God Thinks Your Sabbath Is A Joke

Open School All right, you guys ready to get to work? I am. I'm fired up. I'm ready for this one. This is gonna be a good sermon for me and your employer. All right, we're gonna talk about work. Amen. How many of you are employers? You got employees. I hope you brought them today. How many of you are in your 20s and worried about your mental health day, your day off and your PTO, all right? Buckle up. It's going to be a terrible hour of your life. All right. We are in the book of Exodus this year. I'm having a good time. We're in the book of Exodus this year, and we're starting our study with the Ten Commandments. And today we're looking at the fourth commandment, and we are looking at honoring work and Sabbath. Let me just say this. I think that of all the Ten Commandments, well, you can make the argument that people don't really understand thou shalt not commit adultery. We'll get to that later. Nonetheless, the one commandment that perhaps people don't understand is the Sabbath commandment. And too many people don't understand it because they emphasize it too much. They love it too much. They study it too much. They prioritize it too much. They adore it too much. And let me just say this. We're going to talk about work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And if you do that, maybe take a day off. Amen? If you don't work, you're a problem. You don't need a Sabbath, you need a spanking, okay? That's where we're going, okay? So we're gonna start by reading the Bible, okay? Here we go. Exodus chapter 20, verses eight through 11. Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy. For six days you shall what? Labor. Work hard six days a week. Do all your work. If you don't know what that is, ask your grandpa. Okay? But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, the sojourner who was within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, made it holy. Usually, for those of you that have been in church, usually the fourth commandment is called, the commandment about the, what is it called the commandment about the? Sabbath. No, it's a commandment about work, then Sabbath. So I disagree with how this is usually taught. Most people, oh, this is the one about the Sabbath. Six days, it says to labor and work. One day, Sabbath and rest. Most of us, we take the one day, turn it up to a 10 on the volume knob, take the six days, turn it down to a one on the volume knob. I wanna turn the work up to a 10 and the Sabbath up to a 10. Since it's speaking of a week, a work week, it's speaking first about the six days of work. That means that the Sabbath is 86% about work. 14% about Sabbath. So we're going to spend 86% of the sermon about work and 14%-ish about Sabbath. And so when we speak of this commandment, work and Sabbath, it's the longest in the original Hebrew of the Ten Commandments. And when it speaks of Sabbath, that means to get your day off, to cease, to desist, to rest from your work. And when it says that you rest, and then it says your kids rest, your wife rest, your employees rest, your animals rest, it means you can't pawn off your work on others. Everybody and everything gets the same grace. Now, let me set this up because some of you, you're kind of socialist. Okay. Now you would be our guest. You've not been here for long. You'll get fixed. Okay. But our country is trending towards socialism where people think that every day should be a day off. Okay. Let me set the backdrop of the book of Exodus. So the book of Exodus, it begins with God's people being enslaved in a nation called Egypt. And they were used and abused and they were mistreated. And particularly what conjured up God's ire against the nation of Egypt and the king named Pharaoh was two issues in particular, life and religious freedom. Some people will say, well, God's people shouldn't get involved in politics. Well, God does. God shows up in Egypt and they're killing baby boys and won't let the believers get a day off to worship. So God crushes the entire nation and says, I'm pro-life and pro-religious liberty. So he literally preserves life and then he frees slaves so they can be free to worship him because two big issues for our God is he's pro-life and religious freedom to worship. And so what happens is God crushes the entire nation of Egypt and he does so by destroying their demonic counterfeit gods and it culminates with the killing of the firstborn male child in every household that doesn't have faith. And this was God's vengeance. You wanna take my boys? I'm taking your boys. This is God's vengeance. And then God delivers his people to be free to worship him. So this is a nation of a few million slaves and they are delivered through the Red Sea. The army follows them. God drowns the army. Now the nation of a few million slaves, they are in the wilderness wandering around. Ultimately, God is going to get the nation into the promised land. They're going to form the nation of Israel. And ultimately, before they get into the nation, they need to be trained by God on how to be a civilization, a people, a nation. When we read the Bible, oftentimes, we just ask this question, how does this apply to me personally? That's important, but it's not enough. You need to then ask, how does this apply to us collectively or nationally. And what God is teaching them is before you occupy the land, before you become a nation, you need to understand laws and work. You can't have a nation without laws and work. Can I get an amen? Somebody please forward this to Portland, okay? And Dearborn and Minneapolis. Without laws and work, you can't have a nation. So God calls a sacred assembly. He calls the whole nation together and he's going to give them laws. It's called the 10 commandments. And in those will include laws