Episode Transcript
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Good morning, everyone. Take your Bibles.
Turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 6.
Luke chapter 6. If you're using one of the
Bibles in the seat around you, it's on page 914.
We're going to be celebrating Communion a little bit later in
the service. So if you did not receive a
Communion Cup when you came in, would you just raise your hand
and we'll make sure that you do receive a Communion cup?
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Just keep it up there until someone comes around to you to
get a cup into your hands. Last week we were talking about
how Jesus came to make everything new.
That when Jesus came, he came tonot only patch us up, but to
make us into a new creation. That when we're forgiven of our
sins, we are forgiven past, present and future.
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But we also saw how Jesus teaches us that this new
creation that he makes us into also calls us into a new way of
living and being as humans. That the Christian life is not
about us adding some of Jesus toour life, but it is also about
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us putting our hands into the hands, our lives into the hands
of Jesus. That's what the Christian life
is all about. So let me ask you this question.
If you were Jesus, it's always dangerous to start with this
question. If you were Jesus, but if you
were Jesus and you came to bringnew life to someone, what would
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be one of the very first things that you would want someone to
do with that new life, right? Because that's usually what
happens when we think about new things.
When we're starting a new chapter in life, we're moving
into a new house or a new neighborhood, starting at a new
school, starting a new job. Whenever we're starting
something new, we start off withthe mindset of, OK, what are the
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things I need to do? What are the things I need to do
to get life in order? What are the things I need to do
to be able to make sense of where this is going to go from
here? But in the passage that we're
going to look at today, Luke is going to record a story that's
going to teach us something really important about this new
way and that. And it's this.
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It's not that this new way is somuch about here's all the things
Jesus wants you to do first. It actually starts with the way
of Jesus as a call to rest that that before we get to the doing,
Jesus is calling us to rest. Look at verse one of Luke
chapter 6 says on a Sabbath he passed through the grain fields.
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His disciples were picking headsof grain, rubbing them in their
hands and eating them. But some of the Pharisees said,
why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?
Jesus answered them, Haven't youread what David and those who
were with him did when he was hungry?
How He entered the House of God and took and ate the bread of
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the presents, which is not lawful for any but the priest to
eat. He even gave some to those who
were with him. Then he told them, The Son of
Man is Lord of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath he entered
the synagogue and was teaching. A man was there whose right hand
was shriveled. The scribes and the Pharisees
were watching him closely to seeif he would heal on the Sabbath,
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so that they could find a chargeagainst him.
But he knew their thoughts and he told the man with the
shriveled hand, Get up and standhere.
So we got up and he stood there.Then Jesus said to them, I ask
you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to
save life or to destroy it? After looking around at them
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all, he told him, stretch out your hand.
He did and his hand was restored.
They however, were filled with rage and started discussing with
one another what they might do to Jesus.
Sabbath is not a word that gets used very often in 2025 in North
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America, but for a lot of Jews both today and historically,
they would have understood the Sabbath to mean one full day
each week as a day of rest. And the idea of Sabbath is built
off of 2 Old Testament passages in particular.
First of all, in Genesis chapter2, we're told that God finished
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the work of creation that he haddone.
God spent six days creating everything, including humans,
and on the 7th day, God rested from the work that he had done.
So God works, and then he rests.Now, I don't know if you've
thought much about this, but thefirst full day on earth for
humans was also God's day of rest.
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God was done his work, and humans had not yet started their
work. Both are at rest at the same
time. God orders creation in such a
way that the very first day for humans is designed to be a day
of enjoying fellowship with God.The the very creation of rest
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points us to the reality that life thrives when there is
stillness. We we can see it in the way that
plants and animals in the land need rest in order to thrive.
God has designed all of creationto rest as part of the journey
of being fully alive and fruitful.
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But as humans, as normal, we start to think, well, I know
better than God. There's a better way to do this
in the way that the creator of the universe did it.
And that's what happens in the Garden of Eden.
They sin because at the heart ofit, they're thinking we know
better than God knows. Until later on we get to Exodus
chapter 20, where God is giving the law to Moses and to the
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Israelites, and he's giving the 10 commandments to Moses.
And one of the 10 commandments given to Moses is this.
Remember the Sabbath day. To keep it holy, you are to
labor 6 days and do all your work.
But the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
You must not do any work built into the very Ten Commandments.
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God says this is something you need to remember to do.
He doesn't say that about the other commandments.
He says you need to remember to Sabbath because we as humans
quickly forget the idea of taking rest.
And God says it's one day of theweek.
It's a day that's meant to be holy to the Lord and God defines
Sabbath not by what it is, but by what it's not.
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It's not work and it's not just referring to your employment
type of work. Anything that could be
considered work of any kind is what the the 10 commandments is
referring to. Now, I know that whenever we
hear a command from God, there are different responses that we
have. And whenever, as humans,
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whenever we have a command from God to rest, there's different
responses we might take. So historically, when God issues
a command, one of the things that more religious people take
is, is one of the approaches we take is all right, So what are
where's the line that I can't cross?
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Like what, what's the actual line in the sand that as long as
I don't cross that line, that I'm still OK And and I'm living
in obedience to God. Where, where's the line?
So that if I, you know, I don't want to dishonor God.
I don't want to get myself in trouble.
I don't want to disrespect God. So just give me that line.
Because this idea of not doing any work raises questions.
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It does for most of us. Like what is work?
What's he talking about? Is it work to do my laundry?
Is it work to clean my garden? Is it work to to clean out my
car? Is that work?
And so we ask all these questions about what is work?
So what? What do religious people do?
So they know where the line is in the sand.
Religious people go, well, let'screate some more rules so we can
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bring some clarity to where the line is in the sand.
And the Jews were no different. The Jews created about 30-9
different types of prohibited activities that they were not
allowed to do in on the Sabbath.So, for example, if you were in
farming, you couldn't do any sewing, plowing, or reaping,
which makes the disciples in Luke 6 guilty.
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You couldn't do any baking, which really stinks for people
like me that have a sweet tooth.You couldn't do any cleaning or
sewing or tying a knot. You couldn't make leather
curtains. You couldn't do any writing or
any construction or any demolition work.
You couldn't kindle a fire or extinguish a fire or carry
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things past a certain distance. And even today you will find a
lot of Jews who are still livingout this idea and these rules
for the Sabbath. I I was told just this week
about how a synagogue will hire non Jews to lock and unlock
their doors and turn their lights off and on during the
week so that nobody is breaking the rules of the Sabbath.
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Now over the years as Christianswe haven't been much better than
the Jews. We've created all kinds of
rules. Some of you grew up with rules
of what you could or could not do on Sundays.
Does any of this sound familiar to you kids and teens?
No dancing or swimming competitions on Sunday, but the
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adults are allowed to have a baseball tournament.
No fishing, but you can go waterskiing as a child, one guy told
me that as a child he once rode his bike on Sunday and he was
grounded for a week and he wondered like, is it a sin for
me to ride my bike to church? Now, fortunately, over the last
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two or three decades, most Christians have looked at a lot
of these rules and we thought toourselves, well, that's dumb.
