Sabbath Part 2

God, thank you for a beautiful day.

Thank you for this time to give you the worship, the honor, the exaltation that you deserve.

Holy Spirit, we invite you in to speak to us, to comfort us, to restore us, to give us rest, rest for our souls.

Lord, we invite you in, show us what your word means.

Show us what you intend us to take away.

Lord, we ask just for the outpouring of your power here this morning that people would hear your voice and be strengthened in your presence.

In Jesus' name, amen.

What a privilege it is to be with you guys here today.

This is the second and final sermon about Sabbath.

Last week, we talked about the biblical origin of Sabbath.

We saw how serious God was about it.

Remember that?

He talks about it over and over again.

It's something that really, really matters to him.

It's in the Ten Commandments.

It literally made the top ten.

We see the way that God intended Sabbath for Israel to remind them that it's him that sanctifies them.

When they cease working, they remember that it's him that worked on their behalf for them to be sanctified.

We saw that it's supposed to remind them of their dependence.

Remember that with the manna?

We saw that they, their hearts, really all of our hearts, resist this idea of rest and Sabbath in some ways, and that ultimately Jesus fulfilled the command of the Sabbath.

And yet, it remains an incredible gift from God.

It remains something so important that it's like central to our flourishing.

Rest, the complementarity, the complementary nature of work and rest, work and rest is central to our flourishing.

Rest in God continues to be this really, honestly, rebellious act against culture in society.

For us to be Christians and to rest, to take a day off every week, to act like it's not, the world doesn't spin around us, that our provision doesn't just come from us, is an act of rebellion against culture.

Because culture tells us to do the opposite constantly.

This is actually the inspiration, if you want to go uh Beckett to the graphic, the artwork of the series.

This is a painting from the 1800s by a guy named Jean-Francois Millet, French guy.

Loved painting pictures of French peasant life.

And this is a part of a series where he painted four paintings basically depicting the life of a peasant farmer throughout the day.

And this is the only one where they're arresting.

It's in the middle of the day.

During harvest, French peasants would work 14 hours, and in the middle, the hottest part of the day, they would take a rest.

This painting actually inspired Van Gogh a lot, and he did his own version of it.

He called it siesta.

Work and rest is central to the fabric of reality.

God put it there in creation.

And yet, physical rest, even intellectual rest, letting our minds think about something else, only goes so far.

Rest from physical work only goes so far.

I remember one time hearing a story from a pastor, a church planter, where he talked about he had planted a church, and I want to say it was something like 10 years in.

He started to feel tired, wiped out.

He ignored it.

He felt this constant desire to sort of justify his existence, to, to, to be at everyone's beck and call, to he felt like the church would fail without him.

This deep sense of need to sort of bring value to people.

And he ignored it and he ignored it and ignored it until one day he literally couldn't get out of bed and just sat there whimpering.

His wife comes in, what's going on?

Couldn't even talk.

Just sat there whimpering.

They call the elders in, what's going on?

Well, he was burned out.

But he wasn't just burned out from physical work week to week.

He was he was burned out from something different.

This this need, this desire to sort of justify himself, to do what he felt like needed to happen, regardless of whether or not God would provide the way that he said it.

Eventually he takes extended time off and he comes back, but it was after a lot of months of having to repair and rethink the way that he was approaching his work.

In the famous movie Chariots of Fire, it's a story about the 1924 Olympics.

Eric Liddell races the sky in the Olympics called Harold Abrahams.

And basically, he has this wild quote as he's preparing for the run, his uh rival, Harold Abraham, and he says, literally, Contentment, I'm 24 years old and I've never known it.

I'm forever in pursuit and don't know what it is I'm chasing.

And then he goes, 10 lonely seconds.

He's talking about the 100-meter dash.

10 lonely seconds to justify my entire existence.

Think about the weight that that describes.

So often we feel it in careers, so often we feel it from family members or parents or siblings or friends or or bosses or just culture messages we hear from culture generally, media.

This desire to perform, this desire to justify our existence, to earn the right to be loved, to earn the right to be valued from all these different areas.

Tim Keller helpfully called this feeling the work under the work.

You have the physical, tiring, intellectually tiring work that we do throughout the week that we cease on the Sabbath, Lord willing, once a week.

