Practicing Sabbath
Transcript
Good morning. All right. My name is Spencer Carey. Like I said before, I'm pastor and training here with Mill City Church. We have taken the last four weeks and the next two weeks to walk through a series called The Hammer and the Hammock. And the hope of this series has been to grow in our theology of work and rest.
Because as a church and culturally, we are terrible at that balance and how we honor God. We spent the first three weeks mostly talking about work. The last three are mostly on rest. Last week, Chet got to address some of the heart level issues and how we justify ourselves and our overwork that we never deal with what he called the inner murmur, this endless, restless drive to work and to please and to work and to strive. And we make that as a justification for how we don't rest. And he kind of gave us a vision for what rest is supposed to be, for what Sabbath is supposed to be.
And then he kind of left us hanging. Like he didn't give us practicals for a reason because this week we get to practically walk this out and see how we can practically Sabbath. But on the front end, I want to be clear about what the Sabbath is. It is one day a week where we cease from work and we confess with our rest that we are not God. God. It is one day a week where we cease from our work and we confess with our rest that we are not God.
I heard a pastor mention a word, a Japanese word called karoshi as it pertains to rest. The history of that word is that in the after World War II, after we decimated Japan with all the bombings that we did, it completely destroyed their country and destroyed their economy. And one of the ways that their new prime minister said that they're going to build the economy back is through really, really hard work ethic. So they did. I mean, they're the third largest economy in the world and they built it. But one of the consequences for the work ethic that they put into their people is that people started to work themselves literally to death.
They had to invent a term in the 70s called karoshi, which means death by overwork. And it still affects their culture today. There are stories of people who will put 80 hours of overtime work in a week and they will literally work themselves into insanity and commit suicide. There are stories of people in their young 30s who put in so much work, they die of heart failure, that they get strokes, that their government has had to step in and put policies in to keep this from happening. Now, I would say that we are not quite like that culturally, that we don't work us work ourselves into instant death, but I would argue we karoshi ourselves slowly, that it's a slow death for us.
I mean, you can read study after study after study of what we do to ourselves. We put work and all kinds of stress on ourselves, that it slowly takes years off of our lives, that we slowly work ourselves to death. Now, that begs the question, why? Why can we not work and work and work and thrive? Why is it that we suffer because of our overwork? Well, we see from the scriptures that it is because we are limited by design.
We are limited beings made in the image of an unlimited God and He has chosen to make us limited so that we might rely on Him. And that means that our body needs rest, it needs refreshing, and that's what Shet was getting at last week. Today, we get to tackle that practically. So, if you are a note taker, today was made for you. Some of you take notes, like this is your time to shine. You can take notes.
Sometimes, as we are teaching, I'd rather you get caught up in the narrative of it all, but today you actually get to take notes. And if you are not a note taker, I would encourage you this week to take some notes. There's pens pretty much everywhere. I made sure of that, so you can take notes. If you are morally opposed to taking notes because it reminds you of how the system used to oppress you when you were in school for 12 plus years, then do your best to engage and to walk out of here with some mental nuggets of how we can grow in our patterns of rest. We're going to start out in Exodus 20, the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments on the Sabbath.
And we're going to walk through this. After we walk through this, we're going to see what the Sabbath is and what it isn't. And then we're going to put some handles on how we can practically Sabbath. I'll pray and then we will dive in. Father, I thank you for the good news of the gospel. I thank you that you give us rest.
God, I pray that as we work through this today, you would give us a vision and some handles on how we can learn to rest well in you. Amen. Exodus 20, starting in verse 8, it says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 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 or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. So to read this, you've got to look at the back end.
When it says in verse 11, For in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. That is rooted in the story of Genesis and the story of creation. That means that the Sabbath is a rhythm of creation. That it is eternal and it is meant for everybody. That God put this as a rhythm that we might obey all of God's people and everyone who's made in the image of God.
