Resting in Our Freedom

Introduction (5m)

My Lent experience of unbusyness

One Lent - I am not busy. Started by Stephen Cherry, Dean of King’s College, Cambridge. Plenty of ideas on website and in books. Even a bracelet to remind you. Core idea — to spend 10-30 minutes every day during Lent doing nothing. First two days, at WBC. Easy. Came back early from studying, spent 1⁄2 hour drinking tea, looking out of the window.

Then I came home. I don’t think I did that again for the remainder of Lent.

Some people — including many Christians - would wear that as a badge of honour

So busy, so important, I don’t have time to sit and drink a mug of tea. I have learned to wear it like a badge of shame. With shame I admit to often thinking: Never enough time. I need time to: Worship. Work. Rest. Play. I need to spend time with God. I need time to study. I need time to prepare sermons. I need time to provide pastoral care. I need time to love Gail. Ashamedly, I often think there is never quite enough time. I think this is the most dangerous lie of our age:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence . . . activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.... It kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. (Thomas Merton, American Trappist Monk and writer).

Do you feel as if you're in a blizzard?

I know I can see this violence in me. I know exactly what it looks like when I’m overworked and overwrought. Many of you have noticed it in me too. Ask you in love: Are you as good at noticing it in you? Do you feel frustrated by time? Do you often feel rushed? Do you feel like you never have enough time for: Work. Leisure. Family and Friends. Ministry? Do you ever complain: If only there were more hours in the day/days in the week? I really wish I could have some time off? If I had more time then I would study the Bible and pray more? Do you grumble about being overtired and overworked? Do you feel as if you’re in a blizzard? With nothing to hold on to?

The seven signs of busyness

Even now, some of you may be denying it. But because God is challenging me about it, I can see it all around me too. So for the busy deniers out there, here are seven signs Alli Worthington suggests are warning signs you may be too busy. I see some of them in my own life. You may recognise them too:

1. An inability to control your emotions. You get irritated by people. You think people don’t get how busy you are. You work yourself into an anxious, angry mess.

2. Lack of self care. You skip your shower in the morning because you have too much to do. You make a chocolate bar and coffee your main meal, because you don’t have time to cook. You spend hours on Facebook admiring other people’s lives instead of investing in your self care.

3. Illness. You can’t get well. You have a constant cold or infection. Or in pain. If you can’t sleep, you get up and do housework or sit at the computer and compound the problem further. Illness can be a warning sign that you need to make changes in your life.

4. Chronic Lateness. Caused by tendency to say yes to too many activities and people. You cannot be all things to all people. Some of us act as if the world would end if we were not here to keep it going. And the dangerous thing is we suck other people into it too. They end up saying yes to us out of obligation or guilt instead of genuine desire.

5. Self-medicating and excess. You know where this (stomach) comes from? It comes from self-medicating my stress. That might not be your self- medication, but it’s mine. Yours might be spending too many hours on social media or watching too much television instead of sleeping. Most dangerously, I can think of examples of people who use work/ ministry as their self-medication. That’s a vicious, violent cycle.

6. Neglecting important relationships. If you are habitually letting down those closest to you — spouse, family, close friends, then you’re over capacity.

7. Neglecting God. J was busy. But he never overlooked spending time reconnecting with his Father. He left cities with people unhealed, prayers unprayed and work undone, so that he could spend time with God. If you’re skipping time with the Bible, in prayer, then that’s a huge sign you’re over capacity. Neglecting God out of busyness is a symptom that you are off balance.

The inadequacy of our ropes

Of course, we try to salvage our relationship with God. We do all the things we were taught to do. We have devotions. We have a quiet time. We spend time reading the Bible, praying, reading a devotional book. We spend time here in worship on a Sunday. And we hope all this will help us withstand the blizzard.

You know what I’ve learned? It doesn’t.

My experience echoes Pete Scazzero’s:

Within a couple of hours after being with God in the morning, I easily forgot God was active in my everyday affairs. By lunch I was grumpy and short with people. By late afternoon God's presence had disappeared from my consciousness. By the time dinner was over, he felt a long way off. After observing my behaviour for a couple of hours, my wife and children were always wondering, "What happened to Dad's Christianity?"

And by nine o'clock at night, I was asking myself the same question! (Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

Does that sound familiar?

Explanation (5m)

The good rope of Sabbath

So what’s the answer? What can help us to slow down further and find the right balance between activity and rest? The answer is a rhythm so powerful, it can be the rope that we can hold onto in the fiercest blizzard. It helps us surrender to God. It is something so radical and so extremely difficult in our busy, modern, everyday lives.

The God who rests

It is the rope of Sabbath. We serve a working and resting God. He made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them in six days. But he rested on the seventh day. And because that is his rhythm, he commands us to imitate him by doing the same:

Exodus 20:8–11 NLT

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

What is Sabbath?

Sabbath comes from Hebrew word that means, ‘to cease, to stop working’. It means doing nothing related to work for a 24 hour period each week. It also includes the concept of this 24 hour period being holy, separate, a cut above the other six days of the week. On Sabbaths, we imitate God by stopping our work and resting.

The longest commandment

And God knows we really need to get this. Just look: Longest commandment in the 10 Commandments. Others one or few lines. But this one runs on for 4 verses. It tells us what to do. It tells us how we are to do it. And it explains why. God really wants us to get this!

We must remember

So what does God want us to do? He wants us to remember. God told the Israelites they must remember, because he had told them to keep the Sabbath before. Just four chapters before, on their journey to Mount Sinai, where they received the 10 commandments, God had provided manna 6/7 days. The 7th day was supposed to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. But they’d already forgotten!

