Easy Yoke Living

this time up to you, Lord. I pray that you be with each one here. I pray that your word goes out. We know that it goes out.

It doesn't come back void. So, I just pray that everyone here can grasp um what what I'm about to share. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Before I start, just a couple housekeeping things. We got a lot of new people here. So, um we're starting to get more and more like, you know, a real church here soon. So, uh we're going to start a small group um very soon.

Me, Kelsey, and Gabe are definitely signing up for it. Anyone else is more than welcome to. In these buckets along the rows are invitations and and stuff where you can fill in and say, "Hey, I want to be part of that small group or what." There's a guy um who owns a coffee shop not far from here.

He also uh wrote this book. He started this ministry. He's he does a lot of really neat ministries actually and he's become a friend of mine and he's going to actually lead us through it. So, the guy who wrote the book is going to be leading us through it.

So, it's going to be a real neat growth thing. We're going to meet once a week. Thursday, uh, at the coffee house, Thursday night from 6:00 to 7:00. So, I want to encourage everyone, you know, if you want to get deeper into your relationship with God, that's that's a great place to do.

It's the the coffee house is like 5 minutes from here. So, um, definitely a thing to do. And just grab those. You can put down salvation decision, prayer requests, any prayer requests.

We pray over them. We've got a leader of our prayer ministry over there Lordis. Um she's a sweet spirit and she will her and I will pray over you every day. Um so what's neat about a smaller church, okay, is that when you um first off, if if you're here, we love it.

When you're not here, we know it, okay? And and um you know, so unlike a unlike a you know, mega church where no one knows when you come or go, you know, we actually we're going to miss you if you if you don't show up. So, um, but because of that, I get to know everyone a little bit better. One of our, um, people that come quite often shared with me that she's very stressed out, very whatever.

She shared that with me a few months ago, actually, and I and I said that when I was done with my series on um, the last instructions of Jesus, I would I would then do something on rest. And so, today we're going to look at what the Bible says about um, rest, specifically Sabbath day rest. Okay. To me, it is the key to having a truly balanced and effective life.

Okay. I speak today about something that I have put into practice for 20 plus years. Sometimes I'm preaching on stuff where I'm preaching to myself because I need to get better at whatever it is I'm preaching. But this is something that I've put into practice and I can attest it has radical ramifications that you can't possibly fathom.

The devil's number one trick in his toolbox is to keep us busy, distracted, okay? So that we don't have time for the relationship with Jesus. That's where the power is for the Christian is in that relationship with Jesus. And if if he can't stop us from coming to Jesus, then he's going to try to once we come to Jesus get us so distracted with busy with, you know, reels and with all the other stuff that we get distracted with that we become ineffective.

Okay? And that's that's if he can if he can't stop us, he can at least get us ineffective. And so we're going to learn the number one tool to fight that, the number one antidote to the devil's thing. And we we start in Matthew chapter um is that 11 chapter 11 verse 28 through 30.

And I'm reading now. This is Jesus speaking. Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What we're going to talk today is easy yoke living. That's what I'm going to call it. Okay.

Um right at the very beginning. Okay. When I tell people when I see people stressed out, I always first thing I I prescribe to them is are you or or I ask is are you obeying the Sabbath? Okay.

Are you taking a day where you just rest for the Lord? Okay. And I'd say every time they tell me that's impossible. Literally, it's impossible.

You don't understand, Brian. I've got this job and I've got kids and I've got a sick husband or I've got this and I can't. There's no way I can take a day off. It's impossible.

Okay. To which is always you know Christians with all God all things are possible. Oh except for in your case where you can't possibly make it possible. Okay.

So very right at the very beginning Genesis chapter 2 after God makes the heavens and the earth and everything in it. We read in in Genesis 2 um verses 1 through three, thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended his work which he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. Okay. So God right at the beginning institutes the Sabbath. Okay.

Then he codifies it. That means he makes it into law. Okay. In uh the next book of the Bible, Exodus, we see the ten commandments and and verse uh chapter 20 8- 11 we read, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

We we we studied that word hallowed last week. Hallowed be thy name, you know, in the Lord's prayer. Hallowed is to respect it, to revere it almost. Okay?

