MK040 Sermons
Daily and Weekly Pause (Audio)
well this morning we're wrapping up a series that we've been in through the month of April and that series entitled slowing down to be with Jesus and if you haven't been here with us the purpose of the series was to invite us to consider what is it gonna take for us to turn down the RPMs in our life and for us to meet with God for us to meet with God and with his son Jesus and this morning we're gonna take a little bit different approach and talk about just some practical ways of what that might look like but if you haven't been here with us this series we began by starting off with Jesus Invitation in Matthew 11 where he says come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you what rest rest and so it's really an invitation that Jesus invites us into to come and be with him and so we've asked ourselves what would it be like for us to put life on pause and just took a break from all the other demands of this life in this world and just slow down to meet with Jesus and I encourage you if you don't have a anything that you're doing to read to just look at God's word to go to the gospels and I've been in the book of Mark is where I've been just to pause and meet with Jesus and you know I know sometimes when we do that it doesn't always make sense it's not always crystal clear I you know I was reading recently about Jesus casting out demons I'm like well I don't think that's on my job description and you know I don't know if there's any in my kids that I need to be throwing out or something it seems like that at times but sometimes you got to read over those passages a couple of times before they make sense and sometimes maybe set it down and come back to it the next day or two and say God what do you have in this for me and part of this journey is for us to recognize it when we slow down and we spend time with Jesus that that God wants to meet with us God wants to meet with us and sometimes it's not clear and other times like God I don't know what that would be like I was just reading in there recently about when Jesus healed someone and after he healed some the word got out about that and it says that God brought the whole town to their doorstep and I sat with that and I wondered what would happen if people in Reinholds heard what God was doing here and God brought the whole town to our doorstep what we do what we do and what would we have to offer to them then a couple weeks ago we took a look at the whole idea of spiritual pathways recognizing that there's different ways we meet with God there's different ways and different settings we meet with God so some of you the setting to meet with God is when you're quiet and it's contemplative it's just you quietly with God for the others of you it's when you're active in serving God shows up for some of you it's when you're out in creation those are the times when God meets with you if you weren't here with us there you can go online and listen to the message online there's an assessment back on the info center I encourage you to grab one of those and and take it with you just to walk through and explore some different ways that you can meet with God and and one of the ways that you can meet with God is out in nature and creation and we've had some one of our guys create a walking prayer path out there and so if you know if your spouse is busy in here talking with someone afterwards maybe just take a walk you'll end up just follow the blue flags you'll end up back here in about 20 minutes but I have to warn you if you go late at night the dear will know you're there and they'll make noises it might freak you out if you're not sure what that is so but I challenge you to say there are different ways for you to meet with God and not only be attentive to the ways that you most likely meet with God but the ways that you least likely meet with God I was talking to someone recently and they said you know the ways I meet with God is in worship that's what's just one of the ways I I draw near to God and when I'm with other people in relationships I just really feel connected to God and they were in a setting recently where they were worshiping with some friends who felt really connected with to be with God and and then the speaker said now what I want you to do is I want you to sit quietly for 30 minutes by yourself and meet with God this person's like what in the world am I going to do for 30 minutes meeting with God now I'm not going to ask you to do that this morning for those of you that are wondering but after about five ten minutes they slowly started to just connect with God in some ways that they had not done in a long long time and so I encourage you to look at the ways that you most likely connect to God or me we've got in some of the ways that it's least likely for that to happen and then if you weren't here with us last Sunday Bill Berry spoke last Sunday and he looked at the passage in John 15 or John 14 verse 15 that says to me that says if you love me you'll keep my commandments talked about this whole idea of obedience and looked at obedience not from a legal standpoint which you're legally required to obey the laws of our land but from a relational standpoint and what is obedience look like when you're in relationship with someone and not an expectation but an opportunity to enter into that relationship this morning we're gonna take a look at some practical ways that this happens some practical ways to go about doing that to get us started I want you to take a moment I want you to think about someone that you look forward to being with someone that you enjoy spending time with someone that when you're with that person time just seems to go by and you don't even realize how quickly the time goes and you can't wait till you get to be with them next now I want you also think about something that you enjoy doing an event or an activity maybe it's a physical activity maybe it's just quiet to yourself but something you enjoy doing that time just passes by when you're doing those things as you think about those two things and we talk about this idea of slowing down to be with