Rest and Worship
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What is the Sabbath?
What is the Sabbath?
In today’s society, our lives are very efficient. If we need to contact our friends, all we need to do is to pick up our hand phones and and we can call our friends to talk. When we need to do work, we can do work anywhere. We can do it on our phones or on our laptops that we can bring everywhere we go. So we can do our work and contact people anywhere anytime. Just 10 years ago, not everyone was using a smartphone or a mobile laptop. But just ten years since then, our lives have become very efficient. Last time when your boss wanted you to get work done, you would have to wait till the next day when you got back to work to do it. But now when the boss calls you, he will ask you to do the work now. because you can do it on your phone and laptop. When we want to be entertained, what do we do? Where is your entertainment? It’s in your pockets. Your phones. You play games, watch movies, chat with friends, buy things, update status on Facebook, twitter and Instagram.
In the past people would go out with friends when they are bored. But these days, many people will be staying at home and spending time on the phone most of the time. We go meet friends for dinner at times and when we are waiting for the food to come. What will happen. What will people do? Everyone will take out our phones and browse Facebook or watch YouTube. They will not talk until the food comes. We need to be entertained by media every single moment of our time. We have lesser time to reflect on the important things of life like relationships and goals in our lives. We have no time to reflect on life. Our lives are speeding up more and more and this is a problem. We are moving so fast that many of us are burning out.
What happens when we keep filling our lives with so many things to do and so many distractions in our lives that we don’t have time to really rest? Some people might think that resting is when you spend time watching videos on your phone or playing games on your phone. But is that really rest? Have you ever tried to watch 3 hours of drama to get some rest? How do you feel after watching all that drama. i think that you will feel even more tired. Because this does not give us rest. So let’s ask the question. How do we find rest? Do you think rest is important? Yes. because if we do not find rest in our lives, we will start to breakdown.
There has been an increase of depression in the world in these few years. As I went to do some research on why this is the case, the reasons that doctors gave for the rise of depression in our world are:
“Many people are worried about how busy they are,”
“There’s a lack of community and we spend more time in front of screens that talking to people. If there is no community, there is no one to share our problems with.
From all these things we can see that we have done well in many things in making our world more advanced and more efficient. But our lives are becoming so fast that we have lost the ability to slow down and really rest.
12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 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, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
In this passage, it talks about the commandment of God to the Israelites to observe the Sabbath. Let us learn from this passage about rest.
True rest is found in communion with God.
The meaning of the word Sabbath is to rest. God calls them to make it Holy. To keep the Sabbath holy is to keep the Sabbath for the Lord and not allow any other thing to cause them to be distracted from God. Then it says for six days the Israelites shall do all their work and the seventh day is a Sabbath or rest to the Lord their God. Everyone in the house hold is to rest, including all the slaves and animals. They are to remember that they were slaves in Egypt and the Lord rescued them with his mighty hand. So in summary the purpose of the Sabbath is for the people to remember God and what God has done for them.
The meaning of the word Sabbath is to rest. God calls them to make it Holy. To keep the Sabbath holy is to keep the Sabbath for the Lord and not allow any other thing to cause them to be distracted from God. Then it says for six days the Israelites shall do all their work and the seventh day is a Sabbath or rest to the Lord their God. Everyone in the house hold is to rest, including all the slaves and animals. They are to remember that they wee slaves in Egypt and the Lord rescued them with his mighty hand
Why did God command all the Israelites to observe the Sabbath?
How is this rest? Will you find rest when you take time to remember what God has done for you? Some say yes, some say no.
Everyday we go to work to try to make money to feed ourselves and this is something that we do everyday just to get by in life. If this is all we do all our life without any other purpose in our lives, we will grow very tired. If we do not stop from our work and think about what is our purpose of life and what are we doing with our lives, we will lose our direction in life. Because we will not go anywhere if we have no destination in mind.
God commanded that the Israelites keep the sabbath and they were to remember what God has done for them when God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. When we remember what God has done for us, we remember that God loves us and has promised to lead us and provide for us. This gives us hope for the future. Because God is a God that does not change. Our circumstances and problems in our lives might have changed, but our God has not changed. God is as faithful as the the day that we first came to know God.
19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
we begin to remember that we are not in control of what happens in our lives. God is the one who provides for us and open doors for us. we find rest when we know that God is the only one who can save us and direct us in our lives. We don’t have to try so hard to make it on our own.
Num 23@19we begin to remember that we are not in control of what happens in our lives. God is the one who provides for us and open doors for us. we find rest when we know that God is the only one who can save us and direct us in our lives. We don’t have to try so hard to make it on our own.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Our God and saviour does not change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Have we been so busy that we forget about God in our lives?
Our God and saviour does not change.
2. True rest is found in Obedience.
The last time that I preached about worship, I shared that worship is not just something that we do on Sunday morning when we come to Church. But it is living our lives as a act of worship in our lives. We live a life that is obedient to God.