And what's really interesting that we don't have a lot of time to get into today is that an infinite God who we know from the Psalms never sleeps, never slumbers. An infinite God shows to rest on the seventh day that he might model rest for us who are limited. And that is a rhythm that carries through. And then as the law is being handed down in Exodus, we see it's a commandment here. And then we see kind of ups the ante a little bit. In Exodus 31, 14, it says, Everyone who profanes it, who doesn't obey it, shall be put to death.
That there's a seriousness that's brought to the Sabbath. There's actually a death penalty attached to it. So why did God want his people to take this command so seriously? I can think of two immediate reasons. Firstly, the Israelites had just left being slaves for 400 plus years. That in Egypt, they belonged to Pharaoh and their worth was in their work and what they could produce as slaves.
And God redeems the people of Israel and he says, You are no longer Pharaoh's, you are mine and your worth is not in your work and what you can produce. And one way I'm going to remind you of that is that one day a week you will cease. As the Sabbath is translated rest or cease to be. That you will rest. And I think secondly, like all of the law, there's a seriousness to it. But there's also the idea that we won't perfectly fulfill the Sabbath.
We won't perfectly walk the law out. That it's pointing forward to the one who will in Christ. So there's a seriousness brought to the law. And like much of the law, the nation of Israel, they responded poorly. At times, they just forgot the Sabbath completely. But what we see is on the other end of the spectrum is that there was a tradition that took the Sabbath ultra, ultra seriously and started adding things to it.
They made it more of a sacrifice. There is a group of laws called the Shabbat laws. Shabbat is just Hebrew for Sabbath. And there's 39 categories of work. And in it, there's like hundreds of laws that you could and could not do. And those still, they still exist and they're in the context of the day.
When I was in Israel about seven, eight years ago, I was in Jerusalem. And I remember that I was in a hotel. And as I was in a hotel on their Sabbath, I went to use the elevator. And the button was already lit up. And the elevator door opened. And I stepped in.
And I looked and I saw all of the buttons were lit up. Because on the Sabbath in Israel today, you cannot push buttons. Because if you were to push a button, that's considered work. And you'd be breaking Sabbath laws. So it was really annoying, especially if you were like me and you were on one of the top floors.
Because literally every single floor, it opens, it closes. It opens and it closes. And if you needed to get anywhere in a hurry, you'd be in trouble. And there's all kinds of laws like that that still exist today. They're really absurd. And there were also laws like that at the time that Jesus comes on the scene.
And he jumps in and starts critiquing how they have approached the Sabbath. In Matthew 12, Jesus and his disciples, they are plucking the heads of grains in a field. And the religious leaders, they see him do this. And they say, you're breaking the Sabbath. And then Jesus, he jumps in. And he quotes Hosea 6-6 from the Old Testament.
He says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. They had lost it. What the purpose of the Sabbath was. It was supposed to be a mercy. It was supposed to be a grace. And they made it a sacrifice.
They made it a burden. Then he says, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. He drops the mic. And that's kind of it. I mean, through the rest of the Gospels, that's kind of the gist of how Jesus, he approaches the Sabbath. And there's not much in the rest of the New Testament on the Sabbath.
It kind of leaves us a little bit hanging. And as we try to see that, yes, this is a creation rhythm that is meant to be eternal, but it's not meant to be a burden. We try to walk this out in the New Testament as a New Testament church and getting more practical. And that's what the hope is today. That we would see it for what it is. That it is one day a week.
We cease from work. And we confess with our rest that we are not God. But before we put practical handles on it, I want to quickly go through what it is and what it isn't. So firstly, the Sabbath is a day of rest. It is a day of rest once a week. For the Jews, that was Friday night to Saturday night.
That was their Sabbath. They measured days from evening to evening. So that was their Sabbath. And the New Testament church, we see a tradition that falls out of that. They made Sunday the day that the church would Sabbath. Because Sunday was the day that the Lord resurrected.
And that is why the tradition that comes out of that is that the church gathers together for worship. But they also gather together to rest on Sundays. Now there's a movement that happened out of this. They call themselves Sabbatarians. It's just a fancy way of saying that you have to obey the Sabbath. And it has to be on Sunday.
