10x: 10x Rest with Rev. Sean Carroll

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Welcome to worship. My name is Sean. I'm one of the pastors here on staff.

Before we get started today, I was handed this camera, and it says, we want your point of view on Sundays. Take a pick where you are and who you're with, then pass it along. If no more film, bring to the connection center. That's the lit cube area. And so I'm gonna play along.

Alright. My selfie skills are low. Alright. Everybody ready? Say cheese.

Cheese. I have no idea if that worked, but I'm a pass it on. Timo, I'm a pass it on to you. Come get it. Take a picture of something else other than me.

Well, got a question for you. I don't need an answer, but do you trust me? No. I'm serious. Do you trust me?

I mean, come on. Like, trust me. Alright? Now when I ask that question, some of you have a relationship with me and you're like, yeah. Sure.

I trust you. And some of you have a relationship with me and you're like, no, I don't trust you. That's okay. We can

talk about that later. We'll grab coffee.

For those of you, maybe this is your first time or maybe you haven't met me personally, and so you think, might trust the office of pastor the guy or girl giving the sermon. Or maybe you've been wronged by another pastor, and so you're like, no. I don't trust this man. You gotta earn my trust. And that's okay.

All of those things, though, share one thing in common. They're all based on past experiences and relationships that you have, either with me or with someone in my position. Now there's an old movie called Aladdin. I'm gonna spoil it for you if you haven't seen it. So, well, you missed a boat.

It was like... It's like 40 years old. But in the movie, prince Aladdin reaches out for the hand of princess Jasmine, he says, do you trust me? Now spoiler alert. He's not actually a prince, but she still trusts him.

Do you know why? Because she has a past experience, a past shared history with him that taught her that he is safe to trust. And just like that, our relationships matter. Today, we're continuing a sermon series called 10 x. It is on the 10 commandments, how when we live life God's way, our life becomes multiplied 10 x.

Today, we're gonna look at the fourth commandment, and trust in relationship is a big piece of that. So let's pray pray, and then we'll get into it. Heavenly father, we come before you honored and awed that we get to be part of your creation, that the whole of creation worships you, and so will we. Lord, may your spirit rest with us today, and may you teach us what we need to learn so that we can better worship and honor you. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen. Now I wanted to start today by talking about relationships because it's a key piece, not of just this commandment, but of the 10 commandments as a whole. There are certain people that you know that you trust. Why? Because they've shown up for you in the past.

When they ask you to do something, you do it. And that's important. That values. That matters. That that value matters.

And so when they ask you something in the future, you don't need a resume because you have a history. And that history has said, yes. I can trust you. That is so important for the 10 commandments. We just read it this morning, but before God gives a single commandment, do you hear what he says?

He could have said, I'm God who created the heavens and the earth. I'm all powerful. I'm all knowing. You must trust me. You must obey my command, which are, of course, all true, but that's not what he says.

Listen. Exodus 20 verse two, he says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. That's personal. That is relational. God says, you know me.

You know what I've done for you. You've watched me show up. You've watched me rescue you and provide for you. You know that I'm faithful, Israel. And that's the the context of the 10 commandments.

These aren't just 10 arbitrary rules that are handed down by corporate seven floors above you. They're intimate. They're about knowing each other. They're relational. And through that lens, through that lens of relationships, we see that these commandments reveal what does God value.

What does God care about? Well, he says don't murder. So we learn that God cares about life. Don't give false testimony. So we learn that God values the truth.

Honor your father and your mother. Did you hear that kids? That means God values family. Right? So what does the fourth commandment tell us that God values?

We're gonna read it again and find out. Exodus 20 verses eight through 11. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.

For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. God values rest. Now I'm not talking about self help or vacation rest. Those are important, and I enjoy both of those very much, but this is something different.

This is something deeper. I want us to see today that biblical rest is much deeper than just taking a day off. Sabbath is an act of worship. Because when we Sabbath, we say, God, I trust you. Let's look at verse nine again.

It says, six days you shall labor and do all of your work. Listen. Work isn't isn't bad. Right? Work existed before sin.

God, in fact, created us to do work. He created us to till the soil, to build relationships with each other, to enjoy God's creation, to cultivate, to contribute, to care for the needs of each other. Listen, we're supposed to love work. It's supposed to be enjoyable. No.