They needed to remember, not just once, but every week.

We need to remember it too. We are prone to forget the great work God does for us. He is our creator, our preserver, the sustainer of our very lives. He is our Saviour, our Redeemer. And the Sabbath commandment is a reminder for us to stop and give him glory for all he’s done for us.

We must keep it holy

God also commands us to keep the Sabbath holy. He wants us to work for six days. We have a duty to work. It doesn’t mean we have to work 24/7 all day, every day. But there should be no lazy Christians. It does mean that God governs our work as well as our rest. And he has given us six whole days to fulfil our earthly calling. Our stress comes when we try to do more than God wants us to do. So six days for work, but the seventh day is for rest and delight in God. Our relationship with God is special. And he commands us to give a whole day over the him, setting it apart for him and his glory. To rest and delight in him. To cease from work. To relax and recuperate. To step back from every day life and to rediscover God’s goodness and grace.

Application (5m)

What to do

Now, I suspect like me, you were taught that Sunday is our Sabbath. That Sunday is our day of rest. That Sunday is the day we set aside as holy, to worship and to thank God. That Sunday is the day we relax and recuperate. Sunday is the day we step back from every day life and to rediscover God’s goodness and grace.

You know my response to that? Well, when I was a teenager, Lionel Richie released a song called, ‘Easy Like Sunday Morning’. And when it came on, I’d laugh! Sundays were never easy unless we were on holiday!

In those days: 10am Sunday School. 11am Holiness Meeting. 2pm Sunday School. 3pm Praise Meeting. 6:30pm Salvation Meeting.

And somehow, we managed a full roast dinner and a proper Sunday tea in between!! Since I was 7 I have been involved in ministry. And from 21, in leadership. Sundays have never been easy! Sundays have never been my Sabbath! Don’t want to be legalistic about this. It might be that you don’t see your ministry here during worship as work. You may be able to relax and recuperate and step back from every day life even though you have a lot to do on a Sunday. But I look around at stressed out Christians, and I think there is no way for most of us that Sunday works as our Sabbath.

Like me, you may need to set aside another period of 24 hours in the week as your Sabbath

Jews keep Sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Some Christians do this too. Or like me, you may want to set aside a day as your Sabbath. Saturday is my Sabbath. But it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to select a time and then to protect it. My Sabbath is not just a day off. It’s more than that. And there are four principles you can use to ensure you have a biblical Sabbath rather than simply a day off:

Stop

On Sabbath, we stop. We embrace our limits. We remind ourselves that God is God. We are not God. We remind ourselves that the world continues to revolve, even when we stop. And it seems to get on OK. We stop on Sabbath to remind us that God is still on the throne. He manages quite well without us having to run things for him. So we can relax. We can trust that he will still take care of us. When I trust God and stop, he always provides enough time on the other six days to do what he wants me to do.

Rest

Sabbath calls us to rest. What do we do to replace our work when we stop to observe Sabbath? Whatever delights and replenishes us. I sleep in. I read. I potter about with Gail in garden centres, or on walks. I watch a good film. I go out for dinner. I try to avoid my computer and my mobile phones. I don’t read my emails.

The difference between a day off and a Sabbath is that on a day off, we are tempted to replace our work with all those things we don’t get time to do because of our work! Ironing. Cleaning the house. Gardening. Paying bills. Planning our week. Shopping.

If we are truly going to relax and recuperate, and delight in God’s presence, we will have to do these things on a different day of the week. And that may mean saying no to some other things to make time for them.

Delight

We delight in what we have been given. God delighted in his creation, before he rested on the 7th day. Sabbath is an opportunity to delight in God’s creation and his gifts. We can slow down and really enjoy our food and drink. We can take time to see the little details in creation: to hear the birds sing, to look at a tree, a flower, the sky. Earlier, said you may need to do your gardening on another day to relax and recuperate on your Sabbath. If you find it a bind, that’s a good idea. There have been times when I have found I can delight in God and his creation as I do the gardening. On those occasions, I no longer see it as a chore, but as an opportunity to worship. So sometimes, I do some gardening on the Sabbath. We can also slow down and delight in people. We can stop for unexpected conversations with neighbours, family and friends or shopkeepers. And we can play, or perhaps watch others play. Sports, games, looking at old photographs, visiting museums, these can all be a part of Sabbath.

Contemplate

Pondering the love of God must be the focus of our Sabbath. We might have times of silence, solitude, prayer during the day. Or we might use some time on our Sabbath to prepare for worship, particularly if we choose Saturday as our Sabbath.

A sign of being free

I promise you that if you will keep a Sabbath in these ways, if you stop, rest, delight and contemplate for one 24 hour period each week, you will soon find these qualities creeping into your other six days too. Not only that, but you will serve as a sign to this culture of ours that we are a free people. In a world that tries to prove its worth and value by what it does and what it possesses, we can serve as a sign that our true identity and value comes from who we are in Christ, not from what we do. By the world’s standards, a Sabbath is inefficient, unproductive and useless. But it is the way that we will centre ourselves in the source of our lives, in God himself. And more and more, I am learning that I cannot do without it. My prayer is that you will learn the same.

Next Steps

Miniature Deck Chairs

And so, as a reminder, I would like you to take home one of these miniature deck chairs. Promise yourself this morning that you are going to have a Sabbath one day every week. And then put this deck chair somewhere prominent to remind you. As you ponder what Sabbath might look like for you, a reminder:

Video Clip: Be Still and Know - Steven Curtis Chapman - 3:00