And if the church isn't Sabbathing on Sunday, if God's people aren't resting on Sunday, then you are living in sin. And that movement actually was carried over to America. It actually shaped much of American culture, which is one of the reasons we have Sunday off. And Saturday off comes from the Jewish calendar. And it shaped much of our culture. And it still exists a little bit today.
But if you look at the New Testament, there's not a case that can be made for that. The Sunday has to be the day that the Sabbath happens. You just don't see that. You see it form out of tradition, but you don't see that everyone has to have their Sabbath on the Sunday. But I'd argue that it is probably the best time for you to Sabbath.
That if many of you that don't work on Sunday, because you grew up in this country where you have a tradition of having Sunday off, if you don't work on Sunday, I'll argue that Sunday is probably the best day for you to take your Sabbath. And the reason why is because the Sabbath by nature is meant to be communal. It's meant to be a time where the church communes together and Sabbaths together. That's why the nation of Israel, they would Sabbath together as a nation the same way. It's meant to be something that we do together. So if you're not like me, I have work on Sundays, whether it's doing real estate, whether it's ministry, if you're not like me and you have the freedom to have Sunday off, Sunday should be the time that you choose to rest with the rest of the church.
So the Sabbath is a day of rest. It is not work. Sabbath is not work. Now we're going to get into the practicals of learning how to Sabbath, but this needs to be clearly stated on the front end. It is not work. It is designed for us to help us reboot, to help reorient our hearts towards grace, towards God.
And your work takes away from that. Now we're going to get practical and walk through some activities. And as I do that, some of you are going to immediately go to, oh, I can do this and I can do that. And I can get that accomplished. I've got some freedom here. And if that is you, if you're like me and you're looking for loopholes, you need to pull back.
This is meant to be rest. It is not work. The Sabbath is worshipful. It is designed to be worshipful. That is why the church has gathered for thousands of years on the Sabbath to worship like we're doing now, to sing songs, to read scripture, to hear the word preached. It is meant to be worshipful together as we have our hearts formed and shaped and knowing more of who Jesus is.
So part of that is gathering together for worship. Another part of that is incorporating God's word into your Sabbath. That on your day of rest, on your Sabbath, you might open up God's word. You might read in it. You might sit in it. You might meditate on it.
Because God's word is what forms us and shapes us and reminds us of who God is. That your Sabbath needs to be filled with prayer. And one of my favorite ways of resting and incorporating prayer, when it's not like 100 degrees and melting outside, is to go outside and to walk and to see the sky and God's creation and His handiwork and to be reminded of who He is and what He has done for us and just talk to Him and just pray. It needs to be filled with God's word. It needs to be filled with prayer. It needs to be filled with fellowship.
That's why we gather here. One of the reasons we gather here on Sunday is that we might fellowship. If you are extroverted and you are fueled by people, it could be a good idea for you to connect with people. If you are introverted, we're glad you're here. And we want you to be here regularly. And be wise.
Meet with some people, but also take some time for yourself. The Sabbath is meant to be worshipful. It is not escape. The Sabbath is not escape. We have confused restfulness with escape. It is so easy for us to think, oh, I'm going to chill out.
I'm going to escape. Like how many of us have watched like five hour-long episodes on Netflix. And after those five hours, I thought, man, I'm really refreshed. I feel so much better now. No. You don't feel better after you've watched five hours of a show.
It's even worse because Netflix puts up a little reminder and says, are you still watching? You get judged by a company that makes money off of you watching. It's not restful. That's escape. Escape. And we so often like to feel moments of silence with escape, whether it's Netflix, whether it's our phones.
Man, how often I will try to sit and just be in silence and pray or meditate, and I quickly grab my phone, and it just magically appears in my hand. And five minutes later, I'm like, oh, what are they doing today? It's like, what just happened? Or if I'm good, I'll put it away, and I put it away, and I feel this phantom vibration in my leg. That's addiction. That's a problem.