Work isn't the problem. The problem comes when we can't stop working. The problem comes when we recognize that we were created to work, but we don't understand the rhythm of not working. It's counterintuitive. God says six days you shall labor, and then you shall stop.

Rest. Imagine if you're an ancient Israelite hearing this. Israel had just spent four hundred years in captivity as slaves and then got freed from slavery in Egypt. They fled an agrarian culture where farming was their way of life and where it produced all the food that they ever could need. The crops don't stop growing on the seventh day.

The animals still need to be attended to. I still need to eat on the seventh day. What do you mean rest? What is this rest that you're talking about? It's crazy talk.

Listen, we gotta eat. And on top of that, my neighbor, he's not stopping. He's getting ahead of me. He's mowing his grass. His grass looks great.

I gotta keep up with the Joneses. There's always more that we could be doing, and God says, stop. And by listening to God and obeying God on our Sabbath, it's our way of saying, I'm gonna leave something unfinished. Why? Well, it's because I trust God.

You see, Sabbath is the embodied expression that God is God and I am not. That he can accomplish everything and I cannot. That's worship, friends. We are creatures. We're created beings.

We have limits. By submitting and committing to Sabbath, we are stating, hey. We recognize that fact. We recognize that God is in control of his creation, and I am not. In fact, in in verse 11, it takes us all the way back to creation itself.

For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested. I want to be clear about something. God doesn't need rest because He's exhausted. He doesn't need to recover. He is modeling that for us.

We do. God is infinite, and we aren't. And Sabbath is the one day we stop pretending otherwise. You see this rhythm throughout life, work, and rest. Right?

We're whole people. We have spiritual, physical, emotional, relational needs. And each of those fears needs uptime, and then it needs downtime. And the God who created us, he knows that. He knows how we work.

And so God built rest into creation. Time to pause, time to recover, to reflect. However, in verse 10, it says this, it is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. That's important. A Sabbath isn't merely God's ancient version of a mental health day.

It belongs to him. It is his. We rest as an act of worship to the one who created the Sabbath. And so restating it, we got a time to pause, to recover, to reflect, and to worship. Now I want you to think back to the context of these commandments.

They're relational. Remember? Right in Exodus, which we just read, God connects this commandment to creation. But there's another fascinating detail about this commandment. When Moses restates the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy five, he gives another reason for Sabbath.

He says this, remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. So in Exodus, Sabbath points back to all of creation. Hey, you're a creature. Rest. In Deuteronomy, Sabbath points back to their own redemption.

You were slaves, and now you're free. Rest. Because slaves don't get a Sabbath. Israel spent generations under Pharaoh. Make the bricks.

Meet the quota. Keep producing on and on again and again. They don't get to decide when they were finished. And then God rescues them and draws them up, and he says, you're not a slave anymore. You can stop.

It's okay. You can rest. This commandment is actually particularly relational because it only makes sense in the context of relationship to a good creator. The other commandments, we see their inherent value. Right?

Of course, you keep people alive. Of course, you don't steal their stuff. Right? Those have inherent value. But this one, why?

Why do we rest? It's not productive. It's counterintuitive. And yet, it is precisely that comment that puts God on the throne of our lives. Lord, I I don't fully understand why this is productive, but I trust you.

And it's the belief that God will be faithful if we choose to do life God's way. I wonder how many of us have been freed from an Egypt, and yet we're still making bricks. Nobody has a whip over us. We just do it to ourselves. Produce, accomplish, Keep going.

Answer the email. Check the phone. Don't fall behind. Make sure you prove your worth. But that's not what God says.

God says, you are my child. You are not a slave. You are loved. Your job doesn't own you. The calendar doesn't own you.

Your productivity doesn't own you. You get your reputation and your value from me. And and notice how comprehensive this freedom is. Let's look back at Exodus 20. Who rests?

You rest. Your kids rest. Right? The household workers rest. Any foreigner in the entirety of the town, they all rest.

Your working animals, they rest too. Everybody rests. Everybody gets to stop because God's people are free people. Now I got I got to tell you something. I'm preaching today to myself.

