PRACTICING THE WAY: SABBATH

January 8 – February 5, 2023

What if the thing God is inviting you into this year is not more but less? If it sounds nice but impossible, attractive but unrealistic, that’s fine. All we are asking for at this stage is an open mind as we spend the next several weeks talking about the often neglected and easily misunderstood practice from the way of Jesus, known as Sabbath....

For most of us, the idea of stopping for 24 hours is uncomfortable. We spend our days on the go. We have become accustomed to living full but only sometimes fulfilling lives. If we stop for Sabbath, it will likely bring us face-to-face with two areas of our lives that make us uncomfortable: our identity and our idolatry....

‘Busy’ and ‘tired’ are the primary ways most of us answer questions like ‘How are you doing?’ or ‘how was your week?’ But, at the risk of sounding cliche and insensitive, it need not be this way. What we need is rest....

Over the last two weeks, we talked about ‘stop’ and ‘rest.’ This week, our focus is on ‘delight.’ The Sabbath isn’t just about what we stop doing, and it isn’t simply about what we rest from. We stop and rest so that we can become the kinds of people who can enjoy the goodness of God. For people like us–prone to be negative and vu...

Worship is surrendering all of life back to God. But what does all of this have to do with Sabbath? Well, in one sense, worship is what Sabbath is all about. We don’t just stop to stop, rest to rest, or delight to delight. We stop, rest, and delight so we can become the kind of people who can worship God with our whole being....