Try Softer: Shabbat | Part 5

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

It was June of 2021, and I started, I shared part of this story when we began our Tri-Softer series.

We happened to be up at Tahoe.

There was a small gathering of pastors, a little conference with our mentors, Phil and Diane Comer.

Now, me going into this after the last several years, exhausted, I wouldn't even use that word.

You ever been there where you're beyond exhausted?

Yeah.

New parents are like, absolutely.

Right?

As I was thinking about it, I think the word I'd use is depleted.

Just depleted, like just drained.

Depleted to the point, and this is probably too far, but where you feel almost dead inside.

Show up to this pastor's conference, and literally, it's a small gathering, maybe 50 people.

Mentors are there.

I remember telling Jenny within 24 hours of being there, let's go.

Like, I'm done.

I'm ready to be done.

Thankfully, she's way more spiritual than me.

And she said, No, you know.

But have you been to that point where you're so depleted you can't even receive anymore?

Like, even the good things that are coming into your life, you're just like, oh.

And to be in that, my soul just wasn't in a good space.

It'd been years uh back to back, of full of driving.

And we sat down with Phil and Diane and we're talking.

And I remember Phil asking me this question.

He already knew the answer.

He looked at me.

Um he's like, Ryan, are you enjoying life?

Are you enjoying life?

No.

It's a short answer, right?

Are you really enjoying life?

You know, it's interesting.

We had a series back in December on joy, and when you think about joy, like joy should be one of the hallmarker calling cards for us as followers of Jesus.

He said, you know, in John chapter 15, I've told you these things that my joy would be in you, and that your joy would be complete or full.

John 15 · chapter mention

And yet, if we're honest, the pace of life that we live, the pressure and the demands that we have, the stress and the anxiety, and this starts from high school or even younger on up, that we live in this frenzied state.

That if we're really to answer the question, are you enjoying life?

I would argue that most of us would be in that same space.

Many of us.

I don't I don't even really know how to do that.

You know, there's this interesting uh rabbinic saying.

Now, this isn't part of scripture, this is just uh uh what some rabbis used to say.

So God will one day hold each of us accountable for all the things He created for us to enjoy, but we refuse to do so.

Now, here's what's funny about that line, because I know some of you are like, oh, I got permission now, right?

You're like, yeah, really?

And others, you just put more guilt.

You're like, I'm gonna be held accountable for that too.

Right?

How do we really begin to enter into this flourishing life?

That's fundamentally what we've been talking for the last several weeks.

Like, like Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and life to the full, flourishing, abundant life.

Like, does that exist in Silicon Valley?

Can that exist in Silicon Valley?

You know, we've wrestled this question, and what if the secret to the life we've always wanted, you've always wanted, isn't in trying harder, but trying softer.

And Jesus' great invitation.

Come, come to me.

Are you weary?

Are you burdened?

I'll give you rest or literally refreshing.

Like I want to refresh you, the refreshing way of life.

Take my yoke upon you, learn from me.

Watch how I do life.

And if you watch how I do life and you learn from me, not just my teachings, yes, and how I go about life, you'll actually enter into rest.

Why?

Because I'm gentle and humble of heart.

And so, how do we begin to take on the easy yoke?

His gentle and humble of heart.

And here's what we've done the last two weeks.

We made the shift of not just looking at what Jesus teaches, which is amazing, but actually beginning to look at how he lived.

He said, Watch how I go about life.

And in watching the pattern and the pace that Jesus goes about life, then begins to tell us, inform us, and teach us of this is the refreshing way of life.

And could it be, could it be the things that we've taken, the yokes or the stuff that is hanging around our necks, the patterns that we've embraced, man, they'll never bring the life we desire.

We'll never be able to answer that question.

Are you enjoying life?

Well, at times, at moments, but not consistently, no.

Last week we looked at the lonely places.

He often withdrew to the lonely places.

Today we want to look at one rhythm of Jesus' life that is so countercultural even in Christianity.

And it's really countercultural in um Western American evangelical Christianity.

It almost became taboo.

Like I grew up, and this was like one of those things where, hey, no, that's no longer for us.

That's an old testament thing, right?

That that's like an old school thing.

We're in the new school, the new testament.

You don't have to worry about that anymore.

And I think because we've gotten away from it, we are now caught in a rhythm that our souls cannot sustain.

Jesus did something every single week.

Did you know this?

Without fail.

He participated in something that actually finds its roots all the way back in the origins of creation, and that the Jewish people had been doing for thousands of years.

