Sabbath: God's Solution to the Addiction of Busyness

2016 Messages

Sabbath, what is it? Is it for today? And how do I practice it? Thanks to our phones, internet, Netflix, etc we are accessible, and have access to everything we want 24 hours a day. If not careful, this access draws our souls away from the most important priorities in our lives. The principle (not Old Testament practice) of Sabbath gives us perspective on how to prioritize the important over the urgent and helps us deal with our pride and addictive behavior. Learn how to build a sabbath rhythm into your life and live at a pace that honors God in every area of our lives.

Kyle KaiglerApr 24, 2016Galatians 3:23-25; Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15

In This Series (23)
Something Sweet out of the Ingredients of Sadness
Todd WagnerDec 24, 2016
Why Good Leaders Have Always Written Letters to the Church They Love
Todd WagnerOct 16, 2016
All In With Jesus
Jonathan PokludaOct 4, 2016
The Secret!
Gary StroopeSep 4, 2016
Outrunning Your Past
Rob BarrySep 4, 2016
Faith in Work
John CoxSep 4, 2016
Following Jesus: How He Changes Your Place, People & Priorities - Luke 9:57-62
Blake HolmesAug 15, 2016
Our Purpose in Life
Tyler BriggsAug 14, 2016
Healing, Hearing, and the Hope of the Gospel
Todd WagnerJul 10, 2016
Money, Stuff, and Eternity
David MarvinJun 12, 2016
Living the Word
Derek MathewsJun 12, 2016
ASK
Jonathan PokludaJun 5, 2016
An Audience of One
Adam TarnowMay 29, 2016
Mother's Day Message
David MarvinMay 8, 2016
A Biblical Perspective on the Value and Role of Women in Ministry
Todd WagnerMay 8, 2016
Baptism Celebration 2016
Todd WagnerMay 1, 2016
Sabbath: God's Solution to the Addiction of Busyness
Kyle KaiglerApr 24, 2016
Inside Out Church
Garrett RaburnApr 24, 2016
Awaken the Hope of the World
Jonathan PokludaApr 24, 2016
An Evening with the Elders
Todd Wagner, Kyle Thompson, Beau Fournet, Dean MacfarlanApr 10, 2016
Easter: The Greatest Evidence That God Is Real, Good, Powerful and Trustworthy
Todd WagnerMar 27, 2016
Good Friday 2016
Blake Holmes, Philip Ward, Alaina AndersonMar 25, 2016
Resolve to Be Faithful
Todd WagnerJan 3, 2016

In This Series (24)

I want to take just a second and talk about three C's that influence our busyness. It's kind of our problem. It's what we do.

The first one is our culture. Our culture is constantly pulling us toward activity. Just go ahead and raise your hands. How many of you in here are over 50? Does anybody remember the blue laws?

Some of you who are under 50 aren't going to have any idea about this. When I was growing up, there wasn't anything open on Sunday. Did you know that? No stores, no retail stores, no nothing. There was a cultural help to help us take a slower day. It happened to be on a Sunday back in the day.

In 1985, Governor Mark White basically signed the last law that said, "We're not going to do that anymore," because he was getting worn out by all of the retailers and restaurants and that kind of stuff. That deal went away. Now, because of our phones and because of the Internet and because of Netflix and because we can binge watch our shows, everybody has access to everybody else 24 hours a day. Access, activity. Our culture is constantly pulling us away from things that really matter.

The second thing is our competitiveness. I don't mean that whenever you're playing Scrabble with your husband, you want to beat him to a pulp. What I'm talking about is our culture is competitive in all kinds of areas. In sports, we say, "I really do want my kid to be able to play high school sports because it will keep them off the street."

We start investing at an early age, the age of 3 or 4. The Kaiglers are recovering select soccer parents. I just want you to know that. At a very early age, we're getting extra coaching, we're getting a personal coach…I see it all the time…so when our kids get to high school they can make varsity or they can do whatever.

All of you wives who are elbowing your husbands or…sorry…all you husbands who are elbowing your wives… Education is a big deal. We over-prioritize our education. The Kaiglers are recovering in this area as well. You have to have a certain SAT score. You have to have a certain class rank to get into the college your parents went to or the one your parents want you to go to.

So what do we do? We pay huge dollars for tutors. We manipulate. I'm going to use that word. "Hey, I have to make sure my kid gets into that teacher's class because she's the best teacher at our elementary school." From the very beginning, we start working and manipulating so our kids can be the best. This competitiveness pulls us away again from these priorities that God would say are a little different than what our culture says and what our competitive nature says.

