God and Rest

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0:00 So we're finishing up this like the season of Pentecost. The church would have been celebrating Pentecost historically for several weeks following Pentecost. Remember that's when Jesus releases again the Holy Spirit indiscriminately on the people of God and that original spirit of life enlivened the people and awakened faith and began the church community out into the world and I've been wanting to think about now that we have been resurrected with Christ enlivened

0:30 by His Spirit dispatched to be the church in the world. What does it look like to be the church today? What does it look like to be the church today? And what I've been the definition or the idea that we've been using the way we've been understanding what church is, the definition we've been using for church is the people of God called out from the world living under the reign of Christ that the church is the people of God called out from the world living

1:01 under the reign of Christ empowered by the Spirit and that then these this group of people living under the reign of Christ we've been talking about because we have this King this authority that we live under and we are interacting with each other there is this culture that develops among the church so that I'm inviting us to consider the church it's not our job to transform the cultures of

1:33 the world that may happen as the church endures in different cultures but our job is to embody the culture of the reign of God and we've seen that we talked about how that that every pocket or iteration of the church embodying the reign of God interacts with different cultures so as the church there in Pentecost one of the one of the real challenges throughout the New Testament in Acts and then Paul and Peter's letters is how do we interact with the culture

2:04 of Jerusalem the culture of Israelite faith in first century of Judaism what's the relationship between the church and Judaism and then it becomes what's the relationship between the church and North Africa and the church becomes the Copic church there and what is the church between what is the relationship between the church and Middle Eastern cultures and it becomes orthodoxy what is the relationship between the church and the Roman culture and it becomes Roman Catholicism and then Protestantism and then Evangelicalism as the church

2:37 interacts with the culture of Manifest Destiny and rugged individualism of American culture and the question for us today is how do we interact faithfully and appropriately with the culture of 21st century Orlando without losing the DNA of being the church the people of God called out from the world to live under the reign of Christ in the last two weeks I've been pulling out if culture is created and perpetuated by things like values systems rituals

3:12 language you look up culture there's these pillars that create culture and I feel like we have our rituals we develop a language amongst ourselves one of the places where we have the most friction as the church in the 21st century Orlando is with these values I've been pulling out I started last two weeks ago pulling out the value of money and saying how do how does the church interact with money and the economy we started out by saying the first posture

3:46 of the church with respect to money is a posture of generosity that that that we are the church is in every culture interacting in every locality throughout history and time the church is known as the people who are generous generous with things time and money the church is generous and we are generous not out of obligation or even out of pity but we are generous because we know we have a

4:19 God who to whom all things in the world belong last week I quoted this phrase from Hudson Taylor that said the cattle on the thousand hills all the money in all the world belongs to God we don't need to fear that he is poor he'll make sure that we have all that we need from a posture that recommends we are cared for that Christians are able to be generous but last week we talked about that that the culture of money in the church goes past simple generosity and

4:50 into the way that we engage in economy in general meaning we move into systems of money and work and profession we move into systems of banking and saving not to accumulate and hoard but to create and bless that that there's a different culture in the way that we interact with the economy of the world the people governed by Jesus use money and position and power to bless and create not to

5:25 hoard and hold and this is when we allow God to be our protection our provision our safety rather than our bank accounts when we rely on our retirement funds and our bank accounts for safety we begin to accumulate in the world rather than bless Christian throughout time have been responsible and often prosperous and often poor and we've looked at the phrase from Paul that says whether I have

5:59 plenty or nothing I have learned the secret of contentment in all situations this is a core characteristic of the people of God that we do not need things in order to engage content in order to be content in the world we may have things but our contentment our protection does not come from things we use things in order to create and to bless and God takes care of us so one fundamental way that we create and preserve the culture of the reign of God is the way that we

6:34 move in and out of the economies of the world and what we do with our money they key way that we build and cultivate and maintain the culture of the reign of God the one I want to look at the next aspect I want to look at where we have a particular rub with the culture in Orlando in the 21st century is how we approach rest I want to think about how we approach rest the culture of the reign of God has a always in every culture and every time has a specific

7:09 value around the place that rest holds in our lives right this comes up first right I mean it comes up in the very beginning the like ultimate unbounded infinite creator God models for us rest now here's the interesting thing right

7:41 God spins the whole universe into existence out of his or her it's imagination right like just like imagine what were we talking about the other day at the guys once where I always use the example of light like this first thing that the God imagines and speaks into existence and we still can't understand it all the way look the God just imagine a thing that did not exist

8:16 before as light and we can't figure out if it's a particle or a wave we can't figure out how it exactly moves through space and time but we need it we we crave access to light when when people are live in spaces right where they never see the sun they have to set up vitamin D lancons sit in front of them so they don't get depressed we need this thing that God made and we don't even understand what it is or how it works I remember we were talking about the

