Teaching | Sabbath as Resistance | Garden City E06

Hello and welcome to the John Markoma Teachings Podcast. My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Marko or other voices in the formation space and it's great to have you with us. Today we're concluding our Garden City series on work and rest with a detailed teaching on the importance of rest and the practice of Sabbath. Sabbath isn't just a wellness practice, but instead it is a defined no.

to the cultural forces of busyness, consumerism, and digital distraction in our world, so we can say a deeper, joyful yes to the life of God. Here's John Mark.

Tonight, let's start out in Genesis chapter 2. Thus, the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. God rested. Let that sink in for a minute. God rested. Yeah, but you know me, I'm type A and I love my job and I really feel like God rested.

After six days of hard work, God himself said, okay, enough is enough. It's time to rest. The word rest in Hebrew is this word Shabbat. Can you say that? Yeah, it's where we get the word Sabbath. It can be translated to stop or to cease or to be done. And it can also be translated to celebrate. The idea behind the Sabbath is an entire day set aside to slow down, to actually stop, take a step back and celebrate. Celebrate. the world, and your life in it, and above all, God himself.

Now, the Sabbath is not the same thing as a day off. Hopefully you know that by now. On a day off, you do all the work you don't get paid for. You run errands, you pay the bills, you go by the bank. If you have an apartment or a house, you work around that, you clean, whatever. You go shopping, you buy, you sell, you visit that boutique or whatever. You play, you go out and do whatever it is you do. And that's all great. But the Sabbath is something else.

It is an entire day that is in the language here of Genesis 2, in the language of God, blessed and holy. It's a day when God has my rapt attention. where I create space just to sit and be with God. Today, when I'm fully available to my family and friends, no phone, no distraction, no work, no errands to run, just there in the moment. It's a day to reconnect with the soul, to recenter at a deep inside level around what really matters. And it is a day to wake up to all.

all that is good and beautiful and true in the world, and to celebrate it as an act of worship. And in the story, God worked for six days, and then he rested for one.

And in doing so, God built a rhythm into the fabric of creation. By rhythm, I mean there is a way that the creator set the creation, everything from the human body to society and the ecosystem. There is a way that the creator set up the creation to flourish and thrive in this symbiotic relationship between work and rest. If your life is all work, then over time, either you become grouchy and stressed out and on edge,

Or you grind your soul into the ground. You become more machine than a human being, hollow and empty behind the eyes. On the flip side, if your life is all rest, and that is a problem for some of you, God bless you. This is Portland. I love this city to death, but it is a lazy, hedonistic city. It's one of the last cities in America where the cost of living is so low enough that you can kind of hang out.

I have a friend in New York City. We had a conversation not long ago, and he said, man, your city's so great, but it's so weird. People there just, like, hang out. It's like... Yeah? What do you mean? He's like, well, in New York, I mean, we work all the time. My apartment's like 400 square feet and it costs four grand a month. Like, we don't have time to hang out. We have jobs. Like, you guys just hang out in Portland. I'm like, well, we work too.

Part-time. Don't worry about it, you know. But for a lot of you, and with all due respect, like, that is essentially your life. You kind of work 30, 35 hours a week. You bum around town. You hang out. And if that's how you live, then over time life becomes empty of meaning and significance. You were made to do more than just to hang out. You were made to contribute.

to partner with God and to take this city and this world forward. My point is that both overwork and underwork rob us of the capacity to live to the full. So this rhythm of six days of work, one day of Sabbath, six days of work, one day of Sabbath, this is the rhythm that God set into motion from the first minute of the first hour of the first day ever.

Which is why, later on, when God calls out a people, if you know the story of the Old Testament, the story of Israel, when God calls out a people, he actually commands the Sabbath. Turn over to Exodus chapter 20. One book over to the right. Exodus chapter 20. This is what we now call the Ten Commandments.