about work. That's the fourth commandment. So God says, we're going to meet. You need to prepare yourself. Three days, wash your clothes, cleanse your sin, make sure your soul and your body, they're ready to meet with me. Now, God's glory touches the mountain, and God tells the people, surround the mountain, don't touch the mountain, you'll die. God's so holy, and we're so unholy, that if God touches the mountain, we can't even touch the mountain. You'll notice that the center of worship is God. See, the center of worship is not a series of mirrors for people to gaze upon their glory. The center of worship is not you. It's not me. It's not us. We're not here to talk about you or me or us. We're not here to do what you or I or we want. We're here to learn about who this God is and what he says. And so they gather for worship and then God calls one man up the mountain and it's thunder and lightning and earthquake and everyone is just terrified, and Moses goes up the mountain. He's the Christ figure. He's the mediator. He's between sinners and their holy God. He goes up the mountain. He comes down with the Ten Commandments, and what is pretty astonishing is that Moses comes down with what becomes the basis of law. You need to know this. Our God works through law. Law is external, not internal. Law comes from God, not just majority vote. Law is unchanging and fixed, not changing. Law is based on fact, not feeling. Law is what we conform to. It does not conform to us. So law comes down to us from God. and it includes the 10 commandments and it includes the fourth commandment about work. Here's why they needed it. The fourth commandment said they got a day off. You know why it said that? They had no idea what that was. How many days off had the slaves had? They weren't like us. They weren't in the wilderness going, I wonder how much PTO we'll get. do we get paid for our sick days is kwanzaa a paid holiday what's the maternity policy here in the woods you see that god said sabbath and they're what well that's a day off they had never had a day off you see that this is where their perspective is completely different than ours. They knew how to work. They didn't know how to rest. Most of us, we know how to rest a lot better than we know how to work. Because we live in a nation that has lived under God's blessing for so long. They lived under a nation that cursed them for so long that they knew how to work. They didn't know how to rest. We have been blessed for so long. Some of us know how to rest. We've forgotten how to work. and so it's a little sassy already in the sermon isn't it just here's why great people worked hard to build this nation and one generation of lazy people will undo all the work that has been done Tom Brokaw called the nation In the generation of the world war is the greatest generation. There is no competition for that title today. There is no... We once had a Democrat say... I'm way off my notes. This one could go long. We once had a Democrat say, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your... That was a Democrat. Who won on that platform? We live in a day of entitlement, not sacrifice, of consumption, not production, of rest, and not labor, of taking, and not giving. Okay? And so we're the opposite of the nation that originally received the Ten Commandments. Slaves who had only and always worked, owned nothing, and had been used and abused. Okay? So the Sabbath is freedom from slavery, not work. I'll show it to you. The story begins back in Exodus 5. Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, you shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks as in the past. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past, you shall impose on them. You shall by no means reduce it for they are idle. Pharaoh accused them of being idle. Imagine what he would say at your workplace. Therefore they cry, let us go offer sacrifice to our God. Let the heavier work be laid on them. And then it says God's people were beaten. So the backdrop of the release of God's people and the giving of the fourth commandment was God's people were slaves. They owned nothing. They had no rights. They had no workers' comp. They had no HR department. They had no contract. They had no paid vacation. They had no retirement. All the things that you just feel entitled to. I have these rights because I can fog a mirror. They didn't have those. And so they said, hey, our God would like us to take a day off to worship him. Pharaoh said, I don't know this, God. No, you don't get to go to church. You only get to work. Now you're being lazy. You want to go to church. Imagine, see, here's what's wild. Imagine if you got in trouble for going to church. See, we can't get people to go to church. Imagine if you got in trouble to go to church. They were willing to get in trouble to go to church. And so what the Pharaoh said was, well, they're gonna continue making the bricks, but now we're taking the straw. You can't make bricks without straw. It's kind of like adobe used to be here in the desert. You take the clay of the earth, you form it, but you need to put straw in it so that it compacts and hardens. Without the straw, get no bricks. And so the way it worked, there were two jobs, the guy that brings the straw and the guy that makes the bricks. Now the Pharaoh says, you have both jobs. You gotta find the straw and make the bricks. Well, that's two jobs. The slaves are already working seven days a week and they've got a more than full-time job. Now they got two jobs. Now, how many of you living in the desert? If right now I told all of you, every day you need to find a lot of straw, we live here in the desert, true or false, there's not a ton of straw. Okay. For those of you who are watching online, you're like, I live in Iowa. There's