is Matthew, chapter eleven. This is the words of Jesus in the message. Translation by Eugene Peterson. He says, are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me, and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest.
[00:00:51] Walk with me and work with me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. I want you to know how to take a real rest.
[00:01:11] You know what it feels like when you get a real rest.
[00:01:15] This happened to me recently where I accidentally woke up at about 945 in the morning.
[00:01:24] And I had had one of those sleeps that I hadn't had in a long time, but it's one of those ones where you feel almost attached to the bed and like it's pulling you under the longer you stay in there. And I woke up, and I was sure that we had had a power outage or something like that, because I hadn't slept till that time in years and years. And so I walk out in the living room, and I look at my wife, who's looking at me not with the happiest of faces, but is like, where have you been, you know, sleeping. It was amazing. It was magic. And there was a difference between that kind of a sleep, that kind of a rest that I had had, and so much of the other ones where you're interrupted or you're waking up early, you got to go, you got to get moving. And for whatever reason, this was a different experience, a different feeling altogether, and not necessarily specifically with sleep. But I believe that Jesus is inviting us into this rest for our bodies and for our souls today. That goes beyond just a decent night's sleep, but it actually offers peace to the very core of our being, to who we are. And when we walk in that rest and in that Sabbath, we allow ourselves to offer up our lives and what we do all the way to God. And it creates a sustainability in our walk with God. We're not attaching ourselves to every issue or trouble that comes our way. Instead, we're casting our cares on Jesus. Amen.
[00:02:38] So we're going to explore this concept that's overlooked because of how fast paced our world is. We're always on, we're always moving, we're always trying to maximize our efficiency.
[00:02:49] And the importance of Sabbath as a life rhythm is that it takes us out of perfect deficiency, but into perfect submission with God.
[00:02:57] The idea of rest, especially in the form of a dedicated Sabbath, is not just a suggestion, but we actually find it to be a commandment in scripture given by God.
[00:03:06] It's a gift designed for our well being. Jesus says that Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. This is not a way to create more rules and pure structure around your life. Instead of, it's a way to indulge in the beautiful and flourishing love of God.
[00:03:25] It's a life rhythm that brings balance and renewal and a deeper connection with our creator. Let's pray as we jump into it today. Father God, we thank you for all that you're doing in this place.
[00:03:37] Lord, we want to rest how you would have us rest. We want to recline in your grace and understand that while our work is beautiful, it's only done when rested. Well, so, Jesus, teach us your Sabbath. In your name we pray. Amen.
[00:03:54] So where does Sabbath come from? Well, it begins in the story of creation in Genesis, chapters one and two, where we hear about the creation of the earth as we know it, and that creation happens over the course of six days. And on the 7th day, it says that God himself rested and his presence filled all of creation.
[00:04:17] And so we can start with this premise of why do we even need a Sabbath and rest in the first place? Well, my idea is that is, if God is exhausted after six days of work, that maybe you and I are as well. It says in Genesis two, two, three. By the 7th day that God had finished the work he had been doing. On the 7th day, he rested from that work. And then God blessed the 7th day, made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. And so we have the creation of humanity, and then the deception of humanity. Sin enters into the world. The nation of Israel is built by the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And then Israel is enslaved by Egypt. And then after their enslavement, they are taken out of slavery and brought into a wilderness where God again gives them the opportunity, through a command, to engage in the promised land. Rest while they're in the wilderness. So what's happening with this nation, this group, is that they have been set free. Everything that they hope for has happened, but now they find themselves in this in between place. Right? Have you ever been in an in between place in a vehicle with a small child? Yeah. It's one of the more difficult places that exists in all of this world.
[00:05:29] Are we there yet? Why aren't we there yet? And there are a lot of problems that I have with technology and screens and all that kind of stuff and how it has our attention. One of the greatest gifts from God is an iPad and a vehicle. I know you might disagree with me, but. Oh, Jesus.
[00:05:44] You know, I had, like, the complete collection of Winnie the Pooh when I was a kid, and that lasted about 25 minutes, you know, before I got bored on 14 hours trips to Montana. The fact that my child can watch Spongebob in a car for 4 hours is just a delight to my soul.