God is at the top of Mount Sinai. Israel is there at the base. And God spoke all these words, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Commandment number one, you shall have no other gods before me. Commandment number...

two, you shall not make for yourself an image. Commandment number three, you shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God. Then listen to commandment number four. It's right there. Exodus chapter 20 verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day. Remember, don't forget about it. Don't get sucked into the rat race to the crazy, hectic, busy.

way of life, in particular in the late modern West. No, remember, there is a day, it's blessed, it's holy, it's set aside, there is a rhythm that you were created for. Remember that. How? By keeping it holy. That word holy is kadosh in Hebrew. And it can be translated set apart for or dedicated to. We read, six days you shall labor. So that's interesting. There's a flip side of the command. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath.

to Yahweh your God. So it's not just a day for rest, to take a nap, read a novel, sleep in. Yes, that. But it's also a day for worship. It's holy. It's set apart. It's dedicated to Yahweh. An entire day out of your week, set aside to focus your mind, your heart, your body, your life onto the God who made you. When I Sabbath, I run everything through that grid. Is this rest and is this worship? The answer to either of the two is no, then I hold off. There are six other days for all that stuff.

If the answer to both is yes, this is rest and this is worship.

Then I step into it with joy. Notice that the Ten Commandments, one of the best things about the Ten Commandments is notice that each one is in the negative. That's actually a good thing. Negative commands create more space for creativity, self-expression. expression, life, delight. Think of the difference between a commandment about what exactly you have to do.

kind of a tyrant, kind of dictator, this is what you do, command, versus a don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. This creates basically boundaries, and inside those boundaries, there's wide open space for freedom. So the boundaries around the Sabbath, on one side, rest, nothing on the other side of that. everything's out of limits. On the other side, the boundary is worship. Anything in that wide open space of rest and worship, man, have at it with delight.

That's why there's no formula here or anywhere in the Old Testament or in the New for how to Sabbath. Because so much of it is based on your personality. Are you an introvert like me? I spend time with my family and then I go into this room in my house and I literally spend it. hours and I just read and I think and I journal and I literally just stare out the window. It's like one of my favorite pastimes. You ever drive by my house and I'm just there?

It's so great. I love it. Or if you're an extrovert like my wife or whoever, you want to get up and ride your bike out and get coffee with your friend and then your next best friend and then your next best friend and your fourth best friend that you met three days ago. And then you want to all go out to lunch together. and like part is great. Fantastic.

Have at it. So, so much of it's based on your personality. So much based on your stage of life. Are you single? Do you have a roommate? Do you have 14 of them or one of them? Do you have his wife or a husband? Do you have little kids at home? Which basically means you don't get a Sabbath. Do you have...

high school kids, like whatever. So much of it depends on your stage of life. And even so much of it depends on the season. There's a huge difference, at least for my family, between Sabbath and the summer when it's beautiful and warm outside and we go to the park or Savvy Island or to the beach. Sabbath in the winter when we hide inside because it's terrifying outside. My point is there's all this open space and freedom, anything that's rest.

Anything that's worship, that's what you run into. Now, notice the commandment goes on. On it, on the Sabbath. You shall not do any work, neither you nor your son nor your daughter. So you parents, like you can't tell your kids to go make you dinner or whatever. nor your male or female servant, nor your animals. All of you that just really want to make your ox work seven days a week, you just can't.

Nor any foreigner residing in your town. So the Sabbath, the point here is that the Sabbath is for everybody. It's not just for the rich. You have extra time and money to blow on a nice vacation in Kauai. This is for the rich, for the poor, for the young, for the old.

for the legal, for the illegal, for the refugee, for the citizen. This is for the entire community to flourish and thrive. Now, listen and pay attention to this next part. Listen to the why behind the commandment. I love when we actually read. God say, okay, this is my logic. This is my thinking. Four, or here's why. In six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them. But he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

God here goes back to the story of Genesis 2, and he basically makes the exact same point. There is a rhythm to creation. You work for six days, you rest for one. That's how God set it up. Now notice, before we move on, that commandment number four, the Sabbath, is by far, if you look down at your Bible, it is by far the longest of the Ten Commandments. It's by far the most in-depth. In fact, if you were to translate the Ten Commandments into a pie chart,

The Sabbath commandment would make up well over 30% of the pie. Meaning to God... This is over the top important. Like this is where God says, okay, you really need to get this. You really need to catch this. I have extra stuff to say here. This really matters. Now, stay with me. I want to show you something that I think is really cool. Turn over to.

Deuteronomy chapter 5. Keep going to the right. Deuteronomy chapter 5. The first five books of the Bible, if you've ever read it, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and then Deuteronomy, the first five books are usually called the Torah. Torah is a Hebrew word meaning law or teaching or something like that. But technically, if you want to get really particular, there are two Torahs.