But if the work under the work continues, this need to sort of justify yourself, to prove that you matter, well, that's how you can have a Sabbath and feel no different when it's over.

It's a type of exhaustion that is different to physical exhaustion.

I'm talking about spiritual exhaustion.

What can be done about that?

What can be done about spiritual exhaustion?

Because I'm willing to bet that for anyone here who's ever had a nervous breakdown or a panic attack or something in that category, I'm willing to bet that it probably wasn't primarily driven from physical exhaustion, but from spiritual exhaustion.

In fact, both of those things were probably working together in a moment where you broke down in tears and couldn't go on anymore.

I'm betting that it was actually that that was the root rather than physical exhaustion.

So Jesus has a couple things to say about this.

Three things, actually.

We're gonna see Jesus say that he's a Sabbath unto himself, that he destroys Sabbath legalism, and that he's bringing an ultimate Sabbath.

So if you want to open your Bibles with me, I'm gonna be in Matthew 11, 28, basically through 12.8.

So I'm gonna have it up here on the screen.

I'm gonna be in the ESV version.

What can be done about spiritual exhaustion?

Is it just a day off?

Matthew 11, 28 through 30.

It's a famous passage.

This is what it says.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

It's so clear here in this Matthew 11 passage that Jesus fulfills the Sabbath in a unique way.

He says, Come to me, and I will give you rest.

The Sabbath, a day where we take a day off, gives you unique rest.

But Jesus is claiming something different for him.

He's saying that he himself, a person, will give you rest in a unique way.

Maybe you've experienced this before where certain friends or family members that you have, they're kind of this non-anxious presence where when you hang with them, it's just nice.

You just walk away restored, you walk away refreshed.

Jesus is describing like the ultimate version of that rest in a person.

It's a call, it's a command, and it's an invitation.

And it requires humility because if you come to Jesus for rest, part of what you're acknowledging is that it has to come from outside of you.

Restoration, refreshment has to come from outside of you.

It's one of those many lordship tests that we face in our life.

You say you believe in Jesus, you say you know about him, but is that where it ends?

You just know about him, like the demons, or are you submitted to him?

And when he says, Come to me, for I will give you rest, this is one of those moments where we get to find out just how committed to him we are.

Other things, we go to other things all the time for rest, for relief, for reprieve.

Things that numb our minds to give us rest intellectually, things that dose us with pleasure to help us forget in a moment, all kinds of stuff in creation.

But here, at the end of Matthew chapter 11, Jesus is saying, Come to me, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

And then he takes it in kind of an unexpected uh direction.

Verse 29, I will give you rest, and then he goes, Take my yoke upon you.

What?

Isn't a yoke one of those wooden things that you put on oxen to force them to work?

To force them to drag stuff around?

I thought we were talking about rest.

How is it that Jesus goes from talking about him being rest to put my yoke upon you?

Something for a beast of burden.

So strange.

Uh uh, one of the commentators I was reading pointed out how funny this is.

Douglas Sean O'Donnell says, Jesus doesn't say, take my mattress, and you will find rest.

It's not like Jesus.

In other words, like it's Jesus is not saying sitting there being like, give up that garbage pillowtop and take mine, because you'll find true rest.

The temperatic of transcendence.

This is not what he's saying.

He's saying a yoke.

Take my yoke upon you.

And in yoke, you know, that there was a saying back then, the yoke of the law, so the you know, the burden of the law, the things that God's law calls us to do.

There is an extent to which it feels burdensome.

And, you know, when you think about Jesus, he commands a lot of things.

You read through the whole New Testament, he describes a life, what it what it means to follow him.

He describes a life of living in the kingdom.

And so, in that sense, it's it's a yoke.

In that sense, he calls you to work towards a purpose.

There's a reason for your existence.

And so, in that sense, it is a yoke.

But what he's saying is, give up yours and take mine.

Give up the yoke that either you put there yourself or the company put there or the culture put there, or friends or family, or your own flesh that you put on your own back, give it up and take on mine, because it's different.

Put on mine and you will receive rest.

And yet, the reason that he can say this, take on my yoke, next to, come to me and I will give you rest.

Next to, I'm gentle and lowly.