Jesus and a daily pause what does a daily pause look like I think what God longs for us to experience is what it's like when we're with someone doing something we really really enjoy or with someone doing something we really really enjoy but I have to be honest with you that in most of my conversations with people and it comes up a lot because of my job people think they have to talk to me and confess things to me even though I don't have a call on they feel the need to do that at least the black one going by white one going backwards you know but when this whole idea of talking or being with God comes up I hear things like yeah I'm just kind of busy or you know I really should but I'm not I don't really do enough and and then if I press a little bit deeper I hear well it's I do but I don't really understand it doesn't make a lot of sense it's kind of boring and my heart just sinks when I hear that I think why would someone keep going back and doing something that they really don't enjoy that has no meaning and value that's boring why would we do that why we do that now we have things in life that are like that right we have things in life that we just have to do we know we should do them they're good things that we should do one of them is like exercise you know like everybody knows they should exercise but but most people when they go on exercise and they and they spend some time doing some type of physical exertion that they haven't done for a while what do they usually feel after that they usually feel excited about doing again or aches and pains you know probably depends on how old you are right you know but most people after that experience especially if they haven't done it for a long period time are not thrilled and excited looking for under their like wow that was really hard I don't know if I can do that again you know or maybe it's a little bit like going to the dentist how many of you look forward to going to the dentist anybody look forward okay we got about three weirdos here in the room you know but you know you go to the dentist and you got this guy poking them around in your mouth you know and it and it doesn't always feel very good and you figure your teeth are working while you're eating you're not starving so your teeth must be working fine but they find things in there that aren't fine that then they have to do more work and it's especially painful when you write the checkout after they're there right most of you don't look forward to going to the dentist but it's something you have to do and far too often it seems like our time with God is just like that it's a little like exercise or going to the dentist I know I should I really should I don't look forward to it there's nothing good that comes out of it but I know I should and I just feel a lot of guilt when I don't and the more I think about it the more I think somehow that I'm I'm just not sure God's really thrilled with what that looks like for us but I just keep asking myself why is that why is that why is that you know I think about people that I enjoy spending time with they're no longer here they've going to be with heaven in heaven with Jesus but are my my grandparents my dad's parents and they would have us to their house for a week during the summer where kids going up my brother and I would go for a week and my sisters would go for a week and so we got two weeks of heaven you know one with our grandparents one without our sisters you know so and they would always have things planned my grandfather was an engineer and he could build things he always had things for us to build and make it teach my brother and I had to do these things my dad was not very able to do that this wasn't something they was good at and so we always had a great time going and doing things with them we always look forward to being with them unless we got a little bit older and we weren't spending weeks with them we would go on our own to go and visit them just to be with them not because mom and dad said we had to because we wanted to we look forward to that they valued us they said that we you know they buy their actions how important we were they would come to things that were important in our lives they want to know what was happening in our lives and it seemed like as their grandkids we could do no wrong they said didn't tell us if we didn't anything wrong in their eyes even when we did things we shouldn't you know and there was something about that relationship where we just felt amazingly accepted and valued and treasured by them and that never ended all the years that I know them and as I thought about that relationship I thought I think that's a little bit of what God longs for us to know about him and us I think somehow God longs for us to know that he is waiting for us to be with him waiting for us to spend time with him waiting for us to hear from him how valuable and treasured we are that he made us in his own image that he loves us unconditionally and that's never going to change and he's gonna love us more than anyone that we could know and this earth is gonna love us you know we talk about our purpose here being to love God fully and I think the way that we love God fully is to know we are fully loved by God that's what John talks about we love because what he first loved us and somehow I think that we focused on the the activities and the and the and how we do this how we go about this time with God and we've lost sight of the fact that God wants us to know we are deeply and fully and unconditionally loved by him and that moves me to want to spend time with him say but John what do I do well there's lots of things you can do I don't want to spend time this morning talk about things you can do but I think there's some ways that we go about this time with God I would encourage you if you don't have a place that you regularly meet with God that you think about a place Bible talks about Jesus going to a solitary place talks about in the Sermon on the Mount about you know when you go into a closet and you kind of close off yourself from everything else and you know recent movie about that whole idea of just