He the Lord actually commands us to revere it. Now, something that's neat about the ten commandments. Okay, the first three commandments are all about God. Don't have other any other gods before you.

Don't take his name in vain, etc. Okay, first three are about God. The next seven are about how we're supposed to live. Okay, um don't commit adultery, don't steal.

Okay. And the first of those seven on how we're supposed to leave live is God telling us to honor the Sabbath day, to take a day off, to take a day of rest. So we can say then first God then in God's priority rankings, he's saying take a day of rest. He said that before.

Don't lie, don't steal, don't murder. Wow. Okay. Don't commit adultery.

It's that important to God. Okay? God commands us to rest. And when people say they can't do it, they can't take one day to rest.

Okay? What they're saying is they're trying they're they're in control of their life or they're trying to be in control of their life. If someone's run around like a chicken with their head cut off, one thing I know, they're trying to control their life. Two, they're not doing a good job.

Okay? And so and so the boss should be him. Okay? But but if you don't take some time away to reenter yourself on him, you're going to do it.

And what you're really saying when you say you can't take a day of rest to honor the Lord is that you can't do God can't do in six days what you can't do in seven. You're really not trusting the Lord. Okay? There's a quick service restaurant called Chick-fil-A that everyone here knows.

Okay? because we're the South and we love our Chick-fil-A. Okay. When Tru Cathy first instituted them being closed on Sunday, which is his Sabbath day.

Okay. You know, he must have heard you're an idiot. Don't do it. You can't.

No other restaurant chain does it. You can't do that. TR it. And yet, as I speak, because I checked again today, and it's been true for a couple years, Chick-fil-A does more volume per store in six days than the number two McDonald's does in seven.

Okay? God pushes more volume through Chick-fil-A in six than McDonald's working their tails off, staying up later, staying up till midnight does. Okay? In other words, you can trust God with this, but you have to trust him.

You have to step out in faith and trust him. Don't tell me that with God all things are possible and then say it's impossible. So, we're gonna we're gonna talk about how to do it, how to execute. I'm going to give you some tips and some things that I've done because I've been doing this for many years.

All right. In John 5:17, Jesus says something interesting. My father is always at work. Okay.

Now, we talked about when I launched this thing, everything I want to preach out of is the Bible or my own experience. That's it. Okay? I'm not going to judge any other pastor.

I'm not going to judge any other church. I'm not going to do anything. But I'm going to read the Bible. And and we have two things.

Everything in this book is true. And if there's something in this book that I don't get, I've got to change my thought process to match it. Not the Bible changing to match me. Okay?

And if there's two things that seemingly contradict, neither is in the Bible. Neither is wrong. I just don't know enough to know how they connect. Okay, so we just read that on the seventh day, God rested, right?

And then Jesus in John 5:17 said, "My father is always at work." Well, how can he always be at work if he rested one day? How can these two be the same? Okay, how can they both be true?

They are. They're in the Bible. They're both true. Because in God's eyes, the week, the work week is the full seven days.

The day of rest is part of the work week. It's important for you to reenter on him because he's the source of your productivity. The six the other six days anyway. Okay?

So, in God's eyes, it's all one unit. It's not you work six and then rest is a different thing. Rest is part of the work unit, per se. You have to do it.

It's part of your job is to rest. Okay? That's the way to think about it. So, think about think about it like this.

You're a lumberjack, okay? He's cutting. He's got a sharp saw and he's cutting down, but that saw gets um duller and duller and soon he's going like crazy trying to cut and nothing's happening, right? What does he have to do?

Take a step away from the work, sharpen the saw, and then he can come back and and nail it. Okay, that's what the Sabbath day rest is. It's a day to sharpen the saw. Okay.

It'll make you more productive final six days. And it's built into the DNA, the rhythms of our life. God created us to work six rest one. It's like the flow.