There's one from Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments, to the end of Leviticus. And then there's another one that comes later here in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, that title, is from two Greek words, deutero meaning second, and namos meaning law. Deuteronomy means literally the second law or the second Torah. And here's why. The law that you have from Exodus 20 to the end of Leviticus. Ten commandments to the end of Leviticus. That law was written by God from the top of Mount Sinai.

Israel's at the base in the desert. Israel was literally days out of slavery in Egypt. But Deuteronomy, you may or may not know this, was written 40-ish years later to that generation's kids after a very long detour in the desert I don't have time to talk about.

That generation's kids now are no longer out in the desert, but are on the edge of the Jordan River, about to step into the land of Canaan and become, for the first time, a nation, eventually with a king and a kingdom and a government and a temple. the law, all of that, they are right on the cusp, right on the verge of a whole new reality.

And so what Moses does is he calls everybody together right there on the side of the Jordan River. And he starts to retell the salient points of the law to this next generation. Because either they were not there or they were in like a...

baby sling thing on the front or a stroller or whatever they had back in the day. Maybe not a stroller. Maybe like a cart with, I don't know, something. A camel. I don't know. And he starts to retell the salient points of the law to the next generation. Now, here in chapter 5 of Deuteronomy, I mean, Moses retells the Ten Commandments, and I want you to see what he is up to. Chapter 5, skip down to commandment number 4 in verse 12. Here it is. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

As Yahweh your God has commanded you, six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey, or any of your... animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest

As you do, remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you up out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, here's why. That's why Yahweh your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. Now, notice this. The first half of the commandment is almost identical. Just one word is changed in that opening line from remember the Sabbath in Exodus to observe the Sabbath in Deuteronomy.

So if you come from a Jewish background or if you practice any kind of a Jewish tradition around Sabbath, you know that there are two candles for Sabbath in the ritual. And we do this at my family every Friday night, 20 minutes before the sun goes down. We start the Sabbath. You light two candles.

One candle is symbolic for remember the Sabbath, and the other candle, the second one, is symbolic for this command right here, to observe the Sabbath. So we always go around and we ask the kids, hey kids, what do the candles of Sabbath symbolize? And it's remembering. We forget. Observe. And I love this language of observe. Think of it like the way that you observe Christmas.

So most of you, unless if you're really crazy, laid back, and you're responsible, not that those are the same thing, but they kind of are. I'm kidding. Most of you get ready for Christmas. You don't just wake up Christmas morning and think, oh, what should we do today? I don't know

Go to my parents. No. Is Barista open? Maybe. Most of you think about Christmas in advance. You gear up. You prep for it. You shop for it. You get food. You think of ways to make it special with family or friends or food or drink or a fire. in the fireplace, and you treat that day very different than your average Monday or whatever it is. It stands apart.

That's the idea. That's how we are to interact with the Sabbath. It's like a holiday, like a holy day that comes once a week, but without all the stress of Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever. where we treat it in such a way that it stands apart. We make it special. We remember it. We don't forget it and get sucked into the pace of life. And we also observe it. We pay careful attention to how we celebrate.

This weekly holiday or holy day. So that's changed at the beginning. And then it's basically the same until the second half or until the end. And it's really interesting. Moses changes the ending. You can do that by the way when you're Moses.

You're not, so don't change the Bible, okay? But he has a liberty that you and I don't have. He changes the ending. In Exodus, the ending is, For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh... But here in Deuteronomy, there's a little bit of stuff about male and female.

Slaves or servants. And then it's remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that Yahweh your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, that's why Yahweh your God is... On Mount Sinai, the command is grounded in the story of creation. But here in Deuteronomy, the command is grounded in the story of the Exodus. On Mount Sinai, the Sabbath is an art form. But here in Deuteronomy, it's an act of defiance against Pharaoh and his slave drivers.

At Mount Sinai, it's an invitation from God. Hey, come join in my rhythm and delight in my world. But here in Deuteronomy, it's a warning to stay away from Egypt and its system.

Why is that? It's because Egypt is somewhere that you never want to return to. A little bit of background to frame this up for you. In the story of the Exodus, if you ever go read that or watch the movie, there is all sorts of language about restlessness. For example, here's a couple of lines from half of one chapter. Quote, Why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work.

quote, you are stopping them from working, quote, make the work harder for the people so that they keep working. Quote, Pharaoh said, lazy, that's what you are, lazy. That is why you keep saying, let us go and sacrifice to Yahweh. Now, get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce the full quota of bricks. By the way, this is just... from half a chapter. In the story...

