Sermon Tone Analysis

Over the next few week we are going to have a short sermon series look at the issue of Why are we often so crazy busy, or why is it that we can feel so frantic, or overwhelmed, or why do we sometimes feel like we just can’t.

This overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness is this the question and we will look to the Bible to see what God’s answers are to this problem.

Now this experience has been a round a long time, but this overwhelmed busyness and hurriedness is even more pronounced than it has been and one of the reasons is because we are nudged in this direction by our culture, particularly by the technological devices that are supposed to make things easier.

Behavioral economist and noble prize winner Richard Thaler wrote a book a few years called nudge.

He describes a nudge as a small change in our environment that some choices easier.

Like saving for retirement.

We know we should save for later on in life, yet it requires planning and self control.

So lawmakers used Thaler’s idea of a nudge to reform our 401k system, and make the choice of saving easier.

How did they do it?

They did it with one key change: Instead of companies asking employees to sign up for a retirement savings plan, they encouraged employers to enroll workers automatically, but offer the right to opt out to anyone who didn’t want to participate.

What happend?

Well it doubled 401k participation.

More than 91% of workers enrolled up from 42%.

All it took was a nudge, it does not make the choice for people, but it made enrolling in the 401k easier than not.

But not all nudges are created equal, some nudges make poor choices easier.

And our culture, with our easy everywhere technology, nudges us in a direction of being overwhelmed, feeling more busy, and more hurried.

I am going to be looking at the impact of newer technology has played in this experience of hurriedness and busyness

But there is one nudge that we face, that often makes our lives more fernective

broadly on the sabbath.

The way we are going about it is as we were praying and thinking about what are some needs

Because God is our creator we should embrace a life of work and rest

I am going to be looking at the impact of newer technology has played in this experience of hurriedness and busyness

FCF: Now Technology bring many good and helpful things, but when we don’t keep technology in its proper place it disrupts the rhythms of work and rest that God created us for and we end up being used by them instead of using them and when that happens we experiences more anxiety, overwhelmednees, we feel more hurried.

Omnipotent: into the night and all the time

God’s created rhythms of work and rest

What I hope we can see from God’s word this morning is that

Omniscient: All knowing w/wisdom

We don’t go away from our work, we have the oppertunity to work when we are home, and we cannot be present with people

Over the next few week we are going to have a short sermon series around the question: Why are we often so crazy busy, or why is it that we can feel so frantic, or overwhelmed, or why do we sometimes feel like we just can’t.

So this overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness is this the question and John and I will be looking to the Bible to see what God’s answers are to this problem.

Because God is our creator we should embrace his rhythm of work and rest

Proposition: Because God is our creator we should embrace a life of work and rest

So first let’s look at his rhythm of work and rest.

In our passage we read

Now let’s look at the creation in account that this passage references in Genesis

Genesis 1:

And that goes on for six days and then we see

Genesis 2:

genesis 2:

God just freed his people from slavery, they were being used by Pharaoh and they needed to lean how to work and rest as free people and not as slaves.

As slaves they were treated as less than human required to work all day every day, what they did with their time was dictated by Pharaoh.

But God in his “work” in the creation account gave his people analogy.

He said: “look I worked all day and at the end of the each day when I finished creating light I “rested” from the evening time until the morning, then I got up and worked all day again, when finished that I finished the next thing I rested during the evening and morning.

Then on the last day of the week instead of working, I rested.

God’s creation work week is an analogy to how we should pattern our work days and week.

And God is saying: because I made you and made you in my image, I am the one who gets to say what work and rest look like, not the Pharaoh who just used you for what he could get from you.

With the creation account, set in opposition to the forced labor of Pharaoh, God’s gives people his rhythm of work.

Illustration:

Early this summer we had to have a tree taken down in our yard.

So the tree cutters came and and took down a huge tree in our yard.

And instead of having them haul away all these blocks wood left over I had him leave it so I could chop it up for fire wood.

So after they were gone I got my ax and feeling very manly I went to chop firewood.

And what I learned very quickly is that chopping wood is not about just swinging the ax, but requires some technique.

After some exhausting trial and error it was clear that the most effective way to chop the wood is to chop with the gain of the wood.

When you chop with the gain it splits much more easily, and is a whole lot less toilsome.

Application: When we embrace God’s rhythm of work it is like we we are chopping with the grain of creation.

And when we are out of line with his rhythm of work and rest it is like we are chopping against the grain.

And when we chop against the grain in this way what happens is we experience an overwhelmed busyness, a frenetic pace, and a hectic life.

God’s pattern is to work for part of the day and rest in the evening, and then one entire day we rest.

One of the reasons this is hard for us to do is because technology while offers so many benefits it also provides us with an ever present nudge to work, and to push against the grain of how God created us.

Take a simple example: when evening comes, it does not have to be evening for us because we have this amazing technology where we can just flip a switch and voila it is day.

And we can keep working.

Before electricity you had to burn the midnight oil which was very costly thing to do.

We also have the nudge of the ever present smart phone and laptops, and the availability to be always on and connected.

So there you are reading to your kid before bed and ding goes the email and you are nudged and your attention is taken away.

You are nudged, who or what could that be?

And of course the default setting on our phones apps is to notify us of every possible thing.

And of course the default setting on our phones apps is to notify us of every possible thing.

So you put you kid to bed and then go and read the email and it is a problem, so maybe you try to resolve it and then go to bed, or you don’t try to resolve it, but you just worry about it and can’t fall asleep.

In either case the evening that is meant for rest and time with family, friends and neighbors is spent working or preoccupied and real rest is as illusive as the early morning fog.

So what do we do about this?

How do we have embrace God’s rhythm of work and rest?

Well, one way to do this is to disconnect from devices for at least one hour a day, one day a week.

And if you are in a situation where you need to be available, put it in another part of the house and go and check it once or twice during the day.

Turn off the nudge from technology so that it is not the easy choice, set your self up to embrace God’s rhythm of work.

Technology which promises to make work easier often makes it more toilsom

Technology says, you don’t have to be done when the sun goes down.

You don’t have to be done when you go home.

You can always be on, always be available.

We should also embrace his rhythm of rest

Look with me at

And then look

They were embrace God’s rhythm of word and rest by observing the Sabbath as a sign and the experience of resting on the Sabbath is refreshment.

The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely.

The sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness.

They were embrace God’s rhythm of word and rest by observing the Sabbath as a sign and the experience of resting on the Sabbath is refreshment.

The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely.

The sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness.

They were embrace God’s rhythm of rest by resting on the Sabbath and being refreshed.

The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely.

One way of thinking about Sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, hurriedness, and anxiety.

They were embrace God’s rhythm of word and rest by observing the Sabbath as a sign and the experience of resting on the Sabbath is refreshment.

The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely.

The sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness.

Now here is where this gets difficult for us, because not all rest is created equal.

One reason for this is because as Andy Crouch shows we have all too often traded rest for leisure.

What he called a fruitless escape from work.

Leisure is a kind of rest that does not refresh our souls and does not deepen our relationship with God and neighbors.

Leisure is a kind of rest that requires others to work on our behalf.

We try to entertain ourselves.