The last C is comparison. All of these three C's kind of all work together, but we decide we have to live in the right neighborhood or we have to keep the right standard of living or our savings account or investment account has to have this many digits to it… We start comparing ourselves to other people. What that leads to is what we talked about in the drama.

Hank gets a promotion, the Keene account, and he has to keep that plate spinning. He starts working more to make more money so he can do the standard of living. As inflation goes up and prices go up, all of a sudden he works more and more hours. Then he starts to believe the myth of quantity time versus quality time with your kids.

Then, if it's the right thing, the wife goes to work. Both spouses are working. Just so you know, I'm not jumping on two-working-spouse-families. We did that. Tresha worked part-time all of when our kids were growing up. What we're going to try to do today is put a rock in your shoe and have you begin to think through, "Is what we're doing what God wants us to do?"

This comparison leads us to all of that. The culture, the competitiveness, and the comparison lead us to overcommit, which leads to these damaging conclusions. Let me give you four conclusions that happen because of these three C's that affect us.

First, the results of busyness distort our ability to prioritize and make godly/healthy decisions. The second thing it does is it creates individuals and families who live in a constant state of anxiety and fear. The third thing it does is it is a leading contributor to illness, depression, family chaos, and addiction. Most importantly, it disconnects us from the God who is the source of all wisdom and peace.

The very thing we want to do… We want to be able to prioritize and make decisions, so our busyness takes us away from the source that is able to help us do that. We're in this endless cycle of over-activity and pace. Let me just tell you a personal story. Probably three or four years ago, the elders came to me and said, "Hey, Kyle. You're the Family Director at Dallas. We want you to be in charge of the children's building project, the new building in Dallas." I'm like, "Okay."

The illustration I use during those two to three years when I was leading that project was that I was an orchestra conductor, and I could not read music or play an instrument. I didn't have any idea what I was doing. Every time somebody used a term or a phrase that I didn't know, I had to go figure that out. We spent a lot of time backtracking because I didn't know what I was doing.

I got to the end of these two or two and a half years when I had worked a ton and worked outside of my giftedness, and I was burnt out. I was still spending time with the Lord. I was still praying. I was doing the things Christians should do, but it was checklist Christianity for me. There was no life to it. It wasn't affecting what was going on around me.

As I figured out a little later, I had gotten to the point (and the answer is simply pride) where I thought I was pretty important in that deal. I was messed up, and I will tell you that if I hadn't had some friends in my life, if I hadn't fought through what God's Word said and figured out what this deal we're talking about today is, I would never have been able to come north and lead the Plano Campus.

I'm incredibly thankful to the Lord for his Word and for the people who said, "Hey, you have to pay attention to your soul because your activity, the culture, the comparison, the competitiveness, all of those things have pulled you away from the things that are going to help you to be most effective as a husband and as a dad and as a pastor at Watermark."

What's the solution? Hang on. I'm going to say the word, and everybody is going to have a different response. It's called Sabbath. Sabbath is the word. We're going to spend some time looking at God's Word, what he says about Sabbath. There are probably about five different responses in the room. Some of you are probably saying, "What is that?" That's a great response, because we're going to find that out.

Others of you are saying, "Doesn't Sabbath just equal Sunday?" It doesn't. Sometimes Sabbath is Sunday, but they're not the same thing. Others of you are kind of freaking out. "He's about to talk about Sabbath, and he's going to make me go in a room with no windows for 12 hours and meditate on some poem." That's not it either.

Then my friends who have been around the Bible some and know their theology are thinking, "Sabbath is part of the Old Testament law, and we don't have to keep that anymore." To my friends who are thinking that, I would just tell you that Sabbath was initiated by God before the fall and, therefore, before the need for the law.

It is true. We do not have to keep the practices of the Old Testament law. Let's look at Galatians 3:23-25 just so we get this. This is why… When you get that question, "Do we have to practice the same stuff the Old Testament Israelites practiced?" the answer is no, but there is a clue in this passage that tells us how we are to use the Old Testament as a guidepost. It says,

"But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore, the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor [the law] ." So, the answer, for those who have been thinking and have thought about this before, is that that's right. We don't have to keep the practice of Old Testament Sabbath. We do have to keep the principle of Sabbath, and it's really important that we figure that out today.

