Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Karma Church podcast.
[00:00:07] Great. Take a seat.
[00:00:09] Good morning.
[00:00:12] So we are looking at the ways of God, the Ten Commandments, and working our way through. And I really want you to understand something about the Ten Commandments, the law, are they rules and regulations? Yes, but they, but they are far more the ways of God. If you want to walk with God and we talk a lot about the blessings, we've just been making a declaration about the blessings of God, but if we're going to walk in his blessings, we need to walk in his ways.
[00:00:53] And so they're not. I've never really seen the Ten Commandments as rules, but more ways to live. God is showing me how I can live his way. And that's why Jesus came and said, if you love me, you'll obey my commands.
[00:01:09] So today we're going to look at the Sabbath. But first, we've been down in Cornwall just for a few days this last week. So I've been driving Juliet's Mini, which is a joy, and I've never bumped my head so many times getting in and out of a car.
[00:01:29] But the interesting thing is mine is, mine is a diesel car and the diesel cars are sometimes a little slow on the pull away. You know, if you're at a roundabout and you're a diesel car and mine is not too bad, but for this sense of illustration anyway, and Juliet's little Mini, it's pretty nippy. It's got a little one 500 engine in and nothing to it. It just kind of takes off and you can get through all. Whereas sometimes if you're driving a diesel car and you're on the roundabout and there's only a little space, you normally go for it, but, you know, your heart races a little bit because petrol engines, they just have that little bit more torque and they can get through.
[00:02:10] So it would make sense that if I want my diesel just to go a little bit faster, I should just put petrol in it.
[00:02:18] And if I put petrol in, it would sort out the roundabout problem and I could just pull away. And I want you to know I have tried it once. Not in my current car. And I'll tell you what happens when you put the wrong fuel in, it stops.
[00:02:32] Okay. And it's really embarrassing because they have to come to the garage and tow your car away.
[00:02:40] Well, it's exactly the same with the ways of God.
[00:02:44] If you want to live under the blessings of God, if you want life to work, live in his ways.
[00:02:49] If you want to do it your own way, you can do it your own way. But what tends to happen is exactly the same is if you put the wrong fuel in, life stops, or you end up in trouble.
[00:03:01] So with that in mind, if you've got a Bible, find Exodus, chapter 20. And we're going to stand to read. So open it up. We always stand when we read the Word of God. And we're going to start from verse eight.
[00:03:16] So the last few weeks, we've looked at honor the name of the Lord and have no other gods before me. Don't make yourself a carved image. And then last week, don't take the Lord's name in vain. So verse 8 says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day 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 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 on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
[00:04:05] Grab a seat.
[00:04:09] Whenever God blesses something, it is a gift to us, okay? So when he blesses us, it is a gift from heaven. When he blesses a marriage, when he blesses a child, when he blesses a relation, whatever it is, it is a gift to us. The blessing of God comes, and the Sabbath is a gift to us.
[00:04:34] And it's one I really want to encourage you not to waste. God has given the gift of the Sabbath to His people.
[00:04:44] And often people say, well, you know, I don't get much from it.
[00:04:50] You know, I don't really see the point.
[00:04:52] And, you know, likewise, you know, I eat breakfast every day, and I always don't always feel I get much from that. But there is a cumulative effect of eating breakfast. And if I don't eat breakfast, I'm not healthy. And I know some of you are going, well, I don't eat breakfast. And look at me. And to that answer, I rest my case.
[00:05:15] So the Sabbath.
[00:05:19] I could say so much about the Sabbath, but I've just got a few things I want to run through. One, I believe the Sabbath is a celebration.
[00:05:27] I believe that whenever we gather in the presence of God, it should be an event.
[00:05:32] The Lord created and rested, the Scriptures say. And where it says he rested, that word can be translated in so many different ways. Rest or celebrate is one. And what he did was he created the earth, and he looked at what he created. And the Bible says it was good, the creation was good.
[00:05:58] And so he enjoyed what he'd done. So on the seventh day, he rests. And so the Sabbath has always been about enjoying the Lord, about enjoying his works and all that he does.
