You’re listening to Nehemiah: Building a City within the City, a teaching series by Pastor Mark Driscoll. The following is a presentation of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. For more audio and video content, visit marshillchurch.org.

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The hope of Mars Hill since the beginning is that Seattle is a great city, and what it needs is a great city within that city, a city that loves Jesus, a city that believes scripture, a city that lives for the good of the whole city, not just its own self-interest. And so Mars Hill started off as an experiment to see if we could build a city within the city that would love the city and seek the transformation of the city as the city meets Jesus.

(Applause) Very nice. Good evening, Mars Hill. Welcome to our 5:00 service meeting concurrently here in Ballard and up north tonight in Shoreline. My name is Mark, and I’m the preaching pastor of the church. This week we are nearing the end of our study of the Book of Nehemiah. And so if you’ve got a Bible, you can go to Chapter 13, but no hurry. The introduction takes about an hour, so you got plenty of time to get there (Laughter). You think I’m kidding. And what we’re doing is we’re finishing this great book, and we’re looking at three different sections over the course of three weeks in Nehemiah 13, the closing chapter, and there we see that Nehemiah gets very angry. Last week he had a few choice words and chucked some stuff. This week he threatens to beat a few guys up, and next week he actually does and scalps one too. It’s a great book. (Laughter).

And after that, if you’re one of those eager beavers who likes to get started well in advance, on October 7th in conjunction with our 11th Anniversary, we’re gonna start the great New Testament Book of Philippians, and I’m titling this series The Rebels Guide to Joy. So you can start reading ahead if you’re an over achiever. I’ll go ahead and pray, and we will get to work.

Father, we begin, as always, by thanking you for making us, for making this world for us to enjoy, for giving us life and breath, for establishing a seven-day week, for establishing our lives in such a way that we have purposeful work to do, and we are also given the great gift of rest and Sabbath to enjoy and your creation and the people and things that you’ve entrusted to our care. And so Father, as we study tonight, it is my prayer that we would come to the Lord Jesus, and that he would be that source of rest and Sabbath for our hearts and our minds and our souls, that our lives would be lived both in work and in play and in rest to his glory and our good. And God, as we study tonight, it is my prayer that you would send the Holy Spirit to inform our understanding, to empower our service, and to give us hearts of Sabbath as we ask for this in Jesus’ good name. Amen.

I’ll start really briefly by introducing you to the man you’ll get to know in a little bit. His name is Nehemiah, and he has a heart for a city called Jerusalem, much as I have a heart for our city of Seattle. And God called him to move to that city and to serve the well being of the city and to plant a church in that city where the God of the Bible could be known and worshipped and loved. And he, in fact, did that very faithfully. He gave a full 12 years of very dedicated service to the planting of his church and to the service of his city. At this point, he was an older man feeling that things were going pretty well and that it was okay for him to return to his hometown of Susa and perhaps to hand over his duties and go into some form of semi-retirement. He did so, and upon arrival at home somewhere between one and seven years, we’re not sure, the commentators are divergent in their opinions, and the text is not specific to the number. Nonetheless, however many years he was absent, what we do know is that people began sinning against God, disobeying him, disregarding scripture, and the church was falling apart. The city was suffering, and the reputation of God was being damaged.

So at that point, Nehemiah came out of retirement, as it were, moved back to Jerusalem. And he tells us in 13:8 that his emotional state was “very angry”. Very angry. And this week you will look at his anger as it relates to work and Sabbath, that there is not a proper and Biblical understanding of these two issues of work and Sabbath. So by virtue of introduction, let me explain these great grand themes of scripture, give you some theological categories by which to then examine the descriptive example that we find in Nehemiah 13.

And the first thing I’ll point out is that in the days of Nehemiah that are written of the Old Testament, they did not have electricity as we do. And that changes everything in our day. That means today we can work all the time. We can actually live a 24-hour lifestyle, whereas they would oftentimes get up with the sun and the go to bed when it got dark, and they were more closely connected with the natural rhythm of creation.

Now, you and I at 3:15 in the morning we can go to 24-Hour Fitness and throw some weights around and hit the treadmill, just in case you want to. When you’re done, you can, on your way home, drop by Taco Bell at the 24-hour drive-thru and get a Chalupa to sort of even out the workout (Laughter). You can drop by 7Eleven or one of the 24-hour convenient stores to get a slurpy. You could do your grocery shopping at a 24-hour supermarket. Then you can go to a 24-hour home improvement store, buy some supplies, put lights on your house and re-roof it at 4:00 a.m. if you so choose. And that’s the world that we live in. The result is that in addition to that, we have PDAs, and we have cell phones and laptops to the degree where we literally can have the lights on and have the electronics on and be working 24 hours a day.