The fifth group of people who are in here are saying, "Look, Kyle. I know it's in God's Word. I've heard it before, but that is just not practical in our day and age. I just can't do Sabbath. It just doesn't make any sense with my stage of life," like we saw in the drama.

I think we're going to look at God's Word today, and we're going to find out that it's different. What's funny is a lot of us kind of know that this is in the Scripture, but we don't know the why behind it. Let me tell you what I mean. There are a lot of passages that I call the mug and calendar verses. They're great verses, and they're incredibly effective to help us.

One is Luke 10:38-42. That's the story of Mary and Martha. We use it all the time. Martha is running around, getting all of the stuff done. The key line in that story is that Jesus just goes, "Mary has chosen the better thing, sitting at the Lord's feet and listening." We know that story, and we use it at times.

Also, in Matthew 11:28-29, it says, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." We use that one. We use Psalm 46:10, which just says, "Be still, and know that I am God." The last one we use is in John 15. We talk about abiding a lot. We talk about that.

We're kind of familiar with this concept, but we don't understand what the role of Sabbath is. We're going to open up God's Word here, and we are going to look at what he says about the Sabbath. Just so you know, it shows up in some really significant places, this idea of Sabbath. The first place it shows up is in the creation account in Genesis 2:1-3. Let's read that.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed 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."

God set this thing up, blessed it, set it aside, and said, "This matters. I am not doing this for my own reasons." Right? God did not need to rest. Psalm 121 says that God never rested or slumbered as he looked out over the people of Israel. God didn't need a break. Why do you think that's in there? He put it in there for us to model what God did to set up the Sabbath.

The second place it shows up, another really important place, is in the Ten Commandments. In case you didn't know, the Ten Commandments are in a couple of different places in God's Word. Most of us are familiar with the fact that they're in Exodus 20:8-11, but they're also in Deuteronomy 5:12-15.

What I want to show you is when you go look at those two sets of Ten Commandments, you go through, and the look almost exactly the same until you get to Sabbath. Then it says the exact same thing about the what of Sabbath, what you do, and then it's completely different for why we do it. Let's look at that and let God's Word inform us. Let's look at Exodus 20:8-11 first. It says,

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you."

It gives a description of what you're not to do. Something changes right here. It says, "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Again, he blessed it and set it aside for us. Now, let's look at Deuteronomy 5:12-15. It says,

"Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you."

There is a little more description about what it's supposed to look like. It gives a few more animal names in there. It's basically saying the exact same thing, until we get to verse 15. Whereas the first passage we looked at looked back to creation, to the garden of Eden, this passage says, "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."

If you like to study your Bible, it is so important to pay attention to details. I skipped over this for I don't know how many years. I was reading a book one time that kind alluded to what we're talking about today, and I went back and went, Oh, my gosh. It's completely different. "Keep the Sabbath. Look back to Eden." "Keep the Sabbath. Look back to the exodus."

Why? Why do you think God put that in there for us? He is going to tell us the why of the Sabbath in those two verses. Look at this chart, and we'll talk through this. We're going to look at the Sabbath in Exodus, and then we're going to look at the Sabbath in Deuteronomy. First, the Sabbath in Exodus points back to the garden of Eden, as I just said. The Sabbath in Deuteronomy remembers Egypt. It looks back to Egypt.

In Exodus, we're imitating divine example in obedience. God is saying, "Do this because I did this. I'm your example. Do this because I did it." In Deuteronomy, it's taking hold of divine deliverance and freedom. We're going to stumble on something here in just a second that is really important. The third thing is that in Exodus, it evokes God's character.

What happens is when you look back at Eden, you think of God's creativity, God's power, the way he orchestrated everything at Eden. In Deuteronomy, it evokes God's redemption, that God set his people free, that he rescued his people from oppression and slavery. Sabbath in Exodus is holy mimicry. "Be like God."

Here is a really important part of Sabbath that we're talking about. When you practice the Sabbath, the principle of Sabbath, it gives you perspective. That's what it does. You pull away, and you say, "I'm doing this because God showed me I need to do this." What begins to happen when you do that is you get perspective on who God is and who you're not.

Every day, I get confused. I think the universe centers around me and what is happening around me, and when I practice the Sabbath, it gives me a chance to pull away and say, "Oh, yeah, God. This is your deal. I'm thrilled to be a part of what you're doing, but I need to pull away." When I think back to when I got burnt out when I was working on the children's building, I wasn't doing this. There was no principle of Sabbath in my life. I lost perspective, and I got arrogant.