I had a Sabbath rhythm. I took a Sabbath every day, and then I said, you know what? I like going out to lunch with people. Maybe I'll go out to lunch with people on Fridays. And so I started doing that.

And then I said, oh, you know what? I'm already here. I might as well take a Zoom meeting. No problem. I'm already here.

And then I said, oh, nobody's at home, so why do I go home? I'll just check my emails while I'm here. And slowly but surely, I'm drifting away from the fourth commandment. It's not like one day I woke up and I was like, today, I'm rejecting the fourth commandment. Who's with me?

It doesn't happen. It just crept. It happens slowly. And if that is you, I invite you to repent with me. I repent that sometimes I don't have enough faith to trust that God's got it, to rest in Him.

Listen to this verse. It's super convicting. Psalm one twenty seven says, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. In vain. It doesn't matter how much of the house gets built.

It doesn't matter how much effort gets put in. It doesn't even matter if the house gets completed. The Lord is the one who does the work. Verse two goes on and says, In vain, you rise up early and you stay up late toiling for food to eat, for He grants sleep to those He loves. I am learning that sometimes I need to leave work related tasks, emails, phone calls unfinished.

And that's hard for me because somewhere underneath my ability to stop is this phrase, this depends on me. But it doesn't. I rest even if resting doesn't make me more productive Because my value is not measured in my productivity, and the world doesn't keep spinning because of my output. Neither does my family, and neither does the church. Friends, God is faithful enough for me to stop.

And not only that, did you see the end of 01/27? The Lord grants sleep to those he loves. No anxious nights required. Work hard. Play hard.

Rest hard. Sleep hard. And my prayer for all of us is that we can learn what the worship of Sabbath looks like, and that the Lord would grant us his peace, which passes our understanding. So what counts as work anyways? And here's where everybody wants a list.

Right? Can I mow the lawn? Can I exercise? Can I work out? Can I cook food?

Can I spend time with friends? What can I do? What can I do? Can my kids play sports? Can I check my email?

Can I take a phone call? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

Do you guys hear how anxious that sounds? Right? And this is a question I need to ask in my head. I don't think that's the best question. Can I be honest?

It's like, how close can I get to this without actually doing it? Where's the line that I can't cross? Anybody know? Instead of that, let's ask this question. How do I run towards God?

Sabbath isn't about creating a new rule book. Listen. Jesus says this. He says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And he also said, it's lawful to do good.

Feed your family. Care for somebody. Do good. Pursue God. But while you're doing those things, ask yourself this question.

Am I resting in God as an act of worship? Am I able to stop because I trust him, or am I resting because I'm too anxious and exhausted to go on? This is a different question. There is a difference. Now to help us understand this difference, we have to get to Jesus.

Right? Because if I end my sermon today by saying you all need to do better at Sabbathing, it is your job to rest. I've just created one more thing for you guys to complete. One more box to check, one more area to feel guilty about when we fail. That's not the gospel.

That's not grace. That's not freedom. That's workspace righteousness, and the gospel is full of grace. Jesus says this in Mark two, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Now the first part of that verse is important, talking more about how the Sabbath is there to support us, not make us slaves to it. But now I wanna focus on the latter part of that verse, that Jesus is the Lord even of the Sabbath. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says this, come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Did you hear it? What happens if we put

the two together? That Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and it is Jesus who gives rest. You see, the answer to our exhaustion isn't ultimately take a day off and rest. The answer is come to Jesus. Come be with him.

Because there's a deeper kind of work that exhausts us beyond our jobs, and it's the work of trying to prove ourselves. Trying to be enough, to accomplish enough, to be a good enough parent, to be a good enough spouse, to be a good enough coworker, to be a good enough Christian, trying to convince ourselves, both God and everybody else, that we're worthy of our titles. And that's the problem. The work is never finished. There is always something more that you can do.

There's always something better that you can be. There's always another way where you find that you have fallen short. There's never gonna be a time in your life when you're like, you know what? I've reached the pinnacle of exactly everything that God has created me to be. I have arrived.

In fact, I'm Mary Poppins. I'm practically perfect in every way. But here's the problem. Even Mary Poppins was only practically perfect. She still fell short.