And so if you don't rest that one day, if instead you're running errands and you're doing this and you're doing that and you're stuffing it with stuff, okay, to try to get ahead, you're starving your spiritual growth. You're starving. It's like you're you're you're not giving your body a key nutrient it needs. And if you do that one week, that's one thing.

But if you do it week after week after week after week, soon you're like, "God, I need a vacation." Then you go on a vacation, but you still haven't learned because when you come back, everything's pile piled up, right? Because you you can't fix a year's worth of um whatever in one weekend or one week. Okay?

It's part of the rhythms of our life. We have to every week take the week off. Now, we're not to be legalistic about it. Okay?

What do I mean by that? Jesus, um, in Matthew 12, um, there's two stories. He's walking in the fields and he picks grains and the Pharisees get on him for for doing that on the Sabbath. And then there's another story where he goes into the temple, okay?

And he he he tells all the Pharisees, "Is it legal to to uh heal a man on the Sabbath?" You know, and then the Pharisees didn't know what to say, so he heals the man. And then and then it actually says here that they wanted to kill him because of that. Can you imagine?

I want to kill the dude because he healed a man on the Sabbath. Okay? And what you understand is Jesus wasn't saying don't observe the Sabbath. Okay?

Don't take that the wrong way. All right? What he's saying is don't be legalistic about it. Sunday is a great day to have a Sabbath, but the the Jewish Sabbath is from Friday night to Saturday night.

Okay? Friday and Sunday to Saturday is Sunday. That's the Shabbat, the day of rest, the the the Jewish Sabbath. It's going to be whatever day works best for you.

Okay? Years ago, I chose Saturday as my day to to do it instead of Sunday because for me, I like sitting there on a Sunday planning my week. And church, you know, was there too. So, I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to make Saturday my Sabbath. Okay? It doesn't matter. If you're a preacher, maybe you make Monday or Friday.

Once I took this started this church, I moved my my Sabbath from Saturday back to Friday so that I could have but but I was going to make sure I had one day. I have to because it's it's it's it's it life. You know, you can't imagine the blessings and I'm going to share some of them here um that you get from observing the Sabbath. Jesus was on this planet for 33 years.

He obeyed the law. So he went he sabbath every day, every week. That's 52 weeks a year. It's 33 years.

It's like 1,700 times he had a Sabbath. And there's only two stories there of where he did something on the Sabbath. That's the time he honored it. Okay?

We have to assume he honored it. Okay? Because he was perfect. He honored the Sabbath.

Okay? So, so don't get legalistic about it. Okay? Jesus did honor the Sabbath.

In Mark 2:27, he said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man. For the Sabbath. It's for our benefit." God loves you.

You're his little boy. Okay? You're his little boy. You're his little girl.

All right? He loves you. He knows this is best for you. You need to take a day to rest.

It's serious business. Now, how do you do it? It's holy leisure. Okay?

It's getting into the easy rhythms of grace. So, three things to institute this into your life. First off, make it a priority. People who say they can't do it haven't thought through enough and made it a priority.

You don't understand is it's how important it is. Okay? And what God can do in your life when you start honoring him in that way, you can't fathom how powerful it can be. And I the reason I know you can do it, if you're going on vacation, what are you like a few days before vacation?

You're you're on top of everything. You're getting everything done. You got to get everything wrapped up so that you can go on vacation, right? And you do it.

You get everything done and then you go on vacation. So if you can do that occasionally, you can do that once a week. Okay? You have to make it a priority and then you work around it with the other activities in your day so that you can Sabbath.

You you actually instead of doing the things you normally do, if you choose Sunday, whatever you do Sunday after church, you know, whatever else you do, start doing them on Saturday or do them a day a week, you know, each night or something. Okay? You're going to have to plan, figure it out. So the second thing is work around it.

When I uh when I first started implementing this, I had two kids and a third on the way. Okay. Um and I just uh I had a I had my own business. Anyone who's got their own business knows it could be 60 70 hours a week.

Could be a lot of work. Okay. Had my own business, but and I had those kids and they there was ball and other things. But I made sure Saturday was going to be my Sabbath day.