The result is that many people are working 50 hours a week. Now, 25 years go the average American worked 40 hours a week, and we were told “Well, with more technology, you’ll have to work less (Laughter).” Yeah, that worked well. So today, 25 years later, the average workweek for the average American has gone from 40 hours to 50 hours a week. And there’s only one nation on earth that works as many hours as the average American, and that is Japan. The result is that people are working often times well into the night, they’re working through their days off, they’re working on their weekends, they’re working through their vacations. It will be the same kind of thing that we see occurring in Nehemiah 13, so much so that it even impacts how we take our vacations and how we plan for them, if we do so at all.

I’ll read an article, a snipet of one, from the New York Times. It comes from August 20th, 2006. And it is in regards to Americans working too much and not taking their vacations. Some of you may be feeling this in September. We’re getting back into school. Fall is coming. It’s back to work. And some of you have missed your summer. You didn’t get your time off, you didn’t get your vacation, you didn’t get your rest. Well, it says this: “At the start of the summer, 40% of consumers had no plans to take a vacation in the next 6 months. The lowest percentage recorded by the group in 28 years.” It goes on to say, “Forty-three percent of respondents had no summer vacation plans.” That people are so busy working, they don’t even think of their summer vacation and don’t make plans for one in large numbers. “About 25% of U.S. workers in the private sector do not get any paid vacation time.”

Some of you are on part-time jobs, and you’re on contract work, and you don’t get vacation time, which means there is not an opportunity for you to get a proper Sabbath rest. “An additional 33% will take only a 7-day vacation, which includes a weekend, which is technically a 5-day vacation. Mike Pena, spokesman for AAA said, ‘It’s kind of sad, really, that people can’t seem to leave their jobs anymore.’ The Travel Industry Association, the largest trade group representing the industry found that the average American expects his or her longest summer trip to last six nights, and it takes three days just to unwind.” So we tend to be a nation like the people in the days of Nehemiah, and perhaps many of you are in this same situation, working too much, Sabbathing, resting too little, not enjoying your day off, not enjoying your vacation time, and your work has, in large part, overtaken the whole totality of your life, including squeezing out time for 
God and time for people.

I’ll give ya another story. An AP poll found that one in five people toted their laptop computers on their most recent vacations while 80% brought along their cell phones. How many of you – I mean, just come clean. This is church. How many of you brought your cell phone and/or your laptop on your summer vacation? Okay. Okay. Did it help you relax (Laughter)? Did it help? Were you less distracted, more able to not worry about your work and your responsibilities? Not at all. Not at all. People now take their technology on vacation with them. “One in five did some work while vacation, and about the same number checked office messages or called in to see how things are going. Twice as many checked their email while 50% kept up with other personal messages and voicemail.” It goes on to say that “For the most part, it is now assumed that you will take your laptop and your cell phone with you on vacation, and that all vacations are working vacation, which is, by definition, not a vacation (Laughter).” Working vacation. It’s like tall jockey, military intelligence. It’s a contradiction, right?

And I’ll tell ya what happened to me this summer. We took three weeks off as a family in Central Oregon. Finally just took a nice vacation. In years past I have not taken the vacation time that I needed. And I took my wife and kids. We went to Central Oregon because it’s high desert, and we could virtually be guaranteed good weather, whereas if you live in Seattle, you have no guarantee of good weather. And I’ve heard people say things like “Well, it’s rainy, but you get used to it.” No, you don’t. No, you don’t. No, you don’t. No, you don’t. If I got up every morning, poked myself in the eye, there would never come a day that I said, “Today I like that.” That would never happen (Laughter). So we went to Central Oregon, and the weather was glorious, and we had some really nice time. I didn’t bring a laptop, didn’t bring a cell phone, didn’t check any emails, didn’t check any voicemails. It took three or four days to fully unplug, and then all of a sudden I started taking naps. I like naps. Highly recommend them (Laughter). I wasn’t very good at first, but I practiced, and I really became good (Laughter).

Got a lot of time swimming with my kids. My kids love being in the pool, and I love being with my kids, so we spent a lot of time in the pool. Spent a lot of time riding bikes. Spent a lot of time going out to eat. Spent a lot of time throwing the ball around and going for family walks. Just enjoying my beautiful wife and our five cute kids. And what broke my heart was that the other parents in many of these resort place that we were staying, the two, they were on the phone. I went to the pool, and I’m in the pool playing with my kids, and around the pool there are a bunch of parents who are talking on their cell phones, dinking around on their Blackberries, and working on their laptops. And they’re on vacation, and they’re ten feet away from enjoying their children. I mean, they’re ten feet away from enjoying their kids. Heartbreaking.