going in you meeting with God and so I think some of those things are more important than the what I mean there's all different ways to open God's word whether you use electronically through you version or reading plan or or whatever you do but to slow down and to be with God I want to give you three words for you to write down or kind of take with you to remember that the first is just the word stop just the word stop I want to talk about this all throughout the morning what does it look like for me to stop for me to stop and give up control of my life and say I'm just going to put life on pause and meet with God the second is to center ourselves or just to be quiet before God the psalmist said this he says be still and know that I am God you know unless until we quiet our spirits we're not going to be aware that God's present here say John what do I do with all this stuff rolling around in my head what I do with it sometimes for me if there's a lot of it there I'll just have a notepad I'll just write that stuff down I don't have to do anything about it write it down and then I get to it later but just stop and center Psalm 37 seven says be still before God and wait patiently for him and the last is silence silence you know most of us can't sit in silence for more than about 15 to 20 seconds before we start to get a little antsy but I want to just take a moment and look at a passage of scripture and I'm going to ask you to sit quietly with that as a way to just give you an opportunity to meet with God this morning passage is going to come up on the screen it's from the book of First Kings chapter 19 and First Kings 19 it says this the Lord said go out and stand on the mountain the presence of the Lord for the Lord is about to pass by that a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind after the wind there was an earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake after the earthquake came a fire but the Lord was not in a fire and after the fire came a gentle whisper sleep that's that's light up there for a moment Kevin I want us just to take a moment and sit with this verse verses and I'm just going to ask you to be quiet for next two minutes you can look at those verses you can read over them just sit quietly before God for the next two minutes starting now you (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) (buzzing) 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You just think about Elijah looking for God. All the places God wasn't. Finally where God showed up. When God appeared to Elijah after his flight from Jezebel and during a suicidal depression, God told him to stand and wait for the presence of the Lord. God did not appear in the ways he had appeared in the past. He did not appear in the wind as with Job. An earthquake is when God gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai or a fire like the burning bush Moses saw. But God revealed himself to Elijah in a gentle whisper which can be translated as the sound of sheer silence. How do you describe silence? The silence after the chaos for Elijah and for us is full of the presence of God. God spoke to Elijah out of the silence and invites you to stand and to wait like Elijah. Why? Because God wants to speak out of you out of the sound of sheer silence. So look at this question on the screen. When can you set aside time for extended, uninterrupted silence to hear God? Would you just take a minute and just sit quietly and ask that question? When can I set aside some time for uninterrupted silence before God? [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] I'd like for you to read this prayer that's going to come over the screen. I apologize that text might be a little small for those of you the words in the back, so maybe you'll just listen. But would you read this with me? Lord, you know how difficult it is for me to be in silence before you. At times it feels almost impossible given the demands, distractions, and noise all around me. I invite you to lead me to a quiet, silent place before you, to a place where I can hear you as Elijah did in Jesus' name. Amen. You see, time with God doesn't have to be very long for us to meet with Him. And I don't know what that looks like for you. For some of you, you're a morning person. You like to be up in the early in the morning and you carve out time before the day begins just for you to spend a little bit of time with God. For others of you, the morning is a word of profanity in your home, and so it has to be another time. And so don't try to do it in the morning. Maybe it's if you're a mom with young kids, it's when your kids are taking a nap, or maybe it's when you get a break at work and you can just go for a five-minute, ten-minute walk outside, or maybe when things settle down at night. I don't know when that is or what that looks like. But the point is not when and the point is not a formula. The point is that we're taking time to slow down to be with God. Because it's an invitation and He wants to spend time with you. But I want to talk not only about a daily pause, but I want to talk about this idea of a weekly pause. And if you've been around here at CCC for any length of time, you know this is something we've started to talk about more often. If you're new to CCC, this is something that you maybe have not heard. But one of the things we talk about here is one of our values is intentional rhythms. Intentional rhythms. And we kind of think that this might be the most important value for us. Everything in our lives and everything in our world is full of rhythms. If you do this, what are you going to feel? What are you going to feel if you do this? Your pulse, right? Your pulse is a rhythm. Your pulse is a rhythm. We're experiencing springtime and we just came out of what season? Winter. And prior to that was fall and prior to that was summer. And so we have this rhythm of things that happen. We have a rhythm, you know, called the ocean where the waves come in and they break. And it's high tide and low tide. Everything around us has a sense of rhythm. And God has set up for us to have the same sense of rhythm in our