Okay, the kids can attest. Where would you find me on Saturday morning, okay, at the Springwood house, right? On the front and I would be in the driveway looking at the sun rising, okay? Listening to some easy mellow music and just chilling, watching God glory, right?

Then I'd go in and I'd make the Saturday morning usual and then I'd play with my kids. Okay, that was that's the Sabbath. That can be a you everything you do can be um honoring of the Lord. Okay, people that have grandkids are like, "Oh, they're so precious."

Because when they sit there, they're actually focused on those kids. Okay, rather than worrying about all this stuff. I will tell you, those kids needed that time with me, okay? They needed to play with me, okay?

But I needed to play with them, too. Okay? I needed that love. I I needed that.

Okay? I didn't know I needed it. I'm thinking only about them. But man, I got to enjoy ham hawks and and all the games we used to play.

You know, they're they're here right now. It's just beautiful. And so you can't see the things God's going to do in your life when you honor that Sabbath. But man, there's things you can't even fathom that he's going to do in that life when you honor that Sabbath.

My um assistant at my office, her name is Mary. She's an older lady. And um when I first told her about the Sabbath, her husband's got um failing health. And when I first told her about she was all stressed out, stressed out, getting more and more stressed out.

I'm watching because she's been working for me for a really long time. And uh I'm watching her get more worn down. More worn down. Okay.

You late? And I when I said, "Mary, you need to take a Sabbath day." She's like, "No, Brian, you don't understand. It's impossible.

Joseph's health is failing. I've got to take care of him. I've got this. I've got all the chores at the house."

All the reasons why it was absolutely impossible. And I I said the same thing I just said earlier. All right, man. God, all things are possible.

But not in your world. I get it. You know, it's not in your world. So, but something must have played on her because about three months later, one Monday, she comes in and she's looks five years younger.

And I'm like, Mary, what's up? You know, and she said, "What? What happened?" She goes, "I did it, Brian.

I did a Sabbath day and it was amazing." You know, there was a spring in her step and everything. I said, "Well, how'd you do it, Mary?" Well, instead of going home each night and watching because she watches all the old westerns, she's into um John Wayne and all that stuff.

So when she goes home, her debunking is watching all the westerns, right? So I said instead of watching just that, I'd do a chore each night so that on sat on on Sunday, I didn't have any chores to do so that I could just rest after church. And I mean, she literally looked five years younger. Okay.

So, it may mean you need to to move some things around, but you can do it. Okay. I'll see parents going crazy with their kids over travel ball and they're they have to go all over the place and they have to do do you've got to prioritize the Sabbath day. If being gone all weekend with your kids is in travel ball is most important, then get a job that works four days a week so you can take one day.

It don't be legalistic about find that day. So you got to make it a priority priority. You got to work the other activities around it and schedule it in. So choose a day, schedule it in, and then work everything else around it.

It's a spiritual discipline. Okay? Reading your Bible, reading your Bible, spiritual discipline. Okay?

Um, and now I'm not strong enough to pick it up. Weak praying, spiritual discipline. Okay? But but Sabbath is the only spiritual discipline that made the ten commandments.

You realize that it doesn't say thou shalt pray every day. It doesn't say thou shalt do Bible study every day. But it does say thou shalt fast one day a week. Okay?

It's that important to God and it's that important to yourself your health. Okay? according to God, according to the Bible, after honoring God, the most important thing you can do if you do it right is the Sabbath. Okay?

Now, the key is doing it all for God. Okay? We can even eat and do it for the Lord. Okay?

when I was um doing that Sabbath with my kids where I would be out there until until the sun was up enough where it was too hot for me to be out there and then I'd come in and I' I'd make breakfast for him, you know, and um and I'd make that Saturday morning. It was fun making the breakfast. I'd throw on the world's greatest dad, you know, uh smart apron. Thank you.

And you know, [laughter] let him preach. and um and and and it was fun and we had music on and we're playing and then we play, right? That that's that's honoring the Lord. Maybe you like to golf.

It's okay. You can golf. All right? But but it's how you do it.

