Sabbath Rest | Sunday, November 8, 2020

Good morning, Cross Connection Church, and welcome to Church Online and At Home. We are so glad that you are with us this morning. In just a minute, we're going to go over to the church, and Pastor Anthony is going to lead us in worship.

But before we do, would you please send out a text message as an invite to someone or a group of friends, inviting them to join with us for Church At Home? Just send them that link, live.ccchurch.com, so they can join with us.

And with that, let's go over to Pastor Anthony. God bless our time, in Jesus' name, amen.

You found me, You freed me, Held back the waters for my release. Oh Yahweh, You're the God who fights for me, Lord of every victory. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. You have torn apart the sea; You have led me through the deep. Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Cloud by day, it's a sign that You are with me. Fire by night, it's a guiding light to my feet. You found me, You freed me, Held back the waters for my release.

Oh Yahweh, You're the God who fights for me, Lord of every victory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You have torn apart the sea; You have led me through the deep. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

You're the God who fights for me, Lord of every victory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You have torn apart the sea; You have led me through the deep. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

As You stepped into my Egypt, You took me by the hand. You marched me out of freedom into Your promised land. Now I will not forget You, God; I'll sing of all You've done. Death is swallowed up forever by the fury of Your love.

As You stepped into my Egypt, You took me by the hand. You marched me out of freedom into Your promised land. Now I will not forget You, God; I'll sing of all You've done. Death is swallowed up forever by the fury of Your love.

You're the God who fights for me, Lord of every victory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

You have torn apart the sea. You have led me through the deep. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You're the God who fights for me, Lord of every victory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You have torn apart the sea. You have led me through the deep. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

As You stepped into my Egypt, You took me by the hand. You marched me out of freedom into Your promised land. Now I will not forget You, God. I'll sing of all You've done. Death is swallowed up forever by the fury of Your love. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

We need to be praying. We need to be a church that's on our knees praying. In fact, the Scriptures tell us to pray without ceasing.

I want to encourage you in that. When we turn our eyes to our Heavenly Father, you are going to be so encouraged and so blessed. Just take your eyes off the things of this world, maybe turn off the news, and get on your knees and pray.

We also want to be praying with and for you this week, so check out prayer.lifeinconnection.com. We would love to hear what you have going on. As your pastors and prayer team, we really do care about you, we love you, and we want to be praying with and for you because our God is so great, so powerful, and He hears your prayers and answers them. I cannot stress that enough, church.

With that, our mission this week at Cross Connection Church is to pray for Jim and Shonda Davis with Pastoral Training of Asia. What they do is train and raise up pastors and ministry leaders who are sent out all throughout Asia. It is an incredible ministry. They are the people training those who do the work of pastoring. They go out and share the gospel with those who do not yet know Christ, ministering to these pastors, helping them with their congregations, and doing such an amazing job. So be praying for Jim and Shonda, that the gospel will continue to go forth through the men they are raising up and sending out as pastors in Asia.

You might have noticed today that it is a little bit rainy. Because of that, our Sunday night service may be canceled. I am not going to say it is for sure. Check out our website; Miles is going to be updating us around noon today. Let us know with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down whether we are going to meet.

Regardless of whether we meet tonight, you need to come by the church between 2 and 4 o'clock and bring in those Christmas boxes from Operation Christmas Child that you faithfully filled and prayed for. It is especially important today because we may not be meeting tonight. So please bring those boxes back. We would love to have them, and it is going to be such a blessing for Samaritan's Purse and the kids who will be receiving them around the world.

With that, we are going to go back to Pastor Anthony. He is going to lead us in a song of worship. This will be a time of worshiping the Lord with our giving. At Cross Connection Church, there are a couple of different ways you can give. You can give by texting the number 84321 on your cell phone. Second, you can give on our website at give.lifeinconnection.com. Third, you can simply mail in your tithe or offering to our church address: 1675 Seven Oaks Road, Escondido, California.

With that, let's go ahead and worship the Lord. He is good, and I'm going to give it back to Pastor Anthony. God bless you guys. We'll see you next week.