relationship with Him. And the Bible, it calls this idea of Sabbath. And the word Sabbath simply means to cease or to stop. And it comes out of the book of Exodus. And the book of Exodus, the people of Israel, had been in Egypt for 400 years. And what was their job description in Egypt for 400 years? What were they in Egypt? Slaves. They were slaves. Hey, Gary, could you kick the AC in here? I think everybody's walling away. You know, it's getting a little warm. If the temperature's any warm out there, I'm feeling a little warm up here. So we're going to switch from heat to AC to wake everybody up here. Thank you, Gary. And so for 400 years, the people of Israel had been slaves. That was their job description. And do slaves get a day off? Yes or no? No. Thank you, Matt. Matt's awake here in the front row. I'm glad to hear that, Matt. So the slaves don't get a day off. And so every day, seven days a week, for their entire lifetime, they worked. And when God brought them out of the land of Egypt, He said, "I want you to be a distinct people. I want you to be a people that everyone knows that you are my people." And one of the ways was the very first commandment, which was, "You shall have what? No other what? God's before me." He said, "You're only going to worship one God, not a pantheon of God's." Like every other nation did, only one God. And then if we can put those commandments up on here, by the time you get down to the fourth commandment, it says this. I apologize for the small text. It says, "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping in holy, and the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Own it, you shall not work." And here's the reason. Remember you are slaves in Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Another way that the people of Israel were going to be distinct is God said, "You are going to have one day, one 24-hour window of time that's going to be different than any other day." And so you say, "What is a Sabbath? A Sabbath is 24-hour window, and it's a 24-hour window without any have tos. Think about the things you have to do all week long. What are some of the things you have to do all week long? You have to pay the bills, right? You have to mow the lawn. You have to run the kids to this place. You have to do the other spouses have to list. Those are some of the things that have to happen all week long. But a Sabbath is a 24-hour window where it's filled with one tos and not have tos. And as I've talked to individuals who've grown up in this area, if you've grown up in a conservative church background, what I've discovered is that many of you experienced this in your childhood. Many of you experienced this day called Sunday in which there was this whole long list of things that nobody was allowed to do. And it wasn't full of have tos, it was full of you're not allowed tos. You're not allowed to, you can't do this and you can't do this and you can't do this. And for many, many years you couldn't even go to the store, you couldn't buy gas, you couldn't do any of those things in this area because of the conservative nature in this area. So it's very legalistic in terms of all the things that you couldn't do. But then for many people, especially as times have changed and many of you moved away from that sense of legalism, you've now moved to what some would call, it's going to come up on the screen here, a form of the opposite form of legalism. Which is, my sense is this, you say, what in the world does that big word mean, it means license, it means I have the freedom to do whatever I want. And so some of you have said, we're not under the law anymore, we don't have to live with all those things that I'm not allowed to, I'm free now to do anything I want. And I think what God suggests to us is something different in the middle. Not simply a legalistic list of the things you can't do, or freedom that you can do whatever you want to, but to say I'm going to choose to set aside one day different than all the other days, one 24 hour window of time in which I give that day and I live that day as unto the Lord. Now in our culture, we have this rhythm, and in our culture, we work, work, work, work, and then we can't wait until what's at the end of work vacation. And some of you, as I say that word, you're already starting to think about when that's coming and you've got it on the calendar, and if you don't have it on the calendar, you're getting a nudge from someone of when are we going to put that on the calendar. And then what do you do? You take a few days to wind down a day or two to enjoy it, and then it's back to the grind until you do what? Work, work, work, work, work, and then vacation. But in God's rhythm, He says, I want you to have a different pattern. I want you to have a different way. I want you to work for six days, and then I want you to take a Sabbath. I want you to work for six days, and then take a Sabbath. I want you to work for six days, and then take a Sabbath. And what God says is, you don't have to wait the whole year until you get to vacation. What God says is, you get to do this once every seven days, a day that is different, a day like no other day. Augustine, who is a great theologian, said this in a prayer that he said to God. He said, you have made us for ourselves, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. Our heart is restless until it rests in you. And so there's four core elements of a biblical Sabbath. I want to talk about these four elements and talk about what this means to do this. The first core element, just like pausing to be with God daily, is to stop, to stop. And that's what Jesus did. That's what God did. He stopped what He was doing. In Genesis chapter two, verse one, what does it say? It says, "By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing, so on the seventh day He rested from all His work." Now, did God need to rest because He was tired? Yes or no? No. Did God need to rest because He was born and didn't have anything else to do? Yes or no? No. So why did God rest? In the beginning of creation, the beginning of time, before the Ten Commandments, why did God rest? I