Why would we do that? Who came up with those rules?
So then there's this wrestling that happens and we have to
figure out what do we do with this idea of Sabbath because it
still shows up in the Bible. And this has LED for most of us
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to take one of two different types of responses, kind of two
different extremes that we take when it comes to the idea of
Sabbath. A lot of people just ignore it.
We we think, I don't need to take a day of rest a week.
I don't have time to rest one day a week.
Some of you are very busy just out of a sense of survival.
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You, you think to yourself, I have to get all of these things
done just to survive this week. Some of you, you're busy out of
a deep sense of passion for life, because staying busy helps
you to feel more and more alive.But if we're honest with
ourselves, there's a lot of us who ignore the idea of resting
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one day a week simply because we're just addicted to being
busy and we ignore this idea of resting.
Or maybe we just feel like it's impossible to achieve.
Then, then there's another response that we could have, and
that's where we start to create our own definition of what it
looks like and means to rest. We create our own vision of rest
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in life. For a lot of us, what that means
is I just want time for myself. I want time for leisure.
That's what is restful to me. Last year, Stats Canada released
a report on how the average Canadian spends their time.
On average, if you are a Canadian, you spend just over 22
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hours a week on some form of leisure activity, whether that's
playing sports, using technology, taking up a hobby,
watching TV, reading, listening to music, any of those kinds of
things. And if you add in time
socializing with other people, that number jumps another 7
hours a week to 29 hours. So Canadians on average spend
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more than one full day a week insome type of leisure activity.
For most of us, rest means how can I just escape the pressures
of life? That's what we think about when
we think about rest. Why do you take a vacation?
I need to get away from the pressures of life.
Well, why do you take a break ona weekend?
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I just need to get away from thepressures of life.
But I want you to think about this question today.
How would your life be differentif Jesus were the Lord of your
Sabbath? How would your approach to
taking one day a week to rest bedifferent if Jesus were the Lord
of your Sabbath? In in verse 5, we see Jesus
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talking about this. This idea of Jesus being Lord of
the Sabbath is not something we often think about.
We we either have inherited a bunch of rules about the Sabbath
or we come up with our own definition of what to do with
it. And in verse 5, the Pharisees
have been challenging Jesus about how his disciples seem to
be breaking the rules that they were required to keep on the
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Sabbath. And the response of Jesus is
this. The Son of Man is the Lord of
the Sabbath. This title, the Son of Man, it's
actually the primary title that Jesus uses to describe himself
over and over again. In fact, you're going to see the
title Son of Man show up over 80times in the New Testament.
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It's it's a primary description that is used to describe Jesus.
And on one level that title Son of Man is an acknowledgement of
the humanity of Jesus, that he came to earth to dwell amongst
us, that he is fully human, which means he's got some
limitations that you and I have.He got tired at the end of the
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day. He needed to have some sleep, He
needed food, he needed sustenance.
Like Jesus had some human limitations to him, and when we
hear the title Son of God, it acknowledges his divinity.
But when Jesus uses the word Sonof man here, it's actually
referring back to something fromthe Old Testament that would
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have been very familiar to the Pharisees, his audience that
he's speaking to Here. Jesus is pulling from Daniel
Chapter 7 in a vision that Daniel is describing.
In this vision in Daniel Chapter7, he sees the heavenly
courtroom of God, and in verse 13 he says this.
Suddenly one, like a son of man,was coming with the clouds of
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heaven. He approached the Ancient of
Days. He was given dominion and glory
and a Kingdom so that those of every people, nation, and
language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion that will not pass away, and His Kingdom is one
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that will not be destroyed. Jesus is taking the Pharisees
back to this passage from Daniel, and once again we see
this over and over again in Luke.
Jesus is making a very bold claim about Himself.
He is again in a different way, using a different phrase,
equating himself to God. He is the Son of man that has
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come into the throne room of Godwho has been given the authority
to rule the nations, to be the king of all kings.
And if that's true, if what Jesus is describing about
himself is true, then what it means is Jesus has divine
authority over everything, including over all the rules and
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regulations that would govern the Sabbath day.
Now, when we think about Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath,
depending on who you are, it's going to mean something
different to you if you're the type of person who ignores it or
takes it for granted. This idea of a weekly rest is
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actually a question of are you willing to pause long enough to
acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of everything in my life?
Or do you feel the need for control of everything?
If you're a rule keeper by nature, this idea of Jesus being
Lord of the Sabbath will make you pause and go.
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OK, so I acknowledge Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath, but then
what rules does Jesus want me tokeep to acknowledge and live out
that he's the Lord of the Sabbath?
And to both of you, I want to say this Sabbath is a day of
rest that is given for your benefit.
The Sabbath is a day that's given to help you, not to burden
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you. But the Gospel of Mark actually
tells the same story that Luke does.
But Mark adds one more line, onequote from Jesus that Luke does
not include. Mark says this.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
When the rules of Sabbath rest just create more work, then
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we've missed the point. One, one of the things that I
really appreciate that's happened over the last several
years is we as humans, we go on these kind of pendulum swings.
So 20-30 years ago, we were as Christians very much in the what
are the rules for what we can and can't do on the Lord's Day?
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And then we kind of moved away from that for a period of time
and we started to live with thissense of, well, like, I don't
want to live under those rules anymore.
We're free in Christ and so let's live in freedom.
And over the last few years, there's been a movement amongst
Christians that have been focusing on calling us back to
considering Sabbath. What, what does that look like?
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What does that mean for our lives?
A, a, a movement that has lookedat the busyness of our culture
and says, like, this isn't healthy for us.
There's a, got to be a better way than the way that we're
going. But unfortunately, because we're
humans, one of the things we do is we take that to another
extreme and go all the way to the other side where we go,
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well, if you aren't taking a Sabbath every single week, then
you're just not spiritual enough.
And it's a new form of being a Pharisee that we end up
instituting in our lives. Here's what the Bible tells us.
If you're taking notes, just jotdown this passage.
I'm not going to have us look atit, but Colossians chapter 2
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verse 16 says this. Don't let anyone judge you in
regard to food and drink or a Sabbath day.
I want to say 2 statements that are both true.
A weekly Sabbath is not a requirement for a Christian, but
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it's still good for you. God created it for your benefits
when you rest one day a week. When you and I rest one day a
week, it's going to restore yourmental energy.
It's going to reduce your stress.
It helps to reduce inflammation and risk of heart disease.
You're going to be more creativeand productive and focused.
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It improves your short term memory.
I was Rachel Nichols works in our office and Rachel said to me
this week, she goes, how many times have you preached on rest
recently? And I said, I'm not sure.
She says it feels like you've been preaching on that a lot,
like you've landed that that message a lot.
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And she goes, Maybe God's tryingto tell you something.
And I said thanks for the input,Rachel, and went home and shared
that with my wife. And I said, hey, Rachel says
that I've been preaching on resta lot and maybe I need to listen
to it. And my wife just went, mm, hmm,
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maybe God is trying to tell me something.