I don't want to be afraid every time I face the waves. I don't want to be afraid; I don't want to fear the storm just because I hear it roar. I don't want to fear the storm.

Peace, be still. Say the word, and I will set my feet upon the sea until I'm dancing in the deep. Peace, be still. You are here, so it is well. Even when my eyes can't see, I will trust the voice that speaks.

I'm not going to be afraid because these waves are only waves. I'm not going to be afraid; I'm not going to fear the storm. You are greater than its roar. I'm not going to fear the storm. I'm not going to fear at all.

Peace, be still. Say the word, and I will set my feet upon the sea until I'm dancing in the deep. Peace, be still. You are here, so it is well. Even when my eyes can't see, I will trust the voice that speaks.

Peace, peace over me. Let faith rise up, oh heart, believe.

Let faith rise up in me. Let faith rise up, oh heart, believe. Let faith rise up in me. Let faith rise up, oh heart, believe. Let faith rise up in me. Let faith rise up, oh heart, believe. Let faith rise up in me.

Peace, be still. Say the word and I will set my feet upon the sea until I'm dancing in the deep. Peace, be still. You are here, so it is well. Even when my eyes can't see, I will trust the voice that speaks. Peace, peace over me.

Let faith rise up, oh heart, believe. Let faith rise up in me. Peace, peace over me. Amen.

There may be some moderate frustration or anger over the election and everything that has been happening over the last four or five days. If so, you have been triggered. Interestingly, I don't think it is only those on one side of the political aisle who are experiencing this. I believe every politically engaged individual in our nation is probably not entirely happy with the outcomes of the election, and it definitely has a kind of 2020 flare to everything. I expected chaos from this election, and I think that many of you probably did as well. I've been sharing my expectation of chaos with you since before this year began, and it has been a very strange year.

However, we can continue to praise God that we are still moving forward and that God is still on the throne. I have certainly been encouraging myself with that truth quite frequently. Like many people, I went to bed late on Tuesday night with a mix of thoughts and emotions, really conflicted about the outcome and what it might be. But I woke up on Wednesday morning rather early with a song in my head, a song I don't think I have heard for maybe 15 years or more. It is a song from the Psalms, specifically Psalm 131, sung by a group called Water Deep. The words of the song are straight out of Psalm 131.

Psalm 131, verses 2 and 3 say, "Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord, from this time forth and forever." Have you ever had a song stuck in your head that just drives you crazy? I know you have; all of us have experienced that. But these words have been on a perpetual loop in my mind since early Wednesday morning, and I am really thankful that they have been.

"O Israel, trust in the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore." I have been calming and quieting my soul all week long by meditating upon those words. One translation of Psalm 131, verse 2 says, "I have cultivated a quiet heart, like a baby content in his mother's arms."

I was thinking about those words on Thursday, and I was reminded of a picture. One of the real blessings of technology at this point in our lives is that we have access to the events of our lives in pictures on our phones. In just a matter of seconds, I was able to find this picture that had been in my mind when I read that verse this week. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk seven years ago with my youngest, Elliot. He was less than a week old at that point. When I thought about cultivating that rest, like being in the arms of your mother or your father, this was the picture that came to my mind.

I have cultivated a quiet heart, like a baby content in his father's arms. Have you done that? Maybe you aren't even sure how to do that. A calm and quieted heart is a heart that safely trusts in the power and majesty of Almighty God. O Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

I remember taking kids to youth camp when I was a youth pastor. At the camp we would go to, they had a ropes course as one of the activities available during free time. Among the activities was something they called the leap of faith. Maybe you've seen the leap of faith, or perhaps you even remember doing it at a camp yourself when you were in junior high or high school. You would climb to about 40 feet up in a tree and stand on a little two-foot by two-foot platform. Then, you would jump out and grab a trapeze bar that was hanging about 10 feet out from the platform.