a lot of straw. Right. Right. We're in the desert. There's not a lot of anything other than dehydration That the only thing we have a lot of Okay So now these poor people they wandering in the desert They like they looking for straw And when they find the straw they got to bundle the straw They got to carry the straw home And then they need to carry the straw into work And then they need to use the straw to make the bricks How many of you are contractors? You build homes or something? Now imagine they said, you can't order any supplies. You need to go find all the supplies and bring them to the job site. There's no more delivery. Let me do this. Oh, I just thought of this. Imagine if the government forbid Amazon Prime and nothing could be delivered to you. Some of you are like, emotionally, I'm now connecting with this ancient story at a heart level. Okay, nothing gets delivered. And so now these poor people, they've got two full-time jobs and they already don't have a day off. Okay. Now, some of you will ask, Did this actually happen, these old stories? What I love about archaeology is it digs up the past and it confirms the Bible. Because the Bible is based on history. I'll show it to you. Just a little fun fact. This was a fresco. It comes from the tomb of a guy named Rechmeyer around 1450 BC. That's the time of Moses. And that's from Pharaoh Thutmose III's tomb. Up above, it shows the Hebrew slaves gathering what? Straw. And down below, it shows the Egyptians beating the Hebrew slaves. So all of this is historical fact, and it's confirmed by archaeology. And so the Sabbath was not freedom from work. It was freedom from slavery and abusive slavery. And so let me do this. you're going to get in this sermon a bonus point. Okay, here's a little bonus point. This sermon is going to be longer. We'll put it on the internet. I'll preach a shorter one. We'll play it back at the other services. So you guys now get a bonus point. A bonus point. You're welcome. Okay, a bonus point. So we're talking about six days you work, seventh day you rest. This is in Exodus. Where does it first appear? Genesis, a creation, seven-day week. Question, bonus point, are the six days of creation literal days? Literal days. Okay, I'm going to answer this because today I'm working. okay I'm working this is my job okay okay um here's where we get the seven day week I'll show it to you Genesis 2 2 and 3 on the seventh day God finished his work God works all that he had done he rested on the seventh day from all his work so God blessed the seventh day and made it holy so this is before sin enters the world God works six days and then rests the seventh day this establishes the seven-day week, six days of work, one day of rest. Literally in the Hebrew, it says in six days, God breathed out, and on the seventh day, God breathed in. And if you ever say, man, I've been working a lot. I need to catch my breath. That's literally consistent with Genesis 2. It is. Now, some people will say, well, these aren't literal days. These are metaphorical, poetical periods of time. And these are good people that love the Lord and believe the Bible, and it's an open-ended issue. But it's seven literal days. These are very nice, well-studied, intellectual, well-intended brothers and sisters in Christ who are wrong. Because here's what it says in Exodus. Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy. Exodus 28 through 11. Six days you shall labor, do all your work. Seven days the Sabbath to the Lord your God. Four in, it goes back to Genesis 2. six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, all that is in them rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day, made it holy. Here's what he's saying. You get a seven day week because God made a seven day week. God worked six days, you work six days. God took a day off, you get a day off. God set the pattern and precedent, you get the pattern and precedent. So the seven days are seven literal days. Okay, since I'm working, I'll give you another. Here's a little bonus. So some of you are going to ask, I know you're going to ask this. It's not in my notes. I'm tired. Actually, I've not had a day off this year. True story, which is wild. I'm preaching on the Sabbath. And I'm tired. So I'm just going to say this. Some of you are going to ask, well, how old is the earth? And I got nothing else to do, so I'm going to answer that. And then we're going to go back to the Sabbath. There's two words in the Hebrew for made or created. Bah-ra-asah. Bah-ra means from nothing. Asah means to take something that exists and then to prepare it. It says that God bah-ra'd the heavens and the earth, and then in six days he asah'd it. So God created everything from nothing, ex nihilo, it says in Hebrews. And then in six days, God prepared it for human life. Ergo, the earth could be old, human life is young, Adam and Eve for the first human beings, and the seven days are literal. There, I've solved all the debates about creation. Right there, I did it, yeah, okay. Two of you are trying to encourage me, and the rest are like, the rest are like, I don't know what he's talking about. And then some of you profound, young earth creation, global flood, fundamentalists, are like, I'm gonna do a review on Google. As soon as we get the internet at our house. It's in the woods. Okay, so let me say this though. So God had a seven-day week. We get a seven-day week. Does everybody today have a seven-day week? Do you know that they do? There have been experiments in the history of the world to have something other than a seven-day week. You know why? Some people hate God. So some nations are like, we're not doing what the Bible says. we hate God. God did seven-day week. We're going to do something other than seven-day week. So the French