Well, good evening, Resonate. As Matthew said, my name is Josh, and I'm one of the pastors
here. And I am a little jet lagged. So if you will forgive me, I used to think jet lag
was just a myth that people who were not very tough said when they would go on a long trip
overseas or something. And then I experienced it for the last 10 days. We were in East Asia.
And I got back and I was up at two in the morning just hanging out two in the morning.
And then when it was like time to be awake, I was like miserable because I was supposed
to be awake, but it was like time to not be awake where we had just been. So anyways,
forgive me in advance, but I'm grateful to be here. And frankly, I'm grateful to be back
in a land of pizza and coffee. There was no pizza and no coffee where we were. So thank
you for praying for us because it was hard. It was a hard life out there. So I've been
back eating a lot of pizza and drinking a lot of coffee, which has not helped with my
jet lag. So nonetheless, man, we experienced some incredible things overseas, and we cannot
wait to tell you about those things, to focus our efforts internationally is going to be
a powerful, powerful thing. So we look forward to telling you about this. So seriously, thank
you for praying for us. Like we had some once in a lifetime kind of experiences, like I
want to tell you about them right now, but I can't because it would take too long and
we don't have that kind of time. But thank you, thank you for praying for us. It is seriously
good to be back. But listen, in light of what we have talked about over the past month in
our church and in light of the spring break season, whether you're not on break or you
are on break, that may not matter. We've talked about God's design for the flourishing of
all things. So a few weeks ago, we opened the Bible to Genesis chapter one and we hung
out in one verse for three weeks that God made us in His image. And so we talked about
that for a week. And then what does it mean to be a man? We talked about that for a week.
And then what does it mean to be a woman? And we talked about that and we've already seen
fruit of these things happening. I've seen men stepping up to lead, to protect, to provide.
I saw women responding in powerful ways to be the feminine, beautiful, godly women that
God's asked them to be. I think there's like over 200 people, 200 women at the women's
conference this weekend. That's incredible, fellas. We need to get 200 men to boot camp.
Do you hear me? Like 200, right? Because they are killing us. It's like, it's not even close.
It's like we, I'm going to stop talking about it because I get frustrated, right? So it's
bad. And they like all hung out all week. I think the ladies of the church are just like
killing it right now, just on high, good stuff happening. And then last week on video, I
talked to you about how God has uniquely designed you for the sake of the church. Like you have
spiritual gifts. You have an ability that creates unity in the church. And then there's this
other piece that I want to talk about today. So we've looked at God's design for the flourishing
of all things. But there's one more thing in Genesis chapter 1 that God has a design
for. And that is God's design for time. I need to hear this sermon tonight just as much
as you. Because I struggle with God's design for time. Listen, time is a gift. You can't
buy time. You can't sell time. You can't steal time. Time is what it is. And it is a gift.
There are 60 minutes in an hour. There are 24 hours in a day. There are 168 hours in
a week. And nothing we can do can change that. Drew's Instagram illustrates this. You have
the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce is what Drew's favorite coffee cup says. That's
an Instagram post where he posted, I have to remind myself of this every morning. And that's
his coffee mug. So we all have the same amount of God given time. But here's the trouble.
Years and years ago there was a myth out there that said there's a day coming when technology
is going to be better. Efficiency is going to be more. The rapid change in the world
is actually going to lead, to imagine this, more time off. You're like, no way, right?
There was a time in history where they thought in the future they're going to have these
little devices that are going to be super efficient and make you drop your notes. They're going
to have these little devices and they're actually going to speed up everything for you so that
you have more time with your family, right? This was allegedly going to be a thing that
led us to health. The problem is, faster is not actually better and efficiency being king
has done the opposite. It has turned our lives into chaos and our culture is always hustling
in the 40 hour a week work week is really no longer a thing because you don't have to
go to your office anymore. You know where your office is in your back pocket. You can wake
up in the morning and start checking emails. You can wake up in the morning and start responding
to text messages. You can be cooking dinner and hear the ding, the bell noise, whatever
noise you have on your phone and all of a sudden you're out of your home into your office
even though you shouldn't be in your office. You should be in your home so something has
gone wrong and something is not working anymore. Technology that was supposed to help us is
now actually hurting us and at some point we should say enough is enough. But this is
hard. Mastering time is hard. It is hard to rebel against the narrative the culture is
handing us and most of the time I think you would say this and your friends would say
this too. Most of the time the people you talk to when you say, hey, how's it going? What
do they respond with? Most of the time they say they're busy. Do they not? Most of the
time you say you're busy. Do you not? This is actually culturally good because God forbid
we're not busy, right? You would say, man, I'm so busy. What else do we say? Been swamped
like, man, been swamped at work or it's been crazy this recently. I'm in the season, man.
