Sermon Cloud

We are busy people. But know that it could always be worse. You could always be Marissa Mayer, the VP of Google. In an interview with Fortune magazine, Marissa said she gets about 800 emails a day! On Saturdays and Sundays, she often spends 14 hours straight answering emails. She said she's learned how to live on 4-6 hours of sleep a night. That's busy.
Or Amy Schulman, a partner in the law firm DAL Piper who has two assistants. One assistant for 7 AM - 4 PM and another for 4PM - Midnight. It takes 2 assistants to cover her 17 hour day. She's at the office by 7:30 every morning, then home by 7:30 that night, but answers emails until midnight. She has two cell phone carriers, just in case one drops coverage. She said she tries to turn off her cellphone during meals with families and when in the movie theatre. Which is very thoughtful.
Or Brett Yormack, CEO of the New York Knicks. Wakes up at 3:30 every morning, to be in the office by 4:00. Works until midnight every day. Leaving about 3 hours for sleep. But he sleeps in on the weekends, isn't at the office until 7 AM.
Now the clinical term for this is workaholism. And I don't know if any of us have allowed work to take over our lives in such an extreme way.
But at times we may feel that our lives are just about as out of control and busy as these workaholics. We look at our schedules and it feels like we're living life at this constant, break-neak speed. 100 MPH, straight, pedal-to-the-medal, no break anywhere I sight. Anyone that can relate to what I'm talking about?
What are some of the things that fill our schedule? I brought in some visual aids to help us think about this.
Work laptop pay stub
Did you know that 25 years ago, the average American worked 40 hours a week? Now, the average American work week has increased to 50 hours. Japan is the only nation in the world that works as much as we do.
A New York times article from the beginning of the summer of 2006 reported that 43% of people polled had no plans of taking any type of summer vacation. And of those who did go on vacation, 1/5 of them took their work laptop and 80% took their cell phones.
The funny thing is that a couple decades ago, in response to all the time saving technologies being developed, there were people wondering aloud what Americans would do with all their leisure time.
They didn't realize at the time all the extra work it would take to pay for all the new technology.
Kids Activities soccer ball
I went to the Gardner Parks and Rec site, looked up Fall and Winter youth activities and found these: Youth Cheerleading, Youth Flag Football, Youth Tae Kwon Do, Youth tennis lessons, Youth Volleyball, Youth Basketball, 3 on 3 intramural middle school basketball.
That's just what's offered through our city. You know how much stuff is out there for your kids. And some of your kids would love to do it all!
Entertainment TV Remote
We like to go to movies, to football games, watch our favorite shows. And just like the kids activities, our options are endless.
House Work laundry basket hand rake
Isn't it nice to know that once you get the dishes washed or the laundry folded, it's going to be awhile before they pile back up again? Yeah, that would be nice.
Church activities Bible?
Even our service to God and the local church can feel overwhelming at time.
None of the things on this table are bad. In fact, all of them in one way or another are very good and enriching to our lives.
Which is why it's so easy to allow them to crowd our schedules. There's only so much room on this table. Another item or two, and there would be no room left at all. And that's the way a lot of our lives are lived. Completely packed. No margin at all. Completely filled up. Crowded.
And when our lives get too crowded, we aren't able to give our full attention to the things that matter most. Family, friends, church community our relationship with God. The author Walker Percy asked this question, "is it possible that someone may miss their lives the same way one missed a plane?" I think that if all we do is run from one thing to another, we can miss the most important parts of our lives.
And there are physiological effects that come with being overbooked, too. You know that adrenaline rush you get moving one thing to another to another? That's fine for a season. We all have times like that. But our bodies aren't meant to depend on that adrenaline for extended periods of time. If we don't find ways to get our schedule under control, our bodies will literally begin to break down as a result of the constant adrenaline rush.
We know that an overcrowded schedule is a pothole of our culture. Something we all face. That's not in question. But some of you may have wondered, as we've been previewing this series, moving toward this discussion on busyness, "how can scripture speak to us now in a culture so much more face paced than the culture a few thousand years ago?" It may surprise you to know that one of the main themes of the Bible speaks directly to our fast-paced, overbooked, crowded culture.