Next to, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

The reason he could say, take on my yoke and put all those other things next to it at its core, the reason he can do that is because of the gospel.

The reason he can do that is because Jesus took the yoke upon him that we couldn't bear.

He pulled a weight that we couldn't haul.

He did the thing that we couldn't do.

The yoke that would have crushed, he took off, put on himself, accomplished it, lived the righteous life that God called us to, and then gives us his righteousness as a gift.

This is why he can say, My yoke's easy, my burden's light, and it's so different than anything else you've ever felt on your back.

And the reason is because it's not existential anymore.

The yoke that Jesus calls us to come under is not like, I mean, sometimes if we get fired or we have a terrible conversation with our boss, or a parent is really disappointed, or a friend, or some other thing is really disappointed, it can feel really existential.

It can feel like I'm a complete failure.

Like our guy uh at the beginning, Harold Abrahams.

Ten lonely seconds to justify my entire existence?

What if you lose?

I mean, talk about a crushing thing.

Part of what Jesus is saying is it no longer has to be that for you.

My yoke is not like that for you, because I'm the one that bore the crushing thing, and now I invite you into life with me.

He destroyed our yoke of performance, and so it's no longer existential.

It's why he can say, I'm gentle and humble in heart or lowly, and my burdens light.

And this, my friends, is why he also says, You will find rest for your soul.

Not just your physical body.

This description earlier in the introduction of these things that we feel when we work and before people, when we let people down, this work under the work, this desire to justify our existence and feel valuable.

This is why Jesus can say, Your soul will find rest with me.

Not just physically in a day off, but the entirety of your being.

Talk about a need that we have.

Only rest from fighting for your worth can give your soul rest.

That's soul rest.

But we're talking about Sabbath.

A day off every week.

Okay, you might say, Adam, maybe Jesus can kind of give me relief, restoration, rest from this constant desire to perform, which can be there even if I take a day off.

But what does that have to do with taking a day off?

What are we talking about?

Well, I'll tell you how what it has to do with it.

Because in that day off, part of what should happen is you should focus on Jesus.

It's not just a thing where we do whatever we want.

Part of what should happen is you should come alongside Jesus as a person, hear his voice, reinforce what he's done, what he's freed you from, so that your soul is persuaded again and again, week after week, that you don't have to justify your existence.

Because Jesus gave you justification.

And it was not a thing that you earned.

It must be reinforced on a week-to-week basis.

So let's talk about some practical elements with this.

Jesus is a Sabbath unto himself.

That's what this point is.

That's what we see here in Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

But practically, as it relates to taking a day off, what we're doing on that day, well, that's gonna affect what we think and feel a lot.

It's gonna affect the direction of our discipleship a lot.

So thing number one.

Thing number one as far as practical elements that help drive home this idea that the work under the work is finished because of what Jesus did.

Thing number one, solitude.

We talked about this briefly last week.

Solitude is you and no distractions.

Ideally, you and no one else.

Solitude becomes a moment for us where I think it's Psalm 46 that says, be still and know that I am God.

Solitude is a moment where that happens.

Where a moment where you can actually be still and free from distractions, because according to the psalmist, when you're still, you can know that he is God in a unique way.

Be still and know that I am God.

This comes in solitude so often.

Think number two.

Focus on Jesus, making your Sabbath heavily a focus on Jesus, means focusing on God's voice in his word.

There's a lot of different ways that God speaks.

Nature, creation, community, prophetic revelation, other revelatory gifts.

We talked about that in the spiritual gift series.

The inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, where the God just speaks to you inside and you just feel things a certain way, you know things a certain way.

The voice of God is multimodal.

It comes to us in different ways, but the anchor of it, the thing that we can all gather around together, is the word of God.

And so, Lord willing, you not only experience the Word of God on your Sabbath, but all the other beautiful adorning ways in which the voice of God speaks.

Because look, we talked about this when we talked about friendship several months ago.

But when we're talking about closeness with God, when we talk about closeness with anyone, really one of the main indicators whether or not you're close with someone is just how often you talk with them, how often you hear from them.

And so when we're talking about the voice of God in the Word of God, your Sabbath being characterized at least a little bit with that, part of what we're talking about is your closeness with God.

What that will begin to do is break off the yokes of the world.