If you've never seen this, it seems entirely absurd. However, you have a harness on, and the leap of faith is a test of your faith—not in your ability to grab onto the bar, but in the ability of the person down on the ground holding onto the line and the harness that you're wearing. It's a test of your trust in that person, in the rope, and in the harness. Some of the people would put on the harness, climb up the tree, and get up on the platform, only to be totally frozen. They wouldn't even be able to stand up; they would just be hanging on the edge of this little platform.

Or if they did stand up, they would stand on the edge of that platform, looking at that trapeze bar for like five minutes or more. Then they couldn't bring themselves to take that leap of faith and would climb back down. Everybody would be trying to encourage them from the ground, but that's the picture of trust right there. Do I trust in this harness? Do I trust in this rope? Do I trust in that person down there, 40 feet below, who looks a lot smaller when you're standing up in that tree? Do I trust them to hold onto me?

In my experience, God is always seeking to perfect or mature our trust in Him. Challenging circumstances, events like elections, are leaps of faith in our lives. If we are disquieted in our souls, it is an indication that our trust might be in something other than God. So, on this post-election November morning in 2020, I want to ask you an important question: What are you trusting in? Where is your faith seated? If it is in the halls of power in Washington, D.C., you are always going to be disquieted.

One of the meanings of the name or word Israel is "governed by God." If you are ruled and governed by God, then trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. When I went to bed on Tuesday night, I was disquieted in my soul, in my psyche, my mind. My mind was kind of racing, and I was having a hard time going to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, it was just that loop of the song: "Oh, Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore." It has been going over and over again in my mind. I can tell you that it was as if a weight and a burden were lifted as I rested in and waited upon the Lord, which is exactly what we're going to be talking about a little bit more later on—talking about rest.

We need to be reminded that if we are governed by God, we are the children of God. "Oh, Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore." Some of the indicators that we need a trust adjustment include succumbing to catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, tunnel vision, or cognitive distortions about what is going on. I have reminded you many times, if I've reminded you of it once.

I've reminded you of it fifty times over the last eight months, of the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4. This is really important during this period of time: "Be anxious for nothing." That is a command. Do not be anxious about anything. It seems like an impossible command until we understand the exhortation about how we do it in the passage.

But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus. That's what I've been experiencing this week as I've been meditating upon those simple words. "Oh, Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore." God's all-surpassing peace has guarded my heart and my mind in all of this. I can honestly say I'm at peace with what's going on because I trust that the Lord is on the throne.

Another passage of Scripture I've brought up several times this year in my teaching is in Colossians chapter 3. "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God." If you are a child of God, you've been raised with Christ; you've put your trust and faith in Jesus. Then you are one of the people that Paul is speaking to there.

So, verse 2 states, "Set your mind on things above, not on the things of the earth." Not on Washington, D.C. Not on Sacramento. Not on the stock exchange in New York. Not on pandemics. Not on wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and pestilences. Set your mind on things above, not on the things of the earth. Why? Because you've been crucified with Christ. For you died with Christ, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

Our ultimate hope is not in politics or politicians. It's not in vaccines or therapeutics. It's not in the stock market, our careers, our education, or any other thing. Our ultimate hope is that when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will appear with him in glory.

There's a great story in the Old Testament book of 2 Kings about the prophet Elisha. Elisha was a prophet of God during a time when the Syrians were warring against the Israelites. Every time the Syrian king would plan an attack, his plans would be frustrated.

God would reveal the king's secret plans to the prophet Elisha, who would then tell them to the Jewish king. This way, they would be prepared for the coming of the Syrian armies. Eventually, the king of Syria was informed about Elisha and became frustrated that his plans kept being thwarted. One of his advisors said, "Here's the problem. There's this prophet named Elisha, and every time you make plans, he tells your plans to the king."

In response, the king of Syria sent a great army. This is found in 2 Kings chapter 6. He sent a great army with horses and chariots to surround the city of Dothan, where Elisha lived. In the morning, the servant of Elisha woke up, looked out from the city walls, and saw this great army surrounding the city. He was understandably frightened by what he saw. The servant came to Elisha and said, "Alas, my master, what shall we do?"