Revolution and the Soviet Revolution, you knew if it was the French and the Soviets, it wasn't going to end well. So the French Revolution, 1793 to 1805, they tried a 10-day week and it failed. Napoleon abolished it. The Soviet Revolution had three attempts from 1929 to 1940 to have something other than a seven-day week. The ancient Roman Empire tried something other than a seven-day week. Guess what? In the history of the world, every nation that has tried to have something other than a seven-day week, guess what happens? It fails. Guess how many nations today have something other than a seven-day week. Zero. What a coincidence that is. What a wild coincidence. It's like, it's like gravity. It's like God created it. It's like, it's like inevitable, wild. You know why? God created it. It's like gravity. It's inevitable. God created the world. God created us. God created a seven-day week. We literally are hardwired to function within a seven-day week, and every nation that is tried has eventually surrendered to the Word of God, even if they've not surrendered to God. So everybody's got a seven-day week. okay so let me talk a little bit more about work um so when it comes to six days of work one day of rest there are two basic ways that you or i can sin one um we can fail to work hard enough or two we can fail to sabbath well enough make sense so six days one day some of you your sin is going to be, you don't crush it at work. Some of you, your sin will be, you don't get your rest. Okay. So just think about which might be you. Okay. And if you don't know, ask your employer. Okay. Okay. So let me, let me talk about Sabbath sin number one, not working hard six days a week. Let me tell you what the Bible says about work. And here's why. How many of you are young? How many of you are young? You're in your 20s, okay? There's always a book that's very popular for 20-year-olds that live with their parents, that wear Crocs with socks, that work part-time jobs. On the Sabbath, they're like, oh, I found this really good book on the Sabbath. have you read a good book on work? Just throwing it out there. I keep waiting for the best-selling book on work. I keep waiting for the 20-something-year-old trend where they're like, yeah, man, I read this book on how to work and be more efficient. Never seen it. Never seen it. So let me tell you what the Bible says about work because most of you know a lot more about Sabbath than work. Number one, work is good. Before sin enters the world, Genesis 2.15, the Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden too. You know why? If you're a man, let me say this. We're gonna talk about work, so raise your right hand. If you're a man, don't raise your left hand. Raise your right hand. God made you to work. God made you to work. You're a man. You're made to work. You're made to work. We're made to be productive and get things done. How many of you, when you work, it's good. A good, long, hard day's work. You get some things done, you actually feel like you're a man. Amen? That's good. It's good to work. Hey, for all of you guys that go to work to feed your families, we honor you. We thank you. We praise God for you. The family needs you. The church needs you. The community needs you. The nation needs you. Thanks for working. All right? Number two, work is cursed. You're going to find this out on Monday. Genesis 3, 17. Cursed is the ground because of you. God says to Adam, in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Adam sins. Work is now cursed. Ecclesiastes says it's toil. Here's the problem. Now the job treats you the way you treat God. How many of you are frustrated with your job? God lets you be frustrated with your job to remind you of what you're like for him. So every time you're like, this job's driving me crazy. God's like, you're my job. You're driving me crazy. So the job fights us the way we fight God. So work is cursed. What this means is everything's going to take longer. Everything's going to cost more. and as soon as it comes together, it's all gonna fall apart. That's work. It's work. So you're gonna have to work harder, longer, spend more, put in more effort. And for those of you who like to have a plan, just know this, there's gonna be some things that don't fit in your plan. Okay, number three, work is worship. 1 Corinthians 10, 31. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. Whatever you do, do it to glorify God. If you're gonna be a mechanic, be a mechanic to the glory of God. You're gonna be an electrician, be a plumber, do it to the glory of God. You're gonna be a mom, be a mom to the glory of God. Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. Say, God, you know what? I'm gonna show up early, I'm gonna stay late, I'm gonna do my best, I'm gonna glorify you, this is for you, I work for my God. Number four, work as a witness. Colossians 3.23, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord, not for men. If you say you're a Christian, work as your witness. Because the non-Christian doesn't know your God, but they know the Christian on the job and they're watching you. If you say, I love the Lord and you're lazy, that's a bad testimony. You say you love the Lord and you overbill your clients, That's a bad testimony. You say you love the Lord and you're the last one in and the first one out. That's a bad testimony. They may not know your God, but they know you. Let me say this. Jesus worked. 