I'm really overwhelmed and if you're not that guy, I like to talk to you after service because
I have some stuff to learn from you if you're actually a person that walks in normalcy because
the rest of us have a tendency to say I am busy but I'm doing good. Super busy but doing
good. A lot of us dread Monday. There's like cat memes in the world that are actually against
Monday, right? So we dread Monday and there's like restaurants called Thank God It's Friday.
I don't think many of those exist anymore because they're not awesome. But right, TGIF, right?
You've been there and once was enough, right? So these exist and you think in yourself often
I've got to get through the week to get to the weekend. I will work through the hardship
of life so that I can get to what I'm entitled to. Some of you even think this at like 5.30
in the evening when you're done with work, you're just off. Why? Because you earned it.
Because we're American and we work and we earn it and we're done. Now we'll check our phone
and do some stuff. But in the end, you and I look at our lives and go, I work there for
I'm entitled to be off. Leave me alone. I deserve this. I was on. Now I'm off. So my
question is how's that working for you? My question is how's that system actually operating
in your life? Is it working well? My question is are you energized by this pattern? Am I
the only one in the world that everyone I talk to is busy and tired? Am I the only one? Everyone
I talk to is busy and tired. I'm not overstating that for the sake of some argument. I feel
like that's the cultural DNA we live in. Everyone's swamped. Everyone's busy. Everyone's doing
good but everyone's kind of tired. Why am I often busy and tired? And the question I ask
to all of us today is is that what God intended? Is that God's design for time? And to answer
that question, we've got to go back to Genesis chapter 1 verse 27 again and look at it and
see what God's design for time is. So if you have a Bible, would you grab it and turn to
page 1? We're going to be in Genesis chapter 1 again and start in verse 27 and I'm going to read
through the end of chapter 1 into chapter 2. We're going to look at what happens
when God has His way with time. So starting verse 27, it'll be on the screen. We have the
Resonate app as well that always has the scripture on it. So verse 27 says
you should have this memorized by now, right? We've been over this. So God created man in
His own image. In the image of God, He created them. Male and female, He created them. Now
read along with me. And God blessed them. Catch that blessed. He blessed them. That's an important
word. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.
Be fruitful and multiply. Married people. Amen. Single people. Be quiet. Right? Be fruitful and
multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And then God said,
behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that's on the face of the earth and every tree
and every seed in His fruit. You shall have them for food. Now stay with me. And to every beast of
the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything
that has breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. Verse 31. And God
saw everything that He had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there
was morning the sixth day. Chapter two, verse one. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished.
And all of the host of Him, this is galaxy. Like I watched Interstellar on the airplane
to East Asia, crazy. I don't think it's true. That movie's awesome. Okay? And all the host of
them and on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done. And listen to this. And He rested
on the seventh day. From all of the work He'd done, He rested. So God blessed the seventh day,
catch that word, blessed. He blessed the seventh day and He made it holy because on it, God rested
from all of His work that He had done in creation. So we see in Genesis, this creation account,
that God's image is not the end of the story. You're created in His image. That's a beautiful,
powerful thing we've talked about. But that is not the end of the story. God's image was intended
to lead you to have God's character, God's temperament, God's rhythm, God's timing, God's pace
in order that we might continue to grow and see the flourishing of all things. God gave us His
image. God gave us unity in the body of Christ. God gave us uniqueness in us. But He also gave us
time. So our emotional health often is directly connected to whether or not we're walking in
God's rhythm. Whether or not we're walking in His image. Whether or not we're walking as He's
asked us to be. And lastly, whether or not we're walking in the time He's created. So again,
the creation account for six days, God is hard at work. Now let me say this. He starts working
from a place of eternal rest. God was perfectly restful walking in community and the Trinity,
just walking in a fullness of rest. And then He creates out of that rest. And then at the end
of the sixth day, on the seventh day, He rested for six days. He's hard at work. Heaven, earth, sun,
moon, stars, fish, plants, creepy things that crawl, big animals that stand, galaxies. All of this is
done in six days and you think you had a productive week. This is what God did in six days. Right?