Elisha answered the servant, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." The servant could only see the situation in the earthly realm, but Elisha reassured him. Elisha prayed, "Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Once again, O Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. God, open our eyes that we may see that this is spiritual and that You are not defeated. God is still upon the throne. Among all the passages I have been returning to frequently, I keep coming back to Isaiah 6. I have mentioned this often lately. In Isaiah 6, the king of Israel had died, and the throne was vacated. In that moment, Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon a throne. It was as if God was saying, "The throne on earth is vacant, but the throne in heaven is not."

It is so important for us to keep these things in mind. Isaiah 26:3 says, "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You." God will hold you in the place of having perfect peace.

The words for perfect peace in Isaiah 26:3 state that the word "peace" is "shalom" in Hebrew. However, in this passage, to add emphasis, God says, "You will keep him in shalom, shalom." This signifies perfect peace—peace, peace. But this is only true as your mind is set, fixed, and stayed upon the Lord, and you trust in Him.

The exhortation follows: if it is true that God will keep you in perfect peace as your mind is set and stayed upon the Lord, then Isaiah 26:4 encourages us to trust in the Lord forever. For in Yah, as in Yahweh, the Lord is everlasting strength. O Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

Challenging events, like those that have caused chaos in our nation and in the world this year, reveal where our trust truly lies. Time and time again, we are told in the Scriptures to trust in the Lord and hope in God. Let not your heart be troubled; set your mind and focus upon the Lord seated upon the throne. I hope that we will be able to do that—take some time, maybe today or tomorrow, or sometime this week, to set that time aside.

On that point, let me remind you that we are making something available to you every single day through my website. Just go to coffeetime.pastormiles.com, and you will be able to access a daily devotional that might help you in this regard. But that is just a side note.

Aside from the many topical messages I have given this year—far more than I ever expected—I am not typically the pastor who gives a lot of topical messages. Normally, we go verse by verse through the Scriptures. However, this year has been weird, chaotic, and different. We have been studying through the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. The last time I spoke from Deuteronomy, which was probably three or four weeks ago, we considered the first three of the Ten Commandments. We are looking at the statutes and judgments of God recorded in Deuteronomy Chapter 5, and that is where we will be today.

The first commandment, I hope you remember, is "You shall have no other gods before me." You may feel yourself to be a faithful follower of God and believe that you have faithfully observed this. However, times like the ones we are going through right now reveal our divided loyalties and trust.

In addition to having no other gods, we are not to make any idols or visible and earthly representations of our God. There shouldn't be anything in the spiritual realm that we trust in. You shall have no other gods before the one true God. However, there should also be no earthly things in which we place our trust, hopes, or affections, nor should we be devoted to them. These might be worldly things, worldly powers, worldly wealth, or whatever else. We should not have any visible or earthly representations of the things that we trust in, that are our gods. We are not to bow down or give allegiance to those things.

The third commandment we looked at was that we are not to take the name of the Lord, our God, in vain. We are a people who are called by God's name, and we ought to take and bear His name with reverence. The teaching of the first three commands is clear: God expects and commands exclusivity. He demands proper adoration and representation. He is rightly jealous for our devotion and affection, and therefore we must take His name with the utmost solemnity. We discussed this several weeks ago.

Now, we move from there to where we will be today in Deuteronomy chapter 5. If you have your Bible available, open to Deuteronomy chapter 5 and look at verse 12, where we will pick it up today. There we read: "Observe the Sabbath to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a day of Sabbath to the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work— you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor the stranger who is within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."

This may be one of the more contested and misunderstood of the Ten Commandments. Some Christians see this as an essential and literal command to keep, while others think of it spiritually, and some disregard it almost entirely. One thing is certain: when reading the Gospels, Jesus kept the Sabbath.

The religious people of Jesus' day didn't really understand what the Sabbath was all about. Jesus kept the Sabbath, but the very religious leaders who were commanding people to observe it apparently didn't fully grasp its significance. I say this because Jesus, who is God incarnate, is always going to keep the laws of God. There is no question about whether or not He observed the Sabbath correctly; of course He did. However, the religious leaders of His day sought to kill Him because they were convinced that He broke the command of the Sabbath.

