Northside Church - Sydney
Elemental – Week 2: Rhythm
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well I figure that most of you would have one of these, it's a user manual, owner maintenance manual from Mazda3, not that you're all owned Mazda3's, I'd like to own your car, but it's a user manual and I love it because at the back of it you go through all the pages and the whole of Chapter 8 verses 1 through to 10. Tell me all the different ways that I'm to look after my car, it puts it out a nice big spreadsheet type thing, a user service schedule of when we should replace spark plugs and the simple way to remember it is it says that every 10,000 kilometers or six months I should service my car. Now I love that, I'll do it diligently, I even get a little sticker up the top that says your next car is due for service, another 10,000 kilometers, I look at that every day but look what if I ran my car like this, what if I figure let's skip the services, let's just run it for 100,000 Ks and then I'll do it all at the end, let's just run this thing into the ground and then I'll do five services in one hit, that would be ridiculous, there's a rhythm to this, every 10,000 kilometers, now let me throw it out there, that it would be a ridiculous way to service our cars like that but I put it to you tonight that maybe some of you here run your own lives that way, that we figure let's just run super hard and we'll take four weeks and you'll leave at the end and we'll just do all the services then, I'll take all the books and all the board shorts and that'll be fine, look there's a rhythm to maintaining cars, if there is the cars why wouldn't there be the human life? That's what the Word of God will teach us tonight when we look at the book of Hebrews in chapter four, God, he's a smart cookie, he had a rhythm for life, he had a service schedule, here in his own user maintenance manual called the Bible and so in Hebrews chapter four verses one through to eleven, it says that there's a Sabbath rest for the people of God, you might want to read along with me if you've got your Bibles here tonight otherwise you can look up on the screens, it says therefore since the promise of entering his rest all stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it, for we also have had the gospel preach to us just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard it did not combine it with faith, now we who have believed into that rest just as God said, so I declared and on oath in my anger they shall never enter my rest and yet his work had been finished since the creation of the world, for somewhere he's spoken about the seventh day in these words and on the seventh day God rested from all his work and again in the passage above he says they shall never enter my rest. It still remains that some will enter that rest and those who formerly had the gospel preach to them did not go in because of their disobedience, therefore God again set a certain day calling it today, when a long time later he spoke through David as it was said before, today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts, for if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken later about another day, there remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their own work just as God did from his, therefore let us make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. It is an unusual passage, that one, trying to piece it together just from radiant you feel a bit confused, I'll give you a little tip, one of the key themes of that passage is rest, and tonight we're going to see the need for rest in our lives, the freedom we see in rest and the way to rest in our lives, we've been doing a series called elemental the core components of the Christian life and this is one of them, rhythm, see first why do we need this mandated rhythm from God, verse three quotes the end of Psalm 95 when I talked about the way that Israel was wandering in the desert, as part of their disobedience it says here that the ultimate punishment for this disobedience or lack of faith in God was a lack of rest, and on the other side of it it's saying that the ultimate prize for Israel to find would be to find rest, look simply it means that rest is a core component of life, it's essential to its enjoyment and it's how God designed it, it's part of the service schedule. Now let me ask you one of these people that when you go on holiday you take the iPhone, the iPad, the laptop and you start biting your nails because you're not sure if there's going to be an internet connection to the island that you're going on and you're suffering with draws and then the people you were there with you just find opportunities to sneak away and go up to the internet cafe just to go and check the work emails and you might be one of those sorts of people, you know there's got to be a lot of those sorts of people because an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 29th of December said that unions New South Wales wants to introduce a law, a law to stop people from taking their portable devices away and getting companies here as it says here, it's calling on companies to introduce rules requiring staff to ignore emails and leave their work, this is serious, SMH look it up on the internet, to ignore their emails and leave their work phones and computers in the office when they go and leave to stop the invasion of work in the holiday time. Here's my question, why have we got to legislate to do that, I mean the real question we've got to ask ourselves is why can't we just say no, why can't we leave the stuff behind, why is it so difficult to tear ourselves away from these devices and I guess the deeper question you've got to ask yourself tonight is if this is you why am I like this, we live in a society in which we're so consumed, we're consumed by things around us, we're consumed by the things we've got to do, we're consumed by responsibilities where people are looking to make things happen, we're consumed by expectations in our own lives and I guess let me put it out there, it could be for a number of reasons that we're consumed, we're consumed by fear where we fear that if we take a rest, if we don't read the email that we're going to lose our