You can find the video here: https://www.facebook.com/RichlandNaz/videos/604160676846710/
Most of us have busy lives and right now the busy has changed and shifted in certain ways. Now the busy is because we are homeschooling children and working from home. We aren’t going out very much if having any outings at all.
No matter your situation, this stay home to slow the curve plan is not slowing our busy lives. I think I am on more meetings on zoom on a weekly basis than I attended in a whole month in person when we were up and running – simply because you can schedule a meeting and attend from the comfort of your own home.
I say that to say this, we live hectic lives moving from one thing to another. And it happens that when we do this we rarely take time to rest. We rarely take the time necessary to connect with God in truly intimate ways. We were meant to rest we were meant for sabbath.
Now sabbath doesn’t mean we just take a day off from our normal work, it means we actually rest. I say this because when we take a normal day off, there are chores to do tasks we want to accomplish. When we take sabbath, or rather, when we observe the sabbath, we don’t do those things either. So let’s think a bit about our sabbath keeping practices.
What does the word sabbath mean to you? What does it mean to practice sabbath? Think about that as we go through our devotion this morning.
How would you feel, if I gave you a time out. I know that often we look at a time out as a form of punishment, but in this case I believe we can see it as a time to stop the chaos or put a halt to the chaos in your life. This could be a time where we break free from the daily routine. Sabbath isn’t something that is forced on you, it’s actually a gift from God.
In reality God is not asking us to do this if we feel like it, His Word tells us that sabbath is designed for us that we would be able to function the way God intended for us to live. Our tendency is to think I’m ok, I’m working from home, I really don’t need a sabbath. WRONG!!!
When we use that thought process to wriggle out of sabbath, we’ve bought into a lie that says we aren’t doing enough. There’s always more to be done. Now, as a pastor I had to come to the realization that I’m never going to get “caught up” with my work. There’s always going to be work to do. And it was very difficult for me to realize this. You see I like to make a list for the day, and cross all those things off my list. If I miss one or heaven forbid more, then I didn’t accomplish anything that day. However, ministry is full of interruptions, in fact Jesus did most of His ministry while being interrupted on His journey to the cross.
And please don’t confuse this with procrastinating. We are not putting off until tomorrow what could or should be done today. What we need to change, is our innate thought we are so tied to our schedule that we cannot make room to leave something tomorrow. I firmly believe that WORKING FROM HOME MAKES THIS WORSE!
Here’s what I’m thinking, we are not to busy, important, or needed, that we are not able to take a rest. What it tells me – is that we’re too scared; too scared to relinquish control of time. We want to so manage our time down to the last waking moment of the day because we think if we aren’t busy things are going to fall apart. And we need to remember that Sabbath is a gift not a burden. Remember during Jesus’ time it was put onto the people as a burden.
Matthew 12:1-14 (NIV) At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
The reality is that we all need rest from the demands of the world and the good news is that Jesus offers us this rest. Sabbath is not going to elbow its way into our lives, we have to make room for it.