If Jesus is God incarnate, He is going to keep the command perfectly. If the religious leaders are trying to kill Him, claiming He doesn't keep the command perfectly, then their understanding of the Sabbath was flawed. His understanding of the Sabbath was obviously correct.

What am I talking about? If you look at Matthew's Gospel, chapter 12, we read this in verse 1: "At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath day, and His disciples were hungry. They began to pluck the heads of grain and to eat." When the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath."

So, His disciples are doing one thing, while the religious leaders are accusing them of breaking the Sabbath law. In the same chapter, just a few verses later, after Jesus addresses this situation, we read in verse 9: "Now, when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue." This is the synagogue in Capernaum, near the Sea of Galilee.

Behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked Him, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" They posed this question to accuse Him. They were using this situation as a way to try to catch Him and trip Him up. Then He said to them, "What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

He then said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. On the Sabbath day, He healed him.

Look at verse 14: "Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him how they might destroy Him." Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath; He did a good work. Yet these leaders wanted to destroy Him because they believed He was breaking the law of the Sabbath. So, who gets to be the authority on the matter of the Sabbath?

I bring these two examples up, and there are other examples that we could use to show this. Oftentimes, very religious people completely misunderstand, misinterpret, and misapply God's law. I think that today, just as 2,000 years ago, there are very religious people who continue to do so with the command of the Sabbath.

As I said, this can be one of those challenging issues—the issue of the Sabbath—where people are unclear about what it means and how we are to fulfill it. Now, I don't say that to imply that I perfectly understand, interpret, and apply the law of the Sabbath all the time. I'm not sure that I do, and there's probably a lot for me to learn on this as well. We'll talk about that more as we go through this.

But I can tell you that I don't keep any of God's laws perfectly. Any person who wants to say that they are a perfect keeper of God's law is mistaken; the Bible makes it very clear that this is not the case. None of us keeps His commands, but we are all seeking to understand how we ought to interpret these things and apply them in our lives.

It is clear that Jesus is the only one who kept the law of the Sabbath perfectly. The religious leaders of His day did not, although they felt that they were authorities on it, and they were not. Jesus kept it perfectly.

Now, all that to say this: What is the importance of this command, and how should we observe it today? Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 12 states, "Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you." According to the commandment of God, the people of God are to set aside, that is, to make holy or to consecrate one day in seven. This one day in seven is to be a day of rest unto the Lord.

What should be seen in this Sabbath is that it is a day of rest made for man. We could say that the Sabbath is a command, but it is also a gift. In His grace, God commands rest. This is so important because God is gracious, and He commands us to rest. I believe that this reveals something important about God: He is gracious, and He knows the weakness of our frame. He knows the weakness of our frame because He formed us from the dust of the earth. Therefore, He graciously commands our rest.

And in this, we ought to be thankful. November is a month of gratitude, and we're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving in just a few weeks. This is an opportunity for us to thank God that He is gracious and bestows rest upon us. God is not a harsh and severe taskmaster; He redeems and rescues us from our burdens and calls us unto rest. Therefore, Moses commands Israel to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.

In saying, "as the Lord your God commanded you," I believe Moses is dropping a subtle reminder for us to go back and remember the original command of the fourth commandment in Exodus chapter 20. In the original giving of the Sabbath command, Moses said this: "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work— you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

Notice that Moses connects the command of the Sabbath to God's creative activity and His inactivity in creation. In six days, God created the heavens and the earth, and then He, the awesome and almighty God, rested. It is an amazing thing to consider that God worked in creation and then rested. Not only did God rest, but He blessed the seventh day and made it holy.

In our workaholism as Americans, we feel that we need to keep going and going, to keep working, to get ahead, and to increase as much as we possibly can. We often think we should not waste time and should use all the time we can, to the point that many people now work six or seven days a week for very long hours. However, God exemplified rest and called us to experience the blessing of it. In the Sabbath, God has set aside a blessing for His people.