job, we're going to go backwards in the job, even if we rest we might actually spend time with the one person we fear the most ourselves, if we get a bit of quiet time together, maybe it's not fear, maybe it's approval, maybe we're just constantly having to be in contact with everyone else and so it's an approval issue, we're always saying yes to everyone and we can't rest because always seek your approval and people, hey maybe it's because you're building your foundations of your identity on something other than God, maybe it's because your work and all the things you've got to be involved in other things that make you who you are, I'm just throwing it out there, you see we live in a culture that is characterized by a deep restlessness, we're always busy, we're always going, Sydney's got to be one of the classic cities in this country that's characterized by that and that somehow seems to penetrate into an overflow into our lives whether we like it or not, so it's in this context that you've got to make a bold, you've got to make a radical decision tonight because the greatest challenge to our faith is to do the things we need to do in order to keep ourselves centered in God and that's incredibly difficult, incredibly difficult, why? Because entering the God's rest as we see from this passage is not something we just simply stumble into, just don't fall into it, it's entering God's rest takes faith and it takes focus, it takes the faith, it's coming to the realization that if you're in charge of your life, you're the one that has the control over your time, it means that this is an act of faith that God is good, that God is in control, that God does have your career in your job in order, you see because God never gives us anything too much to do in our lives, so as I was saying it means that it's up to us, the onus is on us to find this rest, but also the focus to regularly carve the time out, look have you ever caught yourself saying already, look at the end of 2010 just got crazy, I don't know what happened, but 2011 is going to be different, if you are then what you're discovering is it's Sabbath, God's rhythm is in fact a spiritual discipline, that's something we've got to work at guys, that's something that takes faith and takes focus, so the question is, see the need for rest, what is this rest, Sabbath is what started feeling like I had a breathable list, Sabbath is our way that we say the Hebrew word shabbat, which means to cease, literally means to stop, and so the biblical principle laid down was that every seventh day was to be a holy day for God, to be set aside for God, and so Sabbath I kept on forgetting is one of the 10 commandments, and one of the challenges for modern Christians is we think well that's all testament stuff that doesn't apply to me, it's not applicable, it's legalistic, it's out of date, and I have to look at that sort of stuff, but however as Christians we should always be careful to understand that Jesus himself says, I haven't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and even in Luke 6 Jesus comes and says that he's the Lord of the Sabbath, so this rhythm, this God given rhythm is good, and this ancient practice is applicable to today in 2011, not simply because of tradition, but because it's God's design for the best way to live, Sabbath keeping is not a response to these modern trends, it's not a response to traditions, it's because God knows and he understands that there's something deeper at the heart of the human condition that needs this sort of rhythm in our lives, first of all we say that God's rhythm means a freedom from slavery, verse 3 says, now we who have believed entered that rest just as God said, so I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest, now here as I said before this writer of Hebrews is referring to Psalm 95 in which Israel was wandering through the desert and there was, he's talking about the promised land, why the promised land? Because there was going to be rest, there was going to be physical rest because they've been wandering around in the desert, but there was also going to be a social rest because they were slaves, and so God had bought them out of Egypt and he uses that all the time throughout the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 15, verse 15, he says, remember that you're slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you and that's why I give you this command today, what God saying is that rest is actually a declaration of your freedom, because anyone who can rest is not a slave, so what it means today is when you rest you're saying I'm actually not a slave to technology, I'm not a slave to systems, I'm not a slave to societal expectations, I'm not a slave to the rise of consumerism in this society, I'm not a slave to the restlessness of our culture, rest is freedom from slavery. Now the caveat here, it doesn't mean that we don't work hard, it's not saying rest is laziness, it's what it's saying is the freedom now comes in our ability to set our own limits in life, and the great irony is we often don't do that, but the aim of the work is that we work from a position of rest, we work from rest, that's what we see next, that God's rhythm means of freedom from ourselves. Now I don't know how you pack for a holiday, you just got to ask Kristin, when you see me pack for a holiday, yes it includes the board shorts and the rash vest, particularly if we're going up to Hamilton Island, that is not New Zealand, you wouldn't need board shorts over there, but I'm crazy when I, I don't know if you do this, but when I pack for a holiday I pack everything there, but then I pack a book, I pack about ten different podcasts, I download a user manual for how to fly a glider, on how to service my car, I mean it just becomes into one big self-improvement project when I go away on holidays, and I think I'm going to read all this stuff when I go, and so I go away on holidays, and even though I've been there for a week, I come back feeling absolutely exhausted, I've got so much stuff to do. Why? Why do we do that? I could go away for six months and come back totally exhausted, why? It's like come, one of the apps that was so successful last year on the app store, on the iPhone was one