His rhythm.

And he would say, This is a new way to carry life.

His rhythm was Shabbat.

Would you go ahead and say that with me?

Shabbat.

Yeah.

Isn't that fun to say?

Shabbat.

You're like, oh, that's nice.

That's lovely, Ryan.

Most of us know it as Sabbath, right?

Uh Sabbath or Shabbat is the Hebrew way of saying it.

Shabbat.

This is a rhythm that Jesus embraced every single week.

He Shabbat.

Now, here's what's interesting: is in Jesus' day, the reason we think, you know, modernly that, hey, maybe that's not for us, is Jesus went against the grain of the religious leaders.

We know that, yeah?

And if you read the Gospels, what you'll find is Jesus actually did a lot of things on Sabbath that the religious leaders didn't like.

Now, by the time Shabbat or Sabbath got to Jesus' day, religious leaders had taken the commands of Scripture, and then they added lots of other different commands to make sure that you observed it properly, that you didn't miss it in any way.

And so they would add upon it all these different layers.

So by the time Jesus shows up onto the scene, Sabbath, which was incredibly uh powerful and beautiful, became this burden.

It became a downer.

In fact, uh I want to take you to Jesus' um most instructive teaching on Sabbath, and it's his only teaching about Sabbath, really, and it's sandwiched between two different times where he, you know, uh bucks up against the religious elite.

And it begins with a story where Jesus and his disciples on Sabbath are walking uh through grain fields and they take some of the kernels and they begin to eat the kernels, and the Pharisees see this and they're like, hey, you know what?

In the law, it tells us you you're not allowed to reap.

And I know they just took a little bit of it, but technically that's a reaping.

Right?

And then Jesus has this line, he teaches us about Sabbath, and then right after that, he then is on another Sabbath, he's he's in the synagogue, as was his habit, and he sees a man with a shriveled up, withered hand, and he gets up and asks, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

And it's crickets, it's silence.

And if you read different, you know, versions of different different gospels that all give the same account, at one point you'll see that Jesus becomes indignant, he becomes angry because the very heart and the intent of Sabbath was ripped out of it for rules.

And he says to the man, stretch out his hand, and he was healed.

And here is Jesus' teaching right between these two Sabbath stories, and what he has to say to inform for us the rhythm, the yoke, a new way to carry life.

He says, the Sabbath, or Shabbat, was made for man.

Who was it made for?

Help me out.

It was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath, hello, Shabbat, this day of rest was made for you and your good and your well-being.

It wasn't made for you to come observe and somehow earn kudos for God.

And we miss this all the time.

See, in even those stories, did you know that Jesus healed seven different times on the Sabbath?

And what we find, he says it's made for man, the Sabbath was intended to be a day of healing and wholeness, and you're missing it.

See with the grain and what he's doing, that Sabbath was actually made to actually have your needs met, not withhold them for rules and regulations and obligations and restrictions.

Sabbath was made for your good, for my God.

My good.

Well, what is Sabbath?

I like how Peter Schizero in his book Emotionally Healthy Leadership, he defines it.

Uh he says, Biblical Sabbath is a 24-hour block of time in which we stop work, enjoy rest, practice delight, and contemplate God.

It's a 24-hour period of time.

In the Jewish uh tradition, your day begins at sundown.

And so it started on Friday evening, and we go till sundown on Saturday, and they would stop and they would rest and to be with God.

Sabbath literally means the word means to stop, to cease.

And it also means to delight.

And you have both of those going on.

To stop and to delight, to cease because you are a limited, finite human.

You have to stop and recharge weekly, you have to have a Sabbath rest weekly and delight.

It's made actually for your good for fun.

And so if it's boring, you're doing it wrong.

Seriously.

So here's what I want to do because I think most of us aren't really familiar with this like me, and probably aren't very good at Sabbathing, like me.

Let me give you the framework.

Where did this come from and why does it matter?

And why, actually, more now than ever, you need it, I need it in the Silicon Valley.

It's a new way to carry life.

Shabbat.

Where did it come from?

Let's go back to the very creation, the rhythm of creation.

I want you just to see some things, the framing of how God designed the universe and designed us to operate within it.

It goes all the way back to that.

God designed the day, think about this, to begin with rest, not work.

Did you get that?

It's a slight shift, but in our American Western understanding, the day begins when?

In the morning.

Right?

Sun up.

Hey, the day begins.

And your day begins with work.

