Sabbath: Rest, Trust, and Restoration

Hey, welcome to Journey Church everyone. My name is Keith. I'm the founding pastor here at Journey. And uh you know, we started Journey Church 13 years ago believing there's hope for everyone. That includes you. That includes me. So, wherever you are in your journey of faith today, I want you to know you can have hope. Yes, you can. No matter where you are, you can have hope. Hey, we're in a series called fullness. Everyone say fullness. Fullness. That's because God wants you to experience the fullness of who he is. You know, when Paul prayed for a church in Ephesus, in this prayer, he says, you know, I just want you to know this love of God that surpasses knowledge. This is not a love that you're going to learn at school. It's not a love you can learn at church. It's a love that surpasses knowledge. And then he prays this prayer which is so profound and that you would be filled with the fullness of God. God wants you to experience the fullness of who he is.

Not some of who he is, but the fullness of who he is. And so we want you to experience that. God gave me a revelation recently that there's there's something missing from most of our lives, for most of us. I believe today is probably missing from your life. He gave me a revelation. He did it through the woman that I love the most. And he gave me this revelation. What's missing is actually a commandment in the Bible. You are commanded to do this one thing today. And we're going to talk about it. I'm not going to do it alone. So I brought up my helper, my helpmate, the one that said yes to me so long ago. And I'm so grateful. She's been through the thick with me. She's been through the thin with me. She stuck with me when other people didn't stick with me. I'm telling you today, I'm so grateful that today I am joined by the mother of my children.

She always makes me look better. She doesn't want recognition. She didn't want to be up here, but I told her she'd be disobedient to the Lord if she didn't. So, so I'm super excited today to have the first lady of this house, my wife, Kara. So, thank you everybody. Praise God. I'm honored to stand here and I just want to give honor where honor is due in this house. Thank you for leading this church with honor, with vision, by faith. Come on. and with integrity. So, thank you. All right. All right.

Yeah. You want to get me emotional, just have my wife say anything and I'll start crying. I'll tell you, God has used this woman in my life in incredible ways. And I'm just so grateful that today you guys get to hear from not just me, but you get to hear from both of us. The Bible says that when you get married, the two become one. And so you got to understand that when I'm hurting, she's hurting. When I'm doing well, she's doing well. And it goes both ways. And and so we're going to share a part of our story today. The title of today's sermon, if you're taking notes, which you should take notes. We all have spiritual amnesia. Uh you know, we walk out of here, you forget what God's doing in your life. So you should be taking notes. You should remember what God's doing because it's easy to forget. All it takes is about an hour to forget a massive moment with God. So, the title of today's sermon is, if you want to write this down, the celebration of

restoration. Come on, would you just say that with us? Let's say it together. The celebration of restoration. That just sounds good. But now, we're going to explain what that means. So, Kara, would you tell us what does that even mean? The celebration of restoration. First of all, we need to celebrate, right? We should be the most joyful, celebratory people on the planet. We have a We have an amazing God. Um, so we've got something to celebrate. And he is the God of restoration. So, he restores. He redeems. It's what he does. It's it's who he is. So, it is an honor to celebrate his restoration. But in the very title implies that there's brokenness, right? That's right. We are born in sin. We live in a fallen world. We are shaped in iniquity. And um we need his redeeming, restoring power. Uh we we go through trauma.

We have abuse. We have failing marriages. We have prodigal children. We have depression, anxiety. We need healing. Yes. From the healer. Yes. So, we need to celebrate his his restoring work. Come on. Did Did she miss any brokenness for some of you? Uh how about you still owe taxes that were due last month? Uh h how come on. I mean, somewhere there there's something that's going to happen in your life. Some brokenness. Maybe it was a bully in your school. Maybe you saw something you wish you didn't see. Maybe someone did something to you they shouldn't have done. We all have brokenness. Every single one of us. And if you have brokenness, which I'm telling you, we all have brokenness because the Bible Bible tells us that we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. David says in Psalm 51, he

says, "Man, I was just born this way out of my mother's womb." He's blaming his mama, you know, like I I was just I was born in sin. Yeah, you were born in sin. So, where's our solution? We're going to find that restoration today, which which leads us to the main subject today. It's one of the ten commandments. One of the 10. And we're not going to teach all 10 today, but it's one of the ten commandments. Often one of the most neglected of the ten commandments. It's the top 10. So God gave us 10 that we should really focus on. I mean, there were hundreds of commandments, but there's like 10 that you should really, really know. This is one of them. Kara, would you tell us what that is? Yeah, today we're going to talk about Sabbath. Uh the word Sabbath actually comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which means to cease. So we're going to talk about what that looks like. It it and may I um propose to you that it's something that's so much more than what you're thinking or

what you've ever experienced. That it is it is beyond what what we know of what Sabbath is. Um it is a pulling back. It is a letting go of our work. Yes. Of our labor. Come on. And it's an act of it's an Thank you, Michelle, for the word earlier. It is an act of allowing God to being still and allowing God to be who he is. Come on. So, it's a reflection of of who he is. Yes. It's um taking time out yes to um to reflect him and and his faithfulness. So Kara, before we get into the text today, I just want to acknowledge today for a lot of people in the room and maybe you're watching at home or on television today. Don't turn this off yet. Please hear me out here. There are two two people in the room right now. One is saying, "Sabbath, I've heard this before and this is not the message I want to hear right now. I actually need a miracle. I need a breakthrough. I just