called SleepCycle, and it was this, I don't know if it's a gimmick or not yet, I have to see someone is a sleep doctor, but apparently you put this thing on the pillow and it just checks the vibrations of when you're sleeping, and apparently you're more restless when you're in surface level sleep, but when you're in deep sleep you're calm and relaxed, and so it measures how much deep sleep you get, and so the whole point is not how long you've been sleeping, but how deep you actually sleep. So my graph goes all up and down, so I don't know what's going on there, but what it's saying is it's not so much about how much rest you get, it's about the depth of the rest that you get. So not only that, the different types of rest is of course there's physical rest lying on the beach, but there's also a spiritual rest, and when it comes to spiritual rest, no amount of holidaying on a beach somewhere is going to give you the sort of deep rest that you need, SleepCycle style, what am I talking about? Take a look at verses three to five, it says, "But God's work was finished from the time he made the world, and in the scriptures he talked about the seventh day of the week, and on the seventh day God rested from all his works." Now the writer there's quoting Genesis chapter two, the whole creation story when God made the world, he sees all these done, Ricky Gervais does a great comedy skit on this, God looks at his work, he says it's pretty good, and he steps back from it and he rests from it. Now you've got to understand God doesn't rest from his work because he's a rickety old man, and doing the whole creation thing, took it out of him, and he needs to sort of get a gatorade into him, and it's not that there's a different reason here, because it means that God rested, it means that he was satisfied with what he was doing. Looks at his work, he says it's good, it's finished, it means he was able to stop what he was doing because he was satisfied. That's what it means to rest, to truly stop. And most people believe that in order to stop working you've just got to stop work, that does make sense logically, but it doesn't work that way, it doesn't help the person that's searching for the internet connection on the island. It doesn't stop the person that's on top of the mount with the iPad, you see, it's one thing to stop your physical labour, we need a deep inner rest. It's a rest of being at rest with who you are, it's the rest that enables you to put down your work, it's an inner thing. We need to get rid of this restlessness. One preacher says the inner murmur of inadequacy is restless deep within ourselves, it says I'm unhappy with who I am and I'm never good enough and I'm not feeling I'm acceptable enough, I'm not in a good enough position or there's more that I have to be doing to be right and so we're working, we're working and we're working, we're trying to prove ourselves, prove ourselves to other people, prove ourselves to ourselves and if you're religious you're trying to prove yourself to God. That's the restlessness, because he says it's the work underneath all the work that all the vacations in the world can't cure, it's about the depth, the inner murmur of inadequacy, the restlessness underneath the weariness, a place where we get deep rest and unless we get rid of that you're going to be a slave, you're going to be a slave to the systems of self achievement, slaves to religion, slaves to other people, slaves to your own ridiculous expectations, slaves to yourself, we're slaves and when you find this deep rest that's what gives you the ability to say no, what gives you the ability to say no to the activities of approval, to say no to the decisions based on fear, say no to the foundations of your identity that's on anything other than God, where do we find this rest? Jesus makes it easy, he says in Matthew chapter 11, 28 we all know the verse, "Well don't we come to me, all you who are burdened and weary and I'll give you rest." How does that work? If you really want deep rest, you've got to come to Jesus. It might sound like Jesus saying hey, he's talking about just being lazy, come to me and I'll find you the easy way out in life. Jesus releases us from the burden of the need to prove ourselves to ourselves. And how, why has this happened? Look at verse 2, "For we've also had the gospel preached to us just as they did but the message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest just as God has said." What does believing do? Believing gets rid of every reason you have for that in a murmur of inadequacy. When you believe, when you believe, look it's the gospel, the gospel is not WWJD, little wristband, whatever Jesus do, gospel is not that, gospel is what is Jesus done. And when you believe in Jesus you see when he goes to the cross, when God in Jesus Christ says yet again in the Bible it is finished. The minute you believe, God takes all your imperfections and all your shortcomings and all the stuff that you don't, I have to feel proud of and he puts that on to Jesus it says in 2 Corinthians. And when God looks at you he says it's good, I'm satisfied. When you believe, the only set of eyes that you should have to prove yourself to says, I love you. And Jesus you hear God, look at you and say it's good, you hear, it is finished, you hear, it is satisfied. We find rest in Jesus because becoming a Christian means I'm not right, I'm not okay deep down based on what I've done based on my works but based on Jesus' works. That is the ultimate work that has to be done before we see him again, that is reconciliation with God and he's done that for us. So friend, have you found that rest yet? Do you want that sort of inner peace? Do you know what it is to have that inner peace? It's found by believing in Jesus. Christian, are you living that rest? Maybe not, maybe you've got to reprieve the gospel of yourself. W.W.J.D. W.H.J.D. 2K truths about God's rhythm. Sabbath is freedom from slavery from self, Sabbath is believing. Finally, how do we practice it? What a harp on about that for that little bit there. It's because unless you get that then there's no point trying to do Sabbath. There's no point trying to do this because you're just going to turn rest into religion. Don't get that, it's