This is actually the third time that I've spoken on rest in the
last 12 months. I went and looked it up, but
here's what I know. I know that I'm just as likely
as many of us are to live in this hustle culture and be
caught up in it where our entirefocus is on how can I be more
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productive and how can I live with ambition and this idea of
stopping long enough to rest. I actually feel selfish
sometimes or feels impossible todo when you think about all the
tasks and responsibilities that you have going on in life.
But what if taking one day a week to rest was not selfish?
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What if it was actually receiving a gift that God wants
to give you so that you could beeven more fruitful with your
life? I I can't tell you that you have
to rest every single week, that you have to take the Sabbath,
but I can tell you that Jesus did.
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Jesus took the Sabbath. He observed the Sabbath.
Here in Luke 6 and throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently
observes this day of rest each week.
The Lord of the Sabbath allowed his life to enjoy the Sabbath.
And if Jesus took one day a weekto rest, doesn't it just make
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sense that the rest of us would do the same?
Like Jesus is the creator of life, doesn't it seem like he
would know what the best rhythmsfor life are?
Now for Jesus, that day of rest actually looks different than
you. And I might think one of the
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things you don't see Jesus doinga lot on his Sabbath days is you
don't see Jesus spending a lot of time by himself.
Most of his alone time is actually through the week when
he would get up early to be withthe Father and pray.
So for Jesus, he actually spendsthe Sabbath over and over again.
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What you see is he's hanging outwith people.
For Jesus, Sabbath is a day for spiritual community.
It was a day to relax with friends.
You look at the first couple of verses of Luke chapter 6.
What's he's doing? What's he doing?
Jesus is walking through the grain fields with his friends,
with his disciples. They're they're walking
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together. You can almost picture the
moment they're out for a beautiful walk, enjoying the
scenery of the wheat field and you're strolling along and
you're just casually picking heads of grain and popping them
in your mouth as a bit of a snack while you're up for a walk
together. You know, some of us will
remember this. When we were younger, there were
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one of two things that you couldcount on happening every single
Sunday. You were either going to go out
to eat with a bunch of friends after church was done, or those
friends were going to come over to your house after church was
done. That it was a regular common
occurrence that we would just spend time together on our day
of rest, hanging out with each other.
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But somewhere along the way, a lot of us have exchanged that
time with friends for time by ourselves and having a nice
Sunday afternoon nap. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not
attacking Sunday afternoon naps.I love me some Sunday afternoon
naps. But I do think we're missing out
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on something when we just say hey, my day of rest I'm just
going to spend by myself. There's just something life
giving when we can be together with other people to laugh and
play some games and go for a nice walk or or whatever it
might be. Friendships lead to people being
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more satisfied with life, less likely to suffer from
depression. It will make you physically and
emotionally healthier. And for Jesus, he used to
Sabbath as a time to just hang out with his friends.
So here's my encouragement to you.
Consider what would it look liketo take even one Saturday or
Sunday a month just to invite someone over to your house after
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church on Sunday and get together and hang out, spend
some time relaxing and connecting with each other.
But it wasn't just relaxing withfriends that Jesus did.
He also gathered for worship on the Sabbath.
That's what happens in in verse 6.
It says on another Sabbath, he enters the synagogue and was
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teaching. He's coming together with people
to enter the synagogue on the Sabbath to, to teach.
But what we don't think about iswhat's happening at the
synagogue. What, what are they doing on the
Sabbath day? You know, what happens in the
synagogue on the Sabbath? They read from the Torah, which
is the first five books of the Old Testament.
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They pray together and they sing.
Any of that sound familiar to you?
It's what we do when we come together as Christians on Sunday
morning. We pray, we sing, we read from
the Bible together, and we say, what is God trying to say to us?
Sabbath for Jesus was a time to stop the physical and to focus
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on the spiritual with each other, with other people.
It was a day that was holy to God.
Now, unfortunately, gathering for worship has become a little
bit of a well, do I have anything better to do on Sunday?
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If I've got anything else betterto do, then I'll go do that and
but if not, and then I'll come to church on Sunday.
I don't know how often all of you attend worship services, but
I do know this. On average, most churches in
Canada would say that regular attendance of worship services
is now 1 to about every three Sundays.
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Did you know like gathering withGod's people to worship together
is good for your soul, being together is good for you.
Last year, Harvard Public Healthpublished a study that said
weekly attendance at worship services is associated with
lower mortality risk, lower depression, better health
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behaviors, greater marital stability, happiness, and
purpose in life. It's good for you and science is
showing. It's good for you to gather
together with God's people to worship, to learn, to pray
together, to be together. Now, some of us, we like to just
bolt out of here on Sunday morning after the service is
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done. And I just want to say to you, I
want to encourage you, hang out,stay, talk to some people.
If you don't know somebody or ifyou're sitting around someone
that you don't know, introduce yourself, get to know each
other, connect with each other. That's the kind of stuff that
Jesus would do. Spending his Sabbath day, a
weekly day of rest is made for your benefit.
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And part of the way Jesus celebrated was gathering with
people for worship. But in this passage, there's one
more thing that we see that was common for Jesus as he spends
this day in spiritual community.We see that for Jesus, Sabbath
was a day to serve the needs of others as well.
In these two stories that show up here in this passage, there's
two very different approaches tolife that are happening for the
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Pharisees. Their whole approach is how do
we obey the commands and the traditions?
How do we just keep the rules for Jesus?
His whole focus is how can I love and care for those who are
in need? Because that's what's showing up
here, people who are in need of a touch from Jesus.
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Jesus views this day of rest as an opportunity to help give rest
to other people who are in need.And the Pharisees are too busy
going. You can't do that.
There's been some wild rules that we've created over the
years. One, one guy told me this story.
He said, when I was a kid in a walkathon for life, we were
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outside where parched were overheated and we saw a house
that had a big Bible sign on it.And so we went up to the house
and said, hey, like we're in this walk for life.
We're raising money for this bigneed.
Could you, could you give us some water just so we could keep
going? And they said, no, it's Sunday.
We can't give you anything to drink.
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Like, that's wild when you startand stop and think about it.
And we don't usually come up with rules like this.
But for a lot of us, this day ofrest has gone to a different
extreme. And it's become more about what
can I get out of it instead of what can I give.
I want you to imagine with me the story of a mom who's trying
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to raise her children on her own.
She's got a couple of young kidsrunning around the house.
You can imagine the chaos and the busyness.
She's maybe working a couple of jobs just to pay the bills.
Her kids are her world. But by the time the weekend
comes along, she's completely worn out.
And she decides, you know, I, I need to be somewhere where I can
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get some type of hope from the chaos and the busyness of life.
And so she decides maybe I should go to church and try
church. So she drops her kids off.
She comes to Forward, drops her kids off at forward Kids.
And there's other adults who areloving and caring for her kids
while she comes into a worship service just to have a breath
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and to get some type of hope. Now imagine where that mom would
be if there was no place for herkids on Sunday morning.
