One Giant Leap - Week 4: Sabbath

We're gonna be finishing up. How many of you enjoyed this series that we've

been in, one giant lead for those of you that have been here.

If you haven't been here to master what we're talking about today, you really

need to go back and get the last three weeks. You can find those

on YouTube, Facebook, probably on our website, not sure about that.

Probably on the podcast, not sure about that, but somewhere it's out there.

If you'll just go look for it, you'll find the last three weeks

of messages. And one giant leap is about taking little steps that create a

big difference in our spiritual walk if we master those small steps, and today

we're going to talk about another step and listen to master this. This will

be the most difficult thing you could ever do in your life in the society

and the world in which we live. It is a it's a tough one

because all of the principles that we've been talking about kind of lead to this

next one. And today I want to talk to you on the principle of

the Sabbath. I want to tell you what I'm not going to talk about.

I'm not going to talk about We're not preaching about what the real Sabbath

is, what day of the week that is? Because I believe Sabbath is

a principle. I don't believe it's a day. Come on, somebody,

I don't believe that that that God sends you to hell for worshiping on the

wrong day. Amen. Listen. If you find a church where you like

the preacher better, you like the music better, they meet on Saturday.

Go, I don't care. Go where you fit. Find the place where

you fit. Day of the week doesn't matter. Sabbath is a principle that

God has created for us to be able to live completely fulfilled and satisfied lives.

Amen. As a matter of fact, what does what does good good?

Question? For some good Americans? What does satisfied look like? I

mean, what what does we always talk about that? You know? I

just I'm just looking for satisfaction. I just want to be satisfied. I

just want. I just want. I just I just. I mean,

we sing songs about it. I can't get no satisfaction, right, I

mean Rolling Stones, we're talking about it a long time ago. I mean,

you know, Mick was looking for satisfaction back then. He had a

lot of money, but couldn't get no satisfaction. Come on, somebody,

What does satisfied look like? Because it seems like in the world in which

we live, if we're satisfied for a moment, the next day we're looking

for something else. Come on, somebody, or maybe the next hour or

even the next minute. Satisfaction in our society is a very temporal thing,

and we live with this insatiable desire because we were created to live with God

forever. We were created to live with God forever, and therefore time is

irrelevant when it comes to us talking about satisfaction, and to truly find satisfaction

and fulfill what we need to do is repurpose the object of that satisfaction,

what we're looking for, in place that focus back in the right place,

because satisfaction really can only come from God. Satisfaction can only come from the

Creator who created us and understands us and has specifically designed a purpose and a

destiny that is specific and unique to both our personality and our giftings. And

when we put the focus back on Him as our satisfaction and we find ourselves

satisfied in Him, then we don't have to chase after all of those other

things. I listen, I'm not talking about stoicism. That's not what I'm

talking about. I'm not talking about live long and prosper I'm not talking about

being mister Spock and not having happiness and desiring happiness. But I'm talking about

finding satisfaction in God and God alone. Listen to what it says in Philippians,

chapter four, verse ten. It says, but I rejoiced in the

Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again. Though

you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in

regard to need, For I have learned, in whatever state I am,

to be content satisfied. I know how to be abased, and I know

how to abound everywhere and in all things. I've learned both to be full

and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can

do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Let's pray, Father,

we thank you for your word. It's the only change agent on the face

of this planet. And I pray that today you change us at the very

fabric of our being. Lord, that you reveal those things that have caused

us much problems. Lord, we love you, and we thank you in

Jesus' name. Amen, I want to look at this passage of scripture because

I want you to see how different Paul's words are than the way we live

most of the time. Amen. Listen, listen how he opens it up.

He says, but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now, at

last your care for me has flourished. Though you surely did care, but

you lacked opportunity. Paul said, Listen, I'm so happy. I'm rejoicing.

I'm jumping up in the air and spinning around fervently. Is what that

word really means. So I mean it really he really got with it.

I mean it really touched him that your care finally came now in today's world.

That's not the way we see things in today's world, when we know

somebody could but they didn't, and they finally do. Come on, now

we look at him and say, what took you so long? What's wrong

with you? If you had gotten here yesterday, teach you a principle.

If you don't get anything else from today except this, it'll be okay.

