Pastor Jon and Cyndi Burgess
August 19, 2018 - W1833

PASTOR JON: Cyndi and I are happy to be here as we continue our Divine Rhythm series; today’s subject is Sabbath & Health.From the very beginning, God set a pattern for us to walk and live in so get ready to receive a word from the Lord!

PASTOR CYNDI: Ephesians 5:1 (NIV) says, "Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children…” God has set many examples in scriptures for us to follow: The first example was at creation—He worked hard for six days then rested. In other words, we are to observe the Sabbath day (rest) and to keep it holy because God knows what we need for our health and livelihood. It’s His Ten Commandments, not Ten Suggestions! God has our best in mind and knows what we need. The Apostle Paul tells the church in…

Ephesians 5:8-10 (NIV), "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord…" No matter how long we walk with the Lord, as long as we live in this flesh, we will always struggle with the pull of our flesh—our flesh and our spirit are always at war with each other and, sometimes, we go back to our default!

But Scripture tells us that when we accept Christ into our hearts, our hearts that were once darkened and didn't know any better have been illuminated with the light of Truth that shows us a better way. The pattern that God gave us to follow is to set us up for success and not to limit, hedge in, and keep our life small—but to make it better! Paul says in…

Ephesians 5:15-17 (NIV), "¹⁵Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." Do we want to understand what God's will is? What is my purpose? It is OBEDIENCE!

God gave us a Divine Rhythm to follow to set us up for success, but, if we’re not resting and recharging, we’ll not only stop and crash, but we’ll look for other things to fill us. May I suggest that we allow the Sabbath to be that stop.

Ephesians 5:18 (NIV) say, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the spirit…”

We want peace in our lives, but we won’t stop long enough to allow the Lord to deposit that peace; we just keep going. Sabbath is the Lord’s time to download His peace in us; He wants to restore our soul. 

PASTOR JON: So if what Pastor Cyndi is saying is true that we can't trust our natural default (the tendency to do what we feel like doing), let's do the opposite of our default by saying “yes” to what God wants and “no” to our natural default.

In a book by A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath, he says that Sabbath straightens our spirits and awakens us from the law of the eternal yes. No one accidentally says no, because our impulse is to always overcommit—we don’t want to let anybody down; we try to please people.

So why don’t we try to please God instead of people? It’s not natural to us to say no, especially in our culture. But God is saying that if we obey Him and say, “yes,” to Him, we must say “no” to other things. The Sabbath is to unplug from everything else and plug into God!

1. Sabbath Starts With Saying No

Sabbath is a pruning process. If we allow the pruning process of the Sabbath to occur, we will see more fruit in our lives than we have ever seen before…

John 15:1 (NIV) says, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

We can start by saying no to things in our schedule that aren’t bearing any fruit. God is asking us to allow Him to trim back so that we can have even more fruitful things in our lives.

My dad was a gardener, and I would go with him on the weekends to the old ladies’ houses and work with their giant rose bushes. These rose bushes were their pride and joy, and my dad’s accounts hinged on keeping these rose bushes as beautiful as possible.

My dad would give me the pruning shears and tell me which roses to prune. I would ask, “Okay, so just like these dead ones?” “No, no.” He answered. “You need to cut off all of them because if you don’t, they will end up looking like that.” (Picture of wilted roses shown on screen.)

I looked at those beautiful rose bushes and said, “Dad, I can’t prune that back. It’s going to be really ugly.” He told me, “But if you wait until every last bloom is done, if you wait until it dries on the branch and the smell is gone, you’re stealing from the fruit of the next season.” After pruning and cutting back as my dad instructed, I looked at the rose bush and said, “Oh my gosh, Dad, I killed the rose bush!”

He said, “Hey, Jon, I know it looks ugly now but, you wait until next spring and it will have even more flowers, the fragrance will be better, and the colors will be even more vibrant because we took the time to prune it this season.”