[00:06:11] And so when we gather on a Sabbath, I believe it should be event. That's why we put so much effort into it. We celebrate what the Lord is doing in our lives.
[00:06:24] The gathering of the church is about celebration. Psalm 100. We enter with his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise. You know, even at the lowest times of our life, we can praise. In fact, I believe we can praise our way out of those low times, that when we're in those difficulties, we can praise God. And it's. It lifts us and it gets his attention and there is a sense that he moves us out. And, you know, you might feel you've been dealt a bad hand, you know, and, oh, God, it's not fair. But could it be that the place you're in right now is a chance to see the miraculous power of God working in your life?
[00:07:14] So every Sabbath, we gather together to remember that.
[00:07:20] And, you know, people say to me so many times, yes, but why do bad things happen to good people?
[00:07:27] And the answer is, they don't.
[00:07:29] Bad things don't happen to good people except once. Jesus.
[00:07:33] No one else is good.
[00:07:35] Jesus is the only one that's good. Bad things and life happens in a broken world.
[00:07:42] And Jesus is laying a stage in front of us so that we can see his miraculous power.
[00:07:49] Now, if you're anything like me through the week, you're trying to do this thing or that thing, and your eyes come off where they're meant to be. So the idea of the Sabbath is that every week our eyes are back on Jesus. So we come in together and we celebrate.
[00:08:09] And just as God celebrates that the creation was good, Jesus has now made your life good.
[00:08:18] So we take a day to celebrate everything that he's doing as we take the journey with Him. Now, he is going to present us all pure and spotless one day before the throne of God. Okay, now we have a choice of how we get there. We can go joyfully praising or we can go sucking our thumb moaning, but either way, he's going to get us there.
[00:08:44] So my encouragement and what I'm trying to do and what we're trying to do here is we're going to go joyfully because as we praise, we evoke the favor of God in our lives and we keep focus on heaven.
[00:09:00] Okay, number two, the Sabbath is for us.
[00:09:05] It is a rest from work.
[00:09:08] And now, that doesn't mean we don't serve.
[00:09:11] We are designed to work. Now, this could be bad news for some of you. There will be work in heaven, okay? Because work was before the fall. We don't know what it's going to look like.
[00:09:24] Okay? And you might go, no, don't worry. Your job might not be there.
[00:09:29] He'll give you a new job. But what I'm saying is we were made to work, but we're also need to rest because work can become a burden. Anyone ever find that work is a burden? Sometimes. Come on, own up. Yeah, yeah. There's a few especially. Do you know, we're in a funny season in this country, aren't we? And it just feels a little hard to get some things done. So work can sometimes be a burden. But the Sabbath reminds us it's not about our labors, but God's blessing.
[00:10:05] You know, we're working hard and we're trying to get things through, but the Sabbath, when we come into the presence of God, reminds us. Actually, we need his blessing in our workplace. We work hard, but we need his hand upon our life. And that's why we're talking about the ways of God. Because we want to live in the blessing of God and we want that to overflow into our workplace. So we gather in his presence with thanksgiving for all he's done. But we also stop our work activities for a day, trusting his provision.
[00:10:40] And this was important for the children of Israel, and it's important for us. You see, what happens tomorrow to you is in his hands. And you might go, you don't understand. I've got this deal.
[00:10:52] I've got to make this work or I've got this troubled person, or I've got this or I've got that. No, what happens tomorrow is. Is in his hands. So we stop so that we can trust in his provision.
[00:11:06] The Sabbath allows us to recalibrate, realign our thinking. Otherwise we go into a spiral down and think we've got to pull it all out, when actually we need his hand upon our life. Does that make sense?
[00:11:24] Yeah. Three. Good. Okay.
[00:11:27] So one of the things that the Sabbath highlights is our finances.
[00:11:35] So the Israelites, you know, they would have been. They would have been working, farming animals, and they were to stop for a day with us.
[00:11:47] It's our money. And so we bring our first fruits in thanksgiving, believing the Lord will bless the laborer of our hands.