Pharaoh, the character, is implacable and relentless. I mean, he is ruthless and cruel, a tyrant. No matter how hard the Hebrews work, it's never enough. It's never enough. They lived under the oppressive yoke of the daily quota. More, more, more. And it wasn't just Pharaoh. It was Egypt as a whole, even the economic system. Israel was making bricks, we read in the story, to build supply cities. Not cities, supply cities.

Entire cities just for Pharaoh and all of his rich friends to store extra stuff. Egypt's appetite for more was insatiable. There was never enough. Never enough money, never enough stuff, never enough food, never enough drink, never enough goods, never enough services. And it was an economic system built on the backs of slaves. To get to the lavish, opulent lifestyle of a pharaoh or an Egypt, you need what economists call cheap labor, which is a nice way of saying slavery.

to do all the work that you have no desire to do so that you can live it up and rest and enjoy life while other people are down making bricks. And slaves, here's the thing about slaves. Slaves don't get a Sabbath. slaves are less than human slaves are a commodity to buy and sell slaves only have value in what they produce they work all day every day until they die. It turns out that rest is a byproduct of freedom. No freedom, no rest. Freedom, rest.

So the command here in Deuteronomy is remember you're not slaves anymore. You're not in Egypt. You're free. So rest. Sabbath was a way for Israel to stay free from slavery and listen to never become the slave drivers. Here, the commands about how... And notice all of the commands about how you treat your male and female servant, your animal, the foreigner or the refugee or the immigrant, legal or illegal in your village.

Sabbath was a line in the sand. It was a way of saying, listen, we will never go back to Egypt. Never. And we will never become Egypt. As we become a nation, as we set up a government, as we have a king and a tax system and labor, we will never become that.

And we need Sabbath now more than ever before because I would argue that Pharaoh is alive and well. And so is Egypt. And guess what? Who is Egypt now? It's us. It's us. Like it or not, the global economic system, of which America is a key player, if not the engine driving the whole thing forward, at least for another few decades,

Our global economic system is set up very similar to Egypt. It's literally like a pyramid. Here's an infographic of what economists call the global wealth pyramid. Notice at the bottom is just about 70% of humanity. that make up 3.3% of the world's wealth. Then at the top is 0.6%. of humanity that make up just shy of 40% of the world's wealth. Now, where are we on this pyramid?

Some of you are thinking, I'm in college. Well, where are we? We're towards the top. If you're at the top, please start tithing, okay? We're not at the top, but we're near the top. We're on the upper end. And here's the thing. Egypt is really lousy if you're a slave, but it is not half bad if you're an Egyptian. At the bottom... are upwards of 4 billion people, the vast swath of humanity, who make our t-shirts and our shoes and our iPhones.

You all know this, but there are 28 million, give or take, slaves in the world today. That's way more than we're ever involved in the African-American slave trade a century or two ago, as heinous as that was. 28 million slaves. It's the byproduct of globalization. A lot of us have staff made by slaves all over our apartment and our house. A lot of us tonight are wearing clothing made by slaves.

This is the world that we live in. And it's not just an economic system. It's a culture that we live in, a culture of restlessness. And you all feel this the second you walk out the door, right? We never feel in the West, we have so much, but we never feel like we have enough. In this culture, there is an endless, unquenchable lust for more. Here in the U.S., we work more than ever before.

The Japanese have a phrase, karoshi, that means death by overwork. But here's the thing. Americans on average work 137 more hours per year than the Japanese. And 260 more hours per year than the French, and then I love it, 499 more hours a year than the French. What did I say? I meant the British first, sorry. 500 more hours a year than the French.

We work more than any other nation in the world. This is due in large part to technology. So-called labor-saving devices like the smartphone or email or the internet have made the office, and I think I said this last week, something that you carry around in your back pocket.

It's like I'm just barely old enough that I remember when the office was something that you actually would go to. It was a building. It had a roof. It had a door. You had a key. You got a job. And they're like, hey, here's a key. It's way long ago. Some of you are like, man, I don't even know. What? You're looking at me with these crazy, weird eyes. Now, to go to the office, all you have to do is roll over in the morning and unlock your phone.