want I want something more in my life and you're going to talk about Sabbath. No thanks. I'm going to slip out of here quickly or turn off the tele. What? Let me just tell you, stick with me. If you're saying, I've heard about Sabbath. I don't want to hear about it right now. This is not what I need. God sent me here to tell you this is what you need. There's a second person I want to speak to in the room. You've never even heard the word Sabbath. You're like, what in the heck is a Sabbath? Like Sabbath? What what does this even mean? And then Kara started speaking Hebrew. Shabbat. What does that even mean? How about everyone say Shabbat together? Ready? Shabbat. I mean, that's a beautiful word. You're going to hear that with the Jewish people. Shabbat. Shalom. Shabbat shalom. Shalom means peace. This is what God desires. It's a commandment of God to Shabbat. So, let me just speak to you for just a moment, every single

person in the room, every single person that hears my voice right now, you need Sabbath. So, whether you're 16 and you say, "Oh, man. What is Sabbath? I don't." No. 16 year olds need Sabbath. This stick with me. You need this. If you are 60 and older, come on, you're just getting started. God is desperately telling you today, you need Sabbath. I even know we have some littles in this room. If you are six in this room, I am praying in the name of Jesus, you understand this today. So, whoever you are right now, if you're starting to shut me off right now, that's the devil trying to tell you, don't listen to this message. This is an important message. It is. And and if we if we look in the New Testament, look at the life of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If it's the Sabbath and Jesus is in the moment, someone's about to get healed.

Something's about to get set free. Come on. There is restoration that's going to happen on the Sabbath when Jesus was here. Praise God. So, let's just lead up to this and we'll read this commandment out of the scriptures. Ten commandments. First commandment, have no other gods. There's one God. That sounds pretty easy, but there's a reason that God instructed us in this. You shall have no other gods. There's one God. Second commandment is this is that you you should not make idols. Things made out of hands are not something that you should worship. You you shall not have man-made idols. And then the third commandment is this that you you should not use the Lord's name in vain. I think God knew that construction workers would struggle with this one. And so you shall not misuse God's name. He He is holy. He is

almighty. He is eternal. We can't treat God like he's just an adjective. He's almighty God. He's got a sacred name. Those are the first three commandments. Then the fourth, the fourth is the one we come to today. Remember the Sabbath. God said this. It's a commandment. This is not an option. This is not the 10 options. This is not the 10 used to bees. This is the ten commandments. So the fourth one is remember the Sabbath. Karen, would you read for us some scripture out of Exodus 20? Let's start with with verse 8. Uh Exodus 20:8. Do you? And let's read through verse 11. Exodus 20:8. And let's read through verse 11. Yeah. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Verse 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord

your God. On it you shall not do any work. You, your son, your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourer who is within your gates. For in six days therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them. and then you will dwell in the land securely. Come on. Okay. So, hear this out here. God commands the Sabbath and this this is what the Lord does. He explains what this means. You know, when the Lord commands us not to murder, do you know all he said is do not murder. There's not a whole lot of explanation there. You know, the next commandment after this one is honor your mother and father. Some of y'all would love explanations of that one. What does that actually mean, Lord? No, he just says,

"Do it. Honor your mother and father." But when it comes to remembering the Sabbath, there's actually a a great list of details. Just so you know, this is not just for you. This is for the people that work for you. This is for everyone. The young, the not so young, the single, the married, the widowed. This is for everyone. God wants us to Sabbath. This is not an option today. This is a very important subject for the church today. It's often not talked about yet. It's incredibly important and we know this on a personal level because if you don't do this, God will do it to you. Yes, this is true.

What I mean by that is this is called a forced sabbatical or a forced Sabbath. Yeah. Sabbatical is just an extended Sabbath. Yes. So, so if you don't honor God with remembering the Sabbath, he will force you to Sabbath. Now, this is just my opinion. This is like second opinions chapter 3. So, uh but stick with me here. I believe you'll understand what I mean by this. Kara, explain what a forced Sabbath is. A forced Sabbath. Well, we had one. Okay. Uh we had medical problems. We had health problems. You had a pinched nerve. Yes. Yes. Some torn something in your side. Intercostal muscle strain in between the ribs. Yeah, that's not fun. You can't breathe. I had a rolled ankle. Come on. That was not fun. We were crashing and burning.

Yeah, I had to I had to pick Kara up on a run. We've talked about that. Jan, you got her new shoes after that story. Uh that's true. And I love them. Thank you. Kara went and bought Target shoes to run in, and that's just not what you run in. I learned that the hard way and the enemy just took her out. Here, here's what I mean by this. Listen, listen carefully. Some of you, you wonder why things happen in your life. Why is there that marriage problem? Why is there that problem with your kids? Why are you going through that medical issue? Well, what we're saying as your pastors is sometimes that's a forced Sabbath. Meaning this, you probably have not been resting like you need to. So, God put you on your back. And so many of us are yelling at God saying, "Why?" And God's actually looking at you saying, "Now you're going to trust me." Yeah.

And I mean that now. Are you Are you ready to ask me for healing? And I mean that physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, financially. I mean, he is the God that if you're not trusting him, he's going to take you out. So that someday you're going to just say, "Okay, fine. I need you. I don't wish this upon any of you, but some of you have been there before. You got to hit rock bottom to realize the rock is Jesus." Yes. Amen. There's nowhere else to go but to Jesus Christ. And we we unfortunately we got to that place and we've reflected a lot on this. So many of you had no clue. Uh that's because like so many of you, we were faking it to make it. All right. Uh I show up to church and I I was smiling. I was preaching God's word, but deep down inside we were going through some dark days. Yeah, we were. We were going through our own thing and it led to a point where we actually had outside counsel to say, "Hey, you know what you need is a sabbatical." And I argued with that person. I said,

"Sabbatical?" Which is as Kara said, "It's an extended Sabbath. It's just by the very name sabbatical. It's it's a long period of Sabbath. Sabbath is one day. Sabbatical means you're going to take more than one day. And this person said, "You need to take a sabbatical." I'm like, "What is that going to do?" And he said, "It'll be a reset." I I really didn't believe him. But yeah, I mean, it's not the American way, right? We hustle, we hustle, we hustle. We think we need to do it all. I didn't think it would work because Kara's a realer and she's been busy the last few years. And he looked at Kara and said, "Well, would you take a sabbatical?" And Kara just right away, do you remember what your answer was? Oh, I said yes. Absolutely. Yes. She didn't take a breath. She didn't say anything. Yes. Uh which is huge. He didn't have a lot of options at the time. So that seemed like a good one. This, by the way, isn't decades ago. This is more recently in our lives. And you know, for Kara to take three months off of work, which is how long our sobatical was. There's no magic number behind that. We just took three months.