God is very rarely early, but he's never ever late. He's very rarely

early, but he's never ever late. But we live in such a fever

pitch that we want all things now. And Paul said, listen, I'm

rejoicing just because, just because it came, just because it got here.

Yeah. I spent a few days and things weren't comfortable. I got to

the end of my rope and I had to untie the knot. But once

I untied the knot, that extra two inches of rope was all I need

to keep hanging on. And I thank you Lord for putting a knot there.

And then he goes on and he says, not that I speak in

regard to need, for I've learned in whatever state I am, to be

satisfied, condensed, contend, it's not about the external. It's about who

I am in Christ and who Christ is in me. So let me say

that again. It's who I am in Christ and who Christ is in me.

Because in Christ I am complete eat and him and me I am powerful.

Woo. I'm both fulfilled and fulfilling. Do you see that I'm both?

Uh, I'm both completely full and able to fill others. It's about

both. It's about who I am and Him and who he is and me

and then Paul, and up to this point everything sounds pretty logical to me.

But then he keeps going, I think we missed this sometimes, he

says, I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.

But I mean, sometimes situation dictates that to us. Right, how

many of you you've ever and maybe you are now you feel you're poor,

broke, busted, disgusting. I mean, I grew up poor, didn't

know I was poor, right, And I was content because I didn't know.

I didn't know until I had friends that had a little money, and

then I wasn't quite so content. So sometimes situation dictates that we learned these

things, not necessarily a spiritual principle. Survival dictates that we learned these things.

But he goes on. He says, everywhere and in all things,

I've learned to both be full and to be hungry. He says, I've

learned to both, not not either, or I've learned to be full,

I've learned to be hungry. I've learned that both can exist at the same

time. Because what I feel in my primal need and my primal desire is

not what affects my outward attitude and everything around me. So I've learned to

be both at the same time, I've learned to live in the state that

either is just enough. Do you realize if we just changed our mindset just

one little bit and we understood enough, do you know that that enough is

not a concept that in the Western world we do very well. We go

to all you can eat buffets. Come on, somebody, we're gonna all

you can eat buffets. When we go to a regular restaurant and the plate

they give us, we always send it back to the kitchen and there's still

food on it. That one plate was more than we could eat. But

we go to all you can eat buffets because it's always about more, and

the concept of enough doesn't really weigh in. And the reason our desires are

out of whack is because we live in this world of curated moments. The

government shows them to us, the media shows them to us, celebrities show

them to us. Even our friends and families show them to us through social

media and they post these these grand pictures and everything that's just perfect. Let

me tell you how real social media is. When I take a picture of

anybody in my family, my family. I love my family. I'm not

gonna put ugly pictures of them on the internet. Come on, somebody,

I want everybody. I want people think my family's beautiful too, because they

are. But every time I take a picture, this is the first thing

that I need to see that. And my oldest daughter is the world's worst

about saying, oh, no, you've got to delete that, Delete it,

delete It's on my phone. Nobody's gonna see it. She's gonna it's

gonna end up on social media. I said, baby, you know the

only thing I put on social media pictures of animals. If you're not a

sheep or a goat or a chicken, you don't make my Instagram. But

we live in these in this this age where everything is curated, that everything

looks perfect, that the reality that we see has been crafted and scripted,

and things moved and placed in the background for a certain purpose and a filter

applied so everything looks just right. And we look at these images and listen,

you know these people. Some of you look through Facebook, Instagram,

whatever it is, and you look at the pictures and you know them.

Really, you know what that person looks like on Monday when they show up

for work. Not that, but something in us causes us to desire something

more than we have because that life looks so perfect. Because we are always

looking for more, We're always looking for something beyond what we currently have.

We place a lot of spiritual emphasis, and Sabbath has become one of these

fancy religious words, one of these words kind of like a sanctification, kind

of like those fancy theology words that people learn in Bible college. And this

concept of Sabbath. But let me tell you what Sabbath literally means. In

its most literal translation, Sabbath means stop. That's it, Stop and delight,

stop and ponder on the good things. Think about that for a moment.

That literally, this spiritual concept that's so hard for the modern church to

master, is just about stopping, taking inventory and having appreciated for what we

already have. My goodness, is it possible that, even on the social

scale of Americanism, that whichever person in here would weigh themselves at the lowest

level of the American view of success and satisfaction, that even that person could

stop and take inventory and find something they could be satisfied in that my day

was not the worst day it could possibly be. Look around at the person

beside you. If you see them, you haven't yet experienced the worst day

you could, because you would have probably woke up in heaven. We're here.