There is no one in this world who has arrived, who is perfect. And that, friends, is the beauty of the gospel. The good news that Jesus talked about is that we can't and nor do we have to earn our own righteousness, our own salvation. We don't have to be perfect. Jesus did the work that we could never finish, and on the cross, he said, it is finished.

Brothers and sisters, our deepest rest is confidence that Jesus has finished the work of our salvation. And that's why Sabbath isn't something we practice one day a week. Sabbath is a way of living. It's a worldview of both faith and of trust. It's waking up tomorrow knowing I don't have to earn God's love today.

I don't have to prove my worth today. I don't have to hold the universe together even though I think it matters. Jesus has finished all that work, but I could never do it. So I can work hard, and then I can stop. I know you're still wondering, okay, so what does what does it actually look like?

Well, historically, Christians in our reformed tradition have particularly treated Sunday, the Lord's Day, Sabbath. Right? And that makes sense. It's already a day centered around worship, around Christ's resurrection. And for some of us, Saturday, that works great.

It works naturally. But for others, it it doesn't. Church staff are an example. Frontline workers, another. Sunday is a work day for us.

And so our Sabbath needs to happen on another day. The point is not finding a loophole. The point is whatever day you choose to be intentional about setting apart time to the Lord. Now I don't want to give you a list of rules to follow or a checklist to complete. That doesn't really feel like rest or like worship, but I do know that there are some thoughts that might guide you as you figure out a Sabbath rhythm.

So set aside time to the Lord. Recognize and dedicate that this is the Lord's day and let's complete His purposes. Stop ordinary work. Stay clear of your day job. You and your spouse can talk about if household chores are on that list or not.

I'll leave it up to you. Trust that God is God. Wrestle with those anxious thoughts that are flooding your brain. Enjoy God's creation. Go for a walk.

Stare at a bird. Friends, I kid you not. I spent about ten minutes staring at this bird on Thursday out my window, and I was like taking notes because I was prepared. If one day I'm gonna fly, I'm gonna know how to do it. I'm I'm telling you though, like, was really just enjoyable to sit there and watch the majesty of a bird flying through the air and to enjoy that this is part of God's creation.

Spend time with God. Pray. Journal. Read his word. Read a book.

Hang out with family and friends. Remember, God is relational, so spend time enjoying the people that you love. Make sure you get some rest, do something restorative. This could literally be mowing your lawn, doing woodworking, finding some time, going for a walk. It doesn't really matter.

And then worship. We got to come back to this often because we forget, and if we're not intentional, we forget why we're doing Sabbath. Give thanks to God. Acknowledge what He has done. As we move towards close, I have a a question I want us to wrestle with.

And the question is not, are you faithful enough to Sabbath? That's the wrong question. The the fourth commandment pushes us to something much deeper. And the question is, do I believe God is faithful enough for me to stop? Maybe for you, trusting Jesus means establishing a Sabbath for the first time.

Maybe it means, like me, protecting the one that has slowly been taken over. And maybe it means repenting of the belief that everything depends on me. And for someone out there, maybe you're thinking, man, I'm not even sure if I trust Jesus yet, period. I haven't given my life to him. I don't I don't trust him as Lord, but I'm intrigued.

And if that's you today, I would encourage you, come find me. We can set up a time to grab coffee and to talk about it. I would love to do that. But underneath every single one of those is the same invitation. The invitation is from Jesus, and he says, come to me.

Come to me. You don't you don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to show your worth. You don't have to finish everything. You don't have to hold it all together.

You belong to me, and I got you. He can accomplish the work that you and I could never finish. So leave something unfinished. Stop. Rest.

Worship. And in doing so, confess with your life that God is God and I am not, And God is faithful enough for me to stop. And so I wanna leave you with the question that we started with, but from God's perspective. And the question that God asks us is, do you trust me? Let's pray.

Heavenly father, we come before you in awe. Lord, that you are the author and sustainer of life. Lord, that everything we have is a gift from you, and we don't need to earn anything. Lord, we come before you humbly at the fact that Jesus laid down his life for us while we were enemies of God, and that is love. And so we confess that we try to sustain our own way of life, that we try to earn our own righteousness.

And Lord, today we wanna lay those things down. May your spirit fill us with grace and with rest. Bless us all in Jesus' name. Amen.