Your day begins with the task.

Your day begins with the list, all the things you have to do.

And it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And then notice what does it say?

And there was, help me up, evening.

Huh, that's curious.

Not morning.

There was evening and there was morning the first day.

And actually, this is repeated through all the days of creation.

And there was evening and there is morning.

And so actually, we are to work from rest, not the other way around, that the day begins.

And it's just one of those things that if you and I can begin to think, it's a perspective shift.

And so you realize, no, I'm actually beginning my day with rest and renewal and replenishment and filling up before I ever go out.

Rest begins the new day.

Secondly, you want to see under here, actually, God created humanity as co-workers with him.

In the image of God, he created them.

Male and female, he created them.

You've been made in the Imago Dei, the image of God.

Your reflection of him, your maleness and femaleness all have an integral part of that.

And then he goes on to say, God bless them.

And he said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number.

Translation, get busy with it and have a lot of fun doing it.

Right?

Seriously, this is this is right here.

Fill the earth and subdue it, then rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

God actually created you to do good work.

See, we kind of think of work either as two things: work as a necessary evil, or work is everything.

It's your identity.

And he's like, no, no, no.

You've been created.

There's work in the garden before the fall, and there'll actually be work in heaven, by the way.

You're gonna have good, meaningful work to put your hands to, to put your minds to.

See, he created you to be a co-worker with him.

You know, and sometimes I think there's some myths about work that we buy into.

One is that there's secular and sacred work, right?

Ryan, I work at Apple, I work at Google, I work at Beats, I work at wherever.

And that's secular work.

And then, you know, it's nice when you pastors, you do the sacred work.

That is not a paradigm in scripture, by the way.

All honest work is sacred work.

Like what you're doing is sacred.

The primary place of discipleship is the workplace, it's where you spend the most amount of time.

Like what you do matters.

How you do it matters.

Paul would say, and whatever you do, whether word indeed, do it all into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Like, I'm gonna do this work in the name of the Lord Jesus because it's sacred and it's meaningful.

I think uh the other thing, myth that we kind of buy into is that it's only uh only paid work counts as work, right?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There's lots of unpaid work that is real work and really meaningful.

And we've seen even pendulum swings here, right?

And I I think back in the 80s and 90s, like if you were a stay-at-home parent or mom, like um if you went to work, it was looked down upon.

And then now today the pendulum is swung is like if you stay at home, it's looked down upon.

All work is beautiful, uh, that is honest, and it's like you're created to be co-workers with them.

Finally, God set boundaries to work for our good.

He set boundaries.

Notice what he says.

But by the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing.

So on the seventh day, he rested.

He s Shabbat.

He Shabbat ceased to be still from all his work.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, literally set it apart.

This is where the idea, you know where the word holiday comes from?

Holiday, we get this, you know this.

I'm not telling you anything new.

It's holy day.

It's a set apart day.

It started all the way back here, a holy day, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

God set boundaries.

Now, we don't like boundaries, do we?

We don't like limits, do we?

I think that's one of the reasons we don't embrace a Shabbat, a Sabbath, is like, don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what I need.

I'm good, I can do it, I'm capable.

Right?

Isn't that kind of like our Silicon Valley?

Like, yeah, no, man, I got it.

Just back off.

I can handle this.

Here's what's interesting, right?

If you're driving on this really um precarious mountainous road and there's a cliff, and you see the guardrails, you're never like I can't believe they put those there.

What were they thinking?

Seriously?

All the way up?

Right?

You you just don't you just don't think that.

In fact, those guardrails, if you're like me, you're like, oh, thank God.

Right?

Because when they're not there, you've been there, I've been there, you're not there, you're like white, knocking it, gripping it, your knees, okay, my knees are shaking, and you're going up it because you recognize those guardrails aren't in place to keep you from fun, but they're there to keep you from harm.

And God puts a boundary on our days, on our weeks, knowing left to ourselves, we will run ourselves into the ground.

He didn't cease to work because he was tired, he ceased for our good and set a boundary to say, you are my image bearer.

And you actually get to reflect me by resting in the work that I finished.

And I put this boundary here, a Shabbat for space.

Why?

Because we are finite, limited beings that need daily renewal, and we actually need a weekly Sabbath rest.

This goes all the way back to the framing of the fabric of the universe, like how God designed it, and you've heard it said, like if when you go against the grain of the universe, you what?

You get splinters, yeah.

I guess you hadn't heard that one.