That means there's more destiny, there's more purpose, there's more goodness from

a good, good father that can be poured upon us because we made it

through yesterday and it might have been a hard day, but we made it

through. But if we're looking for satisfaction in the hardest moments, you're never

going to find it. But if you're looking for satisfaction in the one who

brought you through, you'll always find it. We we buy images based on

the principle of Sabbath. See, here's something that the world understands better than

we do. The world understands marketers understand Sabbath, and they sell you things

based on the idea of Sabbath. They show you this image of this family

having a picnic on the beach and the beautiful blue water and the wind's blowing

just right, and the kids are laughing, and the husband is putting a

strawberry in the wife's mouth that she's smiling right, And then it comes up

sandals where all your dreams come true. That's a picture of sabbath. That's

a picture of stop and delight. But when you go there, there is

no picnic on the beach. Your wife is chasing the kids because they're punching

each other in the back of the head. Come on, there's dirt in

the sandwich and your sunburned, and you go to the room and have to

stay inside for the rest of the trip because you look like a lobster.

But they market sabbath to you because on the inside of us, we are

longing for restoration and rest. There they show you that image of that happy

couple eating breakfast in bed to sell you the newest high count Egyptian cotton sheets.

Let me tell you something, If I'm going to spend that much on

a set of sheets, ain't nobody eating in that bed. But it's the

appeal, it's the lure of sabbath. If I have that, I'll rest

better. And then next week I need the pillowcases. And then the next

week so I have to work an extra few hours, and then I work

an extra few hours. So now I'm having to drive home at night.

So I got to buy a new set of headlights. And now I've bought

the new set of headlights, and now something wrong with my tail lights,

and it just compounds, and it pulls us further and further from Sabbath,

because the enemy knows if he can keep it loud and keep you busy,

you can't find rest for your soul. And if you can't stop and delight,

you will find yourself far from the Father. In Psalm chapter thirty seven,

verse four, it says, delight thyself and the Lord, and he

shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Delight yourself also in the Lord.

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he will give you the desires

of your heart. It means that when you stop and delight, that he'll

take watch this his desire, and he'll place it in your heart and make

it your desire. See what we think when we read that passage of Scripture

New Cadillac desire in my heart. Lord, I'm gonna delight in you,

and you're gonna give me stuff. You're gonna give me things. But what

he says is, I'm gonna take my desire, I'm gonna put it in

your heart. It's gonna become your desire, and your fulfillment is going to

be based on the desire that's now in your heart, and it's not about

it's about me, and it's about purpose. That's why people all around the

world can find purpose and fulfillment and satisfaction when they have nothing, because they

have learned to delight in the Lord and allow his desire to become their desire.

But the reality is most of us are driven by envy and greed and

jealousy, and those things will rob you of Sabbath. Because if I can

just do one more thing, if I can just take one more trip to

put a picture on Instagram, if I can just listen, if I and

some of you this is the way you sit and you figure things out.

Look, if I can just get three hours of overtime a week, I

can buy new When you're gonna drive it, you pay an insurance for it

to stay parked in the office parking lot because you're always there. Let me

give you a Let me give you an eye opening look from the church's perspective

outward. I can still remember the day when we had Sunday morning worship experience

preceded by Sunday School. Then we had Sunday evening worship, then we had

Wednesday night adult Bible study and then usually some other night there was also a

prayer time. And what finally happened was pastors started looking at their congregations or

lack of congregation because people quit coming, not because they didn't love Jesus,

but because they were exhausted. And we stopped the Wednesday night by adult Bible

study because rest and Sabbath is a spiritual principle, just like learning something else.

And you got Wednesday night back, So Parkingreck added practices on Wednesday night.

I'm just saying. Then we said, people are still exhausting, so

we gave Sunday night back because you were exhausted and we're trying to allow God

to meet you at your I can't meet you at your point of need.