8:46 brain that there are spaces in the brain where you can see where memories are held and we and we can't quite figure out how you can hold you can't hurt hold short-term memories but you could still hold long-term memories and when does a short-term memory become a long-term memory I mean we have cut apart the brain and pulled it apart into little pieces we have x-rayed it and watched the thin-out fire and we still can't figure out how does this thing work that

9:16 the God just formed out of the dust and breathe God is does this amazing act of creation the story tells us in six days boom boom one punch after another pulling things out of nothing right and then the last day the God rests why it is the God tired is that I spent has has the God exhausted his creativity that

9:57 cannot be he's still creating today she's still calling people into existence evolving new species from others the gods still created could not have adopted God's creativity could not have gotten tired this is the unbounded infinite God without imperfection or flaw God does not get tired psalm tells us over and over again your God does not lumber or sleep no the rest on the Sabbath the seventh day of creation was just as powerful of a launching into

10:31 existence as light just as powerful spinning the oceans out into the world and throwing the stars across the expenses gifting the world with this generative activity just like something happens rest is not the absence of activity there's something generative and powerful in enjoying a God God's creation

11:16 God's beauty God's capacity and potential rest is not the absence of work it cannot be it's launched into the world the idea of God Ellie and I were reading this book when in the evenings called the miraculous

11:49 journey of Edward Tulane by this like really kind of amazing children's book author Kate de Camillo it's kind of it's a beautiful story kind of heartbreaking and also amazing but it features this this doll this this doll rabbit that's made out of porcelain really beautifully made and you you engage the story from

12:24 the perspective it's kind of an omniscient view but you get it you get a viewpoint into the dolls Edward's mind and what's really interesting in the way which tells the story is the doll has these eyes painted on Edward has these eyes painted on the porcelain and because they're painted on they can never close so Edward never sleeps he just sits and stares

12:55 sleep was the God's idea and we know science will tell us this from like watching the body work sleep is a generative activity for you and insomnia is a plague on our culture right don't diminish if you struggle with lack of

13:26 sleep don't fight for your sleep don't give up we value rest and sleep is the like pinnacle of that pray for good night's sleep it's valuable God launches Sabbath into the world Sabbath is not the absence of activity Sabbath is or Sabbath rest is generative and we know that because God initiates it

13:58 thinks it up with the same mind that things up life and light thinks up rest and I want to look at a passage in the Jewish Bible in the Old Testament in Nehemiah chapter 13 it's can be a little tricky to find these two books that go together Ezra Nehemiah they're towards the end of the historic section which means that concludes at Psalms after Psalms we go into the prophets so so if

14:31 you go to Psalms then go till the left just a little bit and you'll find Nehemiah you go through Job and Esther if you get to Ezra and then the chronicles and kings you've gone too far to the left Ezra I mean we're in Nehemiah chapter 13 and Ezra and Nehemiah rebuild Jerusalem and Judah after the Babylonian exile they bring the people of God out of exile back into the promised lands they

15:04 rebuild the walls they re-established the temple and they rebuild again the culture of the Israelites the people of God in the world and it's a remnant of what it was but he hinges on rest in chapter 13 verse 15 you see that there it says in those days I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the

15:36 Sabbath and bringing in the heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys and also wine great figs and all kinds of loads and they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day and I warned them on the day that and I warned them on the day when they sold food. Tyrion's also who lived in the city bought in fish and brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself then I confronted the nobles of Judah and

16:08 said to them what is this evil thing that you are doing profaning the Sabbath day did not your father's action this way and did not got our God bring all this disaster on us and on this day on this city now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. Nehemiah is bringing the people back out of Babylon back out of exile and re-establishing the city of God and they were in exile

16:41 because they fell apart at maintaining the culture of Israel the culture of Israel began to look like the culture of all that there was no distinctive between the people of God and the rest of the world the great tragedy of that is that God has always intended from the time he established Israel that as Israel became what it was supposed to be the rest of the world would look at their life and go back to life we were made for move towards Israel and by moving towards Israel move towards God and find the life they were intended so that as

17:14 Israel begins to look like the rest of the world all the rest of the world loses its map to the God and God is separated forever from the people whom he loves so he will fight to maintain a people who hold on to his culture and so when Israel abandoned the culture he sends him in exile after 70 years he's like okay let's try this again he sends Ezra and Nehemiah with money from Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem and they do and Nehemiah walks in and he's like what's

17:47 going on on the Sabbath the people of God have a distinctive approach to generative rest in the world and you are going right back to undermining the culture that makes us the people of God in the world and isn't this what brought the Vastra on us before he says you're working on the Sabbath you're selling on the Sabbath remember that at Sinai God said here's what life with God

18:21 looks like because God initiated this generative activity on the seventh day on the seventh day you will rest and not work so just like take a break in Leviticus he spins out that seven into like seven year rest for the land and then every seven times seven every forty ninth year year jubilee where all death to repay all land goes back everybody and it's just like whole system decades long built on this principle of wrath and Nehemiah is like