[00:06:03] It only gets weird when they start singing, when I can't hear them. But anyway, this in between place that we find ourselves and you find yourself in this way in your life. Maybe you're a student and you're in this in between. Between high school and then the workplace, and you're feeling a little bit not knowing what's going to happen in this in between of college. And maybe you're this way as a parent or a child or someone in your job. You're hoping for this new thing, this future thing. You're hoping to achieve this goal so that you can walk into this lifestyle. And what the Israelites are doing at this moment is that they know that there's this promised land waiting for them. Where there are resources, there is safety that they get to walk into. But right now, they're in the wilderness going, what are we doing out here? We're still wandering around. I feel like we're lost. I'm not sure the direction or when we're going to get there. And so what God commands them to do and offers them to walk in is an opportunity to live in the lifestyle of the promised land, even while they're in the wilderness.
[00:07:04] And God offers us this same opportunity today that while we live on, on the go world that insists on your highest efficiency in order to achieve. While we live in this world, we can still spend time in this promised land that God has for us.
[00:07:24] And so what? Resting and Sabbath and really, even more than that delighting in the lord does for us is it actually transports us into the place that we belong as brothers and sisters in Christ and children of God.
[00:07:39] I grew up in a small town called Glendale in southern Oregon. And our body of water that runs through Glendale is not quite as majestic as the Deschutes river. It's called Cow Creek.
[00:07:54] And you don't really think about the name until you're wading in the water and you're knowing that there are many cows in the creek upstream.
[00:08:02] It's fine.
[00:08:06] We used to float on this creek. Sometimes we go all these different miles. My friends and I would try to do it. And again, it's not as great as the Deschutes, because so many times you're just running out of the surface, right? You're hitting rocks and you got to get out, you got to walk around, you got to get back in.
[00:08:23] Anyway, it was a whole experience. Don't float cow creek ever, even if somebody invites you to.
[00:08:30] But one thing that I really remember from my experience on the creek and the swimming holes that we would find and the trees that we would climb, and we'd put rope swings in them and we'd fish, and there was this really distinct smell that I've only. No, it's a good smell this time from the cows, but it's this. I don't even know what the plant is, but it's got. It's a fairly long leaf. And when it blooms, I think it blooms. See, I don't even know anything about this. I just know the smell. There's like this sweet smell to it. And it doesn't really exist in the high desert, except for my family. And I went out and stayed at subtle lake a few times, this over the last few years. And that plant is there. And the first time I smelled it at the lake, it was unlike any kind of nostalgia. You guys know when you hear that song in the car and it reminds you of a time and it reminds you of people. Or even my wife and I last night, like, made homemade pizzas. We did that a lot when we were dating in college and stuff. And it kind of took me back to a time. But this smell, like, picks me up out of my body, and it puts me on the creek in Glendale.
[00:09:40] And I can feel the heat and I can feel the rope swing in my hands. And it's a completely different experience that takes me out of it. What a Sabbath is a delighting and resting in the Lord does as a rhythm of our life, as a regular part of how we worship. What it does is it's a fragrance of heaven in the place that we truly belong.
[00:10:07] It pulls us out of the rush and the bustle and the anxiety of our world that exists today. And it drops us firmly into this new heaven and new earth that God has promised is waiting for us.
[00:10:21] So what do I mean by delight? Well, delight, I believe, is the center point, the most important piece of Sabbath. I want you to understand that Sabbath is not about sitting around and doing nothing and meditating and reading your Bible or something like that. That can be a piece of it, if that appeals to you. But what I want to encourage us to do as a body of Christ is to delight in the Lord and remember all of the goodness and the joy that he brings to our hearts into this world and will forevermore. And so when I say I want you to participate in Sabbath, I'm not saying I want you to sit laying down on your Rug in the middle of your living room. I'm saying when you go to get pancakes, I want you to empty the Syrup on top of them.
[00:11:02] You know what I'm saying?
[00:11:04] When you go on that hike on your Sabbath, I want you to stop thinking about how quick your mile time needs to be. And I want you to actually add another seven minutes to that mile. And then I want you to go a little bit farther. I want you to take 2 hours more on the trail. I want you to float the river and then get out and go float it again.
[00:11:25] I want you to slow down and indulge in the joy of the Lord that he has given us through our creation and through our relationships and our community.
[00:11:35] These things that give us life are what consists and make up a beautiful Sabbath day. It's not necessarily a lack of activity. It's a lack of participating in things that I believe that will kill us. And these are the should dos of life.