believe He rested because He wanted to set an example for us of the rhythm that our lives should live out. That there's work and then there's rest. There's work and then there's rest. You say, "I don't know how people in this day and this culture can do it." Well, there's a group of individuals, Orthodox Jews that have been doing this for 3,500 years. They work and then they rest. I don't know how many of you have heard of a camera company in Brooklyn by the name of B&H Camera Company. Anybody heard of that camera company? Any hobbyists? You know, camera hobbyists? B&H Camera Company is a high-end camera company that is owned and operated by Orthodox Jews. 8 to 900 of them work there. And they serve 8 to 9,000 customers a day. 8 to 9,000 customers a day. But at Friday at 6 o'clock, there's doors closed. And the day everybody shops, which is what they have during the week, mostly, is Saturday, their doors are closed. And they're closed until Saturday at 6 p.m. Internet sales are available for people to purchase things, but nothing is shipped for a 24-hour period where they shut their doors and just simply stop. What's the biggest shopping day of the year? Black Friday, right? Guess what happens at 6 o'clock on Black Friday at B&H Camera Shop? They closed the doors. And so if one of the most high-end distributors of camera products in New York City can shut their doors, I don't think there's anybody else that can't say, "I can't slow down and I can't take a day and I can't stop." So the challenge for you is whatever you do all week long, you stop doing that on Sunday. Whatever you do all week long, you stop doing that on Sunday. So if you make meals all week long and you don't like making meals, guess what stops on Sunday? Making meals. They won't start. They have a fridge full of food. They know how to find the fridge. They'll survive. If you do laundry all week long, guess what stops on Sabbath doing laundry. If you are on your computer and that's what you do all week long, guess what needs to stop on Sabbath. You need to close that thing and not open it up for a 24-hour period of time. Marjorie Thompson said this, "Honoring the Sabbath means letting go of our illusions of being indispensable." So the first step is to stop, and the second step is to rest. Colossians 1, 16 and 17, Paul writes this when he's describing Jesus. He says, "For him all things were created, things in heaven and earth, visible in his little thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him." Look at verse 17. He is before all things, which means he was here before anything existed, and in him all things hold together. All things. The universe, our solar system, our earth, my life, he holds it all together. But far too many of us picture ourselves like this picture from New York City of a Greek mythical god by the name of Atlas who's holding what on his shoulders, the whole world, right? The whole world. And so we view ourselves as being responsible for doing this, and we might not say it. We might not think it, but our actions demonstrate that. And so Sabbath is a day when you set down your world off your shoulders and you rightfully give it back to God and say, "I'm turning this back over to you," and you take care of it. And so what does it mean to rest? What does it mean to rest? Well, one of the things that it means is it means guilt-free naps. That's what rest means. It's guilt-free naps. Somebody feel guilty taking naps. I talk to you. I'm like, "Are you crazy? You feel guilty about taking naps? That's horrible. That's like the curse." But it's guilt-free naps. It also means slowing life down, savoring your food and enjoying it. It means not passing the buggy and waiting till it turns. It means slowing life down. And for most of us, that's a really, really difficult thing to do. Now, I won't ask for a show of hands, but how many of you, when you stop and when you rest, you feel guilty? I should be doing something. There's something that needs to be done. And you almost can't allow your physical being to rest because of the guilt that you feel. And that's another conversation for another day, but for some of you, it's a huge reality. The third part of this is to delight. Let me ask you this. What do you enjoy? Do you know what some things are you enjoy? Remember what God said after each day he created the world? He said, "It is what?" He said, "What? It is what?" Good. He said, "It is good. It is good." And for some of us, our lives have been so consumed with the things I have to do, and I have to do. And the week is full of have tos. We never pause and just put life on pause and say, "What are the things that I enjoy doing? What are the things that I enjoy doing?" Most days in our home, my wife cooks our meals, and she enjoys doing that. She's actually very, very good at it. And yet recently we've been in a real busy stretch, a busy season. She said, "Dion, I need you to take over preparing dinner one night a week," which I actually enjoy, and I'm comfortable doing that. And as I started to re-engage in that for our family, I realized, "Wow, this is something I really like doing this." Now, I don't like cleaning up the mess afterwards, but I like making the meal and serving the meal to everybody. Somebody else can take care of cleaning up the mess. And so I started to think about, "How do I incorporate that into my Sabbath?" Because it's something I really, really enjoy. I love to read, and so reading is a part of my Sabbath. Some of you don't like to read, well, don't pick up a book, you know? For some of you, it's going outside. For some of you, it's some type of physical activity. For some of you, it's hanging out with friends. And so the day should be filled with things that you enjoy, things that you delight in. And by the way, just one caveat, you only have to spend time with family members that you enjoy on the Sabbath. If you don't like them, you get a pass on the Sabbath. Not the rest of the week, but you get a pass. Because the day should be full of things that you enjoy, things that you enjoy, whatever those things are, make that a part of your day. And the last part is to