The central story of the OT is the that of the Exodus. Ultra cliff-notes version is this. God's people, the descendants of Abraham, moved to Egypt in the middle of a famine. When they moved to Egypt, they were just one family. A big family of 12 brothers, but a single family. But this family grew and grew and became a small nation within Egypt. A new Pharoah didn't like that, so this is what he did. Exodus 1:11-14 Slavery. Constant, non-stop work. Slavery.
And people started crying out to the God of Abraham. "Rescue us from this slavery, we can't take it anymore." God heard their cries. Sent Moses to stand up to Pharaoh and lead them out of slavery. And not long after they'd escaped Egypt's armies and crossed the Red Sea, God gave to them the code of conduct that was to guide their lives, the 10 commandments.
One of these commandments spoke directly to their time in slavery, Exodus 20:8-11.
Do you see what God is doing? He knows that they had spent years, decades in forced labor. And now that they're free, God is instructing them to take time off. To Sabbath. Rather than having then work all the time, God wanted them to take a day each week to simply stop and be.
That's what Sabbath is all about. It's about stepping out of that constant overload of activity and giving yourself permission (even forcing yourself if necessary) to rest.
Can you see the connection? 2 overworked societies. We also struggle with slavery. We have a tendency to become enslaved to this palm pilot. To become enslaved to that continual adrenaline rush of doing and doing and doing. God now, just as he did 3,000 years ago, is calling his people to become intentional about stepping out of that busyness in order to rest.
Sabbath, I believe, stands as God's answer to our overbooked lives, our overcrowded schedules.
We weren't created with the ability to go, go, go and never stop. If God rested on the 7th day of Creation, wouldn't' it make sense that those of us made in his image would also get on a rhythm of weekly rest.
But before I explain more about Sabbath, I want to correct an extreme that people tend to go toward in practicing Sabbath. We have a tendency to become very legalistic about the Sabbath. "It has to be on this day, you have to do this and you can't do this." And we turn it into one more law we have to crowd into our lives.
This was prevalent in Jesus' day. The religious leaders had this huge list of what you could not do on the Sabbath. One of which was pick food from the field, because that would be work. Listen to this from Mark chapter 2, Mark 2:23-27.
Jesus was saying that if he, the dude who created the Sabbath, though it was okay to pick food on the Sabbath, then that was probably the case. But even more than that, Jesus was saying, "Sabbath is not meant to be another burden, it's a gift I've given to my people to help escape from the rat race."
Sabbath is not a law as much as it is a gift. A gift God wants us to enjoy.
So how do we enjoy it? What do we do on our Sabbath? That's the beauty of the Sabbath, you have permission to do whatever necessary to refill your tank. Pray, read, hang out with friends, mow the lawn, go on a walk with you spouse, a bike ride. Whatever activity brings you out of the adrenaline rush and allows you to feed your soul.
Enticing, huh? Let's go home and Sabbath.
But in order to practice Sabbath, there are a couple ideas we need to understand.
1) It's okay to say "no." We can't do everything. If we say yes to every request and every opportunity, this table here will be pretty crowded. It's okay to say "no." In fact, your sanity and health is dependent upon you saying "no" once in awhile, or maybe even a lot. Saying "no" is really important on your Sabbath. Maybe it's "no" to your boss who wants you to work that day, or no to that activity that takes you away from your family. It's okay to say "no" to things that don't fill your soul.
2) Your identity is not wrapped up in what you do Don't believe the lie of our culture that says your worth is wrapped up in your performance. The more you do, the more you make, the more valuable you are. But that's simply not the case.
There is nothing you could ever do to cause God to love you more. His love for you isn't based upon your performance, rather it's based on the simple fact that he created you and dearly loves his creation.
And when we understand that we don't have to earn anything. That making a little more money or doing whatever it is around the house, won't make us anymore valuable. When we get that, we become free to stop producing and to just rest.
Mahatma Gandhi said "there's more to life than simply seeing how fast we can move through it." Sabbath helps us to stop and just "be."

This morning, we're going to take a few moments together as a congregation to rest. To take a short Sabbath in the middle of our day. I realize this may be hard for some of you, but you'll survive.
There will be some reflection questions on the screen. If you'd like to journal, you can use the back of your weekly. Let's take a few minutes to rest and to reflect.

1) What activities or commitments have caused your life to become overcrowded?
What would it take to eliminate these things?
2) Whether it be a couple hours, an afternoon or an entire day, when could you carve out some time for Sabbath?
3) What would an ideal Sabbath day look like for you?

Story about the Forresters

Prayer