[00:11:52] You know what'll kill your joy?
[00:11:54] A should list.
[00:11:56] Before you know it, you got should all over yourself.
[00:12:02] Cause, you know, kids do this way better than we do. Just yesterday, my son, my daughter, was with a friend doing a really, really fun thing. And so my wife and I said, hey, Joel, you can pick what you want tomorrow to look like. And he made a list. He wrote out a list which is classic. My wife, it's like, oh, yeah, we've got something fun to do. Let's make an excel spreadsheet out of it. This will be amazing.
[00:12:23] I'm like, don't you guys just want to vibe, you know, they're like, no, we got to get the good stuff done. It's going to be great. But he did awesome. He was like, I want to have, like, a breakfast burrito. I want to spend time with dad in the morning. I want to get sushi for lunch, and then I want to go home, and I want to play baseball in the backyard, and I want to play catch. I want to walk the dogs. I want to homemade pizza. And we did this whole list yesterday, and this was easy for my son. I said, what do you want to do? And there's ten things. They're all giving me life. Check it out.
[00:12:49] You know what happens when you go to a grown adult and you say you can do whatever you want tomorrow? They go, well, you know what I should do?
[00:13:00] Yeah. I mean, if I have an open day, you know, any of you almost get a little anxiety about these open days, like me, like, man, I don't know. I think I'd rather go to work.
[00:13:12] I got that little rhythm figured out. You got an open day tomorrow. What? What do you want to do? Well, I should work on the yarn.
[00:13:20] Excuse me. Did somebody say should do in here?
[00:13:23] I think I said, what do you want to do? We're terrible at this, but I want you to understand, and I know because I am this person, the should do's will crush your spirit. It'll kill your joy, and it'll rob you of every moment of rest that you desperately need.
[00:13:43] And why do we do this? Well, because I'm a good person. I'm responsible. I'm efficient. I have some time, so I should do these things. I've been trying to catch up on them for as long as I can remember. I got chores. I got things. People's expectations are all weighing on me. Now, here's what I want you to understand about a real Sabbath rest, which is defined in scripture as a 24 hours period where we're spending time delighting in the Lord.
[00:14:07] And I'll tell you at the end of this message, again, I'll settle for 2 hours of your time this next week.
[00:14:14] But what we discover is that these should dos these things when they continue to assault our minds and our hearts and our spirits. Eventually we remove ourselves from these opportunities to be truly restored at this deep level, that long sleep level, that deep, restful, connected to the bed kind of rest, that experiencing joy. Because what I want you to understand this more than anything is that you will lose efficiency in following Jesus.
[00:14:44] You will let people down when you rest, and you follow Jesus. Well, I'm gonna miss a call. Well, I'm not gonna end up making that money that I was hoping to make. Well, I'm not gonna. And I got news for you. Absolutely, it's true. You will miss out on these things. People will be bummed out because you did not answer your call on the Sabbath.
[00:15:03] But I think there's something greater than our efficiency and our ability to make money and to find success and to work as hard as we can, even though it comes from a beautiful place in our heart. Oftentimes we're trying to provide, we're trying to make a way. Let's leave that for the other six days, and let's remind ourselves that the time that we have even doesn't belong to us, but instead it belongs to God.
[00:15:26] Can we, as often as possible, take in that fragrance of heaven that transports us to a different place where we're reminded of the joy of the Lord?
[00:15:39] Abraham, Joshua Heschel says this in his book, the Sabbath. It says, it's one of life's highest rewards, a source of strength and inspiration to endure tribulation and to live nobly.
[00:15:53] The work on weekdays and the rest on the 7th day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, and the other day is the inspired call the Sabbath a delight. A delight to the soul and a delight to the body.
[00:16:12] I want you to ask yourself, have I had any fun recently? Have I found delight in anything? My wife literally asked me this just a little while ago, what makes you happy and what brings you joy? And I gave a terrible answer, and I said, well, my kids being happy makes me happy. That's cheating.
[00:16:31] Of course. My kids being happy makes me happy. And I gotta be honest with you, through the course of walking through life with my family and walking through life with a therapist, asking all the right questions, I have often forgotten what makes me happy in the first place.
[00:16:47] Where do I even find joy anymore?