What that will begin to do is put the healthy yoke of Jesus upon you.

You know, no yoke is no purpose.

No yoke is I'm just floating around in the world with nothing to do.

A healthy yoke is a deep sense of satisfaction, a deep sense of direction and purpose that comes from God but doesn't crush you.

So, focusing on God's word, the Bible, on a day off, alongside a moment of solitude, this will begin to reinforce rest for your soul.

In addition to physical rest, these things, Lord willing, happen at the same time.

Thing number three, prayer, speaking with God.

Again, the level of relational fluency that you have with God comes from how much you're talking to each other, in large part.

Prayer is a thing that moves the heart of God and also moves your own heart, and it breeds relational closeness.

Some degree of your Sabbath, some degree of your weekly day off has to be characterized by talking with God and hearing from God and being still and knowing that He's God.

Thing number four, which is kind of related, and this has just really shaped me over the years.

I'm just calling it remembrance and journaling.

The reason this is related is because in journaling you can journal like in a form of a prayer, which is prayer.

Um, but also a big part, if you remember from last week, one of the things the Sabbath is supposed to do is cause people to remember.

Remember that it is I that sanctify you, God says.

And there's other things that he tells you to remember on the Sabbath as well.

This is kind of one of these moments of recollection.

You might call it meditation, where you think about who God is, the things he's done, and the way he's provided.

And so one of the things that's really shaped me and my rest on the Sabbath, on my day off, which is Friday, in case you notice, I'm working now, is journaling.

And for me, Fridays, like writing in my journal in the form of a prayer, one, it slows down my prayer.

So I'm not only talking to God, but I'm processing what I think, what I feel.

You know, different people amongst us have different abilities to kind of say the emotions that they feel.

For me, it slows me down, lets me remember what God's done, lets me call out to him, lets me thank him.

Journaling is a big part of drawing near to God, be allowing Jesus to be a Sabbath unto himself for me.

And thing number five, communal time.

So solitude, remember the balance from last week, solitude and community.

Part of the reason, and again, I don't just mean any community, if we're talking about Sabbath, or we're talking about reminding ourselves that Jesus has accomplished the work under the work.

So you don't have to have that spiritual exhaustion.

If we're talking about that, part of what community means is people who can remind you of that.

People, and again, with familiarity and community, you start to know when you take days off, when the other person takes their day off, when they're trying to focus on God.

And when you start to know that and you start to remember that focusing on Jesus brings a type of rest that's really essential to restoration, well, then you can encourage one another on that day off.

If uh if I'm hanging out with Pastor Justin, we're watching sports, and he knows it's my day off, or I know it's his day off, we it informs our speech.

It informs the way that we encourage one another.

This is one of the ways that communal time should shape a day off as we seek for our souls to have rest, not just our bodies and our minds.

Jesus is a Sabbath unto himself.

Number two, Jesus destroys Sabbath legalism.

Look at the very next passage that Matthew puts after Jesus says this thing about, Come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Look at the very next passage he puts there.

At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.

His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and eat.

But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.

He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him?

How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple Profane the Sabbath and are guiltless.

I tell you something greater than the temple is here.

And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.

For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

So this Sabbath scene comes right after our famous text where Jesus says, Come to me, you who are tired.

It's not coincidental.

Matthew is showing us something.

He's helping us build out practically the idea of rest and Sabbath.

What's the connection?

Well, I mean, to make it short, your Sabbath should not be characterized by legalism.

Jesus destroys Sabbath legalism.

What's essentially happening in this text is they're walking probably to a synagogue on a Sabbath and they're coming through the grain fields, they're picking heads of grain, because they're hungry, the Pharisees are like, yo, that's illegal.

And by the way, it's actually not, there actually is provision in the Old Testament that says that's fine.

But because the Jews had been so traumatized by exile and disobeying God's law and all the consequences that came with it, they started, we talked about this before, they started to build this law around the law to make sure you don't even come within a hundred yards of breaking a real law.

But then what happens is now you've added your words to God's words, and it becomes this burden that he didn't intend.

And if you look at the Mishnah, which is a later written-down collection of oral sayings from, you know, basically the Pharisees and their peers of this time, they've got like, how many is it?