We are so prone to want to fill moments of silence, void moments with entertainment, with escape. And we need to fight that because we need to let that silence be, let God fill up that silence that we might be filled and fueled. The Sabbath is not meant for escape. So that's kind of what it is and what it isn't. It is a day of rest that we cease from work. We confess with our rest that we are not God.
So how? Like, how do we practically walk that out as a church family? I have about six handles we can walk through of how we can do this. The first one is decide to Sabbath. Now, I say that. Some of you just rolled your eyes.
Like, seriously? Like, that should be self-explanatory. You're deciding to Sabbath. Thanks a lot. That's a great start. No.
No. Decide the Sabbath. Because here's the deal. If you don't consciously make the decision that you are going to reshape your life to have a pattern of rest that happens once a week, you won't do it. You don't just stumble into patterns. Like, you don't just stumble into one to eat healthy and work out.
You don't just rock out at McDonald's and eat salads like it's nothing. You don't just end up three days a week in a gym. That's not how that works. You have to gear yourself up. You have to consciously decide, this is going to be a lifestyle for me and I'm going to do this. You have to decide to Sabbath and commit to it.
So step one, decide to Sabbath. Second, plan to Sabbath. You need to plan it. I had to stop in my sermon prep and repent. I had to, I realized, I mean, sometimes I can preach and I know I'm weak in areas and I can be a little bit self-deprecating, but man, I felt very hypocritical if I was going to think through one more thing that I was going to say. I had to stop because I don't, my tendency is that somewhere between Friday and Saturday I'm going to have a Sabbath and it just kind of shows up on a Friday.
I'm like, oh, I guess it's time to shut it down and then I get a phone call and then I respond to this and then Saturday I'm kind of like, oh yeah, and it just ends up not being restful at all. So I had to stop. I want to show you a little bit of what I was working on. I had to create a plan for Sabbathing. The top one is a week that I'm not preaching or a week that I don't have a ton of real estate. I'll sleep in until 7 and spend some time in the Word and get my kids up, make breakfast, maybe listen to a sermon, whatever.
From 8.45 to about 11.30, I can do sermon stuff, I can do real estate, but I'm shutting it down at 11.30. That's when it's going to begin. I can play with my kids during lunchtime as they go down to nap. We've started this new rhythm where I let my wife go. I was like, just vacate, go to, she loves Dunkin' Donuts, go to Dunkin', go wherever, spend some time, and then we usually have our date night on Friday. Saturday morning, I wake up, spend some time in the Word, do some restful activities that I'll get to in a minute, and then have lunch.
And that's, and the second one is if I have all Friday off, that's the plan I made. I had to get really practical because if I don't plan this, I'm not going to do this. You have to plan well to rest well. Because if you don't, you won't rest well. The nation of Israel, they understood this. They called this the day of preparation.
That there was a time that they would, before the Sabbath, they would get all of their work done so that when the Sabbath began on that Friday night, it'd all be done and they could check, they could begin to Sabbath rest. And the reality is is that it's actually, it's actually genius. The most productive week of work I've had this year was the week before I went on vacation. Because I was checking out and I had to get all of my work done. And the reality is is that if you, if you plan to rest, you're going to get a lot of work done as you prepare so that you can rest well. So for some of you, that means you're going to have to answer the emails, you're going to have to answer the phone calls, you're going to have to set up an auto reminder on your email, you're going to have to get real practical.
For some of you, there are activities that you would normally do that are really draining. Like for some of you, you like cooking. For some of you, it drains you. So maybe for your day of rest, you don't cook. Whether that means you prepared food the day before, whether that means you go out to eat, whether that means you order in food. Whatever it is, whatever kind of work that does not fuel you, that drains you, you get it done and you plan so that you don't have to work on the Sabbath.
You have to plan well to rest well. Third, value your Sabbath. Value your Sabbath. I was watching this TED Talk and this reporter was talking about this. She went to interview this high power CEO. This woman had four kids.