And I'm not a Luddite. I'm not anti-technology. Technology does a ton of good in the world. But I very much believe that every generation has its blind spots. And I think that digital addiction is at the top of the list for hours. I think that our kids, a lot of you don't even have kids yet, but I think our kids will grow up and say, my dad was always on his phone. My mom was never present.

I feel like she was more interested in getting more likes on Instagram than she was in me. Our generation, to rebel, we all went out and got tattoos. I think our kids will all go out and buy, like, flip phones. Just to stick it to mom and dad. Or a hard line. Like hard lines make a comeback. They're like dial in. Hey, Joe, let's get together face to face. Man, just kick it to mom and dad, you know?

Here's an idea. Here's a challenge for you, okay, this coming week. This is a crazy challenge only for the few, the brave. Take your phone. On the upper right-hand side, if you have an iPhone, there's a button. Push it down and hold on for a minute. This thing comes up. You're like, oh yeah, I do this with my phone. It's glitchy. You mean like a restart? Nope, not a restart. Take it, slide it off, take it, put it away in a closet or in a drawer and get the heck outside.

Well, maybe not this time of year. Go to a coffee shop. Or to the living room. Whatever. Do something. Have coffee with a friend. Take a hike in Forest Park. Go for a run. Read your Bible. Don't take an Instagram of you kind of reading your Bible for 30 seconds. 20 minutes later, you're like, oh, I don't have time to actually read my Bible. But man, that post is money, going to get so many likes. No.

Be present in the moment. That's my challenge for you this coming week. My entire missional community did that this last week. We all turned off our phones for Sabbath, and it was so life-giving. My point is that we work more than ever before. And on top of that, we have more than ever before. America makes up 4% of the world's population, but over 22% of the world's economy.

Since 1950, the per capita income of Americans has tripled. Here in Portland, the median income for a family of four is $74,000. That's way higher than the national average. By the way, that stat is for the tri-county area. My guess is that if you were to just measure... could not find it, but if you were to just measure the urban core, that number would actually be way higher. We work more than ever before, we have more than ever before, but in spite of that, we are just as unhappy as ever.

In fact, sociologists tell us that happiness levels in the US hit a peak in the 1950s and have been on the decline ever since grandma and grandpa were in high school. And that's interesting to me because that's right around the time that we as a nation stopped the practice of Sabbath.

Maybe Sabbath isn't the right word, but at least back in the day, prior to that, Sunday, everything was closed down. Whenever I talk to my dad about the Sabbath, he always just starts to go into like, maybe this is his age, but he just starts to go into reminisce mode. Oh, I remember when I was a kid, John Mark.

Everything was closed. You could not buy anything. Everybody went to church. You were either Catholic or you were Protestant. And if you're Protestant, you're either liberal or conservative. But everybody basically went to church. Everything was shut down. You were with your family. You all had Sunday dinner after church.

which is lunch, but we called it dinner, this thing. And I remember John Mark 7-11. That was the beginning of the end. It was this brand new thing, this place that was actually open seven days a week. It was the first of its kind. And I listened to him talk about that transition.

from where Sabbath was actually a part of the culture to where it is now long gone. It's interesting, that's about the same time that materialism in the U.S. started to ratchet up, right? Sunday has become shopping day for a lot of people. Now here we are. over a half century later. And in America, we spend $250 billion a year on antidepressants. It's now the second highest volume drug.

And on top of that, mental illness is exploding, bipolar, schizophrenia, all of this stuff is up a staggering, if not terrifying amount. Doctors who shy away from this word are starting to use the label of pandemic for mental illness. States. We are literally going crazy. As Abraham Joshua Heschel said, there is happiness in the love of labor. There is misery in the love of gain.

So we work more than ever before, and we have more than ever before, but we're miserable. It's Egypt all over again. And here's the thing that I want you to see tonight. Pay attention. Sabbath is an act of resistance. Sabbath is a way of saying no to Pharaoh. and his slave drivers. It's a rebellion. It's an act of defiance. It's an insurgency, an act of war. It is a line in the sand. It is a way of saying enough.

Enough work. Work is a good thing, but it's not the thing. We were made not just for production. We were also made for pleasure. Sabbath is a way to break our addiction to accomplishment. And enough stuff. Stuff isn't bad, but most of us don't really need another pair of shoes. Sabbath is a way to break our addiction to accumulation.