For her to take three months off of business was to say, "We're going to trust God with this. Uh we're going to stop what we're doing. We're going to cease what we're doing." We chose to take the the wisdom of Mark Batterson who's a pastor and he he has a cute way of saying this that if you really want to hear from God, a change of pace and a change of place equals a change of perspective. So, so we we had to get out of here. You know, we got out of the state just so we can hear differently because if you don't know, like we're on television with church and on the internet and sometimes I go places and I don't know who people are but people know who I am. You know that that that is a wonderful thing because God is moving. But at the same time sometimes when you're trying to rest and people come right over and say, "Oh, pastor." It's like, "Hey, could you just pause for a moment? Like my wife and I are right in the middle of a big fight in a restaurant." All right. So, I know

you want to tell me that I'm changing your life, but I just need someone to change my life right now. So, so we had to get out of here. Uh, we went out of town for for 3 months. And it literally, and I mean this with no exaggeration, and I do exaggerate sometimes, but some I mean this with no exaggeration, it changed our lives. It did. It did. And you know what? What's interesting about that, too, is that I really, and I think we both really felt that, and I don't I'm not recommending this to anybody, but we really felt like God was calling us to actually let go of lots of things. Yes. We sold everything. Yes. We sold our cars. We sold our house. We sold everything in our house. Literally, we sold it all. And we said, "God, it's yours. It's yours. We're going to walk into rest." Amen. We're going to stop laboring. I gave up a whole branch of my business because I I just knew that God was saying, "It's time." Amen.

And so, I'm telling you, he walked us every step of that way. That's right. He provided every step of that way. Uh the story is absolutely a miracle. He He literally in our rest when we stopped working. Come on. He started working. Come on. He showed us miracles. Yes, he did. He healed us. He healed He healed relationships with our kids. Come on. Relation our relationship. There was healing. There was provision. And there were miracles that happened in that Sabbath. Yes. Amen. Amen. And some of y'all don't know me that well. You've just been coming a journey the last six maybe nine months. And yeah, I I might be a new relationship to you. I I would love to meet you. I love you already. Just the fact that we would journey together. Uh but you don't know that a year ago I actually had hair. Um

uh it was about day six of I think our sbatical that I went we sold all of our cars so we had no cars and I really wanted a new car and I searched the whole nation for a specific car with specific trim. I just want really wanted this certain car and so I found it but I had to go to Utah. So, I bought a one-way ticket to Utah to buy this car. And even though I'd never driven or anything, I I I bought a ticket and I had about two hours before I did it. And I I I said, "I have a few hours to kill." I I got an Uber and said, "Hey, take me to this barber shop." And I went to barber shop and they straight razored my head. And the guy's like, "Have you ever done this?" I'm like, "No, I've never done this." And I did this and I sent a picture to my wife and kids and they're like, "What did you do?" That's a true story. And it was the most liberating thing I've ever done. And I've kept it since that day. Uh because my identity shifted. My identity was no longer in

who I was physically. But I had to understand that if I'm always thinking about what other people think, God had to work on me for those three months about the fear of man. And uh the one thing we did every day car maybe what are some of the rhythms that we did that we're not telling you you have to do these things, but this is just how we had to reshift our rhythms. So what were some of those? Yeah. We had to reset our habits. Yes. So we with our kids, you know, we we gave them, you know, boundaries and guidelines that we're to be in the word in the morning before you get on phones or or have any time. Um so we together as a family spent time in the word together a lot. Yes. We just we rested, we played together. Yeah. We prayed together. Amen. We would even do these things called family meetings which my kids hated.

They knew dad was going to get serious and he was going to ask them questions and I mean they would just try to get me off their back really quick like Jesus Jesus is the answer Jesus dad you know like every single time like so I don't want you to have this fantasy that we were like this perfect family was like another family meeting oh no uh but one thing we did is we did read the word and we did we asked our kids well what did you read today and we didn't have to read the same thing but God united our hearts together uh we learned to pray out loud together. You know, it's kind of assumed that if you're a couple and you both love Jesus that you're praying. But I'll tell you, most people that are together aren't praying together. Uh uh prayer is intimate. So, it's a lot like sex. I mean, sex isn't talked about. Hollywood, you know, is the one teaching the whole generation what sex is, and it's a total lie. And then we're not really talking about prayer either. And so, like, we just come up with false

conclusions. And prayer is intimate. And so, sometimes like to break that boundary of like, how do I start this? When do I start this? What does that look like? It's so important that you don't learn from the world, but you learn from God's word. And so, you just pray all the time about everything. I learned to pray out loud and and it shifted and changed everything for us. Uh, in fact, we're still on a journey. But what it did is it was a hard reset. You know, like when your computer's not working well, you got to shut it down, you turn it back on, and now all of a sudden it's working properly. Uh, and it still has issues, but it's working better than it was before the reset. Right? So, let let's come back to Sabbath. All right, we're we're talking about Sabbath. What is how does this apply to you? That's just what it worked for us. The ultimate objective today, our heart's desire, I'll just tell you right now what we want for you is to apply this that you have something to take away with. So, so let let's go back