And then fast forward, and you see God setting up a new people, a new nation, drawing them out uh from bondage in Egypt.

And so Israel had been down in Egypt for 400 years, they had been slaves, they had been commodities at this hands of the empire, and they were only as good as what they could do.

And God pulls them out and he says, I want to give you a new way of being in a land as you step in, and he uh gives them the Ten Commandments, and here we see Shabbat again, and we see him framing, and it's powerful and it's beautiful.

And the very first time, and we he gives the Ten Commandments, by the way, twice.

We'll talk about that in a second.

Uh, the very first time Moses gives the Ten Commandments, he's with the people, Mount Sinai, smoke, thunder.

I mean, it's amazing.

It's a it's a light show, it's pretty intense and awesome.

And he comes down, and these people had just been uh pulled out of slavery, rescued, and now they're in the wilderness in the barren land, and God gives them these ten commandments that we all go, yay, you know what?

Sounds like a pretty good idea not to murder anyone.

I like that one.

And coveting, yeah, it's probably not so good.

Stealing?

Yeah, gotcha.

And he he institutes, thinks about this, as one of the core ones, institutes Sabbath.

As one of the core framings for how they would go about life.

And he says, remember, remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Remember, don't forget it.

Because we're forgetful beings, aren't we?

Remember the Sabbath day.

And then he he gives them the why, if you want to go read it on your own.

He gives them the why and it connects it back to what we just talked about the creation.

Like this is how God framed the universe.

Like you're just operating in the rhythm of how God designed life to work.

Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy.

Now think about this.

They had just left Egypt.

They're now in the wilderness.

Resources are scarce.

And he's saying, you know what?

Take a day off.

Well, wait, wait, wait, wait a second.

Okay.

Really?

Because I know you said this manna thing's gonna be happening, and manna is literally the what is it?

That's what it means.

They're like, we don't know what it is, but we're gonna eat it, and it's not bad, right?

And but but take a day off when we look around, resources are scarce, we're we're we're we're on a journey, we're traveling, I we can't afford to take a day off.

See, Sabbath keeping is actually an act of faith.

An act of faith that, man, I actually trust God to work when I'm not working.

I trust God to provide.

See, our concern, isn't it?

Like even just thinking about Sabbath is like, okay, a 24-hour period of rest, Ryan, that's not how the valley works.

I'll fall behind.

Someone else will get ahead.

And it's this act of faith where you say it's a statement that we're not God.

You are, and you're in control.

And if you rested and we're gonna rest and you're finished work, hey, we're gonna be at rest, trusting you will take care of it.

And I like how A.J.

Uh Swoboda, uh, in his book on Sabbath, a great scholar up in the Portland area, uh, writes about Sabbath.

He says, Sabbath dethrones humanity from its self-aggrandized place of lordship over creation by handing authority of the world back to the one to whom it already belongs.

God, you're in control.

You know the future.

And you're inviting me, no, you're calling me, you're beckoning me into a rest.

And I believe I'm too important, too essential, too indispensable to stop.

It's an act of faith.

I trust you.

The other thing that we see with Sabbath is not just an act of faith, it's actually an act of resistance.

An act of resistance.

I get that line from Walter Brugeman.

He wrote this great book, Sabbath as resistance.

Say no to a culture of now.

In it, he writes that Sabbath as resistance declares our lives are not defined by uh production and consumption of the commodity goods.

It's this resistance to the demand and the gods of this age.

Now, I told you Moses gives the Ten Commandments twice.

He gives it in Exodus, and then he gives it in Deuteronomy.

And Deuteronomy literally means second law, duatuonomy law, second law.

Well, why did he give the law twice?

Well, he gave it at Mount Sinide, and then he fast forward 40 years later, they've been watering around a brand new generation who was too young to remember really the days in Egypt as being slaves, and or were born in their wandering period.

And he gives the Sabbath, but he changes the why a little bit.

It's really fascinating, it's really interesting.

Notice what he says when he changes it.

He writes this he says, Therefore, uh observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you.

Okay, so we're to observe this.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

Now notice this, remember.

He said, Remember the Sabbath.

Now he wants them to remember something else.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath.

Remember, it's connected to how God has designed the framing of the universe, but remember where you once been and where your people came from.

Remember that you never got a day off.

Remember that you toiled at the hands of the empire, and that you were just a commodity for the gods of their land.

I am not a god like that.

Remember.

The gods of success, the gods of upward mobility, the gods of keeping up with the Joneses.