going to become another religious exercise in which you're trying to prove yourself to God. Important thing about God's rhythm is that Sabbath is a spiritual discipline and that's why it's an activity that we engage in that allows us to do something that we cannot currently do by direct effort. Do that if you're trying to learn the piano or play football or hockey or whatever it might be. Three ways to practice Sabbath, finally. Similar service in your car. Log books, service day and user maintenance, nice and easy. Let's remember this here. Log books, built in car log books every 10,000 kilometers. As C.S. Lewis said, only lazy people are busy. What it means is that if you can't find the effort in your life to carve out the time for God then you're only going to be thrown around by the needs and the desires of everyone else in your life. Not only that, it means you know, you're diary. I'm not talking about your log book here, but you're diary. Your calendar says a lot about your view of God. So the question is it also says a lot about your spiritual condition and your fears and your ambition. Look, question quickly here. If you open up your diary today, what time, what proportion of it would be set aside to spend with God? It leads me to the next point. Look, as we said, the principle is not a day off, but it's a day four. It's a day for God. Jesus' solution to anxiety and worries the world was to go and look at the bees and sniff the flowers and sit on the grass, wasn't it? Do not worry. Look at the birds of the air. Look at the lilies in the field. Why? It's not because he's gone all hippie on everyone. Because he says it's a great time, a great opportunity to step back and realize that the world doesn't revolve around you. And so you can rest. So when I put the car in for service, I just don't switch it off for 24 hours. Take it down to Brookie Mazda. I get it in there. They get the car. They put it up on the hoist. They look underneath. They inspect the leaks. They check the shocks. They do the whole lot. You see, Sabbath is a day for God. It's an opportunity for you to go and actively engage God to get yourself put up on the hoist and allow the great mechanic that is the Holy Spirit to inspect you for leaks and any bits that have gone a bit rusty and to re-lube the engine and make sure everything is running smoothly. What does that look like? It means you just, it's an opportunity for being contemplative. Go out, spend some time and quiet solitude with the word of God. It means changing your context. It means not always being at home. You just don't go and sit around and play PlayStation for the day. But get down to the beach, try something different. And it's not just a day in which you can still do a bit of work on the laptop in the side. Why? I guess it's because you don't have to service. Look, you can just not service your car for six to 12 months, but things are going to start getting a bit creaky and a bit squeaky. You do that with your own faith. You're going to have a faith that looks like a 1976 Hilux. It's just been through the Nullabour plane and it's about as dry and as rusty and as crusty as that question. Are you setting aside a day? Old day, whether it's a week, fortnight, a month, start there for God. And are you enjoying it at the same time? The last one is regular user maintenance. You see, one of the funny things in the Bible is that the Sabbath was not just for humans. The laws of God and the Sabbath principle of every seven days applied for farming and a whole host of other activities. And one of the activities that God declared was the process of gleaning. He said that it was one of the laws in Leviticus 19 that I had, one of the laws he says, "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleaning as your harvest." God says, "Don't go all the way out to the very edge of your field. What it means for us today is we're practicing that is, it doesn't mean run 12, 14, 16 hour days every day of the week and then have a big day off at the end. It defeats the purpose. The question is how are you building Sabbath into everyday work life, process of gleaning? So how many of you tonight need to start gleaning? I mean, you constantly work into the edges of your field. So I guess I've finished with this. You're probably thinking, Sam, you don't understand what my boss is like. You don't want to understand what this is going to do to me when I turn up on Monday morning and I'm not doing that boss. So I'm, I'm sabbath-ing. Hey, look, I look, I've got to go through, I've got to go through that same tough process as well because our response to this sort of message, our response like that really does show who we regard our real boss as. See, the ultimate boss, the boss of the universe has given us this day, this rhythm. It's a tradition, but as a gift, it's how life is meant to be lived. And so finally, guys, Sabbath, Sabbath rest is not about relaxation, it's about reorientation of our life back to God. And so I ask you tonight, do you need to reorient your life tonight? Do you need to find some deep rest? It's elemental rhythm. Sabbath, one of the core components of the faith. That's a simple question. What is, what is your servicing schedule look like for the next six or 12 months? Do you need rest? You find it in Jesus. It's practiced in Sabbath. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you're a God of grace and of mercy and one who just understands who we are. So Lord, I pray for each and every one of us tonight. And I know how so many of us live our lives at the beginning of a new year. Father, we pray into this year is a year of rhythm, a year that's reoriented around you, Father God. Father, I pray for those tonight that are dealing with that deep in a sense of inadequacy, that still small voice that comes from no one else but themselves. And I pray that they find a new identity in Jesus Christ, an identity that says this is good, that this is perfect. This is one that I love. Lord, will you help us as we know we struggle with this so often, each and every year, will you help us just grasp this process of cutting away the parts of our life that are insignificant and focusing back on you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.