to the very beginning. Let's go into God's word once again. Uh why should we Sabbath? Let's let's go back to what the scriptures say. Yeah. So, uh if we go back to Genesis 2 where uh the beginning in the beginning God created he created the heavens and the earth. Um he he created the the sea, the oceans. He filled the heavens and the earth. He filled the sea. He created mankind in his image. And he said it is very good. Yes. Uh because everything God does is good. If it is not good, it is not of God. Come on. Um and and then on the seventh day, he rested. And um he he shows us the example um by resting. And the number seven in the Bible is the number of completion. So um I love this picture of of if he had stopped at day six, it was incomplete. So we are complete with it with rest. Yes.

Um so so go to Genesis 2:es 1 through3. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. He made it a holy day, a set it apart day, a sanctified day. uh because on it God rested from his work and all he had done in creation. So before he even instituted the commandment in Exodus in Genesis, he modeled it. Come on. He showed us that the seventh day is a holy day and it is to be spent as holy. It is to be uh sanctified, set apart, intentional. Yes. So that's what the word holy means, set apart. So Sabbath is to be set apart. It shouldn't be like any other day. And I love that verse three says, "So God blessed the seventh day. God blessed the completion. We have a God of blessing.

Yeah. So whatever image you have of God that he's against you, that God is going to be hard on you, that that God is somehow holding something back from you, we have a God that blesses us. And he blessed the seventh day. He blessed the Sabbath. Now, now traditionally Sabbath, particularly for the Jewish people, the heritage of whom God gave this commandment to, they practice Sabbath on the seventh day, which is sundown on what we know as Friday to sundown on Saturday. That would be the seventh day. That's the last day of the week. That's the day that we're going to do things different. So the word Shabbat means to cease. So I'm going to cease from what I'm doing and I'm going to seek God. So now what's interesting here is it says God rested care. Do you think God was just exhausted after like making the universe and all that he did? I mean there's a lot of stars. He was probably tired, you know, like putting each star there.

No, he's almighty God. Come on. No, I don't think he was tired. I think he he wasn't tired. He was he was modeling for us the example of rest. I I and he was probably enjoying his creation, too. So, the lie of the western world is this. You rest when you're exhausted. Now, if you're waiting to rest till you're exhausted, here's the problem. You're not going to recover. Let me just do just a a real quick survey. How many of you ever gone on a vacation? Let's just say a week long vacation, and you come back and you need a vacation from your vacation. That's because it wasn't rest. You may have played. You may have taken pictures for Instagram, but it wasn't restoration. Yeah. So, what God did on the seventh day is he wasn't exhausted.

He actually sat back. He ceased from creating. That's what rest means. He ceased from doing what he did the prior six days. So, when it talks about rest, it's t talking about stopping the rhythm of what you ordinarily do. So, so I'm not going to create this day. I'm gonna step back and just enjoy what I just did. Isn't that good? Oh, that animal is interesting. Oh, wow. Look how pretty all this is. He He was able to sit back and enjoy. Some of you can't enjoy a vacation because you haven't been ceasing. You haven't been resting. You You haven't been enjoying those things. So, if God did this, maybe we should do it as well. Yes. So, I want to come back to the Ten Commandments. Car, let's talk about why God gave the Ten Commandments because if you don't know, we have an intentional God. So you can hear about the ten

commandments and you might hear it argued in politics and hear it argued in church. But let's understand why did God even give us the ten commandments. It goes back to a really ancient story that's important in your theology. It goes back to the Israelites. Now the Israelites found themselves in Egypt and they were not free people. They were slaves. They ended up in Egypt because of Joseph who settled there and his brothers came there. And after a while, generation to generation, they stayed there and they were blessed for a while. But after several generations, the Pharaoh, the the the head over Egypt, no longer knew the Israelites, no longer knew God's people. So he oppressed them and he set them to be slaves for generation after generation, century after century. They became slaves. But that was not God's plan. God had a plan for his people. So if you're stuck somewhere and you're a slave to something right now, that's not God's

plan for you to stay there. Now God raised up a deliverer named Moses. Moses was to set God's people free. It wouldn't be easy. He He would have to change his rhythm from being a shepherd boy to being a great deliverer, a leader. And he went to Pharaoh and said, "Set God's people free." God sent 10 plagues on Egypt. And eventually after the 10th plague, Pharaoh said, "Go ahead and leave." And all it took was one day to get the Israelites out of Egypt. After hundreds of years, one day to get the Israelites out of Egypt. May I just say that in your life today? You may be wrestling with something. It might be years. It might be decades. It might even be generational. And you're wondering, "When is God going to do this? When is he going to set me free? When am I going to be blessed?" All it takes is a day with the Lord. Takes one moment with the Lord. Now, it only took a day to get the Israelites out, but do you know how many years they wandered in

the wilderness? Shout it out. 40 years in the wilderness. It took 40 years to get Egypt out of the Israelites. So, they can get out in one day, but they were still thinking like they were slaves. They were still thinking, "Well, this is what I know. Let me go back to what's familiar." And it was on that journey from Egypt to what we now call Israel, the promised land, that God said, "I've got to get some boundaries in you. You're no longer slaves. I need I need you to have some rules." So, that's why he said, "Have no other gods." Because in Egypt, there were all kinds of gods. On this journey, they would see other countries, other uh people groups that were worshiping many gods. If you want a great crop, then you're going to worship a god to bring forth the rain. if you you want a big family, if you want money. I mean, they had all these different gods that they worshiped. And then they made idols out of those and they worshiped those idols.