She owned her company. She was a CEO. And she went to interview her and she was talking to her assistant. She was like, how does Wednesday morning look? And the assistant said, well, actually, Wednesday morning through the afternoon, she's booked up. She's actually gone hiking in the mountains by herself, but we can pick another day.
And it baffled her. She's like, how in the world does a woman who's a CEO, has four kids, owns her own company, how does she, in the middle of a work week, to get to just check out and go hiking? So she asked her in the interview. And what she said was so telling. She said, you know, some people say, I don't have time for this. What they really mean is, I won't make time for this.
Because you will make time for what you value. She's like, I value time to get away. I value time to go and be in the mountains and to hike and to, like, that's what I value. So I make time for it. You make time for what you value. Man, that is so true.
I have a standing offer from one of my buddies. He works for KFC Corporate. And he gets to go to the Super Bowl every year because KFC's a sponsor in the NFL. And I asked him, I said, bro, if the Colts make it to the Super Bowl, will you take me? Well, he took down a heartbeat because he's like, y'all ain't making the Super Bowl. Not by the time I get another Job.
And I was like, deal. But let me tell you something. If somehow magically Andrew Luck comes back and he starts throwing just money and we start winning games and we somehow make it through the AFC Championship, you best believe on that Super Bowl Sunday, I'm going. I'm going to make time for it. Because that's a bucket list thing for me. I want to go just one time.
That's a big skill thing that we make value statements on. We do it all the time in the smaller things. How many of us this fall are going to clear all of Saturday for football? We'll make time for that because we value it. Fill in the blank. Maybe it's a TV show that comes on every week.
You are going to be there to see it. Maybe it's a TV show that gets released once a year. You're going to block off that weekend for it. You will make time for what you value. Fill in the blank. You will make time for it.
And my fear is is that many of us will hear this sermon. We'll walk through this series. We'll talk about rest in our community groups. And we might do it for a few weeks. We might do it for a couple of months. But then we're slowly going to drift back into the same stuff we've always been doing.
And that is going to be because we don't value the Sabbath enough. We don't value rest enough. Honestly, we've talked about this as pastors. That's one of the reasons why our gatherings, the average of our church family, the average member shows up twice a month to gatherings. That's why the seats are not... If everyone was here every week, we'd be filled up.
We'd have space issues. But we've realized that. And that's an indictment on us because we don't value Sabbath resting, worshiping together as a church. What you value, you will make time and space for. And we need to respond to that as we try to Sabbath. Fourth, Sabbath for the season you're in.
My wife and I, man, back when I was in seminary, we could drop what we were doing and we could go on a date night. We'd just drop, head on out, and we could do the whole thing for 20 bucks. Because in seminary, we didn't have money. I was paying for seminary as we went. I was like, we can do the whole thing for 20 months. Stop what we're doing and go for it.
That has changed. We have kids now. You don't stop and drop and go do anything. Like, you've got a plan. We've got to make sure we have sitters. That's going to be more than 20 bucks on top of what we're going to do.
So we've had to adjust for the season that we're in. And what has happened for many of you and for us is that we have not adjusted for the season we're in when it comes to Sabbath rest. Because some of you could just, on your day of rest, could just go to a coffee shop and spend hours there and read books, listen to podcasts and sermons and journal. Some of you could go kayaking all day. You could just check out, not tell anybody, go hiking all day. If some of you tried to do that now, there would be a missing person report following you.
And we remember, man, that's how it used to be. I got to rest that way. And we haven't adjusted for the season that we're in. Times change. Seasons change. Your schedule changes.
Some of you start getting married. Some of you start having kids. And the season changes and you've got to change with it. This is especially important for moms. I want to talk to you moms for a second. Sabbath rest for you looks different now and it has been hard to adjust for this season.
In this season, I want to say something very clearly. It is okay for you to put your kids in front of a TV, especially if you have little ones, to put them in front of a TV for a little bit and go and have a quiet time. It's okay for you to buy some time. I don't care what the internet says. You have to take care of yourself. You've got to, you strive to take care of your kids to make sure they're eating well, to make sure they're growing well, to make sure they're learning well.