contemplate. Now, I know based on the spiritual pathways assessment that we did a couple weeks ago here in church, that being contemplative, which is kind of sitting quiet and being thoughtful and reflective, is not something that much of our church enjoys doing, or it's part of the way that you're wired. I understand that. And so what I'm not suggesting is that part of your Sabbath means you just sit and read pages and pages of your Bible, trying to not to nod off, you know, while you're doing that, you know, not suggesting that. But what I'm suggesting is that part of the Sabbath should be asking yourself this question, where is God showing up in our lives? Where is God showing up in our lives? Where is God showed up in something that happened with our kids or grandkids this week? You know, where is God showed up in our spouse? Where do I wish God would show up that he really hasn't? What has God done outside in creation this week? If Jesus is really holding all of this together, he's the one making that grass to grow. He's the one bringing the tulips to bloom. He's the one bringing the color to the trees. He's the one turning them different shades of color in the fall, and they start to drop off in the autumn. But I don't know about you, but I don't really pause much during the week to just reflect on those things. Because we don't stop, rest, delight, and contemplate. We just don't slow down enough to do that. Some of you know that the dog that we have is a beagle, and beagles have prolific noses for smelling things. They walk around with their nose on the ground everywhere. And when you try to take this dog for a walk, every ten seconds she's sniffing something. So you got a yanker and say, "Come on, leave it, Casey," and you kind of give her a tug and keep going. But when I take the dog for a walk on Sabbath, for us, I stop and let the dog sniff for only ten seconds. And then we got to go, because she'll be sniffing in another five seconds, and then another ten seconds there. So it's a long walk around the park. But I don't do that all week long, and you think, "That's how crazy it is." But I was out taking her for a walk on my Sabbath, "Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on." I'm thinking, "Wait a minute. I'm supposed to be slowing down and enjoying this and enjoying what God has created." And I'm trying to just get this done. And so thinking about what does this look like, and how do I do this in all these different areas of our lives? And so here's a couple questions for you to think about. The first is, what should I stop doing? What should I stop that? There's some things that you're doing, and I want to encourage you to begin to carve out a day. Now for many of you, maybe that's Saturday at six o'clock, this Sunday at six o'clock. Maybe that's your window of time. I want you to carve out a day and say, "We're going to make this day different than any other day." And then lastly, what should I start doing? What are some things that haven't been a part of your life? What are some things that you enjoy? You say, "Well, what if my spouse and I enjoy different things?" Then you're going to have to give each other a little time slot. You go do your enjoyment thing, and I'll go do my enjoyment thing. And if you've got young kids, you're going to have to trade them off somehow, you know, so that you guys can have, and then find a way to do that together. What should I start doing? What should I stop doing? I'm going to ask Tim if he would come on stage with me here, and we just want to talk through some different questions that we've heard on this whole subject of Sabbath, and try to answer them. And one that's not on your list, Tim, that I thought might be a good one for us to start with. And maybe I should make you answer this one, especially since you don't know what I'm going to have. But what do you do if your kid's sports team is on your Sabbath? Make them quit. Make them quit. No. Well, it's going to be different for different people because so my daughter, Kaylee, plays soccer, and I coach her team. That's something I love, and I enjoy doing. So for me, that's not a have-to. That's a get-to. That's a want-to. I enjoy doing that. So I could do that on my Sabbath, and that would be enjoyment, restful. Maybe after the game we'll rest, but I'm going to get into a little bit. So it kind of depends. If that's something that you're like, that's kind of something I just do because I'm a parent, and that's what my kid enjoys, then you kind of have to navigate that differently. And it's tough as a parent. You kind of have to, can't really stop being a parent for a day. And so you kind of just have to navigate around those things, and different seasons in life are going to look different. And so maybe for that season in your life, you can make that part of your Sabbath the best you can. And so it's going to be a little different for each person. Yeah, there was a season my son had games, and they would be three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and it was in the fall. And she said on the bleachers at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and just relaxed. Sometimes I'd close my eyes and take a quick nap. I mean, it was just pretty relaxing. I talked to one dad, he was a coach, and he was telling me this. He said, "I love coaching, but I hate having to talk to parents and work out schedules and all this other logistical stuff on that day." And I said, "Well, what if you did that on another day, and you just coach?" He's like, "Wow, that would really be a lot of fun. I would really enjoy that." So you have to navigate some of those things. It would be intentional to take care of the details the day before in an email or at practice before. So you can just enjoy that particular day there. Did I give you the questions? You're going to leave me hanging here. My question is going. All right, I'll start off the top of your head. What do you remember off the top of your head? That is a great question, John. If you are a parent with young kids, how do you do Sabbath? There you go. That was my question to answer. I don't know what