Faith Full
Week six - Stop
Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Mark 2:27
Stop. Just stop. Stop it.
You may have heard of this practice under a different name, i.e. Sabbath
The Hebrew word “shabbat” means “
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. —Genesis 2:1-3
Rhythm of stopping built into the fabric of creation
The day is tied to the earth’s 24-hour rotation, the month to the moon’s lunar cycle, and the year to the earth’s journey around the sun. The seven-day week is built directly from God’s own life
The rhythm became a
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 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. 11 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. —Exodus 20:8-11
We don’t like requirements. And so, we
- We’ve removed sabbath from our practice of faith as an overreaction to how first century Jews experienced it (too many rules)
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. —Jesus (Mark 2:27)
- First century Jews needed to hear the second part of the sentence. Twenty-first century Jesus followers desperately need to hear the first part.
We’re exhausted…
Exhaustion deeply impacts our ability to
What would it look like to stop, to sabbath?
1.Rest
An act of
We stop all paid and
Any attempt at sabbath will immediately encounter resistance - both externally and internally. The internal resistance is how we identify some of the stuff inside of us we need God to weed out.
Sabbath is a day to remember you have enough. You’re not a slave anymore. God is not a taskmaster, like Pharoah. God offers soul-level rest.
2.Delight
Stopping and resting are about figuring out what you need to
The sabbath is an invitation to enter delight. The sabbath, when experienced as God intended, is the best day of our lives. Without question or thought, it is the best day of the week. It is the day we anticipate on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday - and the day we remember on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Sabbath is the holy time where we feast, play, dance, have sex, sing, pray, laugh, tell stories, read, paint, walk, and watch creation in its fullness. Few people are willing to enter the sabbath and sanctify it, to make it holy, because a full day of delight and joy is more than most people can bear in a lifetime, let alone a week. —Dan Allender
- Sabbath falls every week, which means inevitably some sabbaths will come on days when horrible things are happening or have happened. This is when we get to experience joy as an act of
John Mark Comer calls it “a discipline, to index your heart toward the good.”
3.Worship
Stopping allows us to rest. Resting gives us room for delight. Delight naturally turns into gratitude, and gratitude into worship.
God blessed the seventh day and made it holy —Genesis 2:2-3
- Every other god in the ancient world had a holy place. God, instead, makes a holy
Worship is the most important movement of Sabbath - we give back to the One who gave us everything. We make space to deepen our relationship with God. We consider just how amazing it is that God gave us Jesus.