The same is true when God is pruning us. Our quality and quantity of fruit will improve next season when we allow Him to prune us in this season. We must allow God to teach us how to say no so we can…

2. Say Yes, To Sabbath Rest

PASTOR CYNDI: In our 24/7 news media world we live in, we go to sleep with our phones and wake up with our phones, constantly inundated—when it really should be a day to stop and just rest.

Sabbath is not only ceasing from work, but also from thinking about work, because it allows our minds to be restored. There's some research that suggest that even talking or thinking about work, when you're not working, can start to induce anxiety and stress levels to start rising.

Pastors are, sometimes, the worst at this because we look at our work as God's work, and think we shouldn't stop because we're helping people get closer to the Lord and discover God's plan for their lives. We don't realize that we're not giving ourselves to the Lord's work; we're actually giving ourselves to an adrenaline high when we’re successful in our work. It makes us feel useful, wonderful, important, valuable, and worthy when people are able to find God through our direction and ministry.

Regardless of what our job is, if we're not careful, we will continue to do those things at the cost of our relationship with God. What God wants to do is to make us better at our jobs and our work by giving our brains a rest and a chance to reconnect with Him.

In fact, studies have shown that more people have heart attacks on Monday morning than any other day of the week because when people return to work, their bodies are jolted with the adrenaline high. Work becomes their way to feel mentally and emotionally valuable. But

Jesus continues to tell his disciples that…

• Mental Sabbathallows our minds to be restored and focused on the Lord’s presence. John 15:5 (NIV) says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me (remain means to abide, an invitation to reside; to make our home in Jesus) and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.” Some think that Sabbath is not practical, but the Lord is asking us to consider Him more worthwhile than even a vacation. That we should work six days and set aside one day a week to abide in Him and soak in the moment.

• Physical Sabbath is our opportunity to connect with Godbecause fruit comes supernaturally with a continual connection to Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NLT) says, "Or don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." What an honor it is, for God to live in me! Sabbath reminds us that our bodies need Physical Sabbath and here are some practical ways to practice a Physical Sabbath:

                  1. Change the way you think.

                  Maybe, this is your time to try again: start eating better and get more                                        active because you're the temple of the Holy Spirit and your body is worth it!

                  Change the way you think.Sometimes we confuse uncomfortable with                                     impossible. For example, I hated to run. I thought I would fall on the ground and                          die. About eight years ago my sister called me and said, "Hey, Cyndi, I have an                              idea. Why don't we sign up for a 5K?" I said, "But I hate to run." She said, "I                               hate to             run, too. That's why I thought it would be good for us." So we signed up                           for the 5K. I had about a month to teach myself to actually run 3.2 miles; for a                             non-runner, that’s a lot. I spent the next month training myself to run and pushed                         myself.

                        I found that I had a lot more mental walls than physical ones to overcome. I                                  realized that if I just kept running, I could actually do it. Many times our                                       minds stop us; so we must believe that we can do something and do it!

                 2. Start today. Start small, with just one thing, start somewhere.

                 3. Be accountable. A goal without a plan is just a wish; so make a plan,                            find someone that you can do it with. You may have difficulty showing up,                               but when you show up, God begins to do something. When we do something                              physically, our minds become clearer—working out the stresses of life in a                                    healthy way.

• Emotional Sabbath is when Jesus says in…

                John 16:33 (NIV), “³³I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus is           telling us that following Him will not be easy; it will be extremely difficult. Peace is a          person that we reconnect with. Courage is not moving forward in the absence of     fear; it is moving forward in the presence of Jesus, even when the world is filled with           trouble because He has overcome the world.

PASTOR JON: If you listened to Pastor Wayne Cordeiro’s testimony about contracting cancer, he was stressed, but he stopped, observed the Sabbath, got alone with God, and heard God's word and received the very thing that Jesus wants us to receive.

Whatever you’re going through, take heart. God will take those things that you're stressed about; He will prune you back so that you can flourish in the next season.  

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Where are you overwhelmed with right now?

2. What can you do to take an emotional Sabbath? A mental Sabbath? A physical Sabbath?

3. What areas of your life are not bearing fruit? Give it to God to prune so that he can make you more fruitful