Sabbath

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Fish fry and pie auction

Back to church Sunday is next Sunday

Board meeting today at 1:30

Mission and Vision

Testimonies of anything God has done in the pasture of prayer

Read Exodus 20:8-11

Exodus 20:8–11 ESV

“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, your male servant, or your female servant, or 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 rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Sermon

What makes you different from a non-believer?

What is it about your life?

What is it about your time?

Now I’m not asking what makes your political party different from another political party… because believe it or not there are Christians on both sides of the aisle

What I’m asking is what is it about who you are… that a buddhist doesn’t have?

What makes you different from a muslim?

What makes you different from an american who looks like you… same race, same socio economic status, but they are a non-believer? How are you different?

This is an important question to ask, because the world is on Fire

I mean literally as in the case of the west coast of the US

but also figuratively in the case of all of the unrest

And in the midst of it, you would think that there would be an group of people singing in the storm

Right? You would think that the Church, the great body of christ would be markedly different from the fray that surrounds it

Yet here we are

What is it that makes you different?

So for the ancient church of the Hebrew people, for the Jew one of the markers of their set apartness, their differentness in the world was the sabbath

Sabbath was given to the people of God as a holy day where they lived different

We read this in the scripture from today

The OT tells us that the Jews lived as a different type of nation among the heathens

They were set apart

They weren’t supposed to mistreat and overuse people

They were not supposed to behave like those around them

The Sabbath was given to a people who had spent 400 years in captivity working from birth till death

The sabbath as given to a people who only saw exploitation and slavery and subjugation as a sign of success

The sabbath was given to a people who didn’t even know the God who saved them

The sabbath was given to a people who had forgotten where they came from

The sabbath was a reminder to a people living in exile in babylon and under oppressive and tyrannical leadership that they had a God bigger then their situation and a hope that was beyond this life

And the sabbath was the Lord’s lived expression of his presence in the people’s routine

The idea of the Peace and Rest of God was an issue of hope and faith

Faith that the Lord who set apart a day of rest for his people would bring it into fulfillment in the future

Faith that allowed you to live above the fray. Not neglecting the truth that the world is crazy, but not buying into the insanity. Instead living out the life of the Kingdom of God all while being in the world

Being a Jew meant that you would work for 6 days and on the 7th day you would enter into the rest that God provided

This rest was a sign that you were trusting in the Lord

that you were submitting your finances, your time, your opinions

that you were going to take some time in the midst of whatever is going on and purpose yourself to praise the Lord. To worship the only God of all creation.

The Idea of Sabbath was actually pretty revolutionary to the people of that time

Heck the idea of Sabbath is revolutionary to the people of today

Now we as believers in Christ are not exempt from the command of the Lord to follow the Sabbath

Remember Jesus said in Matthew 5 that he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it

Meaning all of the law finds its fulfillment and its completion in the life and ministry of Jesus as well as the cross and resurrection of Christ

We just live sabbath out a different way… that is if we live it out

WE see in Jesus’ life that he would heal people on the sabbath

He would often go against the rabbinical rules, that were extra rules not given by God, in order to fully live out the life of Sabbath, of rest and peace

He even tells us in Mark 2 that he is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus makes his first declaration at his intentions as the messiah on the Sabbath in temple. He would observe the sabbath every Saturday

But the crazy thing about the ministry of Christ is that he didnt come so that you could continue living like the world 6 days of the week and call 1 day sabbath.

But by dying to self and living in Christ you are declaring to the world that you are a person of sabbath

That in the midst of the chaos, you are going to live in a way that delcares the Lordship of Christ and the primacy of the Kingdom of God

That no matter what the world throws at you, you are not going to submit yourself to the yoke of slavery through hate, through sin, through greed, through consumption, through religiocity

Just as the Sabbath was a revolutionary thought to those in the ancient world, living as a prisoner of hope in light of the kingdom of God is a revolutionary thought today

Jesus is our sabbath rest.

In him we find that we are marked

We are different

The way we spend our time should be different then the world

The way we spend our money should be different than the world

Just like the ancient hebrews, we should be living our lives marked by the sabbath lifestyle that Christ demonstrated

In Christ it’sn

Our life should be about living not as citizens as any nation but as citizens of the Kingdom of God

That is a life marked by generosity

Marked by unity

marked by peace

marked by love

marked by hope

This hope goes beyond an election. This hope is greater than whoever sits in the white house

This hope has to be greater than your own earthly life

Living this way means that you are able to rise above the chaos

That you are able to declare to a lost and dying world that you have something that can sustain them because it sustains you

You can demonstrate that you don’t have to resort to the latest facebook meme that backs up your bigotry and bias

You can demonstrate that you don’t have to argue and fight about the latest youtube conspiracy theory

You can demonstrate that the life of Christ unites you with others

I ask again, How are you different?

If your answer is anything other than I trust in Jesus and therefore I have hope

If your answer is anything other than I trust inJesus and therefore I am able to live in love

If your answer is anything other than I have the victory in Jesus over the temporal trials of this world...

Then your life is un-markedly common. In other words, you’re not different. You are simply painting your idols in the colors of the cross and attempting to veil your idolatry under whatever soothes your conscious

I want to show this video by The Bible Project

Show video

Today we are celebrating holy communion

This is one of the means of God’s grace that marks and changes our life

What we are saying is that here at the table of Christ we are all one

Black, white, republican, democrat, poor, rich, man, woman, pastor, lay member… we are all coming to the table declaring that we are a part of the body

That this life is no longer about us but we are reminded that we are to die to self, live in Christ, and allow him to reign in our lives

Before we take communion I want to open up the altar

I’m going to the altar to repent on behalf of the church

That we have not been marked by those who live in unity

that we have not lived as those who declare the truth of scripture above the latest worldly rhetoric

While this song plays, I want to invite you out of the mind of watching a sermon and into participating in what God is trying to do in your hearts