Who are the Joneses, by the way?

They seem awful.

If your last name is Jones, I'm sorry.

I just I apologize.

But we do this.

Insistently striving and never arriving.

Consistently exhausted.

For what?

Only to get pulled back to Egypt.

So Sabbath keeping is an act of resistance.

Author Tim Keller says it this way: anyone who cannot obey God's command to observe the Sabbath is a slave, even a self-imposed one.

Your own heart or our materialistic culture or an exploitive organization or all of the above will be abusing you if you do not have the ability to be disciplined in your practice of Sabbath.

Sabbath is therefore a declaration of freedom.

Some of you need to declare freedom.

And I'm gonna tell you how to do that.

I'm gonna give us really a beginner's guide to Sabbath.

And you're like, Ryan, my work won't let me do that.

It's 24-7 right here.

I gotta respond to emails, by the way.

Not within 24 hours, within 24 minutes.

Even that's long.

Just tell your boss you're Sabbathing.

It actually works, by the way.

A day off is a different thing.

Sabbath, it's a holy thing.

Well, how do we do this?

Let me give you a beginner's guide for Sabbathing.

First, would you start small but start now?

Start small, but start now.

Uh 24 hours might feel like a lot.

It might even be impossible with your current pace of what you're going through in life.

Okay, start small.

What about four hours?

Can you Sabbath for four hours?

Could you?

Why not?

What about eight?

Could you Sabbath for eight hours?

Could you just say, okay, this block, eight-hour chunk, like you put it on your calendar, it's designated.

You know, it's what about 12 hours?

See, start small, but start now.

And some of us, even that whole idea of a weekly rhythm of stopping, we're like, no, we we're not gonna do that.

I don't need that.

I'm just built different, right?

I'm type A.

I'm strong.

I got lots of energy.

You know, I did a triathlon a while back, and um, as I was training for it and learning about how to do triathlons, here's what was fascinating is when you're doing any of these distant marathons, um, they don't tell you you should drink when you're thirsty.

And they don't tell you you should eat when you're tired.

In fact, what they say, and the training is, is there's a certain amount of time you should be taking fluids consistently, and then you also need to be getting your electrolytes in these little goopacks, which are nasty.

But I'm told they're good for you.

And I'm told you do it even if you don't feel like you need it.

Why?

Because if you wait until you do, it's too late.

Friends, when you wait until you feel like you need a rest, it's too late.

It's just too late.

That's why we live these lives and we're wondering why our souls are in dissonance with everything around us, and we just keep going, and we're in that depleted state where I was, where finally you like just to stop.

You're like, I don't even like it anymore because I don't like here.

Start small, but start now.

Let me just give you four words to guide Sabbath, okay, Shabbat.

Stop, rest, delight, worship.

Stop, rest, delight, worship.

It's that simple.

And by the way, I know we have like high schoolers in here.

High school, you should love Sabbath.

You go, like, hey, um, stop.

Listen to this, okay?

Write down on Sabbath, I will not make a list.

On Sabbath, I will not.

And high schoolers, I will not do homework.

Mom, I'm shabbating.

Right?

All the parents just got mad at me right there.

I got three teenagers, all right?

There's six days to homework.

I will not do emails.

I will not go on social media.

I will not.

See, Sabbath means to stop.

What are you gonna stop?

What are you gonna put down?

What are you gonna rest for a season?

To stop.

Then rest.

Now let me define rest.

Resting is engaging in um activities that restore and replenish you.

Resting is engaging in activities that restore and replenish you.

For some, it is a nap, okay?

I'm not a big napper.

I took a couple yesterday.

I just kind of tired.

I was slept through a movie, which is typical.

It doesn't necessarily mean take a nap, though.

What are activities that restore and replenish you?

So if stop on Sabbath, I will not, fill that in, make a list, rest.

On Sabbath, I will.

What are activities that restore and replenish you?

Okay?

Uh I've heard it said that if you work with your mind, you often rest or play with your hands.

If you work with your hands, you often rest or play with your mind.

And so if you're behind a computer screen the entire time, you probably need to rest with your hands in some capacity.

It restores and replenishes you.

If you're working at a job that's really physical, you probably rest with your mind.

It might be a book, it might be a crosswords puzzle, it might be a game.

What are some of those things as you think on Sabbath I will?

And you begin to go and carve out time.

These is the place.

Guilt-free.

Had you ever think about this?

Why did God have to command the Sabbath?