[00:11:56] And so we just did it. We made declarations. Yes, do you know that that's probably the single thing that upsets people in this church the most. People come and visit, they go. I love the worship. I love the fact you're praying for sin. I'm not sure about those declarations.
[00:12:12] Why? Well, they see it feels prosperity, kind of. Yes, it is.
[00:12:18] God wants to lead us into blessing. It is him who enables us to make wealth. Okay. God is a good God. His hand is on us. So we make declarations like, better jobs.
[00:12:33] We didn't do that one. But God wants to give better jobs so you can have more influence and that you can thrive.
[00:12:45] Anyone want it? A worse job?
[00:12:48] No.
[00:12:50] So we come to church declaring the goodness of God. You know, blessings at work. We've just been talking about. We need him to bless us. So together we make a declaration. And somehow when we do it together, it feels like it's more powerful. And actually it is where two, three are gathered.
[00:13:10] Okay, so we declare blessings over our workplace.
[00:13:15] Why? Because we want our business to do well or our firm to do well, or the NHS to do well, or whatever it is.
[00:13:23] We declare the blessing of God over our workplace. Raises and bonuses. I understand that some of you may not want those, and if you don't just send them to me, I'll gladly take them with Thanksgiving.
[00:13:36] Okay? But because we're in one of those seasons, many of you haven't experienced high inflation, and there's a lot of inflation, so prices just going up and up and up. So we need some raises and bonuses so that. So that we have enough to both sow into all the Lord is doing, but also pay our bills and have more than enough.
[00:14:04] I really believe when we don't come to Jesus just to get by, so the Sabbath reminds us of that, because a lot of the time we can just be trying to get by. I've just got to do this. I've just got to do this. But we take a step back on the Sabbath and the Lord reminds us that it is him at work, in our life, but we also serve in his house. And, you know, I watch tons of you just serving your socks off here, you know, with the kids and the youth and the car parking and the prayer ministry.
[00:14:38] And as we serve in his house, his favor comes upon us. You know that, right? John writes in his Gospel, this is Jesus speaking, if anyone serves me, him, my Father will honor.
[00:14:54] That's a great verse. If anyone serves me, him or her, my Father will honor.
[00:15:03] And if you've been here anytime, you'll have heard me talk about anyone. That comes here is a personal guest of Jesus.
[00:15:09] And by that, what I mean is, you know, if we. We were just in Cornwall and one of the. We found this little cafe, and it's part of the Duchy of Cornwall estate. It's very posh, very nice.
[00:15:24] The Duchy of Cornwall's estate is apparently worth 1 billion, which is not bad.
[00:15:30] And by the prices they were charging in this little cafe, I understand why.
[00:15:36] So we went and had some breakfast there. And so I think the Duchy of Cornwall now would be headed up by William. I think Prince William is the heir to it.
[00:15:51] What am I trying to say? If William or Charles was to call me during the week, it'd probably be one of the butlers that would call and say, steve, I want to send someone to Cromer Church. They've been asking me about Jesus, and I don't know how to answer their questions.
[00:16:09] I'm sending him to you. I'd put the phone down. I'd tell everyone, okay, I've just been talking to Charlie, okay?
[00:16:18] And I'm doing him a favor.
[00:16:20] I would check who's on the car park. I would check who's on the door. I would check. The band could sing in tune. Okay? All of it. I just make sure everything was right. Why?
[00:16:31] Because the King is sending someone to church. How more important if King Jesus sends someone to church?
[00:16:40] So everyone that walks through those doors is a personal guest of King Jesus.
[00:16:46] So that's. Why do we serve like we do in his house when we gather on the Sabbath? Because he's sending guests, and it's our job to make them welcome. And when we serve Jesus, the honor of God falls upon our lives.
[00:17:04] It's favor falls. Did you get it there?
[00:17:08] I think five of you got it.
[00:17:10] So we gather on the Sabbath. We enter his presence. We worship, we minister and serve.
[00:17:16] We receive from the Holy Spirit. And the favor of God comes upon our lives. So the Sabbath is blessed and hallowed because we encounter the living God. So that's why we do what we do. Okay, Number three, whatever the need. Come into the house.