Many times we feel so stressed out and tired in life because we don’t feel secure about our future. We have our own plans for our future and we are working to make our plans come true. When things don’t go our way, we start to feel stressed and worried because things are going out of control, out of our plans. We want control. if we live our lives like this, we will go mad. We will breakdown. Because the truth is you are not in control of many things in your life. You have limited control over how others think of you, how much money you earn, your health and even you family members or your children.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
When we try to live our lives according to our own desires and plans without God, we are living outside of God’s plan for us and it is called sin. When we sin in our lives, there are consequences. God gives us free will in our lives because he loves us. So we have the ability to choose for ourselves how we will live our lives. We can choose to either live our lives according to what we want o do, or we can allow God to lead us and give us his plans for our lives. When we live our lives for ourselves, we will find that are lives are filled with anxiety and fear. Because if we live our lives for our own plans, we have to make sure that everything according to what we want in order for our plans to succeed. So we are responsible for our own success.
But if we obey God and allow God to lead us and we put our hope and trust in God. Who is responsible for the success of our lives? Yes God is responsible. And the difference is God is in ultimate control over everything that happens in our lives. Nothing surprises God. Even the bad things that happens are a part of God’s plan to do good to us when we trust and obey him.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
Heb 3:
In this verse, it says if you hear the voice of God , do not harden your heart in rebellion like your fathers who put God to the test and in the end they all died in the desert. Then God said they always go astray in their heart and do not know God’s ways. And because of that they shall not enter God’s rest. If we rebel against God and do not obey God in our lives, we will not be able to find our rest. Because only God can give us what we want and need in our lives. Security, purpose and worth.
3. True rest is found when we worship God.
3. True rest is found when we worship God.
12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matt 12:
Jesus came to those who need help and Jesus came to show mercy to us that when we were yet sinners Jesus chose to die for us and give his life as a ransom for us. Jesus came not to call the righteous but to call the sinners. When we become Christians and we have received mercy from God. And we have experienced God’s blessings in our lives, what should be our response? i think we should respond in worship. We should rejoice that we have ben saved from our sins. That we have been chosen by God to live a life that has real life and more than that we have eternal life. This is the hope we have in God. That no matter what happens in this life, God assures us that God will help us and lead us through every season of our life. The only thing that we have to do is to do is trust him and do what he says.
At the end of the day what is most important is not how much money you have made or what high position you had when you were working or how many friends you had. What matters is how we have responded to Jesus in our lives. Because our responsibility in this life is worship God our creator with our lives. Allowing God to use us to do his work to bring the good news to the rest of the world. This is all that matters in this life. What have we used the time and life that God had given us? Have we been responsible stewards of what has been given to us. Have we worshipped God with our lives. When we are about to die, we will not think about how much money we have or how well we did at work. We would begin to ask ourselves what we have invested our lives in. Did we honor God with our lives or did we just invest everything on our selves trying to make ourselves happy but in the end there was not happiness.
We can only truly worship God if we know who we are in God. In knowing who we are in God, we know that we are loved and we have an identity and we have a future. And all these things give us rest. and in this rest we come into worship because we are thankful to God for the great gift that he has given to us people who are unworthy.
How do we find rest?
We can only truly worship God if we know who we are in God. In knowing who we are in God, we know that we are loved and we have an identity and we have a future. And all these things give us rest. and in this rest we come into worship because we are thankful to God for the great gift that he has given to us people who are unworthy.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
Deut 5:12-
There was a story about a man named blondin. He was a daredevil. He has previously walked on a tightrope across the niagra falls in America. This time,The he pushed a wheelbarrow across while blindfolded and asked for some audience participation. The crowds had watched and "Ooooohed" and "Aaaaahed!" He had proven that he could do it; of that, there was no doubt. But now he was asking for a volunteer to get into the wheelbarrow and take a ride across the Falls with him!
It is said that he asked his audience, "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?" Of course the crowd shouted that yes, they believed!
Why did God command all the Israelites to observe the Sabbath?
What happens if we don’t find rest in our lives?
How do we find rest?
We can only truly worship God if we know who we are in God. In knowing who we are in God, we know that we are loved and we have an identity and we have a future. And all these things give us rest. and in this rest we come into worship because we are thankful to God for the great gift that he has given to us people who are unworthy.
t of screens and not in front of other people. If you don’t have a community to reach out to, then your hopelessness doesn’t have any place to go.”
“There’s a lack of community. There’s the amount of time that we spend in front of screens and not in front of other people. If you don’t have a community to reach out to, then your hopelessness doesn’t have any place to go.”
Worship meaning worthship is 2 ways. When we find out the worth that God has given to us, then we will begin to know that God is good and worthy of our praise because he first loved us and gave us value and worth.
12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The Blondin story is told that it was after pushing a wheelbarrow across while blindfolded that Blondin asked for some audience participation. The crowds had watched and "Ooooohed" and "Aaaaahed!" He had proven that he could do it; of that, there was no doubt. But now he was asking for a volunteer to get into the wheelbarrow and take a ride across the Falls with him!
It is said that he asked his audience, "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?" Of course the crowd shouted that yes, they believed!
It was then that Blondin posed the question - "Who will get in the wheelbarrow?'
Worship meaning worthship is 2 ways. When we find out the worth that God has given to us, then we will begin to know that God is good and worthy of our praise because he first loved us and gave us value and worth.
Of course...none did.
Are we willing to get into the wheel barrel with Jesus and let him take control? are you willing to Believe Jesus at what he said and trust him? This is what it means to worship God in Spirit and in truth.