If when you go out and golf, you're like, and you're stressed out and you're mad or, you know, or you're sitting there and your your form of debunking is watching football, but you're in a fantasy league and it's like, oh no. And you got four screens up there. That's not holy leisure. That's not rest.

Okay? We have to focus on God with whatever we're doing. Um, it's how you do the things. Are you doing them continuing to stay stressed out?

I know a man who died with a heart attack of 42. He was um, healthy. He was always exercising. He didn't drink.

He didn't smoke, okay? But he died of heart attack at 42. And I'm sure it was he never stopped stressing out. even when he was exercising with friends like playing tennis and everything he had to win and so he never ever took that time.

Okay. They say that 70% of all sickness is from stress. 70% of cancers, 70% of uh probably 90% of heart attacks. Okay?

All from stress. And this is the antidote. If you spend one day a week getting focused on the Lord, it'll make the other ones in sync, you will be able to function on a higher, more effective level. Okay?

Um, it's an intentional day set apart for the Lord. Okay? Anything. It's anything you can do to index your heart toward grateful recognition of God and his goodness.

I like that. anything to index your heart toward grateful recognition of God and its goodness. And I want you to expand your mind on what that means. Okay?

It's all about your heart. It's centering your heart back on God. So, it can be you can do almost anything. You can play with your kids like we just talked about.

You can uh go for a walk holding hands, you know. You can go and just sit by my favorite thing is to sit by a lake or a beach and watch the sun. That's just that's for me that's I could do that for all day really. Um, and just be thinking and praying.

Take a picnic. Okay. Stay in, sleep in with your your spouse, sleep in till noon, okay? Cuddle in bed, you know, enjoy life.

God loves that, okay? He loves when we love what he gives us, okay? What he's provided for us. Because I tell you, 90% of your life is good and 10% of it isn't.

And almost everyone in the room, that's the case. There's always something that's not right. No one has 100% going on all the time. And no one has 100% bad all the time.

Okay? There's always good. And when you take the time for the Sabbath, you're taking time to focus on the good. And that will help the rest of your week.

I promise you. I've been doing it for years. Okay? And you can do it.

You can't tell me you can't. All right? I have two full-time jobs. My real job and this job.

Okay? And I do it and so you can do it. But you have to be intentional and you have to plan it in. And you have to be serious about it.

Okay? It takes intentionality. It takes saying no to the good to many good things to say yes to the best. Our dad wants us happy.

Okay? Our dad wants us happy. He wants us joyful. All right.

He wants his little boy and his little girl to have a day of rest. Okay. So that they can be all that they can be. All right.

Um like it. Look at you, man. Gabriel, man, you're on it. Um so choose a day, honor it, plan everything else around it.

Just do it. Okay? Have grace with yourself. It might take you some time.

You may you may do it at first and then you you mess up and you you you end up tripping up a little. Have grace with yourself. It takes practice to get to that point. Okay?

But you can do it. All right? And and it's worth doing it. Two other things I see, two other forms of rest that I see in the Bible that I just want to touch on because it might be applicable to some of you.

One of them is exhaustion rest. In Matthew and Mark, there's the story of Jesus in the boat and this huge storm comes and the disciples are freaking out and they come and they wake him up and then he stands up and he rebukes the wind and the waves and they calm down. Have you heard that story? Okay.

And they calm down. Everyone focuses on the fact that the winds and the waves obeyed Jesus. But I want you to focus on Jesus was crashed in a boat. Now this wasn't some big cruise ship.

They didn't have those back then. This was a fishing boat. wasn't bigger than this stage probably. Okay.

And these guys he was with were experienced fishermen and they were freaking out. So you've got to figure this wasn't, you know, just some whatever. This was storms tossing water going over the side and Jesus like crashed totally out. Why?

It was exhaustion. Right. Glenn shared last week about how the woman with the blood touched his uh cloak and power went out of him. So when Jesus was healing, a lot of power was going out of him.

was probably worn out. And so he took the time to rest. Okay? If you're overwhelmed and you've been not doing a Sabbath for all these years, you may need an extra period of rest.