[00:17:34] You know, Juliet and I and our family, we've walked with the Lord many, many years now.
[00:17:41] And there are definitely. There are ups and the highs and lows of family life. Anyone who's been in a family will tell you that.
[00:17:49] And do you know, during the most difficult moments, it has always been in the house of the Lord that we have found hope and deliverance.
[00:17:58] You see, if I'm in trouble, this is where I want to be, because this is where he is. And you go, yeah, but Steve, he's always with you. Of course I know he's always with me, but when I'm in trouble, it doesn't feel that way.
[00:18:10] So I need to be in the house of the Lord. Because of the manifest presence of God. You couldn't walk in this place and not know he's here.
[00:18:19] So if I'm in trouble, this is where I come. Let me read you a few verses. This is Mark.
[00:18:26] Mark 2:23. Now, it happened that he went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, talking about Jesus. And as they went, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
[00:18:37] And the Pharisees said to him, look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? But he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry? He and those with him. How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar, the high priest. And he ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat, except for the priests. And he also gave some to those who were with him.
[00:19:02] And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. You see, just to put in context the story that Jesus is telling. David is fleeing for his life from King Saul. David's friend Jonathan, Saul's son, has persuaded David that, no, my dad doesn't want to kill you. And they've gone through an exercise of testing that out. And the news has come back bad. Jonathan says, sorry, I was wrong. He does want to kill you. So David flees for his life.
[00:19:41] The king wants him dead. All right, so he doesn't even have his sword. He has nothing with him. So he's fleeing from his life. Where does he go? The house of the Lord.
[00:19:51] Where else would he go?
[00:19:54] And so he meets the priest and he needs some food. And all they have is the holy bread that only the priest could eat.
[00:20:08] So he says, I'll take it.
[00:20:10] And the priest gives him, and he shares it with his men.
[00:20:14] What can we learn from this? Number one. When you are in trouble, come into the house of the Lord. There is always resource in the house of the Lord. When you eat holy bread, everything changes.
[00:20:26] Why is this okay? Why was it okay for David to take the holy bread? Because Jesus explains it. Because David was looking ahead to the cross. David was looking ahead to Jesus. Because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. And the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Jesus is explaining something that David Understood? He was looking ahead.
[00:20:47] And what I want to say to you this morning is no matter what trouble you are in, at any point in your life, you can come to the Lord's house.
[00:20:56] The invitation is always open to you who are thirsty, you who are hungry, you who are heavy burdened. Come into the house of the Lord. Because Jesus says, I am the bread of life.
[00:21:08] The holy bread that David took. Jesus says, I am that bread. I am the bread of life. Come and meet Jesus and find life now. The thing I love about this story is the men who eat the bread with David.
[00:21:23] You can read the story in Samuel.
[00:21:26] Were those in distress, in debt and discontented?
[00:21:32] I won't ask you to put your hands up, but if you're in distress, you're in debt, or you're discontented, and these guys become the mighty men of David. David's mighty men. They become famous throughout all of Israel. The same invitation is open to everyone today.
[00:21:53] Come and eat of the holy bread. Follow the king, and you will become something more than you were.
[00:22:02] That's what happens to those men. Okay, number four. The Sabbath is about community.
[00:22:09] When we gather, we gather together. We are a people. We're no longer individuals. We. When you read the Bible, the Hebrews didn't see us as individuals. We're a very individualistic society.
[00:22:24] But the Bible, when it looks at us, he sees us as a people, a people that are coming together, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Jesus always draws people together. So when we gather as a church, we worship as a family, our children, our youth, together. You are no longer alone, lost, afraid you've come to the right place, because it is the people that God is calling to himself. That's what happens on the Sabbath, that people gather to worship. And my hope is that you will find community here.
[00:23:02] And what I would really encourage you. I know afterwards there's the Connect lunch, but find people you don't know, say hi to them, go for lunch together, invite people back to your house. I mean, check them out a little bit. You don't want crazies coming back to your house. But, you know, just so and so, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, where are they at? You know, and just start, you know, and get to know them. But people often tell me, look, large churches are very unfriendly. That's nonsense. Large churches are large because they're friendly people, make friends. That's why they're large.