Unfortunately, we, like many of the religious people in Jesus' day, think that we must keep the Sabbath to keep God happy. In reality, God gave us the Sabbath to bless us with a supernatural blessing and happiness through rest.

And that seems to be what the scriptures teach. However, there is more to the fourth commandment than the call to just rest. There is a command in the fourth commandment to also work.

Look at Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 12: "Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work." In the fourth commandment, God calls His people to emulate Him in enjoying the blessing of rest, but He also commands that we imitate Him in completing our work. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

In the same way that overwork with no rest is a trespass against the fourth commandment, laziness is a transgression as well. According to His nature, God commands work unto completion. If you have never read the opening chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, I would encourage you to do so. In doing so, you will see the six days of creation. At the end of each day of creation, the scriptures say, "And God saw that it was good." There is an inherent goodness in a day's work, and God calls us to follow Him into this work.

Even in the perfection of God's creation before the fall, as described in Genesis 3, God commanded Adam, the first man, to work. Work and rest are both good. Genesis 2, verse 15 says, "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and to keep it." So Adam, the first man, in the perfection of the pre-fall world, was called by God to work.

God commands us to work and rest. Therefore, Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 12 states, "Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor the stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you."

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm.

Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Moses grounds this command for a Sabbath rest in Israel's bondage and servitude in Egypt. It's as if God says, "Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. You were under severe and harsh taskmasters. But I redeemed you and brought you out of your bondage so that you might experience rest."

Therefore, because of that, this rest is not for you alone. It is for your children, your servants, and even your animals. It also extends to the strangers, the immigrants, and the foreigners in your land. The whole of the land is to rest because I am a God of rest. God desires that all of creation experience His rest. This, my friends, is exactly why God the Father sent Christ the Son. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the Lord of rest, and to this earth, God sent Him to bring rest to a people who were in bondage in Egypt.

Egypt, in the Scriptures, is oftentimes connected with the world; it serves as a type of the world. In the fall, as a result of sin, we read in Genesis chapter 3: "Because you have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil and labor, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you are taken; for dust you are, and dust you shall return."

The burden of work is a product of sin, but Jesus desires to give us rest. Therefore, when He was here upon the earth, in the Gospels, in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, He says, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Jesus calls us to experience rest in Him. He says, "Come to me, and I will give you rest." That is a glorious call from the Lord of the Sabbath.

As I wrap up today, let me be very candid with you: this command is difficult for me.

I am not very good at rest. I don't know if this has to do with my upbringing, my personality, my own internal drive, or if it is kind of the enculturation of a hyper work-oriented, workaholic culture such as ours here in the U.S. I don't know what exactly pushes it, but rest can be challenging for me. At the same time, I feel a deep desire and need for rest, especially in the current situation that we find ourselves in here in 2020.

My wife and I feel as though we've been running at like 6,000 RPM for the last eight months. I think that a lot of people in the church can relate to this. I've talked with a number of people who are feeling the very same thing. We have work, and our kids are now in distance learning, so they're homeschooled. I've been working from home, and my wife works in the ICU. She is also going to school to finish up her master's and has clinicals. We have all these things that we're constantly doing, and there's this desire for rest.

Then you add the burdens and stressors of coronavirus, the challenges of lockdowns, and the difficulties of making decisions and paying bills. On top of that, we have the elections, and now we're coming into the holidays. It can be a challenge. We can feel like we're just going and going and going. But we need to observe the Sabbath. We need to set aside time.

I know there will be questions, and I'll probably get texted about whether we have to worship God on Saturday versus Sunday. Paul addresses that in his letters, and we see that in the New Testament. Traditionally speaking, the early church, from the very beginning when the Spirit was poured out, worshiped God on the first day of the week. They called it the Lord's Day, the day of the resurrection.

Many of the early Christians were also Jewish, so they observed the Sabbath day. Paul would even go to synagogues on the Sabbath to preach the gospel when he traveled around Asia, Greece, and throughout the Roman world. However, the church would gather together on the first day of the week, and they would gather as much as they possibly could in homes, which is exactly what we do as a church. We corporately gather together, normally on a Sunday morning in our church facility. The last three weeks, we've been doing that on Sunday evenings in the patio area.