So God said, "Look, I'm going to set a standard so you know there's one God. Don't be confused. I'm the one that delivered you. I'm the one that made you. I'm the one that has a promise for you. Don't worship what the other gods are and take take me serious." And then he comes to the fourth one. Remember the Sabbath is it's so important that we understand this. So we have a principle. Then he continued to institute principles into our lives not to hold us back. Some of you guys hear commandments or you hear rules and you're like, "Oh, great. Rules." Ain't nobody like going 45 on the Parkway. Can we just admit that? A lot of us wonder who instituted this rule. Nobody likes that rule, but it's only there because someone at some point drove way too fast, probably killed someone, probably did some damage, and

now all of a sudden there's rules. So God set these rules and boundaries not because he wants to stop you, not because he wants to uh hold you back. He actually wants to bless you. Which brings us to to one of the principles as we talked about Sabbath as we talked about sabbatical extended Sabbath. This is all instructions of God. It's easy to read the Bible. We're going through the Bible in a year as a couple and many in our on our staff are going through the Bible in a year. When you read about the life of the Israelites, I just want to warn you of this. When you read the first five books of the Bible, the penetuk, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, it's easy to read it and be like, "These guys were idiots." [Laughter] I mean, God sets them free, parts the sea, and they go and they make a golden cow and worship it, right?

You guys are idiots. I mean, over and over and over, God reveals himself, and they're like, "Maybe we should go back to Egypt. The food was pretty good, you know, like they I mean, you guys are idiots until it dawned on me. And then I looked in the mirror and I started thinking of my own story and I said, "You're such an idiot." How many times has God done something good in your life and then you go back to your old ways? I mean, God has spoken to you through his word. He's revealed himself and it's like, I don't know, maybe we should go back to fighting. That was pretty fun, you know, like should we go back to like not trusting God, you know, that's pretty cool, right? I mean, I and we don't mean that literally. I say that facitiously that how many times are we so dumb that we forget that God is God and he's got a word. So, one of the words that God gave

his people, it's in Leviticus 25. It wasn't just that they would Sabbath, but they would actually trust God in their economy, that they would trust God in their their provision, their assets, what they have, that they would trust God in everything. So in Leviticus 25, I just want to get to this text here. I'm going to start with verse three. So God is essentially speaking to people. He says, "You got a Sabbath." But then he says, "For six years," I'm in Leviticus 25:3, "For six years you shall sew your seal, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruit, but in the seventh year," everyone say seven. Seven. So in the seventh year, the number of completion, there shall be a Sabbath, a solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. He goes on to explain again. It's almost like God needs to explain. Do you not know what it means to cease? Let me tell you what that means. Stop what you're doing. Quit

planting seeds. Quit plucking up. I need you to stop. Now, at the time, it it's sort of made sense. God setting these rules. When you go into this land, which by the way, today is the land of Israel, which has some of the best soil on the planet. It's where we all get our olive oil. I mean, it it's absolutely an incredible fertile place. It was God's plan from the beginning because God set it apart as a holy place. It it it truly is the holy land. So God says, "Hey, work for six years, not the seventh." And you can imagine though, I'm the Israelites at that time. Then what do I do the seventh year? So what were they to do the seventh year? So then you go down to Leviticus a little bit further in the chapter 25, okay? Uh verse 20. And if you say, so God's already anticipating. And if you say, "What shall we eat in the seventh year if we if we may not sew or gather our crop?" Verse 21, I will command my

blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. So he was telling them that you cease working or you you let the land rest for a year. In the sixth year, I'm going to provide you enough food for three more years all the way until the ninth year. So he's giving them a gift. He's giving them grace upon grace saying, "I will be your provider. I am your provider. Listen to my words." That's right. And you go to the next chapter, God's going to give a promise. And his promises never fail. He says, "If you walk in my statutes," I'm in Leviticus 26. I'm going to start with verse three. If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments, everyone say, "Observe." Observe. If you do these things, then verse four says, "I will give you rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase." Everyone

say increase. Increase. and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. He goes on to just talk about blessing after blessing after blessing, grace upon grace. Some of y'all are thinking, well, well, if I took a a long extended break, if I took a day off, oh, you don't understand how this going to impact my business. You don't understand what this is going to do to my life. And God's saying, yes, I actually do. It's going to be better. Yeah. This is God's economy. Yeah. This is God's math. This is called faith. Now, if you had it figured out, and I tell you, listen, if you do this, here's how it's going to happen. If you have this figured out, it's not faith. If you have a business plan, you say, "Well, if I work 10 years and I get enough money, then I could take time off." Then that's not actually the Sabbath we're talking about. We're actually talking about trusting God. Now, Carrie, you asked me just such a practical question yesterday. I want to wrestle with this. Now, I know we're not totally to the end of the message yet, but I want to just practically talk

about this because Kara asked me, we we've got three teenagers now, 18, 16, and 14. Y'all pray for us. Um, but at one point, they were not teenagers. They were young younger kids when we started journey. They were 53 and a newborn baby. And so what a great time to start a church and trust God. And so that was a season that was exhausting. You go on a date night and you're like, "How much we got to pay the babysitter?" What? That wasn't even a fun night. Like are you kidding me? Like it was exhausting. You make us sound really bad. Well, let's let's be honest. It was a tough season. It was. That's true. It was a tough season. I I mean it it's tough for everybody. I see the mamas with the little kids and I'm like, "Oh man, that's hard. I mean, y'all look

good, but I know it's hard." So So Kara asked me practically, she's like, "Well, what does that mean for the mom and the toddlers and the newborns and how do they take a day off?" Cuz mamas hardly never get days off. I mean, shout out to all the single dads out there, but there's a whole lot more single moms. So, I mean, what? Not even the single moms, the married moms with young kids. So, Carrie, you asked me practically what does that look like? Do you remember what I said? I'll tell you what I said. Thanks. This is what I'm going to tell you. And I'm This is This is practical. So, I mean this for the teenagers. I mean this for for uh for the people that don't have kids here. Here's what Sabbath means. I'm going to just stand up for a second. Here's what Sabbath means. You have to seek the Lord and what you need to cease from. Okay? You need to see seek the Lord. So many of you, you're not planting crops, so you don't need to cease from gardening.