So for six days, He accomplishes everything that's ever been created. He creates and then He rest.
God rested. Let that sink in for a second. God rested. No, no, listen. God never tired. God,
never been weary. God, never needed to sleep. God, never needs a nap because that's sleeping, right?
God, never ever been weary, been frustrated, had a bad day, no worries, never ever ever struggled
with anything. Yet, He rested. And this word in the Hebrew is sabbat, which is the word that we get
Sabbath from. That God rested. So Sabbath in this picture, in this story and how the Old Testament
unpacks it later and how the Jewish people understood it to be, Sabbath meant something. It
meant that you rested and you worshiped. But what happened in that picture of rest and worship was
two other things. The Sabbath literally contained celebration and satisfaction. The God saw what
He had done. It was very good. And in some way, He rested in that and He celebrated that and He
was satisfied by what He had accomplished. And in so doing, in the creation account, in so doing,
He weaved into the fabric of existence the rhythm of rest. So I need you to notice two things in
this creation account. If you're a note taker, you can notice these two things and write it down.
The first thing to notice is that God blessed the Sabbath. He blesses three things in the creation
account. What are they? Number one, animals. Number two, people. What are animals and people
blessed to do? They're blessed to be fruitful and multiply. They're blessed to create life. And in
the same way, He blesses the Sabbath. So in other words, the Sabbath has a God-given ability to bring
life. The Sabbath inherently in it has at its core the ability to bring life because work depletes
energy, but rest refills you with creativity and maturity. Rest is life. God giving back to you
your life. So God blessed the Sabbath. Number two, something to notice is that God made the Sabbath
holy. Now if you study the Bible or know this, there's some techniques out there to study the
Bible. One of the biblical interpretation techniques that oftentimes people use is they find a word
in Scripture and they figure out where the first time that word was used in Scripture. And from
the first usage, you can see and kind of glean some understanding of how the rest of the times the
Bible uses that word. The very first time the Bible ever uses the word holy is right here.
That God made the Sabbath holy. What does holy mean? Holy means set apart. Holy means consecrated
for. Holy means that you're different. So in other words, God says the Sabbath is a holy time. It's
a holy set apart thing. And God looked at this and He says the Sabbath is a place of otherness.
It's a place of transcendence. It's set apart. It's consecrated. It's different. The Hebrews
would say the very air on the day of the Sabbath, it literally breathed into you differently. I
know that sounds weird, but they would say this phrase that the air on the day of the Sabbath
is air that is holy. That breathing was different on the Sabbath. That's how they experienced it
because it was an otherness to the day. This guy, Abraham Joshua Heschel, he was a Jewish rabbi
that wrote this book called The Sabbath and he's been very helpful to me. I read this a few years
ago, but it was really beautiful when he talks about what the Sabbath was in their understanding
because he talks about how as Americans, we so often are passionate about space. You know what I
mean by space? Like conquering space. Like today I have work to do. I've got to conquer some things.
I've got to subdue the earth in space and for six days you take on space and for one day you take on
time. For six days you master space and for one day you master time and he talks about time in
these really beautiful word pictures. In one place he says the Sabbath, as we understood it, were great
cathedrals. They were an architecture and time. So in other words, this was the day you walked into
and it served above you as a different kind of experience altogether. It was blessed. It was
full of life. It was holy. The Sabbath is the day that God has my full attention. He writes it this
way. He says, the Sabbath is the most precious present mankind has received from the treasure
house of God. What a sentence, right? The Sabbath is the most precious present mankind has received
from the treasure house of God. All week long we think the spirit is too far away from me.
And we end up, we succumb to spiritual absenteeism. And in our best days we pray, God would you send
us a little bit of your spirit but not so on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath the spirit stands before us
and pleads with us, accept all excellence from me. He said, there was even a difference in the way we
prayed on the Sabbath. There's a story he tells where they would go pray for sick people and if sick
people complained they would say, no, no, no, not on the Sabbath. We don't complain on the Sabbath.
There was just this completely different understanding of what this means for us to understand
that there's an invitation God gives to us where he will meet us in time and speak to us in a powerful
way. Maybe you get a moment here and there throughout the week of really meeting with the Lord.
But what you see in the story is he says, but not so on the Sabbath. This is the day that you are
guaranteed to meet with God. You see this further when the Ten Commandments are laid out and remember
the Sabbath and keep it holy as one of the Ten Commandments. But listen, the Sabbath is not the same
as the day off. A day off is a day you don't work for your employer and don't get paid, but it's the
day you probably go to the bank, you probably go to the store, you probably run some errands, you
probably do some things. That is great. That is an incredible American tradition to have a day off.