In Deuteronomy, it's holy defiance. We will never be slaves again. Slaves to what? It doesn't necessarily mean true slavery like the Israelites, but how many of us are enslaved to idols and addictions? Do you think the Sabbath might be helpful as we think about working through our idols and our addictions?

The last thing is in Exodus, God just says, "This is an invitation. Come on. Come spend time with me. Be with me so you can figure out that you're not God." In Deuteronomy, it's a warning. It's like, "Don't go back to those things that have captured you historically. Don't go back. There is death and pain there. There is a real difference about what God is trying to communicate about the Sabbath. There are two things that are really important here.

The first one I want to give you is this. Here are three principles of the Sabbath. First, God gave us the Sabbath as an example to follow and to be obedient. God said, "Do this." The second thing is that by imitating God and the Sabbath, we discover that we're not God. One of the purposes of Sabbath is to realize that you're not in control. You're not God. He is. The third one is that to refuse the gift of Sabbath is to refuse the gift of freedom that God is offering you.

If you're wrestling with idols and addictions, hard situations in your life, I think the Sabbath may have something to say about that. It may be part of your healing process. That is true in my life. Some of you guys know that back in August, I started re:generation here. As we were going through the re:genprocess, we got to the place of Inventory. You kind of go back and figure out, "What are the core issues in your life?"

I have three. I have an addiction to the fear of man, I have an addiction to comfort, and I have an addiction to safety and security. Those are the things that kind of drive my independence and my sin. As I went through… We're in the Amends process now, which is going and cleaning up all of the mess you've made.

What happened is I was thinking through this addiction to comfort thing that kind of rules my life at times. Tresha and I have a family member who has spent a lot of time in prison over the last 15 or 20 years. For 10 years or so, we were all in, writing him in prison. I went down and met with the parole board and tried to convince them, "Hey, let him out. We have a great Celebrate Recovery program at the Dallas Campus. We have a place he can live for the first three or four weeks until we find him a place. It is going to work."

Sure enough, surprisingly, the parole board said, "Okay, you're out." We dished out some money over the course of time to him, hoping he would be responsible for that. The result was he totally blew it. He blew the money. He blew the opportunity. He went to CR a couple of times, and he blew it. Sure enough, a few months later, he was back in prison.

As I'm going through my junk over the course of last few months, the Lord convicted me like crazy and said, "Hey, you have cut him off," which was true. I haven't written him in years. I don't even know where he is. He said, "You are frustrated and mad and angry for two reasons. First, it's because it's going to be a hassle in your life." Again, addicted to comfort. "You're also scared of what might happen if he gets released again and becomes a part of your life." I'm like, "Yes, I am. I don't want any part of that."

My addiction, my idol that Sabbath can help me with, that is how that plays out. I'm in the process now. I spent an hour on the Internet a week or so ago trying to find out where he was. I wasted a total hour. Now, I'm trying to figure out back channels for how I can go find out where he is. You know, I have to go see him. I have to sit down with him, and I have to say, "Hey, I have been a sinner. I have hurt you. I have given up on you. I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Sabbath will help you with those addictions and with those idols that are in your life. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about how we do that. How do we begin to implement Sabbath in this world where there is 24-hour access to you and 24-hour activity? I'm going to give you some alliterations, except for one. If you can help me with one of my alliterations, I need some help.

1._ Devote daily._ If you've been around Watermark, we're using this language more and more, which I really like. Part of a Sabbath rhythm, a Sabbath pace, happens because you're daily devoting to the Lord. You may be sitting here, and you're like, "Time with the Lord? I don't ever do that." We're thrilled you're here. I just want to tell you to start with 15 minutes.

Open up your Bible. One way is to do Join the Journey. We have jointhejourney.com. It gives you simple… This year especially, it is a smaller passage of reading. It has great questions that help you think through that. You can take 15 minutes and do Join the Journey. You open your Bible. As I think about the people in my life whose maturity I most admire, they do two things: they're in God Word and they journal.

As you go through The Journey or read a Proverb a day… Today is April 24. Read Proverbs 24 today. You want to walk away with one thing. Yesterday was April 23. There is a verse in Proverbs 23 that says, "…in abundance of counselors there is victory." Last night, our community group was together, and we looked up and said, "All three families here are about to go through the issues of aging parents."