They've got 39 regulations just about the Sabbath that they've created, and you see that happening here.

And Jesus, if you notice, he doesn't say, Well, I mean, I'm the Sabbath now, guys.

Like, I'm Lord of the Sabbath, I'm the fulfillment of the Sabbath, you really don't need that, leave him alone.

Not what he says.

The Sabbath is valuable to him.

What he does say is, have you not read Gerald Tesson?

Do you not understand what God intended with the Sabbath law?

When David and he's hungry with his guys, and they get in, they eat the sacred bread of the presence, which is not lawful for them to eat, were they condemned?

No.

What about the priests who work on the Sabbath?

All that stuff that's supposed to happen in the temple on the Sabbath, they're working, and yet they're guiltless.

You've missed the point, is what he says.

You've added laborious, legalistic laws on top of what God's commanded, and it's a burden to people, and you've missed the whole point.

The Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath, the Mark version includes.

And he also says, if you understood the prophecy of Micah 6, 6, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, then you would not have condemned them.

What's he saying?

What he's saying is, if you had understood that the moral law is more significant than the ceremonial law, then you would not have condemned them, especially in light of Jesus fulfilling it.

So, what is this passage's relevance to Sabbath practice for us?

The short answer is we don't take legalism to it.

We don't add a bunch of garbage to it that makes it burdensome instead of light and enjoyable.

Legalists only delight in self-righteousness, not in the amazing things God has given.

But biblical Sabbath keepers delight in God and the things that point to him.

You know, if if in Leviticus 23, where it lists all the annual feasts that the Jews are supposed to celebrate, one of the things that's listed is the weekly Sabbath.

It's listed among the feasts.

What that means is Sabbath is feast vibes.

That's what that means.

It's not a piano recital, it's not a court, it's not the DMV, it's not meeting the queen.

Like it's feast vibes, okay?

This is what the Sabbath is supposed to be.

That's why it's listed with the feasts.

Yes, it's a commandment by God, but this is how it's supposed to feel.

It's supposed to feel like a feast.

And as we saw last week, fun is not the same thing as rest.

Feast, fun, they're kind of correlated, right?

Feast is not the same thing as rest, but now some specifics are helpful.

Talking about ways to delight in God on the Sabbath.

So we talked about point number one that you're supposed to focus on Jesus.

This is giving you spiritual rest.

It's not just physical rest, you need spiritual rest from the work under the work.

And focusing on Jesus helps with that.

But the other thing that helps with that is delighting in God.

Feast vibes.

Practical idea number one.

Enter game and uh engaging in fun or entertainment that doesn't degrade your mind or create stress.

You can watch and read even a lot of things, but probably not everything.

There's certain things that Joni and I like to watch, but if she's stressed, she just can't watch it.

If it's the office, she can't watch it, period.

It's the opposite of Sabbath for her.

It's the opposite.

She feels stressed and tired after the office.

Not everyone feels that way.

Uh in his book Reset, David Murray, a great writer on this topic, talking specifically to people who work in ministry vocationally, how to rest.

He says one of the check engine lights that come on, comes on for a person who's burned out and exhausted and not resting the way they should, one of the check engine lights that comes on is you start to be willing to consume content.

You start to be willing to consume media that you wouldn't have before.

Stuff with degrading material that points you away from the kingdom of God.

And I mean, you know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about sexual content, gratuitous violence, blood, gore, death, deep suffering.

Look, you can engage in art, in content, and creativity that people have made, not even necessarily Christian.

I saw the Odyssey this last weekend with Joni.

It was awesome.

It wasn't stressful for me, it wasn't stressful for her.

It was an incredible piece of art.

You know, the Odyssey, the Iliad, is the most copied manuscript outside of the Bible.

Bible's like literally times 50, but the point is that it's an influential story that that, you know, in some ways brings its own truth from what God's put into the world.

Engaging in fun and entertainment that doesn't degrade.

Again, you just have to be thoughtful about it.

And one more implication of this first one, by the way, in case this wasn't abundantly obvious to you, is on your Sabbath you probably need to cast your phone into the fire.

I was talking to a family this week who they literally put their phones in a box on Sabbath.