It's really great. Everyone needs to run some errands. The post office isn't always open, right?
So you have to go to the post office. That is an incredible thing. But the Sabbath isn't necessarily
just a day off where you run errands. It's an understanding that this particular time is a time of
rest and a time of worship and a time of satisfaction and a time of celebration. So on the
Sabbath you have a day that stands apart. So you go, okay, Josh, that was fun history time.
But what in the world does that mean for us? Because we live on the other side of Jesus, on the
other side of the resurrection. And if you know your New Testament, you know there is no command to
Sabbath in the New Testament. If you know your New Testament, you know the Sabbath is the day that
Jesus got in a ton of trouble. That's all it was. What was the Sabbath? That's the day Jesus had the
Pharisees always calling him out for stuff. Constantly in trouble on the Sabbath. He's like picking
berries on the Sabbath. You can't do that. And he's like, really, I'm eating berries with my boys.
And you're saying I can't do that on the Sabbath? And he looks at these Pharisees and he goes, let me
remind you, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. And the Sabbath wasn't made for man. Sorry, man wasn't
made for the Sabbath. But Sabbath was made for the man. In other words, Sabbath isn't the Lord. I'm the
Lord. I gave you a gift in the Sabbath. Why are you making all these rules? So the Pharisees went the
other way. They did it wrong. They basically thought that the point of the Sabbath was to be
honored by man. And Jesus comes along and goes, no, no, the Sabbath was supposed to give a gift to
man. Give a gift of rest. So listen, there is no command in the New Testament to Sabbath. You
don't have to in the same way. You don't have to. But there's also no command in the New Testament
that you should get eight hours of sleep. There's also no command in the New Testament that you
should eat three meals a day. There's also nothing in the New Testament about coffee. But these are
gifts. These are good gifts. Why are you not getting your rest? Why are you not eating healthier?
Why are you not partaking in the dark, glorious juice of the Lord called coffee? Why are you not?
These are gifts. These are incredible, beautiful gifts. Can they be taken advantage of? Of course.
Can they be extorted? Of course. Everything that God gives us a gift, people take too far and use
and abuse the wrong way. But these are gifts. And listen, this gift of Sabbath, this gift of rest.
I'm going to quit using the word Sabbath now. I'm just going to call it rest. This gift of rest is
incredibly difficult. And this gift has been lost because resting is intrinsically un-American.
We struggle with this. We know how to work. We're good at that. We know how to play. We're pretty good
at that at video games count, right? We're pretty good at that. But we don't know how to rest. And a lot
of us don't know how to worship. A lot of us go a day where I don't do anything. Josh, that sounds
boring. What am I supposed to do? Like sit in my house and go, this is called the Sabbath. Let me
just be quiet and awkward. I hate this. But they told me to do it at church. I don't know if I'm a Christian
anymore. So that is not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about our identity being wrapped up
in what we do. And God coming along going, no, no, no. Your identity should be wrapped up in what I've
done for you. And this is very clearly seen in how well you rest. Because often we go, I've got to do
something to have worth. And God goes, no, you have worth because I've done something for you in Christ.
And you should take some time to remember that. You should take some time to remember that I can do more
for you when you're doing nothing than you can do for you when you're doing everything. God can
accomplish things for you. He's already accomplished things for you. And this gift of rest is offered
to us. Should we do it daily? Yeah. But are we good at it? No. So is it helpful to pick a day and really
hone in on that? Absolutely. Is that wise? Absolutely. Even sociologists would say it's important to get
your rest. And they have no desire to look at the Bible and see it from that perspective. But God
offers us this rest. In the book of Mark, the majority of Jesus' healings took place on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was the day that Jesus did his best work. The Sabbath was a day of healing. And I submit to
you, it's still a day of healing. It's still a day. This rest is still a time when Jesus can do some of
his best work in you. And I know some of you in the room are afraid of the silence. You don't want to turn
off your cell phone. You don't want to turn off Netflix. You don't want to turn off your computer.
You don't even know if your computer turns off. You've never done that. One time you lost your cord
and you were paralyzed. Like when your phone is at 10% battery, you get anxious, right? Too close on that joke?