We just declared and prayed, "We need each other. We need an abundance of counselors to help us move through this stage of life that is coming up." God's Word, journal, and then just walk away with one thing that just continues to kind of rummage around your brain and your heart for a day. That is a great way to start. If you've been doing that, expand that. The first one is to devote daily.

2._ Withdraw weekly._ Here's where we get to the Sabbath thing. Let me give you an easy definition of Sabbath. Pray and play. Pray encompasses all of the disciplines we would do, memorizing God's Word, reading God's Word, studying God's Word, journaling, listening to worship music, being outside. You want to take some time on that day. You don't have to do a whole day to start. It's fine. Just start making progress here. You want to spend some time, extended time, with the Lord on that day.

The other part of the day, you want to do whatever fills you up. Do not (this is going to sound crazy in 2016) do anything productive. How's that? Tresha and I… I married so well. She loves to fish. Praise the Lord. The last two Fridays, we have left, driven an hour and a half, and spent four hours on the pond, catching fish.

I just have to let you know that for about six years, Tresha had the family record, a seven-and-a-half-pound largemouth bass. Last year, I got her by about half a pound. Order has been reestablished in the Kaigler household. We go fish together. It's time together. It's incredibly fun, and it fills our souls.

I may go play tennis with a buddy on that day, because I love sports, and I love to play and participate and compete, and that may be fun for me. You don't have to be in a room for 12 hours, meditating on a poem. Pray, extended time with the Lord, and go play. That's withdrawing weekly.

3._ Escape monthly._ That's where my alliteration falls apart. I need something. I have thought about all kinds of words, and I can't figure it out. I would tell you that a month is a rhythm that God put into the order of creation. This is a time when you really do evaluation of your month or what is going on.

You want to do some evaluation if you decide to do the Sabbath as well. You want to spend some time, "How was my week, Lord? Where did I miss it? Where did my heart get hooked on something or grow cold? What was going on?" Then on the month, I kind of go back and look and say, "Oh yeah. That pattern is repeating itself. I have hurt Tresha or my girls more because of this." God talks to you. Can you imagine that? It's amazing.

I don't hear an audible voice, but through his Word and through the counsel of friends and books I read and stuff like that, God starts speaking. Get away. Do some extended time. Do some evaluation time. I journal themes. I work on a timeline that I keep all year. Right now, I have a document on my desktop that says, "April." I have written all of the events that happened in April.

What happens so often is I'll get back, and I'll look back at the previous four weeks, and it's like, "No wonder I'm tired." It's the drama. "No wonder. I'm doing this and then trying to spin it faster. No wonder I'm tired." I stop and evaluate, "Hey, God. What do I need to cut out? What decisions do I need to make?" You need to know… You can ask my wife. She's here. I am an activity junkie. If you give me 30 minutes, I'm trying to cram 15 things into that 30 minutes. I need this desperately.

4._ Abandon annually._ Set a time. I usually do this with some buddies, with some friends who have known me for a long time. Some of you know that I send out a survey to my wife and to my kids and to my coworkers and say, "What have you seen in me this last year? Where have you seen growth? Where have you seen things I need to grow in?"

I have one of the buddies I do work with here who, probably about a month ago, said, "Hey, Kyle, can I have a hard conversation with you?" I'm like, "Yeah, man. Come on. I know you love me." He said, "Hey, when you're greeting people, sometimes, you kind of look through them on to the next thing. You're kind of there, and then your eyes kind of go up and your watching the activity in the room."

It's not because I don't care. I didn't even know I was doing it. It was so helpful. These people who know me send me these notes and say, "Hey, Kyle. Work on this." This year, I got away at the end of February, and it was a great time, kind of great. One thing is Tresha and I are about to hit an empty nest. Our third child is a senior and about to head off to college.

Here is the activity junkie. On my desktop is a document with 15 things on it that I'm going to go do once my kids are gone. I'm going to do this and that. It's a lot of ministry, great stuff, all of that kind of stuff. I get to my abandon annually time with my guys, and they said, "Did you just say an empty nest is coming?" They knew that. "Did you say you have a document on your desktop?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah. What can I do?" I was asking them, "Which one of these should I go do?" All four of them said, "It's not on the list."

I was like, "What?" They said, "Your wife is about to go through one of the biggest transitions she has ever gone through in her entire life, and you can't do any of that for the first year, because you need to pay attention to your marriage, and you need to make sure that your wife transitions and moves through that incredibly healthy."