The reason is because if we're being thoughtful about the content we're consuming, you just release this unchained algorithm built to draw in your attention and bring profitability to gigantic Silicon Valley companies, you unleash that in your life on Friday, it's not gonna bring you rest.

It's gonna bring you stress.

An unhinged algorithm in your life on your Sabbath is going to destroy your Sabbath.

When was the last time you did a death scroll for an hour and walked away feeling refreshed?

You didn't.

You know why?

That's by design.

And so you have to be so thoughtful about your phone on the Sabbath because it has the power to rob you.

It has the power to rob you blind of peace and a focus and a refreshment that Jesus did the work under the work so you can rest because your existence doesn't depend on how you perform anymore.

Thank you, Jesus.

And rest physically.

Thing number two, besides thoughtful fun and entertainment, that brings delight and pointing to the glory of God.

Thing number two is nature.

It's restorative, it's something that literally God did himself.

It's his own fingerprints.

And here in Colorado, we have an abundance of riches with it.

The Bible says that nature testifies to God in and of itself.

You go to Psalm, I think it's 18, it talks about the stars speak forth knowledge in unique ways.

There is no one who is without blame because of the way that nature speaks to the glory of God.

Being in nature will forcibly cause you to think about other things than problems, then establishing your worth, than work, because of its glory, because of its unique beauty.

It's restorative, walks, hikes, it brings you peace.

My dad used to always say to me, he's done a bunch of 14ers.

He used to always say to me, I never met a person on a 14er that I didn't like.

Which, you know, 14ers are stressful for me.

Maybe there's like two people in here that can run up and down one and have their heart rate be 90 the whole time.

But the rest of us, you really need to be thoughtful about it.

14er on your Sabbath.

Let's be like my dad, but that all that to say, nature testifies to the glory of God and it will give you rest in ways that other things can't.

Think number three, food and drink.

And again, food and drink that does not come at a cost.

Okay?

If you are anything like me, back when I was ill, tons of food sensitivities, if I ate dairy, it would spin my emotions.

It would cast me off the deep end into this crazy emotional carnage.

I'd be sitting in the car crying like a baby.

This is true.

This happened multiple times.

Crying like a baby.

My wife, babe, what's wrong?

Why are you crying?

And I would say, I don't know.

This has never happened to me before.

And she would say, Did you put cream cheese on that bagel?

And I would say, Yeah, I did.

There's food, you know what it is for you.

Excessive alcohol consumption, we talked about that a few weeks ago.

Excessive consumption generally, gluttony is its own thing that does not declare the glory of God.

But food and drink, things that God created.

Remember wine, He created it to gladden the heart of man.

Food and drink are something that can cause you to delight in the glory of God.

In the right moderation, knowing what comes at no cost to you.

Thing number four, this is kind of a broad category.

Recreational sports, reasonable workouts, reading.

One of the things that God used to bring me back from burnout years ago was starting to read fiction.

Really for the first time enjoyably in my life.

And again, I couldn't just read any fiction, specific fiction.

These are things, pieces of art, pieces of creation, people, these are things that cause you to delight, to feast on the glory of God in a way that brings rest.

You're not going to trip into Sabbath, guys.

You're not just going to fall one day and be restored.

Ironically, at some level, mastering the discipline of a day off, mastering the spiritual discipline of the Sabbath does take some work.

But I'm telling you right now, it is the difference between you coming in, let's just say your Sabbath is on Sunday, probably should be for a lot of us.

It's the difference between you showing up on Monday and somebody being like, yo, how was your week?

And you're like, awesome.

How's your weekend?

Amazing.

How do you feel?

Great.

It's the difference between that and mastering the Sabbath.

And hopefully what you saw from this list is the level of intentionality that you got to bring.

You have to study what is restful for you because honestly, it's not the same for everyone.

People are just different.

And you're not going to trip into it.

You have to pay attention to what is restorative to you and pay attention to God's word and all these things that we just brought.

Last thing.

Jesus is a Sabbath unto himself.

Jesus destroys Sabbath legalism and makes it a feast and delight in him.

Thing number three, Jesus is bringing an ultimate Sabbath.

This last text, which I'm not going to read, which is just the next one in Matthew 9 through 14, is yet another Sabbath episode.

How intentional from the author Matthew.

I am the ultimate rest, he says.