So, some of you are like, "My job is raising kids. How do I stop that for a day?" This this is the word of knowledge that I want to give to some mom here. Here, here's my knowledge. You want to really Sabbath. I'm just talking about one day a week, not two days a week. One day a week. Cease from social media for one day. That just got personal real quick. I'm telling you, I know you can't stop being a mom for a day, but you do not need to listen to anyone else for just 24 hours. Just listen to the Lord. You will become a better mom. You'll be become a better daughter of God, a better child. Cease from something that you're doing regularly. And not only cease, yes, reflect on God's faithfulness. Spend abide in Jesus. Spend time with him. Reflect on his faithfulness. So, it's actually also an act of reflecting on the faithfulness of God. Praise God.

Building our faith for the future, right? Amen. So, so it's not just stopping from something. You've got to include God in everything. So, some of you want to stop a sin. Well, it's not just stopping that sin. It's not just stopping that habit. It's not just stopping that thought. You have to replace it with the promise of God. You have to replace it with God himself. If you do that, there's a restoration. Yes. Some of you think, I can't stop from fill in the blank. Well, what can you stop from? And what can you receive from God? Because so many of us today are still thinking like slaves. I will never. I can't. I won't. This is who I am. Why would God? And we actually are acting like the Israelites in the book of Exodus.

God's given you everything you need. Now, you may not be in the place and the promise you want to be. But I'm here to tell you, God's going to give it to you, but you've got to observe it. You've got to obey him, and you've got to put him first in your life. And trust. You have We have to trust that he is who he says he is, and he can do what he says he can do. Yes. And I just wonder today with so many of you, the thousands that will be impacted just by this message, how much have you missed in your life because you did not observe Sabbath? That's good. What have we forfeited? Yes. What have we given up? Our health. Yes. Relationships. Yes. What have we forfeited because we don't rest? And this is not a judgment, a condemnation. This is not shame. Because if you go to the Bible, Hebrews chapter 3, the writer of Hebrews says, and he's writing to the Hebrews, by the way,

about the Hebrews. And he says at the end of chapter 3, he says, "Hey, remember our people, they were on a journey from Egypt to the promised land. But did you know there was an entire generation, the writer says at the end of chapter 3, let me just read this to you. Verse 16 of chapter 3, for those, excuse me, for who were those who heard and yet rebelled?" So they heard God's word but didn't do God's word. Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? God gave them a leader. God gave them his commandments and with whom was he provoked for 40 years. You gota imagine God saying like what are you idiots doing? Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness? They never made it to the promise.

What happens when you don't take God seriously? You miss the blessing of the promise. God wants to give it to you. Look at verse 18. And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But to those who were disobedient. So verse 19 says, "So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief." Unbelief. Unbelief. Some of you today, you're not even wanting to believe that God is such a great plan for you. I'm too young. I'm too old. I've messed up too much. I've too much was done to me. No, no, no. You are the person God loves and wants to use. If you if you just sit back and spend some time with God, I want you to know God handpicked you. He made you. He loves you. He's got such a special plan for you. There's no other you. That's how unique you are and how not special you are. Everyone else is special, too.

But don't focus on them right now. Focus on releasing what you've been doing, changing your rhythm. And look what happens in the very next verse. It starts chapter 4. Therefore, so learn from the past. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. is it's like God saying lest you think that I'm too good for a Sabbath, you're going to fail, too. You you're never too strong, you're never too talented, you're never too young or too old to say, I don't need this. Every single one of us need this. For good news, verse two says, for good news came to us just as to them. But the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listen. That's our theme this year. United.

It's all about Jesus. This isn't about some person doing it better than another person. We just have to believe Jesus. We have to believe his word. Look at verse three. For we who have believed, enter that rest. We enter it. God wants to give it to us. Look, I'm going to skip to verse five. And again, this passage, he said, "They shall not enter my rest." If you disobey, you don't get the promise of God. God wants you to obey the Sabbath. So, let's just talk practically here. care. Does that mean every Saturday we should all be taking the day off? True. Sapp. No. This is this is a a rhythm of rest that how it works in your schedule, in your life, how you feel called to do it. It's it's establishing a rhythm in your life, not something that's legalistic.