happened to yours. You started with one day. All right, let me answer that one while you're looking for those cards. So as a parent of young kids, and first of all, let me just say to all of you, this is not something I have figured out, and us pastors aren't perfect at this. We're on the same journey learning how do we do this and what does it look like. And I would say for us as a family, we haven't figured that out yet. So for us, what day do we have a Sabbath Saturday when we have all those activities and sometimes things with students, I have things with students and things. And so is that the day? Sunday is a work day for me as a pastor. And so that doesn't work for our family. So Mondays is my day off and my wife doesn't work currently. So that gives us and Josiah, our son who's at home. While the girls are at school, they're obviously not having Sabbath. So it's hard for us to navigate. The one time, let me give you one success story maybe that we've had with this was a few weeks ago, the girls had off school. And so we just made a plan and that's what it takes. You kind of have to think ahead and look ahead, which is, I think, one of the things we struggle with as a family. And we just said, hey, here's a day that we're free. We've been giving some money at Christmas time, a little bit of money from my great aunt, and we decided we're going to use that just to experience something together as a family. We didn't quite know what. And so we said, let's take that and let's go do when we went up to the works. And Jen had to set aside some things that she normally does on Mondays to get ready for the preschool area here in Moghaland. And so we just had to make some conscious choices that we're just going to do things that we enjoy. And so we went up to the works and we enjoyed some family time up there. It was half-price Mondays, which is awesome. So we had money left over and got to go to the ice cream place where they fill all the toppings on the yogurt and it costs as much as a meal. So we don't go there a lot because my kids just fill their bowls. And so we had money to go do that, do something that they enjoyed. And I think we had a gift card someone had given us, went out for lunch. And so we were just able to do a lot of things. Jen didn't have to cook. We didn't have to clean anything up. For us, shower days are a hard day with our kids. So there's no showers. Monday is not a shower day. There's a lot of things we didn't have to do. Some of you parents get what I'm talking about. We didn't have to do a lot of things. There's one Sabbath that I would say recently that we've been somewhat successful with. But it really looks different. Don't try to copy that because that's not going to work for your family. You've got to figure out what works for your family and kind of go from there. And seasons is a big thing. So when your kids are babies, it's going to look different than when they're in school. Then it's going to look different when they're in high school and when they leave your home. John, what happens if you're trying to pursue this as a family and you have some children in your family that really maybe don't want to participate or aren't sure that they value this Sabbath as much as you do? Let me ask the parents, how many of you your kids love everything that you think is important for them? Okay, I didn't see any hands out here. So there's always going to be things that we think are important for our kids and they don't think is important for them. And especially as they get into their teen years where you're going to want to let them make some choices on their own. Remember, Sabbath is an invitation. Sabbath is not a requirement. It's an invitation. You are invited to set one day aside different than any other day every single week. And so I would encourage you to include your kids as part of that. Say, what are things you enjoy? What are things you would like to do that we can do as a family and invite them in? You know, I'm serious about if you don't like to cook, then they can find their own food. They will not starve. They will find food. I guarantee it. If it's not there, they'll go to a friend's house, eat their friend's food. They'll find food somewhere. And over time your kids will get it. They'll get it. I was having a conversation with my son a while back and I was telling him he had some things to do. He's like, "Dad, I just need a time where I don't have anything that I have to do. I just need a Sabbath." And I was like, "Oh, kind of convenient for you to throw that one in there now." But they get the sense that they need time where you block out all the have tos and then you just do the things you want to do. So they will get it over time as you value it in some ways that are really meaningful to them. So how, as a family, do you work it out and do you navigate, Sabbath? I know for a lot of families the spouses maybe don't have the same day off. And maybe their work schedule is very, very different. There is no 24-hour period to do this together. What's that look like for someone in that situation? Well, Christine and I recently have gone through this because she was working. I switched today that I had not here in the office. I wanted to make that part of my Sabbath. And so we were trying to figure out how do we make this work? We couldn't. Well, how about I just have a little bit of time on my own to do some of the have tos and then we reconnected around a meal, which is often a good way to start your Sabbath is around a meal like Saturday night might be your start of that. And for us, it was Friday afternoon. And we would meet for lunch and we would spend some time together. And then we would have our evening together. I'd have Saturday morning just at home to be there, not to do some things around the house, but just to be there. They're present with my family. And then around noon time is when I would reengage in preparation and some finishing up with some things for Sunday and the rest of the week. So that's just worked for us right now. That's actually going to change because her schedule is changing in other two weeks. And I missed it on