Okay, so I know that's hard. But listen, I know that your need to be accessible and your need to be
needed is an incredibly addicting drug that God doesn't want you to walk in. You constantly have to be
needed. You constantly have to be accessible. You constantly have to be available. God does not want that
for you. And frankly, Jesus never struggled with that. So when you think about this picture of rest, I brought
an illustration. I want you to use maybe as a way of looking at this. So this is a semicircle. And on one side
of the semicircle, you have this word rest. And on the other side, you have the word work. Maybe if you're
a musician, you could call this, what's the word? A metronome, right? So you could call this a metronome.
If you're not a musician, which I don't even know why I said that, you could just call this a pendulum, right?
Okay, maybe engineers like that. I don't know. Maybe you like metronomes, whatever. It is a way by which you
see the rhythm of God playing out. That you find your rest. And that from your rest, you work not the other
way around. What the creation account is trying to say to us, if you even think about it this way, it's that
when man was created, the very first thing God made him do was rest. So that Adam could work from rest, not
work for rest. Some of us in this room are incredibly burnt out because we work, work, work, work, work and then
go, oh, finally I can rest. Instead of going to work rested, walking into our places of work, walking into
our places of cultivating the world and doing it like God asked us to, but walking into those places fully
rested, fully trusting in your identity in Christ, fully knowing that who you are is because of what he's
done, not because of what you do. Then what they say about you at work doesn't hurt so much and you're not so
sensitive all the time because you just came out of a place of rest. And you're able to take on the day and
you're able to be creative and you're able to have your head clear because you turned off your computer and you
put away your phone and you just met with the Lord. Now you just sat there awkwardly, not that you just ran to the
bank, but that you worship and you rested and you were satisfied and you celebrated. I think a lot of times
we're so critical because we don't celebrate. We don't celebrate what God's accomplished. We don't realize that we
come out of rest into work. And if you don't think this is a New Testament picture, I want to add two more words to
that. This is the word abide and the word fruitfulness. So the second thing is rest and work. It leads to
abiding and bearing fruit. So in John chapter 15, I want to read to you these first five verses where you see the
same exact picture set in a different way. When Jesus is teaching his disciples what it means to be near to God
and from that nearness going out and bearing fruit for God. So John 15, you're familiar with this probably.
I talked about this before I resonate. Jesus says I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch
of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear
more fruit. Already you are clean. Do you hear that? You're clean. Like not you did some stuff and got clean,
but already you are clean because of the word I've spoken to you. So abide in me. Rest in me. Be in union with
me and I and you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you
unless you abide in me. I'm the vine. You're the branches. Whoever bides in me and I and him, he it is that bears
much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing. The Old Testament way to say it is without resting in the Lord
you better not be working for the Lord. The New Testament way to say it is don't dare try to bear fruit unless
you're daring to abide daily. It is out of abiding that fruit comes. It is out of a supernatural connection
with God that you walk into a natural world and do supernatural things. In other words if you go I'm going to bear
some fruit and do some stuff for the Lord and now out of that bearing fruit okay now Lord I need a little bit of help
okay thank you Lord. I'm going to go bear fruit no no no it's a union with the Lord first that fuels your work for the
Lord second. So it's this understanding that from rest we work from union and abiding with Christ we then go and bear
fruit. It goes even further in this picture of being which leads to doing and then lastly the picture of covenant
which leads to kingdom so if you leave this up for just a second you see that on the left side of the diagram
God is inviting us at the beginning. His design for time is to abide in him to be rested in him to recognize that you
are who you are because of what he's accomplished for you you're a human being not a human doing you've probably heard
that before and then lastly it is his covenant with you his union with you his relationship with you that leads to
his responsibility that he asked of you to be a person of the kingdom so this circle gets unbalanced we're not walking
in the rhythm God has designed for us so if we look over here and we go man all the time I'm working trying to bear
fruit I'm always doing stuff and I'm moving forward the kingdom and you look back at your life and you're burnt out
you're frustrated you don't know your family and your friends are frustrated with you because of the way you're acting
you look on the other side and go man it's been a while since I've rested it's been a while since I've abided
it's been a while since I've reminded myself that God is the reason I have my identity and lastly why this matters to us
is because this is the process by which God prunes us and God grows us how is it that God is going to grow us
well he's going to grow us by allowing us to sit into his presence and be pruned by him to allow us to rest in his
presence to allow us to be near to him and be reminded of the gospel and what he's accomplished for us it's in those moments