You know, over the past year, our kids ministry here has grown
by over 10% a week. We we sent out a bunch of kids
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to help plant Forward Brant and we still have more kids than we
did before we started Brant. That's the kind of growth that
we're seeing. And right now we need a minimum
of 25 people to say yes to showing compassion and love for
families and to care for kids bysurveying in kids ministry here
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at Cambridge, 25 people. And if we want to disciple the
next generation, well, we need at least 65 more people to sign
up to be part of discipling the next generation of kids.
That's what happens when we serve in kids ministry.
It's not just a, it's not a babysitting service, despite
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what you might think. It's a space where you're
showing compassion and care for families that are in need.
We need people that are going toget down and roll around on the
floor and just play around with some toddlers.
We need people who are going to care enough about children to
say, hey, let's talk about Jesus.
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And we need to care enough for each other together as a church
family that we're showing and providing a place of compassion
and care for each other by taking our turn and serving in
kids ministry. Serving is not doing the church
a favor. Serving is just a normal part of
the way of life of a disciple ofJesus.
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It's how we show our love for each other.
So today, if you are not servingin kids ministry already, first
of all, if you are, thank you somuch.
And if you're not, then I'm going to ask you to consider
signing up to serve in kids ministry.
We're going to put a slide on the screen.
Just text the word serve to the text number and just follow all
the prompts to get involved. One of the great joys of coming
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together in spiritual communities, we get to point
each other to one truth of God'slove for US.
One of the things that Jesus keeps pointing us back to is
that Sabbath isn't just about a single day of the week, it's
actually about a whole life. Sabbath is a day to recenter
your life on resting in Jesus. You know when you study the
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Bible, you're going to see that God often designs into creation
physical things that point us toa greater spiritual reality, and
Sabbath rest is no different. Colossians 3 verse 17 tells us
this about the Sabbath. It was a shadow of what was to
come. The substance is Christ.
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But the one day of resting was never meant to be about one day
of resting. It was meant to point us to
something that that is meant to shape our entire life, our
entire way of being where we are, people who are resting in
the love and power and person ofJesus 24 hours a day and seven
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days a week. In Luke 6 verse 10, Jesus
encounters a man with a deformedhand and he asked a question
that seems really odd. Is it lawful to save a life or
destroy it? Now it seems odd because all the
guy has is a deformed hand. What does that have to do with
saving his life? And the reason it's odd is
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because this guy's not going to die.
But what Jesus comes to do is not only heal a hand, but save a
life. That that's the work of Jesus.
He's pointing us to the bigger story, the story that brings us
back to the Garden of Eden, where on God's day of rest and
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our day of rest match up on the same day.
A world where the foundation of life is fellowship and
relationship between humans and God.
But our sin, your sin, my sin breaks that relationship.
So since then, humans have triedto figure out how do I get right
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with God? What do I need to do to earn
God's favor, to make God like memore, love me more?
How can I do all the things thatwill help me to avoid God's
judgement? But God shows his love for you,
not because of anything you've done, but because he loves you.
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He doesn't require you to do anywork.
He's done all the work. When Jesus goes to the cross and
takes your place and dies on thecross for your sins, He pays the
ultimate price so that you and Ican be reconciled to God.
He does all the work so we can be at rest.
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The death and the resurrection of Jesus means this.
That you never ever, ever have to work to earn the favour of
God. That you are completely forgiven
and adopted and loved when you place your faith in Jesus alone.
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But it doesn't end there. His grace in your life is
designed to actually lead to a whole life that is at rest
because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave.
When you rest in Jesus that no matter what you're facing today,
you can live with confidence that Jesus is Lord and He's got
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it. When you rest in Jesus, your
past does not need to define youanymore and your future does not
need to scare you. When you rest in Jesus, you
don't need to feel the pressure to achieve every goal and dream
that you have before you die because this life is only
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chapter one of your life. When you rest in Jesus, you can
look at all the wild and crazy things going on in the world and
you can be at peace and go King Jesus has this.
When you rest in Jesus, you get to boldly enter the presence of
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God and receive mercy and grace in your time of need.
Taking a weekly Sabbath rest, it's not about the law of doing
it for the sake of doing it. It's for your benefit.
Because I don't know about you, but life gets pretty crazy
sometimes. It's pretty busy.
There's all kinds of worries andfears and things that you're
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thinking about and stressed out about.
And pausing and taking a day, a week to rest allows you to
recenter yourself away from the craziness of life and recenter
yourself on resting in Jesus. It's not laziness to do this.
It's surrender. It's a weekly reminder to
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yourself that you're not in charge and you don't have to be
because Jesus is Lord and He loves you.
Mark Buchanan wrote a book called The Rest of God.
Here's what he says. He says in a culture where
busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is
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sloth. But without rest, we miss the
rest of God, the rest that he invites us to enter more fully
so that we might know him more deeply.
Jesus is your Sabbath rest. It's not ultimately about a day,
it's about a person. That's what we celebrate when we
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come together each week, and it's what we celebrate when we
take Communion together. I want to invite you to take
your communion cups out just before we take Communion.
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I am going to wager a guess thatthere's more than one person in
this room who's a little bit stressed out on life.
You got some concerns, whatever they might be right now, you're
a little worn out. Worn down.
Maybe some of you are beat up. Maybe you got all kinds of
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fears, anxieties, worries, concerns.
Here's what I want to do. I want to take the next just 30
to 60 seconds of just silence. I want us to be still before the
Lord. And in your heart, just ask
Jesus. Reach out.
Like Jesus says to this man in the story, reach out your hand.
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And it's almost like in your heart you're reaching out and
saying, Jesus, I need your rest.Help me to know your rest today.
Would you just do that right now?
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If you could take the wafer out of the Communion cup, hold that
in your hand. This wafer represents the body
of Jesus, which reminds us that Jesus is the Son of Man.
He came, He's a human, He dwelt amongst us, He's one of us, and
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as one of us, he's the only perfect one, which made him the
only one eligible to be able to go to a cross and die for the
freedom of the whole world to take our place, the perfect
spotless Lamb of God, so we can take this wafer and remembrance
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of the body of Jesus that was sacrificed for us.
Eat all of it. If you open up to the juice, the
juice represents the blood of Jesus that's shed on the cross
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that makes it possible for the forgiveness of our sins.
The beautiful, amazing promise of Sabbath rest for our souls
that we never, ever have to do anything to earn the love and
the favour and the mercy of God that it was finished on the
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cross through the shed blood of Jesus.
Let's take this to remembrance of Him.
Father, thank you for how great your love is for us.
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Thank you for sending your Son Jesus to show us that rest isn't
just about a day that we have tokeep repeating over and over
again. But rest can be a state of
being, a way of life for us as we rest in Jesus.
And in moments like this God, where some of us are coming off
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of busy and crazy weeks, help usto find our rest in Jesus again
today. Help us to find our rest in the
presence of the God who loves us, who allows us over and over
again to keep running back into His arms.
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I pray this in your mighty name,Amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and worship
church.