the calendar and planned something I shouldn't have. So I got in trouble for that. So you constantly have to keep adjusting this. I mean, I hope you get this sense. You're not going to find one thing that's going to be fixed. And those of you that really structure people, this will drive you crazy because, you know, they're seasons. And it might be for the fall, this works and the spring, this works. And summer, everything goes out the window. And now we've got to start all over and change it. So be flexible. And remember, this is an invitation that God is offering to each of us. I know for a lot of people, Sundays a day that makes sense to be a Sabbath. It doesn't have to be Sunday, but it makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. So if you kind of approach Sunday as your Sabbath, how do you navigate that as one of the hundreds of people here at CCC that volunteer here on Sunday mornings? Well, this is hard for our staff to hear. But if Sunday, if serving on Sunday has become a half-two, you probably need to take a break. And I'm serious about that. Because there's a lot of people that serve here and they really love serving. Many of you do that with just, you just love so I can see it in your face as we hear stories. But if it's become a burden to you, Jesus said, "Man, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Do you get that? The Sabbath was made for us. It's a gift, an invitation. And so even we have to trust that God's going to bring the right people to serve on Sunday in the right ways to meet all of our ministry needs. And we want you to take some time off, to take some time to rest for a season. Before maybe you say, "Now I can re-engage." So if serving is a half-two, it's hard for us to say that sometimes to take a break. So maybe a couple that I'll kind of combine together here. So does it have to be a Sunday? Sometimes we associate Sunday is the Sabbath. And I remember hearing that growing up. And does it have to be a full 24-hour period of time? Yeah. Those are good questions. Again, it shouldn't be a legalistic requirement. And so you find what works best for you and your family. Maybe it's Friday night at six to Saturday at six. You know, maybe that's the window that works best for you. The other thing that Tim didn't mention is you have to find a time to do all the rest of the haftus. You have to find a time to do that. So that means if I'm not going to pay bills or, "Okay, I've got to find another spot to do that." That means if I'm not going to mow the lawn, who's going to mow the lawn on what day to get that done? So it does require some planning. It does require some intentionality. You just assume it's going to happen. It likely won't happen in that way. So again, find a time that works. For some of you, you're thinking there's no way this can happen. Sunday's just too packed full with all this stuff in our lives. Carve out a three or four-hour window. Say we're going to have a meal together and we're going to do something we all enjoy. That's what it's going to be. And maybe each week it's going to do something different. And start with that. And as you start with that, then begin to expand that out further and further until you can get to the point of, hopefully, a 24-hour window. The one group that I didn't address, which I realized after the first service, is we have a couple farmers here this morning with us, you know? And the farm doesn't stop, you know, even if you guys want a Sabbath. There'll be lots of noise and probably lots of mess if you did that. So I have to confess to you guys, I have no idea how farmers take Sabbath. I really don't. But we're going to keep talking about this. And I love to hear from you guys how do you make that work in your family. And again, it might have to be different. That's the point of not making this legalistic requirement, but saying how do we do this for our family so that we can have a day under God that's different than any other day. So thanks, Tim, for your time up here. Would you join me in a word of prayer as we close this morning? God, as we just talk about this whole idea of Sabbath, I think for some of us, we do parts of this, or maybe even all of it, where we take a day and we pause, and it just feels different than every other day. Our family knows it, and it's a highlight. I had a few people share with that with me on the way out this morning, but for others, God, this just seems like a pipe dream. You know, it's like, well, you could do that if you were an Orthodox Jew or if you were pastor, but there's just no way. And so, God, for them, I just pray that you would help them to see this invitation that you're putting in front of them. Or just an invitation, an invitation that to have one day different than any other day, to be with you and to be with the people they love doing the things that they love. And God, I just pray that you would help them find a way to do that, where this is all part of a journey for us to say, we want to live life in such a way that we get to express our love for you and for others. And I know when my life is too full, and I don't pause to me with you, and I don't take some time during the week to do things different than the rest of the day. I don't love anyone around me well, and I certainly don't love you well. And so, God, as much as this sounds good on the stage, sounds good when we're talking about it and telling stories up here, it is hard to do this. We live in a world and in a culture that values our hard work, our effort, our accomplishment. No one values slowing down to be with you. So, God, we recognize and acknowledge that we really need your help to make this happen. In your name we pray. Amen. As the band comes up to lead us in this last song that just says, "Lord, I need you." I just hope that you walk away with the sense that God is inviting you to be with him. And it's going to look different for different people. There's not a formula to make this happen. But our hope and prayer is that you will take the next step forward, whatever that looks like for you, to accept this invitation that he has to offer. - Okay. [BLANK_AUDIO]