[00:16:52] Well, Ben, why did you lose your sense of joy? You seem like a. I'm just going to project this from you onto me. You seem like a funny and fun guy.
[00:17:02] Thank you, everyone. That makes me feel so good.
[00:17:08] Well, I went through a time of life and continue to often go through a time of life where I felt like every problem in the church and in the world around me needed to be solved immediately and by me.
[00:17:20] And through that experience, I discovered the worst pieces of church and of people and the worst pieces of myself.
[00:17:27] And I find myself cynical and frustrated and angry and believing that the work will never be complete, the church will never be made whole and function how I believe that God has called it to do.
[00:17:40] And so instead of hoping and finding joy in any of these things that immediately surround myself, I choose instead to believe that it will never work and that my cynicism will protect me.
[00:17:54] And my cynicism, while it won't keep me whole, it will keep me whole enough so that I never have to be disappointed by anyone again.
[00:18:03] What a joyful life.
[00:18:09] God has called us to something greater. And I got to believe that if you're anything like me, and I believe that there are some people out there like that, you feel like you've taken the weight of your world on your shoulders.
[00:18:21] The SolutioN may be a bit more rest, not simply coming up with a Better StrateGy to continue to do the work and be as efficient as possible WIth all of your hours.
[00:18:34] So they experience, the Israelites do the festival, the Sabbath, the year of Jubilee, in which everything is restored and all debts are forgiven.
[00:18:42] And then they forget God, and they find themselves enslaved and exiled again in Babylon. And generations go bye. And then this man named Jesus shows up and begins his mission to save the world on a Sabbath day.
[00:18:56] And this is what he says in Luke four. Says, he went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom, and he stood up to read in the scroll the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written, the spirit of the Lord is on me. And because he has anointed me to pray, proclaim good news to the poor real quick. This is a little bit of a side note. The gospel, which is translated as good news. The gospel is always good news to the poor.
[00:19:25] Now, we have to make sure that we're holding ourselves accountable to this as a church. And we often use this phrasing with our staff at west side. If we are truly teaching the gospel, and you will hear people manipulate this, often, you will know it is the gospel based on whether or not it is good news to the poor, good news to the poor in spirit, good news to the poor in resource, good news to those who have given up. This is truly the essence of the gospel, is good news to the poor. That's a whole different sermon series that will start in the next couple weeks, probably. I think he sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began by saying to them, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
[00:20:20] These people, in all of their toiling, in all of their work, in all of their even dysfunctional Sabbath. Jesus has identified that you are looking for fulfillment, and I have come to provide that fulfillment here on a Sabbath day.
[00:20:37] If we're truly looking for this fulfillment, and I believe that all of we are, we'll find it in resting and knowing that this is Jesus's mission, that he has come, he loves us. He's offered grace to each and every single one of us. And then as we head into one more section of scripture, Matthew 28, he has died and risen again on behalf of us.
[00:20:57] So the Sabbath creates fulfillment for us. But then that fulfillment creates miracles. I believe on the other side of the Sabbath, and this is my evidence for that. In Matthew, chapter 28, it says, after the Sabbath. So Jesus has been killed, crucified and put into a tomb. It says after the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.
[00:21:28] His appearance was like lightning. His clothes were as white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. And the angel said to the women, don't be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He's not here. He's risen, just as he said, come and see the place where he lay, and then go quickly and tell his disciples he's risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him. Now I have told you what happens on the other side of the Sabbath, of the quiet of the death of Jesus is the greatest miracle that any of us have ever known. And I wonder if you are looking for a resurrection in your life. Maybe your body someday won't be resurrected from the dead as a form of miracle. But I wonder, as a result of rest and Sabbath, if your marriage might be resurrected.
[00:22:19] I wonder if maybe you won't experience a resurrection just in this way. But I wonder if maybe your body will experience a resurrection because of the rest that it's crying out for. But maybe you can't hear it.
[00:22:33] I wonder if your hope and your joy will be resurrected as a result of rest and the Sabbath, because God does a miraculous work on the other end of these days of Sabbath, where we're called to not produce anymore, but instead to experience the true joy and delight that we find in our savior.
[00:22:53] I've been working on this with my kids a little bit, and somebody gave my kids the idea that they should get paid. Every time I talk about them from the stage, that person is not appreciated.