You've got to take time for yourself. That means, husbands, we've got to step up and give some space for our wives to go and rest. That means that you need to reach out to some friends, some church families, some people in your community group and say, you just come watch the kids for a few hours so that I can go and reorient my heart towards grace so that I can rest well. And if you have older kids, that means you get to tell them from this time to this time on this day, guys, don't come to me. I'm checking out. I love you, serve you, take care of you, cart you everywhere for six days a week.
From this block, you ain't going to see me. I'm going to be in this room. You guys entertain yourself. And if you, I know y'all crush it as moms, you love and serve them, they'll get it. And what they'll see is, is that you are valuing this time and that it's important. And that rest is important.
And that's going to stick in their head as they become adults. Which brings me to my next point. In the season you're in, you need to take time for yourself individually, but we rest together as a family. We need to Sabbath well as families. And that means being creative about your family and what your family does. You know your family better than anyone else.
How could you create rhythms in your family so that y'all can rest individually, but also you can rest together? I heard a pastor once say this. He said, On the Sabbath, for my kids and my wife, which is Sunday for them, we make sure that we go out to a nice restaurant. Nicer than normal. So not Moe's.
Step your game up. Just go a little bit higher. And then you also, he said they order a dessert so that his kids can really look forward to the Sabbath. So they can really look forward to this time. So for some of us, we can incorporate exciting things into our Sabbath as we rest together as families.
It means doing restful activities together. So if that's playing games for you, it's like, guys, we're going to take a few hours together and play games as a family. If that's restful for you, if your goal in a game is not to destroy your family member, destroy your kids and make sure that somebody's crying. If you're not super competitive, you've got to know your family. You've got to know what y'all do. Maybe that's later bedtimes.
It's making this day special because this is the day we also get to rest together as a family. So we need to respond to the season we're in. We need to make some adjustments and rest well for the season that we're in. The fifth one is study for your Sabbath, which kind of seems like an oxymoron. Study for your Sabbath. Stay with me for a second.
Some of us don't know how to rest. Some of us have forgotten how to rest. This is my wife. My wife, we had kids and she's forgotten. In the past year, we have been having conversations. We've been trying to figure this out.
We've been trying, I've been trying to help her. See, let's try this. Maybe this is it because she's changed. And some of you are changing and stuff that you thought was restful five years ago, you're still trying to do and it's not restful anymore. I heard a commentary say once that if you work with your mind, rest with your hands. If you work with your hands, rest with your mind.
And there's some wisdom in that. You have to study yourself. You have to figure out how you rest. I was able to do this as well in thinking through how I rest. It will come up on the screen. There it is.
I started to brainstorm what are some restful activities for me that's super blurry graphic that I couldn't make clear. So I started to think what is restful? I'm a people person. People fuel me. So I started, I like to connect with friends, like to go to coffee shops.
That's something I like to do. I like to do yard work, which I know when you see that, you go, wait a second, you said it wasn't work. Yard work for me is restful. It just is. I don't work with my hands and I get to do yard work and it's cut and dry. Like I go to my stepdad at my mom's house sometimes and I used to mow their acre and a half front lot on a one mile per hour lawnmower.
It took me four hours. As soon as I graduated and went to college, my stepdad got the nicest, fastest, zero turn. Sometimes I go to their house and I'm like, can I mow your lawn? Because it's 45 minutes and I get to turn and cut. It's awesome. I love it.
One day a week when it's not winter time, I get to at my yard, I get to mow the grass, it's overgrown, I get to cut it, it's clean, I get to edge, I get to weed eat. For me, it's enjoyable, it's restful. I can listen to sermons, I can pray, I can do all of that and it's two hours, it's cut and dry. What's not restful for me is house projects. Man, house projects, sometimes they work well. You've heard about my YouTube tragedies, sometimes they don't.
