day no. 13,162: sabbath rest is understanding and trusting that it is very good‏

My friend, Joel Vint, sent me this sermon on Sabbath rest by Timothy Keller.

Below are the link and the live-time notes I typed out while listening through it.

http://sermons2.redeemer.com/sermons/work-and-rest (Tim Keller)

4 explanations of American work-a-holism

A - Job instability/competition

B - Disparity in salaries between entry level and highest level

C – Technology (you can work anywhere, so we work everywhere)

D – We define ourselves by what we want to be attaining (work is loaded with psychological pressure to help us fulfill our defined verdicts)

We have an inner need to prove ourselves to others and our own self which makes work so full of weariness. By default we assume we are what we do or have done or continue to keep doing.

We have an eternal inner murmur.

“I wanna go the distance. Then I’ll know I’m not a bum.” ~Rocky

I hear you, Rocky. Been there, often doing that too.

If you don’t have Jesus, you don’t have rest. If you have Jesus and you don’t have rest, you don’t know yet what you have.

REST = to be utterly satisfied with what has been done (God said, “VERY GOOD!” and rested)

In Jesus, you can look at yourself and your work and say, “It is good. It is finished.”

Physical work doesn’t make us weary; it’s the absence of deep rest.

This was GOLDEN: We never finish the wearisome work of asking the question, “Am I important?” If you were important yesterday, today the question remains: “Am I still important today?”

The Pharisees' plot to kill Jesus confirms Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath because Jesus experienced infinite restlessness on the Cross and then said, “It is finished!”

Because Jesus said, “It is finished!,” God looks at us and says, “It is very good!”

The work that makes us weary is finished in Jesus and so in Him we can have real, deep and enduring REST.

Vacations don’t deal with the deep rest, they merely are breaks from the physical work.

Without Jesus, the eternal inner murmur never finds rest. Never EVER.

All attempts to practice the Sabbath without first RESTING in JESUS are in vain.

INNER DISCIPLINES:

1. Act of Liberation – DT 15 – observe the Sabbath because you’ve been set free by Jesus! Slaves don’t get a day off. If you can’t rest, you’re a slave. Now that Jesus has set you free, be free (Gal 5:1)

2. Act of Trust – God has already finished the only essential work, therefore we are free to work hard without the pressure to help Him complete the good work.

EXTERNAL DISCIPLINES

1. Take more Sabbath time.

2. Balance your Sabbath time by doing something…

     a. Avocational (something you typically don’t do)

     b. Contemplative (something that expresses your worship)

     c. Inactive (physical rest)

3. Be accountable for Sabbath time: different seasons require different output, but knowing this, make sure to be even more accountable to not defaulting to making every season one where you work too much.

4. Inject Sabbath time into your work: think of gleaning where fields were not worked to the last corner. You’ll have to run the risk of falling behind in your career in order to spend your time for His Kingdom, not building yours.

5. Community: get some people around you in the same or similar vocation and do the work of figuring out what it looks like for you all to rest in Jesus.