Sabbath episode where he destroys legalism.

And in this last one, he heals a guy on the Sabbath.

It's one of the things Jesus loves to do.

He does it so many times in the Gospels that at some point you've got to think that he's sitting there with the disciples on the Sabbath in a synagogue and he's healed so many people.

And the Pharisees come over.

Are you going to heal on the Sabbath?

And Jesus looks at him, gets frustrated, and the disciples are like, Don't do it, Jesus, don't do it, Jesus.

And he finds every sick person in there and heals them.

And what happens in this episode is there's a man with a withered hand, and the Pharisees test him on it.

Will he heal on the Sabbath?

And he goes, If you have a sheep that falls into a pit, are you not going to take it out on the Sabbath?

How much more a person?

And then he says, Stretch out your hand.

And the man stretches it out.

And he physically restores the man's hand.

And he says, Therefore, it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

Destroying legalism a little bit more here.

Sometimes, like when I was in college and I started to experiment with Sabbath, I would say to Joni, I'm not doing anything I don't like.

She's like, Well, can we go do this?

I was like, I hate that.

She's like, that doesn't sound right.

I'm like, maybe you're right, but I don't get why yet, so I'm just going to keep doing it.

It is good, it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

In fact, it's part of the Sabbath's founding.

We didn't read this last week, but Deuteronomy 5 says that one of the other things you're supposed to remember as an Israelite, a good Israelite, on the Sabbath is that you were slaves in Egypt.

And on the Sabbath, remember that I freed you.

Liberation, emancipation is a central part of the Sabbath.

And what is the most enslaving thing experientially for people?

Goes way beyond Egypt.

I'm talking about sin.

The thing that brought pain and suffering into the world.

The thing that brought agony into the world.

And when Jesus heals this man on the Sabbath, it's a sign that the power of the kingdom of God is breaking into the world.

Something special has happened, and it's a sign of the freedom, the complete freedom from sin that is to come.

Jesus invites us into rhythmic restorative rest here on earth with a Sabbath.

But in heaven, it's complete.

You literally enter the rest of God with every pain and every tear and every stressor and desire to prove yourself wiped away.

And so if a part of Sabbath is remembrance with freedom, if a part of Sabbath is liberation, and the healing of this man points to the power of God that's broken into the world and the ultimate rest that's going to come, then part of what should happen on your Sabbath is you should remember that you've been freed and what's coming.

The rest of God.

Hope should characterize your Sabbath.

Delight.

Focus in walking with Jesus.

Much has been said the last two weeks about Sabbath.

And Lord willing, by now, you're at least somewhat persuaded that this is a gift from God.

Lord willing, by now, you at least have some level of understanding the way that the world pressures us away from this.

And then you have to fight for it.

A weekly day off for many of us should probably be Sunday because there's a lot of worship of God and delight of God built in for others, whether it's shift work or people working for the church, other days makes sense.

A day in which we cease work physically and intellectually needs to be prepared and fought for.

It reminds us of dependence, it reminds us of the fabric of reality, it brings us energy and joy for our week.

And as we saw today, it should also give your soul rest.

Because the work under the work, the desire to prove yourself, has been taken off you.

And you need a weekly reminder to put a fresh layer of pain on every single week.

What if we as a church, if you as an individual begin to master this practice, not just taking a day off, not just doing whatever you want, but a thoughtful practice, a thoughtful spiritual discipline of a Sabbath, what it leads to is you being rested.

What it leads to is you being refreshed.

What it leads to is us as a church being restored and filled with joy.

He's not the God of burnout, but of a blessing, amen.

Let's pray.

Father.

God, thank you that you give rest to the weary.

Lord, life will be filled with tiring times.

Life will be filled with exertion.

But you give rest in a way that nothing else can.

No substance, no human being, no fleeting pleasure.

You give rest in a way that far surpasses all of that.

The sweetness of your presence, the sweetness of your accomplishment, the sweetness of your love.

Not only reinforces physical rest, God, but spiritual rest.

Thank you.

Thank you that you don't want us to burn out.

But you want us to work from a place of joy in a full cup.

We see your intent, Lord.

We acknowledge what you want for us.

Please grant it to us.

Grant us rest.

We love you.

In Jesus' name, amen.