Then I'll watch a YouTube video and I'll go and I'll figure out how to do the project and then I'll go to true value, I pick up a part and then I come back home and then I realize I missed something else, I get back to true value, pick up another part, then I realize I don't have a tool. It's not restful for me. So I just made a decision the past two weeks, like honey, I won't find times for me to do some of these household projects elsewhere but on my Sabbath, I just can't. I can't, it's not restful for me. I've had to go through and think through. Shopping, going to the grocery store, it's not restful for me.
Driving, I drive all the time for my work. It's not restful for me and obviously real estate and ministry and phone usage, it's not good for my soul. We're going to give some space in community groups for you to do this, for you to do this this week. Some of you need to learn and relearn how to rest. You need to figure it out, try some things. Sometimes it won't work.
You might stumble upon some things that actually do work but some of us need to learn how to rest. We need to ask ourselves what is restful, what is fueling, what is good for our soul and what is draining. So we need to study for the Sabbath. Lastly, we need to Sabbath regularly. Sabbath is one day a week. There are also regular rhythms of rest that we need to incorporate throughout our days.
We used to call that a lunch break. That's what used to happen. Some of you still do but a lot of us, it's not a lunch break anymore. You'll go and you'll pick something up and you'll eat really quickly. You'll get back to work. The irony is that a couple weeks ago as we were preparing for sermons on the Sabbath, we had to do a working lunch.
I was like, this screams of irony. Because we work and we work and sometimes we need to take breaks. Sometimes we need to, like I'm a binge worker, I'll go four hours straight and then I'll feel my body start tensing up and I was like, no, I've got to take moments just to breathe. You've got to figure out you and start to incorporate regular rhythms of rest. These are practicals. These are meant to help us as we strive for rest and if we start to make some adjustments, if you start to work some of this out, if you start to figure out how to rest, how to incorporate these rhythms and if you start to see that it is one day a week where we cease from work and we confess with our rest that we are not God, it'll change you.
If we don't do that, if we don't take this seriously, we are heading for burnout. You were not made for limitless work. You will eventually burn out. One of my favorite shows is Better Call Saul. It's about attorneys and it's a spinoff of Breaking Bad and this last season, one of the attorneys, her name is Kim, she went out on her own as an attorney. She picked up a bunch of clients or she picked up one client with a bunch of work and then she's not sleeping well, she's working extra hours, she's staying overnight at the office and then she picks up a second client and she doesn't sleep.
She works and she works and she strives and then she has this really big presentation that she's got to go to. She packs up her car, puts all the boxes of papers of presentations in the back seat and she starts driving and as she's driving, she's rehearsing what she's going to do. She's rehearsing her words, she's going through this presentation, it's the biggest moment of her career and it's shot from her perspective and immediately she crashes. She wakes up, she fell asleep at the wheel and I want to put this picture up, it's a picture of the scene. She steps out of the car and the thing that kept her from going off the cliff is a rock.
She realizes she almost died, her arm is broken, her face is bloodied and all of her work is scattered across the road. And man, that is such a picture of us. If we work and we strive and we struggle and we don't rest, that's a picture of where we're heading. That we are heading for burnout. That we are heading off a cliff and that we're going to end up broken, we're going to end up bruised, we're going to allow in a season of crisis and a season of a nervous breakdown and a season of turmoil for sin to creep in and to take us down. And that picture is so picturesque, all of your work will be scattered.
The irony of this is if you overwork, eventually you will break down and you will have to step away from work like it is scattered across the highway as it is a mess. That's a picture of who we are if we don't learn to rest. And we need to take that seriously. But hear this. When you choose to rest, when you choose to honor the Sabbath, you will experience God in a whole new way. You will start to incorporate these rhythms of rest that will reorient your heart towards grace that will fill you up.
You will have moments of silence that are turned to worship and to joy and you will be refreshed in a way that you never were before. And out of this, once we are regularly refreshed every week, we'll get to serve our family better, our wives better, we'll get to love our kids better, we'll get to serve our co-workers better. as we learn to balance, work, and rest in a God-honoring way as we honor the Sabbath.