Good morning, everyone. Take your Bibles.
Turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 6.
Luke chapter 6. If you're using one of the
Bibles in the seat around you, it's on page 914.
We're going to be celebrating Communion a little bit later in
the service. So if you did not receive a
Communion Cup when you came in, would you just raise your hand
and we'll make sure that you do receive a Communion cup?
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Just keep it up there until someone comes around to you to
get a cup into your hands. Last week we were talking about
how Jesus came to make everything new.
That when Jesus came, he came tonot only patch us up, but to
make us into a new creation. That when we're forgiven of our
sins, we are forgiven past, present and future.
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But we also saw how Jesus teaches us that this new
creation that he makes us into also calls us into a new way of
living and being as humans. That the Christian life is not
about us adding some of Jesus toour life, but it is also about
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us putting our hands into the hands, our lives into the hands
of Jesus. That's what the Christian life
is all about. So let me ask you this question.
If you were Jesus, it's always dangerous to start with this
question. If you were Jesus, but if you
were Jesus and you came to bringnew life to someone, what would
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be one of the very first things that you would want someone to
do with that new life, right? Because that's usually what
happens when we think about new things.
When we're starting a new chapter in life, we're moving
into a new house or a new neighborhood, starting at a new
school, starting a new job. Whenever we're starting
something new, we start off withthe mindset of, OK, what are the
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things I need to do? What are the things I need to do
to get life in order? What are the things I need to do
to be able to make sense of where this is going to go from
here? But in the passage that we're
going to look at today, Luke is going to record a story that's
going to teach us something really important about this new
way and that. And it's this.
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It's not that this new way is somuch about here's all the things
Jesus wants you to do first. It actually starts with the way
of Jesus as a call to rest that that before we get to the doing,
Jesus is calling us to rest. Look at verse one of Luke
chapter 6 says on a Sabbath he passed through the grain fields.
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His disciples were picking headsof grain, rubbing them in their
hands and eating them. But some of the Pharisees said,
why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?
Jesus answered them, Haven't youread what David and those who
were with him did when he was hungry?
How He entered the House of God and took and ate the bread of
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the presents, which is not lawful for any but the priest to
eat. He even gave some to those who
were with him. Then he told them, The Son of
Man is Lord of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath he entered
the synagogue and was teaching. A man was there whose right hand
was shriveled. The scribes and the Pharisees
were watching him closely to seeif he would heal on the Sabbath,
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so that they could find a chargeagainst him.
But he knew their thoughts and he told the man with the
shriveled hand, Get up and standhere.
So we got up and he stood there.Then Jesus said to them, I ask
you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to
save life or to destroy it? After looking around at them
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all, he told him, stretch out your hand.
He did and his hand was restored.
They however, were filled with rage and started discussing with
one another what they might do to Jesus.
Sabbath is not a word that gets used very often in 2025 in North
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America, but for a lot of Jews both today and historically,
they would have understood the Sabbath to mean one full day
each week as a day of rest. And the idea of Sabbath is built
off of 2 Old Testament passages in particular.
First of all, in Genesis chapter2, we're told that God finished
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the work of creation that he haddone.
God spent six days creating everything, including humans,
and on the 7th day, God rested from the work that he had done.
So God works, and then he rests.Now, I don't know if you've
thought much about this, but thefirst full day on earth for
humans was also God's day of rest.
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God was done his work, and humans had not yet started their
work. Both are at rest at the same
time. God orders creation in such a
way that the very first day for humans is designed to be a day
of enjoying fellowship with God.The the very creation of rest
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points us to the reality that life thrives when there is
stillness. We we can see it in the way that
plants and animals in the land need rest in order to thrive.
God has designed all of creationto rest as part of the journey
of being fully alive and fruitful.
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But as humans, as normal, we start to think, well, I know
better than God. There's a better way to do this
in the way that the creator of the universe did it.
And that's what happens in the Garden of Eden.
They sin because at the heart ofit, they're thinking we know
better than God knows. Until later on we get to Exodus
chapter 20, where God is giving the law to Moses and to the
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Israelites, and he's giving the 10 commandments to Moses.
And one of the 10 commandments given to Moses is this.
Remember the Sabbath day. To keep it holy, you are to
labor 6 days and do all your work.
But the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
You must not do any work built into the very Ten Commandments.
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God says this is something you need to remember to do.
He doesn't say that about the other commandments.
He says you need to remember to Sabbath because we as humans
quickly forget the idea of taking rest.
And God says it's one day of theweek.
It's a day that's meant to be holy to the Lord and God defines
Sabbath not by what it is, but by what it's not.
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It's not work and it's not just referring to your employment
type of work. Anything that could be
considered work of any kind is what the the 10 commandments is
referring to. Now, I know that whenever we
hear a command from God, there are different responses that we
have. And whenever, as humans,
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whenever we have a command from God to rest, there's different
responses we might take. So historically, when God issues
a command, one of the things that more religious people take
is, is one of the approaches we take is all right, So what are
where's the line that I can't cross?
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Like what, what's the actual line in the sand that as long as
I don't cross that line, that I'm still OK And and I'm living
in obedience to God. Where, where's the line?
So that if I, you know, I don't want to dishonor God.
I don't want to get myself in trouble.
I don't want to disrespect God. So just give me that line.
Because this idea of not doing any work raises questions.
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It does for most of us. Like what is work?
What's he talking about? Is it work to do my laundry?
Is it work to clean my garden? Is it work to to clean out my
car? Is that work?
And so we ask all these questions about what is work?
So what? What do religious people do?
So they know where the line is in the sand.
Religious people go, well, let'screate some more rules so we can
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bring some clarity to where the line is in the sand.
And the Jews were no different. The Jews created about 30-9
different types of prohibited activities that they were not
allowed to do in on the Sabbath.So, for example, if you were in
farming, you couldn't do any sewing, plowing, or reaping,
which makes the disciples in Luke 6 guilty.
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You couldn't do any baking, which really stinks for people
like me that have a sweet tooth.You couldn't do any cleaning or
sewing or tying a knot. You couldn't make leather
curtains. You couldn't do any writing or
any construction or any demolition work.
You couldn't kindle a fire or extinguish a fire or carry
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things past a certain distance. And even today you will find a
lot of Jews who are still livingout this idea and these rules
for the Sabbath. I I was told just this week
about how a synagogue will hire non Jews to lock and unlock
their doors and turn their lights off and on during the
week so that nobody is breaking the rules of the Sabbath.
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Now over the years as Christianswe haven't been much better than
the Jews. We've created all kinds of
rules. Some of you grew up with rules
of what you could or could not do on Sundays.
Does any of this sound familiar to you kids and teens?
No dancing or swimming competitions on Sunday, but the
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adults are allowed to have a baseball tournament.
No fishing, but you can go waterskiing as a child, one guy told
me that as a child he once rode his bike on Sunday and he was
grounded for a week and he wondered like, is it a sin for
me to ride my bike to church? Now, fortunately, over the last
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two or three decades, most Christians have looked at a lot
of these rules and we thought toourselves, well, that's dumb.