Out of the Sabbath command here in Exodus and Deuteronomy come all of the later commands in the Old Testament, if you've read it, to not buy or sell at all on the Sabbath. So in Israel, up through the time of Christ, and to this day, Orthodox Jewish community.

From 20 minutes before Sabbath on sundown on Friday night to late on Saturday, there is nothing open. Everything is closed down. You can't buy. You can't sell. You can't trade. There's no commerce. Nothing. Why? Because it is a day to have. have enough. This is something that my wife and I, my family and I, we practice. Other than Blue Star Donuts, we don't really buy. And that I think Jesus is cool with.

We don't buy anything on the Sabbath. My phone is off. My wife's phone is off. The internet is down. The computers are locked away literally in a closet. There's no magazine out with home interior stuff or nothing. It's just a day to practice gratitude, not entitlement. Contentment, not discontentment. It's a day to celebrate and thank God for and enjoy all the stuff that we have, not think about even all the stuff that we don't have, much less that we want.

And it's not that accomplishment and accumulation are evil at all. It's that there is a rhythm. There's work and there's rest. There is a limit. At some point, you and I need to draw a line in the sand to say, listen, enough, no more. I don't need to work more hours. I don't need to move up in the company. I don't need a promotion. I don't need a bonus. I don't need another commission. I don't have to get the perfect score. I don't have anything to prove.

I don't have to earn my father's love. I am a son. I am a daughter of the father of everything. I have nothing to prove. My self-worth, my identity does not come from my grade point average. or how young I am at what position in the company, or whether or not I own my own business, or how much money I make, or how well-known I am, or how many likes I get, or what. That is not who I am. I'm a son. I'm a daughter of God.

I don't need more stuff. I don't need to buy more. I don't need to sell more. I don't need another pair of jeans. I don't need a brand new iPhone. I don't need to experience everything. I don't need another stamp in my passport. I don't have to eat at every single new restaurant in the city. I don't have to have my kids in ballet or soccer all year long.

I don't have to look younger or stronger or have flatter abs, although that would be nice. I do not need to make everybody happy, and I do not need to get everything that I want. It's enough. There is no daily quota. Pharaoh is dead. Egypt is in the past. The only slave drivers are the one in the back of my head saying, get to work, you're lazy, get more, have more.

I'm not a slave anymore. I am free. And I'm a part of a different kingdom now with a different king. Sabbath is a way of saying no to Pharaoh and his Egypt. But it's also a way of saying yes to Yahweh and his kingdom. Yahweh is nothing like Pharaoh. It turns out that he's a lot more like Jesus. He is a Sabbath-keeping, Sabbath-giving God.

And the practice of Sabbath, a weekly day set aside for rest and for worship, is how, or at least it's one of the ways that we break free from America, I mean from Egypt.

gravitational pull, and we slip into orbit around life in God. Now before we end, to wrap up, If you've been around Bridgetown for any length of time, you know that I've done this teaching a number of times before. I did my best to mix it up this time and add in some new material. Hopefully that was helpful. But the reality is I've done this teaching a number of times. And in all honesty, to shoot straight, most of you still don't practice Sabbath.

Maybe kind of, sort of, like what my buddy Ryan over here calls Sabbath, Sabbath-ish, kind of Sabbath-ish. Like maybe Sunday's kind of, sort of, yeah, it's kind of chill time, Sabbath-ish, you know? But not... actually full-on Sabbath. Can I just say that? Can I be honest with you guys? Most of you, no show of hands, most of you don't practice Sabbath. And honestly, here's my heart, no guilt.

No shame. That's not a, you know, I'm the pastor. I'm more spiritual than you. I mean, I am, but you already know that. It's not at all the heart. It's not passive aggressive. I just want to call out the elephant in the room. Most of you, you know about this. You have teachings on this. You have a book with three chapters in it. You have recommended resources. You have everything I have to give you.

And most of you basically say, well, that sounds great, but I'm too busy. And all I want to say tonight, no guilt. I just want to say you are missing out. I'm telling you that Sabbath is one of the best things on offer in the kingdom of God. Sabbath has become, at least for me and my family and a lot of close friends, it has become one of, if not the most important spiritual disciplines in my life. It's right up there in the trifecta of that. Sabbath prayer.

and the scripture have for me become three of the most important ways that I follow Jesus and live into the kingdom of God. It's become a vital, mandatory part of my emotional health. I mean, if I miss... Sabbath. I know I'm kind of emo and melancholy and sensitive and all of that and more.