We can't create enough programs in this church to meet everybody at their point of

need, nor will we try. We want you to experience God. And

on Sunday night we fill our lives with all kinds of busyness, and we're

still exhausted. See here's the thing. When we understand and we begin to

apply the principle of stopping delight Sabbath, it makes work about contribution rather than

accumulation. It makes what I do about contributing to the greater good of humanity

rather than the accumulating of things that pulls me away from humanity. What you

do is not who you are. It's been a few years ago. I

met this guy and I walked up and I shook his hand, and he

introduced himself and I said, Hey, I'm Pastor Steve. My pastor name

of the church at that time was Cornerstone Assembly. And the Holy Spirit spoke

to my heart and he said, is that all you are? I'd understand

at the time I was having a conversation with somebody. I had to invite

this person to church. Come on, somebody, take that invitation as you.

So I was perplexed by it in the moment. So after I had

this conversation, I said, what do you mean? God? He said,

are you just the title pastor? Is that what validates you? This

title before your name? Is that who you are? Are? You only

what you do? Because pastoring is what I do. It's not who I

am. Just so happened that my job is in a spiritual vocation, but

it's just what I do. Just like there's plumbers here and electricians here,

and there's people that work at the feed meal here, and there's people that

work in in addiction help, and there's people that work in daycares. There's

people that work in schools. There's people that do people that don't. It's

just it's just what I do. Lord said, why don't you ever introduce

yourself as Hey, I'm Steve, a child of God? And I said,

well that sounds weird, And he said, because you don't find validation

in that. So I just quit trying to explain things to God. At

that point, I just quit. And it's like, yeah, God,

you've always gotten one up on me. You always say it better than I

say it. See, here's the thing about Sabbath. It's hard. It

takes planning, and it takes discipline to create a day. Some of y'all

just I could feel your soul just retract when I said that, to give

a complete day twenty four hours to the Lord. Now, let me tell

you what that doesn't mean. That doesn't mean that you buy a robe that

looks like a monk and you go into a dark room and you get on

your knees and just oh, thank you Lord, thank you Lord, thank

you Lord. That's not Sabbath. That just sounded exhausting to me. That

sounded like I can't do that. I'll be asleep in fifteen minutes because I'm

exhausted. What that means is that you set aside time where God can work

on you as a person, not you as an employee, or you as

a mom, or you as a dad, or you as fill in the

blank. He just gets to work on you as an individual with him.

That there's no agenda, there's no hurrying, there, there's no this,

there's no that. It's just time set aside to stop and delight. Listen

to Mark chapter two, starting in verse twenty three, he says, now

it happened that when he went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and

as they went, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. And

the Pharisees said to him, look, why do they do what is not

lawful on the Sabbath? But he said to them, have you never read

what David did when he was in need and hungry? He and those with

him, How he went into the House of God in the days of Aba

Thar and the high priest and ate the show bread, which is not lawful

to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were

with him, And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man,

not man for the Sabbath. We have treated it like it's this thing

that you must do. But Sabbath is something that you get to do.

He didn't create it as a rule for you to live up to. He

created it as a time for you to rest and be restored and find him

in the midst of some downtime so that you can have heart to heart intimate

communication with him. And it's apart from the world and the way the busyness

looks that surrounds us. God created the Sabbath for you. But see,

we get all kinds of things twisted and broken. We live in a world

where the government was created for us, but now the government thinks, oh,

what's supposed to get political today? I forgot. But they think we're

creating for them. And it's easy. It's easy to read things in scripture

and see them as rules because they feel adverse to us. They feel like

something is broken, and we don't want to feel broken. But everything in

scripture is calling us up, not pulling us down. Everything in scripture gives

life. It doesn't cause death. When he says die to yourself, it's

die to selfishness, so you can experience fulfillment. And the Sabbath is no

different. It's setting aside that twenty four hour block of time where it's not

about rushing here and rushing there. It's sitting on the couch reading a book.

Maybe I don't know why somebody would find this freeing and joyful, but

maybe it's going on a hike. You can schedule some counsel and time if

that's you. I mean, I just rest is couch. I like to

ride a stationary bike, so I could just fall off of it onto the

couch when I'm done right. It's creating that chunk of time where you actually

get to know your kids instead of what they do, and instead of always

having to chase them around trying to put their hair in another ponytail and wipe

the chocolate off their mouth. You don't have anywhere to go, so just

let them have bad head. The grass will be okay until Monday. Yeah,

you're gonna have to go to the grocery store and buy two days worth

of food instead of one. But I'm creating space to rest and be restored,

and be grateful and show gratitude for the things I already have. Clay,

you guys can come on back. In Genesis chapter two, starting in

verse one. It's the first time we see Sabbath in scripture. Thus,

the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished. And

on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done, and he

rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then

God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all

his work which God had created and made. It says that God worked for

six days, and he cut out a twenty four hour period of time,

and he looked back and he rested, and God himself took delight in all

that he had done. He looked back and he saw Adam in that garden,

and he said, that's very good. He saw the elephants and the

penguins, and he said, whoa, that's awesome. But you know what

else he did, He said, that's enough. God could have kept creating.