Why would we do that? Who came up with those rules?
So then there's this wrestling that happens and we have to
figure out what do we do with this idea of Sabbath because it
still shows up in the Bible. And this has LED for most of us
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to take one of two different types of responses, kind of two
different extremes that we take when it comes to the idea of
Sabbath. A lot of people just ignore it.
We we think, I don't need to take a day of rest a week.
I don't have time to rest one day a week.
Some of you are very busy just out of a sense of survival.
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You, you think to yourself, I have to get all of these things
done just to survive this week. Some of you, you're busy out of
a deep sense of passion for life, because staying busy helps
you to feel more and more alive.But if we're honest with
ourselves, there's a lot of us who ignore the idea of resting
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one day a week simply because we're just addicted to being
busy and we ignore this idea of resting.
Or maybe we just feel like it's impossible to achieve.
Then, then there's another response that we could have, and
that's where we start to create our own definition of what it
looks like and means to rest. We create our own vision of rest
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in life. For a lot of us, what that means
is I just want time for myself. I want time for leisure.
That's what is restful to me. Last year, Stats Canada released
a report on how the average Canadian spends their time.
On average, if you are a Canadian, you spend just over 22
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hours a week on some form of leisure activity, whether that's
playing sports, using technology, taking up a hobby,
watching TV, reading, listening to music, any of those kinds of
things. And if you add in time
socializing with other people, that number jumps another 7
hours a week to 29 hours. So Canadians on average spend
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more than one full day a week insome type of leisure activity.
For most of us, rest means how can I just escape the pressures
of life? That's what we think about when
we think about rest. Why do you take a vacation?
I need to get away from the pressures of life.
Well, why do you take a break ona weekend?
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I just need to get away from thepressures of life.
But I want you to think about this question today.
How would your life be differentif Jesus were the Lord of your
Sabbath? How would your approach to
taking one day a week to rest bedifferent if Jesus were the Lord
of your Sabbath? In in verse 5, we see Jesus
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talking about this. This idea of Jesus being Lord of
the Sabbath is not something we often think about.
We we either have inherited a bunch of rules about the Sabbath
or we come up with our own definition of what to do with
it. And in verse 5, the Pharisees
have been challenging Jesus about how his disciples seem to
be breaking the rules that they were required to keep on the
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Sabbath. And the response of Jesus is
this. The Son of Man is the Lord of
the Sabbath. This title, the Son of Man, it's
actually the primary title that Jesus uses to describe himself
over and over again. In fact, you're going to see the
title Son of Man show up over 80times in the New Testament.
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It's it's a primary description that is used to describe Jesus.
And on one level that title Son of Man is an acknowledgement of
the humanity of Jesus, that he came to earth to dwell amongst
us, that he is fully human, which means he's got some
limitations that you and I have.He got tired at the end of the
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day. He needed to have some sleep, He
needed food, he needed sustenance.
Like Jesus had some human limitations to him, and when we
hear the title Son of God, it acknowledges his divinity.
But when Jesus uses the word Sonof man here, it's actually
referring back to something fromthe Old Testament that would
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have been very familiar to the Pharisees, his audience that
he's speaking to Here. Jesus is pulling from Daniel
Chapter 7 in a vision that Daniel is describing.
In this vision in Daniel Chapter7, he sees the heavenly
courtroom of God, and in verse 13 he says this.
Suddenly one, like a son of man,was coming with the clouds of
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heaven. He approached the Ancient of
Days. He was given dominion and glory
and a Kingdom so that those of every people, nation, and
language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion that will not pass away, and His Kingdom is one
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that will not be destroyed. Jesus is taking the Pharisees
back to this passage from Daniel, and once again we see
this over and over again in Luke.
Jesus is making a very bold claim about Himself.
He is again in a different way, using a different phrase,
equating himself to God. He is the Son of man that has
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come into the throne room of Godwho has been given the authority
to rule the nations, to be the king of all kings.
And if that's true, if what Jesus is describing about
himself is true, then what it means is Jesus has divine
authority over everything, including over all the rules and
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regulations that would govern the Sabbath day.
Now, when we think about Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath,
depending on who you are, it's going to mean something
different to you if you're the type of person who ignores it or
takes it for granted. This idea of a weekly rest is
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actually a question of are you willing to pause long enough to
acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of everything in my life?
Or do you feel the need for control of everything?
If you're a rule keeper by nature, this idea of Jesus being
Lord of the Sabbath will make you pause and go.
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OK, so I acknowledge Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath, but then
what rules does Jesus want me tokeep to acknowledge and live out
that he's the Lord of the Sabbath?
And to both of you, I want to say this Sabbath is a day of
rest that is given for your benefit.
The Sabbath is a day that's given to help you, not to burden
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you. But the Gospel of Mark actually
tells the same story that Luke does.
But Mark adds one more line, onequote from Jesus that Luke does
not include. Mark says this.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
When the rules of Sabbath rest just create more work, then
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we've missed the point. One, one of the things that I
really appreciate that's happened over the last several
years is we as humans, we go on these kind of pendulum swings.
So 20-30 years ago, we were as Christians very much in the what
are the rules for what we can and can't do on the Lord's Day?
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And then we kind of moved away from that for a period of time
and we started to live with thissense of, well, like, I don't
want to live under those rules anymore.
We're free in Christ and so let's live in freedom.
And over the last few years, there's been a movement amongst
Christians that have been focusing on calling us back to
considering Sabbath. What, what does that look like?
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What does that mean for our lives?
A, a, a movement that has lookedat the busyness of our culture
and says, like, this isn't healthy for us.
There's a, got to be a better way than the way that we're
going. But unfortunately, because we're
humans, one of the things we do is we take that to another
extreme and go all the way to the other side where we go,
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well, if you aren't taking a Sabbath every single week, then
you're just not spiritual enough.
And it's a new form of being a Pharisee that we end up
instituting in our lives. Here's what the Bible tells us.
If you're taking notes, just jotdown this passage.
I'm not going to have us look atit, but Colossians chapter 2
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verse 16 says this. Don't let anyone judge you in
regard to food and drink or a Sabbath day.
I want to say 2 statements that are both true.
A weekly Sabbath is not a requirement for a Christian, but
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it's still good for you. God created it for your benefits
when you rest one day a week. When you and I rest one day a
week, it's going to restore yourmental energy.
It's going to reduce your stress.
It helps to reduce inflammation and risk of heart disease.
You're going to be more creativeand productive and focused.
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It improves your short term memory.
I was Rachel Nichols works in our office and Rachel said to me
this week, she goes, how many times have you preached on rest
recently? And I said, I'm not sure.
She says it feels like you've been preaching on that a lot,
like you've landed that that message a lot.
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And she goes, Maybe God's tryingto tell you something.
And I said thanks for the input,Rachel, and went home and shared
that with my wife. And I said, hey, Rachel says
that I've been preaching on resta lot and maybe I need to listen
to it. And my wife just went, mm, hmm,
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maybe God is trying to tell me something.