90% of Jesus' life, working a job. He spent three years or so doing public ministry. That was his other job. But the first 30 years of his life, it says he was a carpenter working with his dad. our God came to earth and he worked a job how do you think Jesus was as a co-worker fantastic literally perfect his performance review was simple yeah again we're supposed to give you something to work on but you just keep crushing it How many of you, part of your journey of coming to faith in Christ was somebody who loved Jesus and you met them at work? They were a co-worker. And because of their character and their integrity and their work ethic, you had a relationship with them. And then that started to lead to you having conversations with them and then maybe them taking you to church. But it started with work being their witness. Number five, work is required. It's required. If you're young and left-leaning, it's required. This is not optional. Okay. 2 Thessalonians 3, 10 through 12, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. You're like, I don't want to work. Great. don't eat live outside don't talk to me about universal health care and universal housing and basic income because the Bible says starve Okay those you have an option to work Starve That's not compassionate. Starve. Because those who are working can't carry your lazy carcass for the rest of their life. this guy's got a wife and kids and a mortgage, and maybe his mom's got cancer, and he's trying to take care of her. So you got to get your shrink to fits up in the morning and leave the house in something other than your pajamas and get a freaking job and pay your own bills. And I do love, I love the guy who's working, and he can't drag your sorry carcass around for the rest of your adult life because you don't feel like doing a job. It's called, it's being an adult. It's ridiculous. Some of you are like, I thought this was a Sabbath. I thought this was a sermon about the Sabbath. Your whole life is a Sabbath. You have already punched your Sabbath bingo card. You should never take a Sabbath again. You need to work for the rest of your life every single minute. You should only drink Red Bull. You should never sleep again. Frick. Okay. Gosh. And if you watch this on the internet, don't start talking trash about me because that would be work. don't don't like don't start working now okay second Thessalonians 3 10 through 12 if anyone is not willing to work let him not eat for we hear that some among you walk in idleness right just you're honking your horn and driving around Minneapolis. Not busy at work, but busy bodies. Such persons we commend and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly, own their, and earn their own living. Let me say this. If you work a lot, you don't have time to get in other people's business. You don't have time for sins and crimes. You know what? I would riot and loot, but I don't have a day off. and I'm so tired. I would have rage, but I need a nap. Number six, work is masculine. It's for dudes. Ladies, thank you for working, but I'm going to get your husband now or your future husband. First Timothy 5.8, if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith. He's worse than a unbeliever. If you're like, I love Jesus. I just don't work. Well, then you get cuts in the line to hell. You're worse than an unbeliever, right? You don't just, if you believe in Jesus, you also need to believe in a job. Amen. Okay. One, one guy's clapping. Okay. One guy's clapping. If you're in your twenties and you still live with your mother, and you are not willing to work a full-time job, you need to know right now that you are worse than an unbeliever. If you are a man who is able-bodied and you have pushed the burden of provision onto your wife, you are worse than an unbeliever. You're worse than an unbeliever. You're worse than an unbeliever. I'm just in the mood. I'll just tell you too. The city I used to live in, the People's Republic of Seattle, they elected a socialistic mirror who has a husband who won't work. And so her parents pay for the childcare while the husband stays home all day unemployed while the wife is the socialist mayor. I'm sober, but drunk. That still don't make sense. Okay? If you have a family where the man won't even work a job, that family should not get to oversee a city. Okay, a city. That family should not get to oversee anything. Because that city... Okay. Back to my notes. How many of you are young men? Young men? Okay. Here's a statistic. 14% of millennial males age 25 are not in the labor force compared with 7% of baby boomer males when they were that age, essentially doubling across generations. What we're seeing is from one generation to the next, young men are exiting the labor force at about 100%. We now have a category. Jeez. There's an entire, we have a category for men who are able-bodied in their 20s and won't work a job. They're called NILFs. I didn't say MILF, I said NILF with an N. Not in labor force. Oh gosh. And right now they're reading John Mark Comer's book on the Sabbath. they're like oh I'm so good at Sabbath 86% of the fourth commandment is about work 14% is about Sabbath you get to Sabbath if you work if you don't work you don't get to Sabbath you need to work and then you get to Sabbath. Gosh. All right. We're gonna talk more about work. How many of you, okay, when we talk about Sabbath, here's the question that comes up. Which day's the Sabbath? How many of you? How many of you got a Jewish friend? Okay, I do too, his name's Jesus, okay. Jewish people take what day? Saturday. How many of you have a Seventh-day Adventist friend? They take Saturday. They're really big on Saturday. What day do you take off? Some of you take Sunday. What day? So I'll explain to you. In the Old Covenant, Sabbath day was what day? Saturday. Jesus rose on Sunday. It's also called the first day of the week. And it's called the Lord's Day. So what's today? Saturday or Sunday. So here's what happened. In America, we're like, well, do we do Saturday or we do Sunday? So we decided to do both, which means you already get one day off too many. Okay, so I don't want to hear this. Here's