[00:23:06] Now they come in, they're, like, asking people, my dad, talk about me, and, look, I'm a dad of a nine and a seven year old. Every story I have is around my kids right now.
[00:23:15] That's kind of my life in.
[00:23:18] I think about my two kids. Jovi is my seven year old daughter, and Jovi.
[00:23:23] Jovi rests really well.
[00:23:26] She's awesome, man.
[00:23:28] Every morning you go to wake that girl up, she kind of pulls her head up off the pillow, and she's like, what are you doing?
[00:23:35] You leave me alone.
[00:23:39] And when you ask Jovi about, like, what do you want? Do you want to watch a movie? You know, and why don't we watch a movie in my bed? And she'll be like, oh, and we're gonna have popcorn. And I'm like, yeah, we are. We put that popcorn in the. We do a little bit old school style, right on the stovetop in the pot, and it starts popping up, and she wants to go watch it pop. And then we put it in the big bowl, and then I love butter and salt, you guys.
[00:24:08] And so I got. I melt some butter in another pot, and then I pour it over the top, and I mix it up, and then I pour it over the top again and mix it up. I want it to have a little bit of a greasy floor on the bottom of that bowl, you know?
[00:24:23] And my daughter loves the salt the most. And so she'll watch me put the butter on. She'll be okay. Now, salt, and I sprinkle a little over top, and she'll go, we should have some more.
[00:24:33] And she'll taste test it and be like, needs to be saltiere.
[00:24:37] And then what we did one time after we made this ridiculous, greasy enough popcorn for eight people for just the two of us, you know, we laid down towels on top of the bed so that we could just wipe our hands on them, you know?
[00:24:51] And I look over at my daughter, she's literally like, this hand in the bowl, going to the mouth, watching the tv, and, like, you know, it's like a starfish on top of the bed. And I'm like, this girl gets it, man.
[00:25:06] Uninhibited.
[00:25:08] She's not going, hmm. I wonder how many calories I had earlier today. Do I have enough available for whatever? She's like, dad, you wanna watch a movie? Look at me and pour that salt. I'm like, oh, yeah, she knows how to delight in time with dad, right?
[00:25:26] And like I said earlier, my son does a good job, too, in a lot of these places, I've noticed, especially with his love of sports.
[00:25:34] He wants to get better all the time, and he wants to, like, he's asking me if you can work out and lift weights already. I'm like, hey, you're nine. Let's not kill you.
[00:25:42] And he's like, well, I saw. I saw this workout, and I kind of want to do this. Can we try this? And so we came to August this year. He's not involved in any sports currently, in any formal manner. He's not doing any of the club things in August.
[00:25:54] But I know he wants to play baseball, right? We play in the backyard all the time.
[00:25:58] And so what I've tried to do over the course of that time is say, we're going to play, but we're just going to play this August. We're not getting better.
[00:26:10] We're not producing, we're not trying to win for just a little while.
[00:26:18] I love winning, but we're just going to be together.
[00:26:26] And when you hit the ball, I'm going to chase it, and I'm going to throw it at you, and I'm going to try to get you out, and we're just gonna be. And then we're gonna kayak, and we're gonna paddleboard, and we're gonna try some new things. We're gonna have fun, and we're just going to exist.
[00:26:44] Some of your souls in here are begging for a few hours of not trying to produce and get better and be something that you're not right now at this moment.
[00:27:02] And so I want to encourage you today through this act of Sabbath.
[00:27:07] Some would say it's a discipline. Some would say it's a piece of the walk through, actually putting boundaries and things in place where we take a real rest and we delight in the Lord. I believe that you will find this fulfillment instead of on the other side of more work and more production.
[00:27:27] So again, Sabbath doesn't have to be a day of doing nothing.
[00:27:31] It can be filled with life giving activities that restore your soul.
[00:27:35] Now, embracing the Sabbath as a life rhythm involves cultivating this kind of mindset, a new mindset that is antagonistic to our culture. Often, you have to recognize your need for rest. You gotta trust in God's provision. Not everything's gonna get done. You're right. And that belongs to God. And value your relationship with God above all else. It's about letting go of pressures to constantly produce and achieve and instead find peace in the presence of God.
[00:28:01] This will allow you to carry the spirit of the Sabbath. Sabbath into rest for your week, and you'll live with a sense of balance and a new purpose.