that he prunes us and from being pruned we're sent out so another way to look at John 15 is to say if all you want is
the right side of the semicircle Jesus says apart from me you can do nothing so it may very well look like you're
doing something but outside of the other side of the semicircle this side is nothing we don't get the right side without
the left Jesus says abide in me remain in me let this pendulum go back and forth let this metronome be the rhythm of
your life understand that the power to do for me comes from your union with me can you rest in the Lord can you trust him
enough to rest that's my question for you can you trust Jesus enough to rest can you trust him enough to turn off
the phone can you trust him enough to put away the computer can you trust him enough to rest in him in the Old Testament
this was a one day a week picture a lot of times you would say this would be sundown from one day to sundown the next day
so for our family this is sundown on Friday night we try to turn off the phone turn off the computer and just be a family
on Saturday as much as our calendar allows I would love to be unreachable on Saturday where we can just sit with the Lord
why Sunday is a work day for me I love my job I come out of vacation stoked to be back at work I struggle with this
I don't like resting I really struggle with this I'm like counting down the days to be done with vacation so I can come back
and do my job I love my job it's an issue it's an idol in my life in some places where I need to be reminded that outside of resting
in the Lord I don't need to be working for the Lord this is a constant place of being reminded even in my own life
so do we trust him enough to rest it's a one day a week picture in the Old Testament for us there should be monthly
rhythms where you look at your calendar husbands where you look at your calendar and you go man am I planning a vacation for my family
can my wife and I get away for a weekend how are we doing on the calendar am I resting in the Lord am I leading my family
to rest in the Lord if you're single and you go man this is a crazy month of school I need to take this Saturday and go on a hike
and really get away for a while and be rested in the Lord there's seasons and it's important for us to account for the seasons that we live in
so I'm not asking you to be legalistic about this I'm not asking you next Saturday to turn off everything lock yourself in the house
and put on some candles I'm not asking you to do that I think the scriptures are asking you to do that I'm asking you to be wise
about what energizes you and to be wise about resting and worshiping and celebrating and being satisfied in the Lord
if you're in a crazy season you need to come out of that season and get some rest some of you the most spiritual thing I can say to you tonight
is slow down seriously the Holy Spirit of God is saying to you slow down you're going to crash at this pace slow down
your identity isn't in what you do your identity is what I've done for you slow down seasons are significant
God's design for us is to be wise in how we rest you need to be wise and know yourself for some of you you would go man I find energy in doing this
and for some of you go if I do that I'm going to kill everybody okay so those are let's say running is one of those things right
for you some of you are like man the most restful worshipful satisfying celebrating thing I could do is go for a jog
and some of you are like if I jog don't talk to me for a week because it's going to be bad like me and Jesus don't like each other on a jog right
so you need to know yourself and figure out what is it that you need to do to be energized some of you introverts need to figure out some time where you can go and just read a book
and like not be seen by like hundreds of yards from everyone that kind of thing and some of you extroverts like man I just need a couple hours with me and my friends at a coffee shop just talking
just about whatever and that is worshipful and that is powerful and that is good for you but listen Sabbath thing resting this is an art form you're not going to be good at this at first
if you shut your doors and just try to be quiet for a day you're not going to want to do this again so this is an art form this is learning yourself and learning God
so cleaning is that worship or is that rest or is like if you just said cleaning is worship Josh I'm never going to come back to this church right
so who are you in this story do you find that to be restful or do you really struggle and I go no man I'm not going to do that cooking where do you land on cooking
right you're like no I watch HGTV all day I love the cooking channel like I will cook to the glory of God in the nations like I love cooking
and some of you are like man it is hot pockets for me only because I'm not going to cook anything
that brings you rest what energizes you what do you do and see the Lord in that and can celebrate the Lord in that can be reminded of the Lord in that thing
there are some people in this room that need to take naps for the glory of God I would say to never take a nap is sin I would say to always nap is sin
let's figure that out you need to walk in that understanding who God has asked you to be read something you enjoy I think for the vast majority of you in this room
your day of rest should be Sunday I think specifically the rhythm of our lives here it would be really beautiful on Saturday night you turn off your phone
you slept in late on Sunday you went to brunch with some friends or you had some people over whatever you did something in the afternoon that was enjoyable to you
running cleaning what reading Star Wars or watching whatever is your thing you do that maybe you take a nap and you come and you finish your day