all done. Well, how many mental health days do I get? You already got two days off. You're good. You're fine. And what do you need a mental health day for? Did you go to combat? No, you didn't. Were you an EMT? Have you seen a kid bleed out? Have you held a child on fentanyl? No, no. What do you need a mental health day for? Oh, I went to the weed store to get my gummies and the blue haired person that was behind the register got my pronoun wrong. You don't need a mental health day. Plus you got a gummy, you'll be fine. you'll bounce back. So I told you, I'm in a mood. So then here's what the New Testament says. Colossians 2.16, therefore let no one pass judgment on you with regard to a Sabbath. Romans 14, five and six, one person esteems one day better than another. Another esteems all days alike. Be fully convinced in your own mind. Just observe a day under the Lord. So here's a big idea. Just pick a day. That's good. Just pick a day. Okay. How many of you, you're like, I work on Sunday, but I take Tuesday off. Okay, great. What he's saying is this, whatever day, just pick a day. And what he says is this, don't legalistically judge each other for the day. You're like, and some people get real legalistic. They're like, well, the Old Testament says Saturday. Well, Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. And just so you guys know, just so you know, I work on the weekends. I have for 30 years. All right, so for me, I work on the weekends. So what he's saying is just pick a day. Now, here's what's wild. In America, how many days, oh, think about this. Okay, God said to work how many days? Six. How many days do we work? So we're all in sin. what why do we have two days off we have to clean the house he says sir that's why i have not taken a day off this year i don't want to clean the house i don't So there was a debate. Do we take the Jewish day off or the Christian day off? And America decided, take them both. Literally, that's what happened. So as a result, we get two days off, which means no one should complain about a five-day work week. The slaves in the woods who first heard about a day off for the first time in their whole life and were complete Hebrew mind melt, day off, what's that? If they would have heard two days off a week, I'm like, what? This is crazy. So let me talk about the lack of American productivity. America was built on something called the Protestant work ethic. It is not dead, but it is wounded. Okay, so let me summarize this for you. God said to work six days a week, which would be 2,496 hours a year. Americans work five days a week, which is 2,080 hours a year, minus the 240 hours taken for vacation, holidays, PTO, sick days, totaling 1,840 hours a year. And there's more. Americans are productive four hours a day totaling 920 hours of work a year. We're scrolling online, social media, taking breaks, socializing with coworkers. Americans work at 37% of God's intended productivity. What are we doing? Next slide, please. Surfing the internet. How many of you all day are getting funny clips and reels from people who are supposed to be working and you're watching them while you're supposed to be working? And how many of you are sending clips and reels of me while you're working to people who are supposed to be working? I appreciate the impressions, but that is a sin. Social media, texting, bathroom breaks. Almost 40 minutes. You people need fiber. Fiber. Socializing with coworkers, snack breaks in addition to meals. Distracted by coworkers, coffee breaks. Reading, drawing, and now we get to the remote workers. Or as I like to call them, the not workers. Household activities, watching TV, daydreaming, phone calls, childcare. Daydreaming. What that really means is day drinking. That's what that means. Okay? So let me say this. When we hear, God says, get a day off. get a day off if you work and are productive and get things done. Does that make sense? Imagine if all the true Christians worked like Christians, produced like Christians. Imagine how excited employers would be to hire the Christians. imagine if instead of dei it was like are you born again we don't want to hire dei we're looking for blood-bought baptized spirit-filled employees because they're grinders and get things done like we can actually beat the competition if we are those people, right? This is what I'm telling you guys, that at the end of the day, don't think about preserving your energy. Think about serving your God. See, the Bible says that heaven is an eternal rest. And I just, for those of you who are young, I love you, but you're silly. like I'm an employer right like you guys in your 20s you're like uh what are my mental health days during during the job interview it's like you have two days off a week you already get two mental health days every single week what do you need a mental health day for were you in combat were you in combat have you shot anyone were you an EMT have you have you have you held a dying baby have you have you have you seen a child that got into fentanyl no oh what do you what is your what is your what is your mental health oh you were in the you're in the weed store getting your edibles and they got your pronoun wrong. Oh, oh, oh. Well, sir, you have an Adam's apple, so we know what you are. And you'll be okay. You got that edible. That'll calm you down after you got triggered. You don't need a mental health day. You need a dad. Okay? I mean, just... You notice that we full and having problems with parking This is my effort to free up some space Okay I used all my time We haven gotten to Sabbath yet, so let's do it now. Sin number two, not resting well one day a week, Right? Jesus says, Matthew 12, 11, excuse me, 28 through 30, come to me all who labor, heavy laden. You know what those are? People that are working. 