Which is kind of fitting because the early church, in Acts chapters 2 and 3, would gather together in a patio area near the temple. We've been gathering in the patio at 5 o'clock. Today, it's raining, so we probably won't. You can check the website to make sure. You'll see the thumbs-up on the website or the thumbs-down if we're going to be gathering, so look for that.

Anyways, I'm kind of getting sidetracked. The early Christians were predominantly Jewish for the first five or six years of the church before it started to move out among non-Jews, Gentiles. Many of those people would observe the Sabbath, but the church would gather together on the first day of the week. If you read through the New Testament letters and the book of Acts, you see that they would set aside time to worship the Lord as the church. Some people would observe the Sabbath, and others would observe the first day of the week. Paul would say, let each person observe whatever day they are led to do.

So, we don't make a huge deal about Saturday, the seventh day, the Sabbath, but we should be those who are endeavoring to set aside one day in seven to experience the blessing of rest. As I said, I have a hard time with this. I want to ask you to pray for me, and I will pray for you, that we will be able to do exactly what the author of the book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:11: "Let us make every effort to enter into that rest so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience."

The children of Israel did experience a judgment of God because they failed to follow this call and command toward rest. If you've read through the Old Testament, you know that the children of Israel experienced a time when they were led away as captives to Babylon for 70 years. That time in captivity in Babylon was a judgment for them not observing the command for Sabbath, for the Sabbath of the land that they were also to give—not just the Sabbath of their week, but they were to give Sabbath years.

God is really focused on this idea of rest. The ultimate rest that we will have is found in Jesus and in eternity. But even now, here in this life, God says, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." God desires, in the midst of all the chaos and all these crazy things that we're going through, that we distance ourselves from our workaholism and that we rest in Him.

So, Father, I do pray that you would help me and my brothers and sisters to observe these truths.

And that we would work to enter into this rest, making every effort to experience the rest that You desire for us. The ultimate rest is a rest from the burden and bondage of sin and death.

Jesus, I pray for anyone who might be hearing this message, watching it online, or listening to the podcast, whether it's on the Sunday that it is delivered or months or years from now. I pray that You draw them to You, that they would experience Your rest and be freed from the bondage of striving in Egypt, from striving under sin in the world. I pray that they would turn to You, Jesus. You are the Lord of rest, and because of Your work on the cross, we can experience rest for eternity.

God, I pray that You draw those people to Yourself, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I've been held in Your hands from the moment that I wake up until I lay my head. I will sing of the goodness of God. All my life, You have been faithful, and all my life, You have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

I love Your voice. You have led me through the fire. In darkest nights, You were close like no other. I've known You as a Father; I've known You as a friend.

I have lived in the goodness of God. All my life, You have been faithful, and all my life, You have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

Your goodness is running after me. It's running after me. While I lay down, I am surrendering now. I can't thank You enough for everything. Your goodness is running after me. It's running after me.

And all my life, You have been faithful. All my life, You have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

I will sing of the goodness of God. Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God from this time forth and forevermore.

Lord, we pray for our nation. We pray for all the things that we are currently experiencing and going through. We pray, God, for a resolution to the chaos. But we know, I know, that ultimately the greatest resolution is only going to come when You return and rule and reign for eternity. So, Jesus, we say, come quickly. I think that all of us would choose You and Your leadership and Your rule over any politician. So, Jesus, come quickly.

Until You do come, Lord, help us, Your church, to occupy until You come with joy and rejoicing, trusting that You are still upon the throne. We praise You, Jesus.

And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Listen, this evening, it's probably going to be what they would say inclement weather. It's going to be raining, and so we're probably not going to be doing our service out on the patio at 5 o'clock. But go to the website, LifeInConnection.com, between noon and 1 o'clock today, and we'll be sure to post information about whether or not we think it's going on. Right now, it seems like it probably won't. But if it is, you can check out the website.

So, we'll see you next time. God bless.