Because we needed it, and we need not feel guilty about it.

And for some of you, you feel so guilty about stopping.

And now I'm guilty, and you forgive feeling guilty about stopping.

I'm sorry, I wasn't meaning to do that.

Breathe.

Stop.

Rest.

And then delight.

You can write fun if you want fun instead of delight.

Make a list of things that bring delight.

I remember in that conversation with the combers, Phil asking me, What brings you delight?

What brings you joy?

What do you do for fun?

And had gotten so far away from it, I couldn't answer it.

You know, one other mentor gave me just kind of this like um kind of gauge on the dashboard of your life to know how how your soul's doing.

And I think this would be helpful for you as well.

And he's like, you know, the warning sign, just to like pay attention.

He's like, you know, the warning sign is when I care too much about things I shouldn't care about.

So for me, if I care too much about sports or the warriors winning, which that's not happening.

Never lose soul.

Yeah.

It's tough, brother.

Um and when I don't care about things I should care about, when things that really matter, relationships and Jesus and uh character and those sort of things.

There's this light on the dashboard to go, okay, man, I need to do some soul work.

And and when you can't identify, when we struggle to identify delight and fun and joy, what are the things that you really enjoy?

It might be being in his creation.

It's often Shabbat always involved a really good meal, often with a nice bottle of wine.

The Jewish tradition, by the way, for married had a lot of sex in it.

I just gonna say that.

I'm just gonna delight.

So there's no fuddy duddy in there and games.

Stop, rest, delight, worship.

Contemplate and center your hearts and minds on the goodness of God.

Like this is all in the atmosphere of God.

I He created this from the creation as a rhythm for us with Him.

It's an act of faith, an act of resistance.

And as we begin to enjoy Him and His creation and His goodness, and like this is the centered on, oh my gosh, you have provided this for me.

You might have just a little bit more extended time with Him.

You might just get more a little bit more quiet space, a long walk.

Doing it like practicing Sabbath on a Sunday is great because you already have community and worship in the sermon.

And your Sunday changes when you come prepared with it, knowing, hey, in the morning I'm preparing my heart and I have a day to rest and to play and to be in his presence and with other people, where you worship and you keep God at the center.

It's not taking a day off from God, but drawing closer to him.

Stay consistent then and then be creative.

Stay consistent and be creative.

Make it a weekly rhythm.

Just put it in there, even if it's four or eight hours a week to start, and then be creative.

Switch it up.

If you started going to the ocean, because man, that's renewing and life-giving.

Maybe you go to the city, maybe you go to the mountains.

There's a lot of freedom there.

Finally, what I said last week, I just wanted to repeat new seasons require new rhythms.

New seasons require new rhythms.

We often get into ruts in life when we try to bring in our old rhythms into a new season.

And so as a college student moving into career, and you had different time, you had different capacity, and now you're moving into career.

You bring in your old rhythm, you get into a rut.

It happens when you shift from being single to dating to married.

Oh my goodness, new rhythms when you have kids, right?

And then stages of kids change.

And so what that means is, you know what, what season am I in and what rhythm do I need?

What season am I in and what rhythm do I need in this season?

As I I know I need the rhythm of Shabbat, it might look a little different because of the age of our kids.

It might look a little different because my work is ever changing.

And so, you know what?

I'm I'm a firefighter, so I'm four on or three on and four off.

So my day may have to change.

Okay.

New rhythms, new season, grace.

Um, I just want to leave you with a question.

It was the question that Phil asked me.

And it's the question I just want you to answer as we try softer.

What really brings you joy and delight?

What do you do for fun?

What is refreshing and replenishing to you?

That's your homework this week.

What is it?

His son John Mark wrote a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and he asked a similar question.

I'll leave this one with you.

What could you do for 24 hours that would fill your soul with deep, throbbing joy?

Isn't that good?

That's the God that you serve.

That's the God who beckons you.

Get out of the rat race, the hurry, the pressure, the pace.

What could you do for 24 hours that would fill your soul with deep throbbing joy?

Would you take time, write it down, and would you enter the rhythms of grace, the rhythms of Jesus?

God, I just pray for my friends.

This is so counterintuitive and counter-cultural to the world we live in.

Would you give them grace?

Would you give them freedom from guilt?

Would you allow, as Scripture says, for them to enter into your rest, your refreshing?

Thank you for your invitation, your call, your care.

Would you give them the courage to carve out time every week?

Jesus' name.

Amen.

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