gathering with the people of God worshipping the God who has given you life and that's your day of rest and that energizes you and then on Monday you don't have to post your cat memes about how bad it is
why because you're walking into your work coming from a place of rest this is what the Lord is asking us to do I'm inviting you to look at your life
and ask yourself a couple questions and actually want a response from this so I I don't know what the answer is going to be so I want to ask you
if you would say you're in this room and you lean towards resting more than working would you raise your hand for a second you lean towards resting more than working
okay great thank you for being honest here's my question if you lean towards resting how can you celebrate God in your work tomorrow
how can you celebrate working tomorrow if you lean towards rest and you go man I might actually even be lazy right so I said it sorry
if you struggle with that you go man I just as much as God says rest God says work so how can you celebrate working for the glory of God tomorrow
if you're in this room and you say I lean towards working that would be everyone else would you raise your hand okay more of us right
so on our side of the gamuts we have this tendency to find our identity wrapped up in the wrong things and so my question for you is how can you celebrate resting tomorrow
maybe that's just early maybe it's Monday and you're like oh man I thought Sunday was supposed to be the day okay I know I said that
but how can we celebrate resting tomorrow how can you plan for next Sunday how can you figure out man what is going on in my heart that doesn't like to rest
and what can I do about this you need to make a plan and in order to make a plan you've got to do some introspection to figure it out
and then I want to invite you to receive God's gift of rest or to receive God's gift of work because this is God's design for time
this is God's design for us to live in the world so have a time set it apart where you walk in celebration and satisfaction
and I submit to you the Lord will be willing and ready to meet you there
and if you're resting and need a work I submit to you that when you work for the glory of God the Lord will be willing and ready to meet you there
I don't want us to be burnt out and busy and tired I don't want us to walk this earth never feeling the understanding of the rest that God offers to us
I don't want us to see ourselves constantly having to do something in order to be someone but rather want us to see what Christ has accomplished
and from that understand that you and I have been given identity and from that identity we can rest
and if we do this well we will go into our work from a place of rest and I think that will completely change our outlook on work
and if you go into your work and work well then you will leave your work and go back to a place of rest and that will completely change your outlook on rest
the Father wants us to follow his rhythm for time that he might prune us that he might grow us that he might see us abide in him and bear much fruit in him
but you don't get one without the other so I know this is difficult because we're in a corporate gathering tonight
but I want to invite us to even participate in some of this tonight so if you brought a journal
I know it's a little dark in here but if you brought a journal or something like that
what the band is going to do is they're going to come up and play three songs and we want to make some space and by space I mean 20 whole minutes right
that's the kind of space we have tonight 20 whole minutes but for 20 whole minutes what if you right here like tonight right now you rested in the Lord
like you just met with the Lord like tonight you just sat with the Lord you just prayed you said God what do you need from my life
do you need me to move forward and rest you need me to move forward and work God what do you have for me
some of you just quiet yourself and just sit with the Lord some of you just be reminded of the gospel
that you didn't do anything to deserve what Jesus gave you and just rest in that
like literally do nothing like what if you just sit here for a couple songs and let the band sing over you and you just sit here
you just think about the Lord you just rest in the Lord you just be satisfied and the Lord you just be reminded of what he's accomplished
so maybe you sit maybe journal maybe you kneel maybe you pray maybe you stand maybe you sing I don't know what you need to do tonight
but I want to invite you to take advantage of this time and as the band sings the next few songs that we would connect with the Lord
and we would rest in the Lord and from that rest we would leave this place into a life of work
let's receive the gift of rest tonight let me pray for us
Father I ask that tonight you would be so near to us
your son Jesus says come to me all who are weary come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give them rest
and so Father tonight my prayer is that we would go to Jesus
we would lay our burdens down at the feet of Jesus we would lay our heaviness down at the feet of Jesus and we would come to Jesus and receive rest
Psalm 128 verse 2 says it is in vain that you get up early and you labor all night because I give my beloved rest
so God I pray that we would receive that tonight that you would be stern with us if necessary that it's in vain we get up early
it's in vain we stay up late if we do not have the understanding that we are your beloved and you give us rest
so God I pray that over the course of the next three songs of this little bit God that we would be energized by your presence
God that we would be so energized by resting in you by worshiping you by celebrating you by being satisfied in you
God I pray we would receive the gift of rest and walk in the rhythm that you've designed us to walk in
God prune us in this time God grow us in this time God meet with us
I pray all of this sing all of this in Jesus' name Amen