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, my burden is light. So the Bible says to take a Sabbath day and the point of the Sabbath day is to have a Sabbath heart, to have a Sabbath soul, to have a Sabbath mind. You can only do that if you Sabbath and instead of going to work, you go to Jesus. So Jesus says, come to me. So on your Sabbath day, you're saying, I'm not going to work today, I'm going to Jesus. So it's the day you go meet with your God. You say, I've got sins I've committed. I'm gonna give my sins to Jesus because he died and rose to forgive those. I'm gonna take my burdens to Jesus and he's gonna yoke with me and carry those. I'm gonna take my fears to Jesus and he's gonna help cast out that spirit of fear and give me faith. And so rather than going to work today, I'm gonna go to Jesus. And so ultimately, the point of the Sabbath is not just to get a day off, but to get a day with God, okay? And so what we do on our Sabbath, we rest from our work to remember the work of Jesus. See, we work all week and on the Sabbath we say, well, when it comes to salvation, I didn't work for that. Jesus lived without sin. Jesus died for my sin. Jesus rose as my savior. When he said on the cross, it is finished. He did all the work for my salvation. He is my savior. And so on my Sabbath day, I don't work. I go worship the one who worked for my salvation. and what it requires a Sabbath day, it requires a Sabbath mind. You gotta learn to shut your mind off. I struggle with this. Sabbath heart, you gotta be willing in your heart and your soul and your mind to stop thinking about your work and responsibilities and instead focus on your God. How many of you, your sin would be, let's just be honest, there's two ways that we tend to go. How many of you, your sin would be, you're not really doing a great job crushing it at work six days a week. You could do better. Be honest. Raise a hand. One of you. One of you. One of you. One of you. One of you. Okay. A little later in the commandments, we're going to get into, thou shalt not falsely testify. You may want to just read ahead. How many of you, your sin would be, you're going to work hard, but you have a hard time taking the day off and turning your mind off and not checking your phone and not taking your laptop on vacation. That's me. I'm a grinder. 55 years of age. I'll be honest with you. I've never had an employee outwork me. I wear 20-year-olds out. I got two jobs. I grind. I work. I don't mind working. I love what I do. And that's part of it. I love teaching the Bible. I love seeing people meet Jesus. I love advancing the kingdom of God. I'm in America, not Iran. Right? So like I can do this in Iran, they'd hang me. I wouldn't have to put in so many years. I told somebody recently, it's my 30th year in the pulpit. Like, man, that's a lot. In Iran, I'd get 30 seconds in the pulpit. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to have freedom. I'm glad to be able to do what I get to do. I'm glad. Some of you need to work more. Some of you need to learn to take your day off and enjoy your God. And then the last way to err is Sabbath sin number three. And let me say too, when it comes to Sabbath, do whatever allows you to enjoy God's people and enjoy God's presence. Go for a hike, turn your phone off, enjoy your family. Right? Take a nap. Jesus did. Go out to dinner. Go on a date with your spouse. I always say date your spouse before somebody else does. That's always my advice. My advice is always touch your spouse, not your phone. Those are good things to do on your Sabbath, right? Just try to find out how do you enjoy the people that God gives you and the presence of God around you. That's what the Sabbath is for. The third way that you can sin on the Sabbath is making legalistic rules about the Sabbath. How many of you have met people, they've just got so many stinking rules around the Sabbath? How many of you grew up in a religious home? Okay, okay. Okay, we're going to make fun of them, and then we'll bring the band out. Okay. Here's what Jesus says, Mark 2, 27. And Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So what he's saying is this. the Sabbath is not over us. We're over the Sabbath because the Sabbath isn't a law as much as it is a grace. It's not meant to control us, but to bless us. And this is where people who don't understand the heart of God, they don't understand the heart of God's laws. So what Jesus does when he comes on the earth, the religious people made all kinds of legalistic, silly rules, laws. Now, not God's laws, but what religious people do, they're like, God made laws, we'll make some too. It's like, well, no, we don't need your laws. We already got God's laws. So religious people make all kinds of additional supplemental laws around God's laws. So then when Jesus shows up, they got wild laws, wild laws. Like if your animal falls in the ditch on the Sabbath, you can't pick it up. They got all these wild laws. So what Jesus does, he shows up and Jesus intentionally starts breaking all theirs. Does Jesus ever break any of God's laws? Zero. But there are laws? Oh yeah. He's like, oh, we're going to get some religious people today. just say this it's fun to get religious people it's fun it's it is a part-time job for me it is okay so here's I'll show you Jesus healed 27 individuals and 10 groups of people with seven healings being on the Sabbath to violate religious rules but not God's word so people so one of their rules their laws was you can't heal on the sabbath that's a work jesus is like i'm healing them and then the religious are like you can't do that i can we're like well we made rules i don't care right can you imagine that can you imagine that like grandma falls down breaks her hip shouldn't have picked saturday