18:54 would you at least just take a day off from your work just take a day off from your work if you were a farmer I I don't I'm not a farmer I have no interest in being I don't I don't even want to grow any food in my yard I'm not interested in it sorry I don't want that press girl my life I can imagine it if you had acres to

19:30 take care of and your life your food and also your livelihood depended on how well that it would be hard to take a day off from taking care of that little piece of property and then if you were enterprising and saw some people are taking a rest on this day if I hustled a little bit more well everyone else is chilling out I could make more money see how rest is this like linchmen that's

20:04 tied to the money thing for us we're in most cultures where we go I was trying to like connect emotionally to the the struggle of not working on the Sabbath and an agrarian culture and I was like trying to figure out what does that feel like and recently I have set some limits around the way I engage emails and social media for myself and because social media is mostly work for

20:36 me it's like putting the right messages in the right places at the right times emails definitely work slack is definitely work I set some boundaries for myself about at the end of the day at this point in the day it no longer I no longer go into it but I'm not working on the weekend and it's hard to just like what if something comes up guys what if there's an email that must be addressed right what if somebody needs something I put the phone away but I turned the

21:10 bringer on just in case I got it just if something happening I need to be able to see it it takes it would take if you were like cultivating land for your livelihood it would take a sincere hope and confidence that God can is larger than your problems to just walk away from it for a day the people of God are not irresponsible but throughout time they have they have gotten it

21:44 legalistic about protecting this thing I want you to think about this that the values we're talking about are not nice ideas these are non negotiable to maintain our identity as the people of God in the world how we engage money and economy is core to whether or not we are actually the people of God in the world the church same with rest it's not like a nice idea if we will be the church in

22:17 the world we will have a robust relationship with rest such that the world looked at them and says how on earth do they do that the answer must be there's a God bigger than them that takes care of them for whom they work live move one last thing on this resting in mark go to the New Testament Matthew

22:51 mark mark chapter two verse 23 Matthew mark Luke John X Romans 1st and over the ends it's one of the accounts of the gospels this story here in two well it can't be 23 it must be oh I mean the wrong space Matthew mark not sorry guys in mark chapter two Jesus

23:25 is walking through the field with his disciples on the Sabbath which is cool I mean they're just out for a stroll they're not working so nobody from the churches busting their chops yet but then in mark chapter two verse 23 when they're walking through on the Sabbath look on one Sabbath he was going through the grain fields and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain and the Pharisees were saying to Jesus why are they doing what is

23:57 unlawful what is not lawful on the Sabbath oh and he said didn't you hear the story about David when he went in and ate man is cool right the Sabbath look at down to verse 27 and he said to them the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath so the Son of Man is born even of the Sabbath they had made a lot of rules to try and keep the Sabbath holy they there was after the school of thought in the church that said the Messiah will come the end of the world will come if

24:28 we can just for one Sabbath get everybody to keep it perfectly then we'll be the world will be done and we'll we'll we'll all be over Jesus the Messiah will come said everything to write will be done but we have got to keep the Sabbath this idea of rest and Jesus pushes back on and says hey it's not about getting it right out of the keeping rest is not about following the rules if there are

25:03 rules it's to push you into this great gift of life why are you so worried that you'll never have enough why are you so driven that you have to make something to leave behind for the rest of the world as though God can't do that for you why are you so anxious and afraid that the that the work won't get done when you have a God who's protecting and caring for you he says man was not made and then

25:39 look again he says again he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered man and they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so they might accuse him and he said to the man with the withered hand come here and he said to them I mean any he said to them is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or do harm and to save a life or to kill but they were silent he said I'm about to do some work here this guy's got a withered hand and I know it's a Sabbath what should I do should I leave him with the withered hand or heal him they're like that sounds like a trap Jesus he's like you're

26:10 right he heals the hand right and he looked around at them with anger but they were silent and he looked around with them at anger and grieved at their hardness of heart and he said them stretch out your hand and he stretched out and he was restored and the Pharisees went out immediately and held counsels for his guests into the story and they're like this guy is breaking all the rules but he seems to be we can't he's doing it out of love the idea of rest I want to challenge you to think about how do you engage a rhythm of work and

26:46 rest in your life not so that you could be right but because for heaven's sake God send his son down into earth live died rose ascended this fact his spirit in order that you could live a life that includes generative rest you have

27:16 been bought and empowered by the spirit you get to live a life with rest in it you get to work but also you get to rest oh too often we are robbed of the benefits of the cross by the kind of pastoring whispers that we have to take care of it all our own there's no time for break there's no point in rest we

27:51 just work and it's alive God self-demonstrated rest with the same generative power that spoke light and light into the world imagined up rest and then sent the Sun in order to defend your opportunity for generative rest this week at least let's engage the idea of how we could be people in the world

28:25 as the church has been throughout space and let me pray hey Lord thank you for your gift of rest of saba teach us how to engage generative creative powerful rest and rhythms with our work so that we might faithfully live under your

28:56 reign experience the beauty of the culture of the church in Jesus name or for the take with pray