This is actually the third time that I've spoken on rest in the
last 12 months. I went and looked it up, but
here's what I know. I know that I'm just as likely
as many of us are to live in this hustle culture and be
caught up in it where our entirefocus is on how can I be more
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productive and how can I live with ambition and this idea of
stopping long enough to rest. I actually feel selfish
sometimes or feels impossible todo when you think about all the
tasks and responsibilities that you have going on in life.
But what if taking one day a week to rest was not selfish?
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What if it was actually receiving a gift that God wants
to give you so that you could beeven more fruitful with your
life? I I can't tell you that you have
to rest every single week, that you have to take the Sabbath,
but I can tell you that Jesus did.
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Jesus took the Sabbath. He observed the Sabbath.
Here in Luke 6 and throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently
observes this day of rest each week.
The Lord of the Sabbath allowed his life to enjoy the Sabbath.
And if Jesus took one day a weekto rest, doesn't it just make
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sense that the rest of us would do the same?
Like Jesus is the creator of life, doesn't it seem like he
would know what the best rhythmsfor life are?
Now for Jesus, that day of rest actually looks different than
you. And I might think one of the
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things you don't see Jesus doinga lot on his Sabbath days is you
don't see Jesus spending a lot of time by himself.
Most of his alone time is actually through the week when
he would get up early to be withthe Father and pray.
So for Jesus, he actually spendsthe Sabbath over and over again.
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What you see is he's hanging outwith people.
For Jesus, Sabbath is a day for spiritual community.
It was a day to relax with friends.
You look at the first couple of verses of Luke chapter 6.
What's he's doing? What's he doing?
Jesus is walking through the grain fields with his friends,
with his disciples. They're they're walking
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together. You can almost picture the
moment they're out for a beautiful walk, enjoying the
scenery of the wheat field and you're strolling along and
you're just casually picking heads of grain and popping them
in your mouth as a bit of a snack while you're up for a walk
together. You know, some of us will
remember this. When we were younger, there were
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one of two things that you couldcount on happening every single
Sunday. You were either going to go out
to eat with a bunch of friends after church was done, or those
friends were going to come over to your house after church was
done. That it was a regular common
occurrence that we would just spend time together on our day
of rest, hanging out with each other.
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But somewhere along the way, a lot of us have exchanged that
time with friends for time by ourselves and having a nice
Sunday afternoon nap. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not
attacking Sunday afternoon naps.I love me some Sunday afternoon
naps. But I do think we're missing out
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on something when we just say hey, my day of rest I'm just
going to spend by myself. There's just something life
giving when we can be together with other people to laugh and
play some games and go for a nice walk or or whatever it
might be. Friendships lead to people being
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more satisfied with life, less likely to suffer from
depression. It will make you physically and
emotionally healthier. And for Jesus, he used to
Sabbath as a time to just hang out with his friends.
So here's my encouragement to you.
Consider what would it look liketo take even one Saturday or
Sunday a month just to invite someone over to your house after
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church on Sunday and get together and hang out, spend
some time relaxing and connecting with each other.
But it wasn't just relaxing withfriends that Jesus did.
He also gathered for worship on the Sabbath.
That's what happens in in verse 6.
It says on another Sabbath, he enters the synagogue and was
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teaching. He's coming together with people
to enter the synagogue on the Sabbath to, to teach.
But what we don't think about iswhat's happening at the
synagogue. What, what are they doing on the
Sabbath day? You know, what happens in the
synagogue on the Sabbath? They read from the Torah, which
is the first five books of the Old Testament.
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They pray together and they sing.
Any of that sound familiar to you?
It's what we do when we come together as Christians on Sunday
morning. We pray, we sing, we read from
the Bible together, and we say, what is God trying to say to us?
Sabbath for Jesus was a time to stop the physical and to focus
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on the spiritual with each other, with other people.
It was a day that was holy to God.
Now, unfortunately, gathering for worship has become a little
bit of a well, do I have anything better to do on Sunday?
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If I've got anything else betterto do, then I'll go do that and
but if not, and then I'll come to church on Sunday.
I don't know how often all of you attend worship services, but
I do know this. On average, most churches in
Canada would say that regular attendance of worship services
is now 1 to about every three Sundays.
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Did you know like gathering withGod's people to worship together
is good for your soul, being together is good for you.
Last year, Harvard Public Healthpublished a study that said
weekly attendance at worship services is associated with
lower mortality risk, lower depression, better health
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behaviors, greater marital stability, happiness, and
purpose in life. It's good for you and science is
showing. It's good for you to gather
together with God's people to worship, to learn, to pray
together, to be together. Now, some of us, we like to just
bolt out of here on Sunday morning after the service is
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done. And I just want to say to you, I
want to encourage you, hang out,stay, talk to some people.
If you don't know somebody or ifyou're sitting around someone
that you don't know, introduce yourself, get to know each
other, connect with each other. That's the kind of stuff that
Jesus would do. Spending his Sabbath day, a
weekly day of rest is made for your benefit.
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And part of the way Jesus celebrated was gathering with
people for worship. But in this passage, there's one
more thing that we see that was common for Jesus as he spends
this day in spiritual community.We see that for Jesus, Sabbath
was a day to serve the needs of others as well.
In these two stories that show up here in this passage, there's
two very different approaches tolife that are happening for the
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Pharisees. Their whole approach is how do
we obey the commands and the traditions?
How do we just keep the rules for Jesus?
His whole focus is how can I love and care for those who are
in need? Because that's what's showing up
here, people who are in need of a touch from Jesus.
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Jesus views this day of rest as an opportunity to help give rest
to other people who are in need.And the Pharisees are too busy
going. You can't do that.
There's been some wild rules that we've created over the
years. One, one guy told me this story.
He said, when I was a kid in a walkathon for life, we were
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outside where parched were overheated and we saw a house
that had a big Bible sign on it.And so we went up to the house
and said, hey, like we're in this walk for life.
We're raising money for this bigneed.
Could you, could you give us some water just so we could keep
going? And they said, no, it's Sunday.
We can't give you anything to drink.
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Like, that's wild when you startand stop and think about it.
And we don't usually come up with rules like this.
But for a lot of us, this day ofrest has gone to a different
extreme. And it's become more about what
can I get out of it instead of what can I give.
I want you to imagine with me the story of a mom who's trying
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to raise her children on her own.
She's got a couple of young kidsrunning around the house.
You can imagine the chaos and the busyness.
She's maybe working a couple of jobs just to pay the bills.
Her kids are her world. But by the time the weekend
comes along, she's completely worn out.
And she decides, you know, I, I need to be somewhere where I can
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get some type of hope from the chaos and the busyness of life.
And so she decides maybe I should go to church and try
church. So she drops her kids off.
She comes to Forward, drops her kids off at forward Kids.
And there's other adults who areloving and caring for her kids
while she comes into a worship service just to have a breath
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and to get some type of hope. Now imagine where that mom would
be if there was no place for herkids on Sunday morning.