It's okay to give you you have my permission to take some extra time to rest. Okay? Listen, I took my daughter off to college and um she was the last at the last one living with me and so I took her off to college and we spent the weekend in Delana and it was it was nice. Delana is a great town, right?

So we we come home but I came home and I was wiped. It was weird. I slept normal and everything but I was wiped. So I went to bed at 7 o'clock that night.

Okay, that Sunday night. Wake up the next morning. I'm still wiped out. I'm like what is wrong with me?

And and so I went to bed again at 7 o'clock on Monday. I listen to my body. If I'm tired, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do it. Right.

Tuesday morning again, worn out. I'm like, "What is up, man? Am I getting CO? What's up?"

And then and then I go to bed again. 7 o'clock Tuesday night. Finally, Wednesday morning, I wake up alive and and and well, and what I realized back was it was very emotional to me to take her off to college. And and sometimes you don't know that you're emotional like like things are going on and you don't realize how much it is.

Um and you know if and a spouse dies you might need to take a week off work maybe two. I mean you got to give yourself some time and some grace. Some things we just need to rest from. It's okay.

Jesus modeled that you can do that. It's okay. Okay. Um one final thing that I saw.

Let's see. And and I know what I'm talking about here is not normal in America, okay? It is not normal. The devil's plan is to keep us busy, busy, busy, running, running, running.

Okay? And that is easy to do. It's much harder to to set up a boundary and say stop. Okay?

Shabbat means stop in Jewish. Okay? Um that's what really what it comes to. It's okay to rest.

Holy focusing on God, not worldly distractions. Rest is so good for your soul. It's so good for you. I can't I can't tell you how good it is for you.

If I dyed my hair, um where I had black hair, I'd look in my 40s, okay? When I get my my um exams and everything, it's always one 110 over 70. It's always 60 pulse rates. I'm like, how?

And it's not because I eat really good. We were talking about that. It's not because I exercise all the time. Glenn exercises probably more than me.

Um, but I do honor that Sabbath and it keeps the stress away which keeps me healthier and happier than if I was burned out and I get more done. Okay? You actually will get more done. You just have to trust.

Um, God is in control and you don't think you can take that moment away, but you can. He'll handle it. But Brian, you don't understand. I've got to work two jobs.

I can't make ends meet otherwise. Think of Chick-fil-A. That's what they would have said about him. God can provide.

You honor him and let God handle the provision. Okay, that's the key. Final thing is solitary rest. Every once in a while, key life points happen in your life and sometimes you just have to get away.

Okay, that's what I was doing last weekend. I was we we'd launched the church. It's been three months and I needed to get clarity on where we're going, what we're doing, and all that other stuff. And um so I I uh took that time away before he launched his ministry.

Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. Okay, that's solitary time away to get his marching orders. After Paul got his conversion p uh experience in Damascus, he went to Africa for two and a half years to get trained by God before he really launched his ministry. So it's very common and we see it in the Bible a key life points to get away to get clarity to get focused on God.

Okay. Um that's it. If you execute one thing, come on up. If you execute one thing this week, start trying to make that Sabbath day rest.

Don't tell me you can't do it. Try. Just try. Okay?

Take that step forward and try. All right. It starts with the Sabbath day. You've got to get into holy leisure with the Lord.

Okay? And as these guys come up, I want you guys to think through. We're in a we're in a a time now of reflection. All right?

I want you to think about um if you're worried, if you're weary, if you're worn out, if things are stressing you out because there's so much going on. Okay. I want you to lay it down. All right?

Think about it and lay it down. Make a commitment this week to start making that one day a week a reality. All right? It'll change your life.

If you don't know Jesus, okay, talk about changing a life. All right? Ask Jesus into your heart because I mean, he's the center of it all. He's the whole reason it all works.

The Sabbath works because there is a a God who if you honor him, he'll honor you. Okay? That's why it [music] works. It works because of God.

All right? So, I want you to if if if you feel led, if you need to pray, we got Lordis, got myself, Glenn, we can pray for you. Um I just want you to to to just spend this time reflecting and thinking and praising and um if you need it, the altar sounds