And we can look specifically at the life of Jesus. There will be some that will say, "Well, you can only do this on Saturday." But listen, if you're working right now on Thursday through Tuesday and and and and you only have Wednesday off, I I'll tell you, God's not saying that that you're he's not going to shame you. Uh we see this principle. Uh Jesus, he did radical things on the Sabbath. And in Mark 2, verse 23, it says, "One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. They were hungry. They were getting a snack." Verse 24 says, "And the Pharisees were saying to Jesus, look at what they're doing. It's not lawful on the Sabbath. It looked like they were working." And so they're challenging Jesus, "Look what they're doing." Jesus gave an example one time where David was so weak. He had

no strength. He was on the run. And he ate bread that only the priests were supposed to eat. So can only the priest eat that bread even if David's dying? And it wasn't just David. It was all of his men. And David ate of that bread. And Jesus says, "Listen, if David could do it, then then listen, my disciples can do it. We we can eat." And it's in this place that that Jesus said to them, look at look at verse 27. Look at verse 27. The Sabbath was made for man. God gave you the Sabbath. And it's not man made for the Sabbath. So God didn't make you to follow a bunch of rules. He made rules so that you would become who he wants you to be. And then I absolutely love what Jesus says next in verse 28. So the son of man, that's a title he gave to himself. So the son of man, it's a title that the Daniel uh Daniel the prophet said would

be the Christ, the the Messiah. So the son of man is Lord. He is the Lord even of the Sabbath. Yes. Amen. So So it's not about following the rules. It's about following Jesus. Yeah. Exactly. He Jesus gives us an invitation. It this is one of the most beautiful invitations. Come on. Matthew 11:28 through30. He says, "Come to me." That's right. All you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon me. Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That's Jesus. He gives us rest for our souls. That that's what that's what the the charge of Sabbath is. It's to

it's to let your soul breathe. It's to find rest for your soul. It's to go to him and and and let him be who he is. Come on. And and his yoke is easy and his burden is light. It's it's such an important message because if you're part of the church, after a while, all you'll see is Jesus as the savior of your sins, which by the way is awesome. You get to go to heaven forever. He does save you from your sins, but he also wants to be the Lord of your life, which means he wants to be the Lord of the Sabbath of your life, which means if he's going to be the Lord of your life, you've got to give him a Sabbath. Jesus talks so much about this in Matthew 6. He talks about anxiety. He says, "So many of you are so anxious." Look at Matthew 6:27. Which of you being anxious can add a single hour to the span of his life. I I've never seen an anxious person in the whole world is like, "Hey, we should all be more like him. We should be more like her." Instead, it's like, man, that person is

cranky. They're grumpy. Uh you end up with a heart attack in the hospital. Then we end up having to pray for you because you're in there because you're anxious. Jesus. You know, that reminds me of your sermon last week, which which you mentioned that uh studies have shown that anxiety and thankfulness cannot coexist in the brain, right? The more time we spend with Jesus, the more thankful people we're going to be. Come on. That's just the truth. And so Jesus just looks around at the flowers and said, "You think they're stressed out to look so pretty? Maybe maybe you should learn from the flowers." I mean, some of you worried about what you're going to wear today. Like all of us are staring at you saying, "Oh, you chose that. But like literally we're anxious about that. We're looking in the mirror painting ourselves. We're doing all this kind of Who are you trying to impress?

And Jesus comes to the Matthew 6:33. It's been a powerful verse for us here at Journey Church. We've got a prayer meeting every Thursday if you want to join us. It happens to be at 6:33 p.m. on Thursdays. It comes from this verse. And we've got some prayer warriors in this church. Yes. Yes. God is raising up an army right now. And it is starting in prayer. You want to change life, you got to listen to Jesus. He says, "But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added." He's not saying you shouldn't dress up for church. But when you seek him first, you're not going to be anxious about it. You're actually going to say, "God, I did this because you're worthy of this. I did this because you're so good. You're worthy of this." Then he says in verse 34, "Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow." I mean, some of you are freaking out about tomorrow. You're

freaking out. I don't know how God's going to provide the finances. I don't know what's going to happen with this health crisis. I don't know what's going to happen with my kids. We're estranged and we haven't talked in years. I don't know what's going to happen in this relationship. I've messed it up. I don't know what's Jesus, stop worrying about that. He says, "For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Jesus is a boss here. Don't you see this? He says, "Today's got plenty of stuff to worry about. Don't add tomorrow's worries onto today. Just focus on today because you're not even doing today that well. Just focus on today. That's just a paraphrase of what Jesus is saying. Oh, he loves us. He loves us. Which is why today the whole focus of today is to the whole focus of the day is celebration of restoration.

God's restoration. This is not a burden. No, this is not a burden to say, I don't know how I'm going to do this. You should celebrate that God gave me a rule to to sit back and to do something different. So that restoration is going to look different for each of us. But at the end of the day, what you celebrate, you're going to duplicate. You're going to do it again and again. Some of you all love football and when it football season, you make time for football. You duplicate it every week cuz you love it. There's no judgment there, but you love it. That's what you celebrate. Some of you love fishing. You celebrate it. Some of you all want to like go fishing and golfing with me. I don't celebrate that. I don't want to do that. You say, "Hey, it's your day off. Let's go do golf together." That's that's not restoration to me. If it is for you, that's great, but I don't get it.

You need to figure out what do you want to duplicate. And I don't mean the bad rhythms. You You've got to reverse the curse. Replace the bad with God's promises. Yeah. If you meet the Lord while fishing, then go fishing. But not on Mother's Day. I that was a word for someone. It's time for us to start thinking differently. I want to end with with two thoughts. One from God's word and one from a staff member here at Journey Church. Romans 12:2, Paul profoundly is saying to the Roman Christians. He says, "You got to quit thinking like the world." He says, "Do not be conformed to this world. Quit looking like the world. Quit trying to learn from the world. Quit watching the news. Quit going to Tik Tok or

Instagram. Do not be conformed to this world. be transformed by the renewal of your mind. God's got a great plan for you, but you got to quit thinking like everyone else so that by testing you will know. This writer is saying, you will know. You may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect. God's will is good. God's will is perfect. But you won't know that if you keep thinking like everyone else. So, Sabbath. So, Sabbath. I love what Hannah said this week. Carrie, you were with us in the staff meeting. I wrote it down because I just thought it was profound. Y'all should hear this. This is from Hannah. She's our production director. Just wisdom. All right. Which we have the best staff on the planet. Can I just give honor there? Planet. I am so thankful for our staff. Amen. They're incredible warriors. They are called to such a time as this in this place. Best team ever. Yes.