I love my wife, but I was ready to go, and those guys were like, "Hey, boy. Pay attention." That was hard, but the more I thought about it, the second those guys said that, I was like, "Yes, that is right. That's a good thing." We're going to have a ball because we're going to go fish. Right? It's going to be awesome, and I'm excited about it. That was a hard piece.

If I can just read to you one of the things I'll never throw away that comes from my kids… My daughter who is at Baylor, when I sent her the email and said, "Hey, how has your dad done this year?" wrote this to me. She said, "Friends have pointed out lately that they see me knowing, turning to, and loving Scripture and have asked how Scripture became such a big part of my life. As I thought about it, aside from the overwhelming grace of God, I think you instilled a love for Scripture in me.

I have told so many people how you get away for days at a time just to be with Jesus. That has taught me to turn to truth and to abide with Christ without you ever saying a word. I spent hours by myself with Jesus the other day because I've seen you do it when life gets crazy. There truly isn't anything better I could have done. Thank you for teaching me to build my foundation on truth and to love the Word of God. That is something that even many believing families don't focus on, and it leads me to freedom and abundant life every time."

Come on. God can take me home today. Look, guys. I have not done this perfectly, but it has been a pattern in my life for a lot of years, and I have certain seasons when I don't do it, and I pay the price every time. I don't know where you are in this, but my heart is that you would begin to pay attention to your soul. Maybe just start with devoting daily. If you're devoting daily, maybe withdraw weekly.

Look. Husbands and wives, if you have a family with four kids under the age of 6, this is difficult, but use your babysitters for this. Use your families for this. Here is the deal. Don't go shopping. Don't be productive. Use it. Say, "God, I'm going to trust you. I'm not going to be productive, and I'm just going to have to trust that you're going to get all of the important things done." He does it every time.

I have never done this and regretted it. Never. I have never spent time with God on a daily basis, a weekly basis, a monthly basis, or an annual basis and regretted it. I don't know what the next step is for you. Man, we would love to help you think through that. I want to show you a picture, if I can, as we kind of wrap up. That was Watermark 16 years ago. Do you see the guy with brown hair in the top left? That's your boy right there.

Nine families. It has been awesome. It has been great. Do you know why I put that picture up there? That feels like yesterday. My kids were 4 and 2 when we took that picture. It feels like yesterday. My point is that this matters. I don't know how you're going to take it on. I don't know what the next step is.

Talk to your community. Talk to the Lord. Get alone. I will tell you that when I get to that Tuesday night before the Wednesday that I may go spend some time away, everything in my world is screaming at me. "You can't. You can't. You can't. You can't. You can't. You don't have time. You don't have energy."

It is a battle right there. We have to let the Holy Spirit win that battle, because it matters. For the sake of our souls, for the sake of our families, for the sake of kingdom impact you can have because you were using your time more effectively and using it better. Look, this is difficult, folks.

I have spoken a couple of times in the last few months. The first time, I talked on the Trinity. I'm like, "Lord, what are you doing with that?" This time, the Sabbath. "Are you kidding?" It matters. We have to pay attention to our souls, and we have to practice the Sabbath. Let's pray together.

Father, this is difficult. It's hard to practically get it done, but I don't think we're free from it. Father, I think the principle of Sabbath still matters. Father, I think rest, being alone with you for extended times, matters. It helps us. Father, as we have seen here, as we begin to process, I pray that you would help us to take courageous steps to implement this in our lives and counteract the busyness, the tyranny, the urgency, the over-activity in our lives.

We just declare to you that we cannot do it. Father, I will give in to the temptation to finish the to-do list every time. Father, by the power of your Spirit, by the counsel of your Word, would you help us? In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

I'm bold enough just to suggest an application. Before you go to bed tonight, talk to your Community Group or talk to your spouse, and you schedule just a half day away with the Lord. You figure out how to make that work with babysitters or parents who are taking care of kids. You go test God.

Trust him when I say that, because, "God, it doesn't make any sense for me to take half a day on a Saturday and go disappear with you. I don't know what I'm going to do." I take a to-do list with me. When my brain thinks of all of those things to do, I just write them down on a piece of paper and move them away.

Then I pull out God's Word and pull out my journal, and I just spend some additional, extended time with God. That's the challenge for you. I know we're all asking the question, "Hey, how do we make this work? It's crazy." God gives us the formula, just so you know, in Matthew 6:31-33. It says,

"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

God Word just says, "Go after me with all your heart, and I'm going to take care of all of the other stuff so your life doesn't look like spinning plates all the time." Have a great week of worship.