But if I miss one week of Sabbath, I feel it. I am literally off the rest of the week. It's become a huge part of our family life, my kids, my wife. We look forward to it all week long. It is the highlight. My kids count down the days. We savor every minute, every hour of Sabbath. It's become a huge part of my joy. Nine times out of ten, Sabbath is the best day of my week. This last week, in all honesty, I had a really rough week. Actually, the last two weeks were just...

Hard, long story. But man, we Sabbath Friday night to Saturday afternoon. I'm telling you, Friday night and yesterday were just joy. I want this for all of you so bad. I want this for our community. I want us to be a community that takes work seriously, that goes against the current of laziness and let's hang out in our city. But I also want us to be a community that takes rest and worship seriously. A prophetic witness to this city and this generation of a better way to be human.

So I just want to say, and no guilt, no shame, why the heck are you not practicing Sabbath? Why? Well, I'm busy. Then be less busy. Somebody asked me this last week. I'm working 96 hours a week. How do I keep a healthy work-life balance? You stop working 96 hours a week. Like, hang out once in a while, man. All right? You need to hang out.

There is no such a thing. Why are you not practicing Sabbath? But to end, here's the end. Jesus said this. He said the Sabbath was made for man. And not man for the Sabbath. Love that line. Now in context, if you know the story of Jesus, he's dealing with the religious people of his day who had lost the plot line on the Sabbath, turned it into a legalistic. devoid of joy kind of ritual and lost sight of God's heart for him. So he's dealing with the Pharisees.

I've said this before. I think that first century Jews needed to hear the second half of that sentence. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. You have it backwards. But I think that 21st century followers of Jesus need to hear the first half of that sentence. The Sabbath was made for man. There's a day that was literally made for human beings to flourish and thrive in God's world.

There's a day that is blessed and is holy. Scholars debate back and forth, is the command for Sabbath still valid? Do we have to or not have to? Frankly, I don't even care. It still stands as wisdom. This is how God set up the world to thrive. This is how God set up you and me to thrive. Don't miss out on it. You know, if you do the math one day a week It adds up to 52 days a year. You multiply that by the average lifespan in the U.S., that adds up to well over a decade, 10 to 12 years of life.

You add in a decade of rest and worship, or you take out a decade of rest and worship, and you are dealing with a very different kind of life. One doctor I read last week. did a study on the happiest people in America, and he found this one group of just really happy people who actually also lived 12 years longer on average than most Americans. And these people were followers of Jesus who were religious, literally, about the Sabbath.

this in-depth study and overview and all of that, this doctor's conclusion, right or wrong, was the reason they lived 12 years longer than the average American was because of Sabbath, and they literally lived on average a day longer. for every day that they spent in rest and worship. My point there is, if he's right, there is life literally in the Sabbath. Not just spiritually, but literally. There's life in this.

To end, Sabbath is like friendship, or blue sky, or rock and roll, or snickerdoodle ice cream from Salt and Straw. You can get by without it, but you really can't live.

let's pray Jamal makes an important point here Sabbath teaches us contentment, that we have enough. This cuts against everything our culture preaches. We're constantly told we need more, to do more, be more. No wonder we struggle with never feeling like we're enough. The practice of gratitude is one of the most powerful ways of growing in contentment and Sabbath creates the perfect space to practice it. So today...

I'm going to make some space for us to practice gratitude. The real beauty of gratitude comes when we practice it consistently over time. So I'd encourage you to make this a regular rhythm in your life. But for now... Take a few deep breaths with me as you recenter your attention on God's nearness. And just survey your life. What do you have to be grateful for? As each thing comes to mind, thank God for it. I'll leave 30 seconds here for you to do that and close with a prayer.

Father, you are the giver of every good gift. Thank you for your faithfulness, your provision, and your love that never changes. Help us rest today in who you are. not in what we achieve Amen Thanks for listening. This podcast is from Practice in the Way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. Thanks to Little Thoughts for our show music.

We're a crowdfunded nonprofit. Everything we make is completely free because it's already been paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks today goes to Joanne from Coto de Casa, California. Rob from Marble Falls, Texas Steve from Deptford, New Jersey Dustin from Los Angeles, California and Anna from Cedarburg, Wisconsin Thank you all very much

To join these friends in the circle or learn more about our resources, visit practiceintheway.org. Until next time, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.