Yes. So yeah, Hannah said, "Well, we should probably listen to what he says." So, if we could leave you with anything today, I mean, that could have been the whole sermon. Y'all could have just said, you could have read that and said, "Read the Bible." We could have just said, "Pick up the Bible and do what he says." I mean, we told you our story, but our story is not your story. Your burnout might be different our burnout. Your your need for Sabbath might be different than our need for Sabbath. But one thing we do know is God said it, so do it. And I know that we've experienced again healing. Yes. Miracles, provision. Yes. We started dreaming again in Sabbath.

Yes. So I come on. Yeah. We should probably do what he says. Do you have any other closing closing thoughts? Okay. I guess one other thing would be I just God's ways are not our ways. Yes. They are so much better. Praise God. They are so much better. Even Even when they are in direct opposition to the culture. Yes. His ways are higher. They're better. He loves us. Yes. He gives us rules as a gift. Come on. Well, Kara, praise God. You know, we we wrestled with this. We wrestled with this. And And Kara just kept thinking like, do you think this I'm I'm going to speak your vulnerability, insecurity here. Expose yourself here. Kara asked me. you. Do you think this is a robust enough message for a Sunday? Well, I was worried about me. No, no, no.

They want you. No, no. She's more intelligent. I'm just the fool that gets up and is is the vessel. So, I'll tell you this. I I want you to guys to know this. And I see the example right here. And I see the example throughout the room. God wants you to know today. He made Sabbath for you. He didn't make you for Sabbath. He made Sabbath for you. He made Sabbath for you. He made Sabbath for you. He made Sabbath for you. I could just look and I just He made He made Sabbath for you. He made it for you to sit back and remember you're not defined by where you've been. He made you smart and talented. Amen. Kyle, I'm talking to you. So, Amen. He He made you not to be defined by where you've been, but where he wants you to go. But how would you know that unless you spend some time with him? So

whether you're new to church, like maybe you came to church today for the first time and you're like, "Well, I came to church on this day." Yeah. Because God just says, "I want to spend time with you. Where have you where have you been?" You're not defined by a label. You're not defi defined by your your relationship status, your job. Like God doesn't care about any of those things. He doesn't care about what you look like. He just doesn't He cares about you. So it's in that place I want to invite you today into the most important relationship of your life. Today, if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, there's no better time than right now. Today is the day of salvation, the Bible says. Which means this, there's not a better day. You know what I love about Jesus? He doesn't say, "Go fix your life and then follow me." He says, "Follow me. I'll help you fix your life." You follow Jesus, he'll he'll give you the path. You trust in him with

everything. He's got a better plan for your life than you could ever dream. He can do exceedingly abundantly more than all you can ask or think. But it requires a surrender. It requires yes. And today, if you want to say yes to the Lord, if you want to say yes to Jesus, I want to give you that invitation. This is between you and the Lord. I can't save you. No one else around you can save you. Only Jesus came. And when you say yes to Jesus, he saves you of your sins. He gives you the gift of eternal life. He gives you God himself, the person, the Holy Spirit. You do not do this alone. And then now you have the promises of God's word to keep leaning on, to learn from. God has a great plan. So it doesn't matter how young you are, doesn't matter how old you are, you can say yes to Jesus. So right right now in the intimacy of your heart to the Lord. Would you just close your eyes? We do this just to focus on the Lord. This between you and God, I need you to take this serious. If you're uncertain of your salvation, if you're uncertain of

where you would spend eternity if you died today, you can know right now with a shadow of a doubt without without even just any concern. You can know you're saved in Jesus Christ. He seals you with the Holy Spirit. So today, if you want salvation, I'm just going to ask you to make a bold step and raise your hand with all eyes closed, with hands raised, you want to say yes to Jesus. Praise God. Anyone else here today? Yes. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Anyone else? Just right now, your heart's beating and you're saying, "I think that's me." That's that's God nudging you, saying, "Come on, start following me. Praise God. Amen." Anyone else? You've been doing things on your own. Today's the day you say, "No more God. I'm going to let you fight my battles, God. I'm going to let you in. Anyone else? Praise God. I see you both. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. This is the day God wants you to say, "I'm taking you serious. I want restoration. I'm going to start celebrating and thanking God right now. Lord, I thank you for the hands that were raised today." We want to remember you and what you've done for us, Jesus. You didn't leave us to wander in the wilderness of our own hearts. God, you you set us on the trajectory to know you, to know how much you love us, and to follow you and to love you back. Help us to take your word seriously, not legalistically, not religiously, not even as a ritual, but just to say, God, your ways are always good. I just pray over your people today that we would be a change people because of your word and your Holy Spirit. You're working in our lives. For those that just said yes to you today, Lord, we we receive that salvation. If that's you in your heart, you need to start praying. Praying is

talking to God. is listening to God, talking to God. You get honest with God in your heart. Would you pray something like this? Lord, would you forgive me of my sins today? I follow you. I repent. I change my thinking. I receive salvation. I receive the gift of eternal life, your grace, your inheritance. Help me to follow you. Protect me from the enemy. I love you because you first loved me. And we all pray together in Jesus name. Amen. And amen. Amen. Friends, if you made that decision, don't stop there. You got to tell somebody. We're going to have a prayer team right up here on both sides of the platform. If you want to come tell the prayer team, they'll pray with you. They'll celebrate with you. We've got a Bible as a free gift to you. We love to give you today. Tell someone today that you got saved. You're no longer the same. God's going to restore you. He's going to change you. He's got

a great plan for your