He could have kept doing things. Do you realize the wonders that God

could have put on the face of the earth that he didn't because it was

enough. The principle of sabbath lies in mastering the concept of enough. There

comes a time, believe it or not, where you make enough money.

Ladies, y'all have enough shoes. Men, this is hard for me to

say you own enough guns. God demonstrated the principle of enough, and he

said, enough is enough. And I rest in the wondrous fulfillment of enough.

He is enough, He is all you need. His peace and his

fulfillment will make you shine brighter than anyone with the newest car or the newest

iPhone, because they don't have peace. God created Sabbath for you. Stop

looking for fulfillment in the next party or the next club, Stop looking for

fulfillment in the next man or the next woman, Stop looking for fulfillment in

the next fix, in the next job, and just realize you're alive,

relatively well, and if you embrace enough. God is right in the midst

of it, Right in the middle of it, you know, I uh

was outside water and some things. Plants starts in my greenhouse and there's like

a almost got I got almost three thousand plants started in my greenhouse. I'm

never gonna plant three thousand plants. Never, I don't have the space to

plant three thousand. I could come to your house and still wouldn't have enough

space to plant three thousand plants. I got tomatoes, I got squashed,

I got old cry I got I got everything. And I was looking,

and I've got them all lined up on heap mats in my greenhouse, and

there's a space about the size of a about the size of a seed flat.

Three thousand plants. We've got to do something with those. I said,

you know, I might be able to go ahead and fill up a

flat of cucumbers. I might be able to go ahead and get cucumbers started

and get them growing. And then I thought, you know what, I

don't think I got two hundred and eighty cucumber seeds. That's how many of

the flat holds. So so I can't just plant part of it. That's

a waste. So I guess, and I literally reached into my back pocket

to order cucumber seeds. Now I probably got one hundred cucumber seeds, and

I'll probably plant ten cucumbers because there was space. I wonder if that space

that's in your heart, that place that doesn't feel quite right, feels empty,

feels broken. If you've just been looking for something to go in that

empty space, if you've been trying to find something to fill that need,

and listen, you've tried everything under the sun. Today, try him.

I'm not talking about praying a prayer. I'm not talking about singing a song.

I'm not talking about memorizing a passage of scripture. I'm talking about the

person of Jesus in your life and creating space to allow him to live and

breathe and grow inside you. Everybody's standing with me all over the room,

Glenn. If you guys want to go ahead and get communion ready. If

you're here today, you're chasing something but you don't know what. Looking for

peace, you can't find it. You self medicate with everything under the sun.

It's never enough. Today his arms are open for you. Today.

He's calling you. He's calling you into his rest, he's calling you into

his arms. He's calling you to be you. Not what you do,

not what you've done, but you right now, in this moment, with

every head bowed and every eye closed, If you're here today, he would

honestly say, Pastor Steve, I know there's an empty place in me.

I know I got some dysfunction going on today. I want God to feel

that spot. I want to start working towards the principle of Sabbath, giving

him a whole day. But I need to know him first. If that's

you and you want to invite the Lord into that place and your heart and

your life, say fill me Lord and bring me peace, that's you.

Just slip your hand up and say that's me. Pastor pray for me.

That's me. Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,

tell you what. On the count of three, everybody, open your eyes

and look around. On the count of three, if you raise your hand,

I want you to step out from where you are and I want you

to make your way to the front. Alter team, just stay where you

are. When you get here, I want to pray a prayer with you.

So on the counter of three, if you raise your hand, I

want you to step out and I want you to move. Some people just

can't wait. You've been tired too long, your battle, that emptiness too

long. On the count of three, I want you to come one,

two, three, step out and move right now. Come on, come

on, come on,