[00:23:43] However, you need to make an effort.
[00:23:46] And if you're sending off, don't speak to Me, vibes, you know, you're standing at the back every week behind the curtain going, don't speak to me. You'll be able to walk out and go, knew it. No one spoke to me.
[00:23:59] I was right. This church is unfriendly.
[00:24:02] Whereas if you make an effort, you just, just turn around and someone you don't know just say, hey, what's your name? My name's whatever. You know, ask them questions about themselves. People really like talking about themselves. You know, what do you do? You know, don't ask, is this your first week? All right, Because I, you know, they'll go, no, I've been having six years. And you know, ask, how long have you been coming? How long have you been here? Do you know? Who do you know here?
[00:24:27] You know, know, are there people like me here?
[00:24:29] And just start. But you have to make an effort. And, you know, one of the things that's the opportunity of the Sabbath when we gather, that we become family. And, you know, if you're seeing people and that you look like they're on the outskirts, they've got no one to talk to, grab them, pull them in, say, come, come and eat, come and eat with us. And if you've got loads of people eating together, even if they're weird, it's all right, they'll be watered down, it'll be safe. Alright, almost done.
[00:24:56] We find rest in the Sabbath.
[00:24:59] You see, the Gospel brings us into rest. Hebrews 4 says this, for indeed the Gospel was preached to us as well as to them. He's talking about the Israelites. But the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest.
[00:25:20] The passion translation puts it that when we are deeply affected by the Gospel, we find rest.
[00:25:35] And what he's talking about is the Israelites were walking around and around in the desert. You can read it in the chapter before in Hebrews.
[00:25:46] And the reason they didn't find the rest was because they didn't believe.
[00:25:53] When we believe God, faith activates the promise. And we experience what I can only describe as a realm of confident rest.
[00:26:05] That something happens to us when we, you know, we can be reading this and reading this and then somebody reads us something, we go, that's just for me.
[00:26:15] And what happens is faith is activated in us and there is this confidence and this rest that comes on us.
[00:26:24] You see, what he's saying is the Hebrews failed to enter into a faith rest because of unbelief. But the same Invitation is open to all of us.
[00:26:36] So the Sabbath rest for us is to cease from all of our works, to come into his presence to celebrate what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives, to trust and not fall into a pattern of doubt or unbelief, but instead lean into his favor. And we move into the rest of the week rested because we have lent upon Him. So if you like, when we come together in the Sabbath, we're leaning into the presence of go.
[00:27:11] And when we do that and faith stirs into us, we find a rest so that we can move forward into the week. Does that make sense? That's what happens to me every week. Do you know, Julianne, we've been doing Sundays, bar four Sundays a year, for over 30 years, leading church, and often when we go. We were at a conference the other week, and one of the questions, we were on this panel and they said, you know, how do you rest?
[00:27:36] I'm resting now because I'm in the presence of the Lord. Now, don't get me wrong, you know, 8 o' clock tonight, I'm going to be fried. I'm going to be fed up with talking to people, you know, I just want to sit in front of the telly, you know, and do that. Okay? But there is a sense of this isn't hard work because I'm in the presence of God with His people.
[00:28:00] Now. People are sometimes hard work, but the majority aren't. The majority love Jesus. And so I find rest in this.
[00:28:09] And you can find rest in this. And you can find rest serving in the children. And you can find rest praying for the sick. And you find rest with the youth. Well, you might not find total rest with the youth, but your spirit will. Your body might not.
[00:28:25] Why the Sabbath? Sabbath is about entering into the promises of God.
[00:28:30] We stop because we trust Him. We rest in his presence and encounter Him. We hear his word that gives us life and feeds us, we believe, which produces rest because we lean back and then we can step forward and what seems to be impossible becomes possible.
[00:28:53] You see, the Sabbath is the Lord's gift to each one of you.
[00:29:01] Amen. Stand up.
[00:29:07] Thanks for listening to the Coma Church podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship, and how to donate, visit our website, Roma Chat.