nana shouldn't have picked saturday Nana. Jesus is like, I got you, Nana. And the religious people are like, you can't heal Nana. Nana's like, I'm in. So Jesus intentionally does things on the Sabbath that violate their religious legalisms. Some of you, you're little Pharisees in your heart. You're like, I've got a lot of rules for the Sabbath. We used to have these in America. They were called blue laws. Things like no travel, no entertainment, no fishing, no hunting, no bowling, no sports, and no public affection on Sunday. Some states, it literally said, if you're married, no public affection on Sunday. That's weird. Like, it's our day off. We got extra time. who made these stupid rules. When I was in college, I had a Jewish friend, and we would debate a little bit about Jewish law, and it was fun. He was a good dude. And I asked him, I said, so how do you get around like all the Jewish Sabbath laws? And he said, oh, there's workarounds. You know, because God loves workarounds, you know. I said, like what? He said like, well, you're not allowed to travel more than a certain number of miles on the Sabbath. I said, okay. He said, unless it's over water. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, because if you're on a boat and the boat drifts, you can't count the miles and you can't stop the drift. So there's an exception. I was like, oh. He's like, so when I drive on the Sabbath, I put a bottle of water under my seat. So I'm traveling over water. like gods in heaven going I've lost to the circumcised fella probably shouldn't have said that yeah Well, probably should have took a day off. Wouldn't be so sassy. Some years ago, too, I led a tour to Israel, and they're real big on the Sabbath. Okay? And I love the Jewish people. I'm actually meeting with the ambassador from Israel on Monday, if he'll still see me. True story. And so when you go to Israel, they've got all these strict laws about the Sabbath. One of them is you're not allowed to tear toilet paper on the Sabbath because that's a work. Write that down. If you go to Israel, you need to know that. Otherwise, you're like, I've got 13 hours. so you've got to tear your toilet paper in advance I told grace this grace asked isn't wiping a work I was like babe that's a good question if the tearing is a work anyways as well. Any of you seen a Jewish refrigerator? No, here's how it works. So if you leave a refrigerator plugged in, that's not causing, you know, work. But if you open the door and the light bulb turns on, that counts as work. So if you have a refrigerator, you can't open the door on the Sabbath unless you have a button that turns the light bulb off for the Sabbath. I'm not kidding. It's a thing. Where they really go wild in Israel, and I love them, but they're really big on you're not allowed to push the button on the elevator on the Sabbath. How do I know this? Because I'm a filthy Gentile. so we were in Israel and if you push the button that's work because it's causing electricity to be transmitted so I didn't know this when we were in Israel and so I'm standing there by the elevator and there's a bunch of Jewish people and they're all waiting and so I'm I'm waiting they were all there before me at the elevator no one's pushing the button like this is weird They're all just, and then I come up and they're all like, hi, hi, welcome to Israel. It's like, hi. They're like, you want to push the button? Yeah, I can do this. Not to brag. I've done it before. I can do this. I'm like, thank you. We all get on the elevator. They're like, floor seven, floor four. I feel like a little boy who got the big boy job pushing all the buttons. So I turn around like, how come everywhere I go, everybody wants me to push the buttons? They said, because it's a sin. so it's a sin to push the buttons they're like yes so we need you to push the buttons so it's it's a sin for you to push the buttons but it's not a sin for you to give me to push the buttons they said no because you're a filthy gentile I pushed all the buttons so they had to go to all the floors just to punish them. That's it. Okay. Okay. So what's the, it was fun, right? You had a good time. I mean, most of you don't give, you got your money's worth. We had a good time, you know? So there you go. Okay. All right, you guys want to do worship? All right. So, all right, you guys ready? You want one serious point in the otherwise fun sermon? Amen? Okay, one guy does. What's the point of the Sabbath? God set his people free and gave them a day off so they could what? Rest and worship him. So they could worship him. That's the whole point. We've taken time to meet together so we can worship God. And here's what I would tell you. I do take God seriously, but not me. I do take God seriously, but not us. And I love you with my whole heart. But if you can't laugh at yourself and you can't laugh at us, then you probably take yourself and take us too seriously. But I take our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and our God, very, very seriously. Amen. Amen. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to worship our God because that's the whole point of the Sabbath. So I want you to spend time in God's presence. I want you to enjoy him. I want you to bring your burdens to him. If you're not a Christian, I want you to give your sin to him. I want you to, if you have a need, make it known to him. If you have a praise, I want you to thank him. And this is a time to meet with our God. Lord Jesus, we love you. We thank you that you not only save us from Satan, sin, death, hell, and the wrath of God, you also save us from silly religion and man-made rules. and you set us free so that we can work hard and then we can rest well and we could worship freely in Jesus' name. Amen. Please stand. Thanks for joining us.