You know, over the past year, our kids ministry here has grown
by over 10% a week. We we sent out a bunch of kids
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to help plant Forward Brant and we still have more kids than we
did before we started Brant. That's the kind of growth that
we're seeing. And right now we need a minimum
of 25 people to say yes to showing compassion and love for
families and to care for kids bysurveying in kids ministry here
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at Cambridge, 25 people. And if we want to disciple the
next generation, well, we need at least 65 more people to sign
up to be part of discipling the next generation of kids.
That's what happens when we serve in kids ministry.
It's not just a, it's not a babysitting service, despite
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what you might think. It's a space where you're
showing compassion and care for families that are in need.
We need people that are going toget down and roll around on the
floor and just play around with some toddlers.
We need people who are going to care enough about children to
say, hey, let's talk about Jesus.
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And we need to care enough for each other together as a church
family that we're showing and providing a place of compassion
and care for each other by taking our turn and serving in
kids ministry. Serving is not doing the church
a favor. Serving is just a normal part of
the way of life of a disciple ofJesus.
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It's how we show our love for each other.
So today, if you are not servingin kids ministry already, first
of all, if you are, thank you somuch.
And if you're not, then I'm going to ask you to consider
signing up to serve in kids ministry.
We're going to put a slide on the screen.
Just text the word serve to the text number and just follow all
the prompts to get involved. One of the great joys of coming
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together in spiritual communities, we get to point
each other to one truth of God'slove for US.
One of the things that Jesus keeps pointing us back to is
that Sabbath isn't just about a single day of the week, it's
actually about a whole life. Sabbath is a day to recenter
your life on resting in Jesus. You know when you study the
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Bible, you're going to see that God often designs into creation
physical things that point us toa greater spiritual reality, and
Sabbath rest is no different. Colossians 3 verse 17 tells us
this about the Sabbath. It was a shadow of what was to
come. The substance is Christ.
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But the one day of resting was never meant to be about one day
of resting. It was meant to point us to
something that that is meant to shape our entire life, our
entire way of being where we are, people who are resting in
the love and power and person ofJesus 24 hours a day and seven
(33:41):
days a week. In Luke 6 verse 10, Jesus
encounters a man with a deformedhand and he asked a question
that seems really odd. Is it lawful to save a life or
destroy it? Now it seems odd because all the
guy has is a deformed hand. What does that have to do with
saving his life? And the reason it's odd is
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because this guy's not going to die.
But what Jesus comes to do is not only heal a hand, but save a
life. That that's the work of Jesus.
He's pointing us to the bigger story, the story that brings us
back to the Garden of Eden, where on God's day of rest and
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our day of rest match up on the same day.
A world where the foundation of life is fellowship and
relationship between humans and God.
But our sin, your sin, my sin breaks that relationship.
So since then, humans have triedto figure out how do I get right
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with God? What do I need to do to earn
God's favor, to make God like memore, love me more?
How can I do all the things thatwill help me to avoid God's
judgement? But God shows his love for you,
not because of anything you've done, but because he loves you.
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He doesn't require you to do anywork.
He's done all the work. When Jesus goes to the cross and
takes your place and dies on thecross for your sins, He pays the
ultimate price so that you and Ican be reconciled to God.
He does all the work so we can be at rest.
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The death and the resurrection of Jesus means this.
That you never ever, ever have to work to earn the favour of
God. That you are completely forgiven
and adopted and loved when you place your faith in Jesus alone.
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But it doesn't end there. His grace in your life is
designed to actually lead to a whole life that is at rest
because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave.
When you rest in Jesus that no matter what you're facing today,
you can live with confidence that Jesus is Lord and He's got
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it. When you rest in Jesus, your
past does not need to define youanymore and your future does not
need to scare you. When you rest in Jesus, you
don't need to feel the pressure to achieve every goal and dream
that you have before you die because this life is only
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chapter one of your life. When you rest in Jesus, you can
look at all the wild and crazy things going on in the world and
you can be at peace and go King Jesus has this.
When you rest in Jesus, you get to boldly enter the presence of
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God and receive mercy and grace in your time of need.
Taking a weekly Sabbath rest, it's not about the law of doing
it for the sake of doing it. It's for your benefit.
Because I don't know about you, but life gets pretty crazy
sometimes. It's pretty busy.
There's all kinds of worries andfears and things that you're
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thinking about and stressed out about.
And pausing and taking a day, a week to rest allows you to
recenter yourself away from the craziness of life and recenter
yourself on resting in Jesus. It's not laziness to do this.
It's surrender. It's a weekly reminder to
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yourself that you're not in charge and you don't have to be
because Jesus is Lord and He loves you.
Mark Buchanan wrote a book called The Rest of God.
Here's what he says. He says in a culture where
busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is
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sloth. But without rest, we miss the
rest of God, the rest that he invites us to enter more fully
so that we might know him more deeply.
Jesus is your Sabbath rest. It's not ultimately about a day,
it's about a person. That's what we celebrate when we
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come together each week, and it's what we celebrate when we
take Communion together. I want to invite you to take
your communion cups out just before we take Communion.
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I am going to wager a guess thatthere's more than one person in
this room who's a little bit stressed out on life.
You got some concerns, whatever they might be right now, you're
a little worn out. Worn down.
Maybe some of you are beat up. Maybe you got all kinds of
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fears, anxieties, worries, concerns.
Here's what I want to do. I want to take the next just 30
to 60 seconds of just silence. I want us to be still before the
Lord. And in your heart, just ask
Jesus. Reach out.
Like Jesus says to this man in the story, reach out your hand.
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And it's almost like in your heart you're reaching out and
saying, Jesus, I need your rest.Help me to know your rest today.
Would you just do that right now?
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If you could take the wafer out of the Communion cup, hold that
in your hand. This wafer represents the body
of Jesus, which reminds us that Jesus is the Son of Man.
He came, He's a human, He dwelt amongst us, He's one of us, and
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as one of us, he's the only perfect one, which made him the
only one eligible to be able to go to a cross and die for the
freedom of the whole world to take our place, the perfect
spotless Lamb of God, so we can take this wafer and remembrance
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of the body of Jesus that was sacrificed for us.
Eat all of it. If you open up to the juice, the
juice represents the blood of Jesus that's shed on the cross
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that makes it possible for the forgiveness of our sins.
The beautiful, amazing promise of Sabbath rest for our souls
that we never, ever have to do anything to earn the love and
the favour and the mercy of God that it was finished on the
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cross through the shed blood of Jesus.
Let's take this to remembrance of Him.
Father, thank you for how great your love is for us.
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Thank you for sending your Son Jesus to show us that rest isn't
just about a day that we have tokeep repeating over and over
again. But rest can be a state of
being, a way of life for us as we rest in Jesus.
And in moments like this God, where some of us are coming off
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of busy and crazy weeks, help usto find our rest in Jesus again
today. Help us to find our rest in the
presence of the God who loves us, who allows us over and over
again to keep running back into His arms.
(43:01):
I pray this in your mighty name,Amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and worship
church.
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