Go for bike rides as a family, and you pass other families where the parents are riding bikes with the kids, but they’re talking on their hands-free kit cell phone to someone else, still ignoring their own kid. Go out to dinner at restaurants, and people are talking on their phone, and they’re returning emails on their Blackberry or whatever it might be and ignoring their own children. It’s a horrible thing. I saw it this week as well. I was preaching in Raleigh Durham. I can’t remember if it was yesterday or the day before. I’m not exactly sure what day it is. That’s what kind of week it was. But I was at breakfast, and I saw this daddy come in with his little girl. And it made me really miss my kids ‘cause I was away from home. And I thought “This is really cute. There’s a daddy taking his little girl out to breakfast. Perfect. All daddies should. It’s good for daddy and the girl.” And she was a cute little gal, blonde hair. I think she had pigtails, and she had a southern drawl voice. “Daddy.” Just cute as a button.

This little girl’s just a gift from God. The Bible says that children are a blessing. And I’m thinking “This is great that daddy’s taking his little girl out to breakfast.” I love doing that. And as soon as this guy sits down, he flips open his phone and starts calling somebody, and he’s talking on the phone the whole time that he’s at breakfast with his daughter. And I watched her body language and posture, and it really told the story. Her daddy’s here, and here’s what she does. She literally leaned away from her father, there was a great distance, and she rolled her eyes and just shook her head. And he wasn’t looking at her, so he didn’t see it. She was absolutely devastated that her daddy had taken her out to a special breakfast and started talking on his phone. He never made eye contact with her, he never spoke to her, she never touched her plate. He didn’t tend to her in any way. He went through the buffet, got himself breakfast while talking on the phone. Didn’t even notice that she didn’t get any breakfast and was sitting there with nothing to eat.

There was a waitress who was there, and she was very attentive, and she could see this. And she walked up to the little girl, and the little girl immediately smiled and responded, and it was very obvious she wanted some human contact. And so she smiled, and the waitress engaged her, and she began talking. She was a very – in so far as I could tell, a very sweet, conversant young lady. And she really apparently wanted pancakes, which weren’t on the buffet menu, because the next thing I know the waitress comes out with a bunch of pancakes, and the little girl smiles, and they begin talking, and they have this conversation. And the whole time the dad has missed this wonderful opportunity to really love his little girl. And it broke my heart. And I’m not saying this in a self-righteous way like I’ve never blown it with my kids, but he had this wonderful opportunity. And he never got off the phone. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting. I was gonna go over and have Bible study with the guy. True story (Laughter). And he never got off the phone.

So eventually I had to go to an engagement, and on the way out I grabbed the waitress and I said, “You know, it was very sweet of you to notice that little girl. It was very sweet of you to tend to her.” I said, “Her whole countenance changed. And I notice you don’t have a wedding ring on, but I believe that some day you’re going to be a very good mother” and went off with the rest of my day. And the question is are we so dictated by our technology, are we so devoted to our work, are we so addicted to performance and results that we overlook the people and the opportunities that are right in front of us? This is what some of you are almost forced to do by virtue of where you work. And in some companies it really begins at the top.

I was watching a show, I think it was on MSNBC, by this talk show host named Donny Deutsch. I think that’s his name.

Response: Yeah.

And he was interviewing Bill Gates. Some of you work for Bill Gates. And Bill Gates said this: “I took six days off between 1978 and 1984.” Took off six days in six years. Six days in six years. I also receive Fortune Magazine. I read a lot of magazines. And there was one particular issue where in Fortune Magazine they followed around some very successful people, CEOs and such, just to see what their average day looked like, when they got up, when they went to bed, and how they lived their life. And they chronicled each of these peoples’ daily routine. I’ll share some of the findings with you. “Marissa Mayer”, she’s a VP at Google, “gets 700 to 800 emails a day. Imagine having that on your Blackberry hip. I mean, just ding, ding, ding, just buzzing and shaking and rattling all day. Seven to eight hundred emails a day, sometimes spends fourteen hours straight on Saturdays and Sundays catching up on email, and has learned to live on four to six hours of sleep a night.” Okay?

“Amy Schulman”, she’s a partner at DLA Piper, “has “, get this, “two assistants. One for nine hours from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and one from 4:00 p.m. to midnight because she works 17 hours a day, and it takes two assistants to cover her workday. She wakes up between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., arrives at the office by 8:00 a.m., gets home by 7:30 p.m., and is on line doing her 600 daily emails until midnight. She has two cell phone carriers just in case one has bad coverage, she’s got a second phone with a second carrier”, wouldn’t want to miss a call, “and tries to turn off her cell phone and Blackberry during meals with her family and in movie theatres.” How about this one: “Jane Freedman, CEO of Harper Collins, “is a ‘email addict’. Personally responds to every single email that every human being on planet earth sends to her, checks her email every waking moment, she says, via computer or Blackberry.” So if you want, send her an email, tell her we said “Hi, we’re praying for her, and that she should stop responding to all the email (Laughter) and get some time to read her Bible ‘cause we care about her.” Okay? Can you imagine that? You could send her an email right now, and she says, “I’ll read it.”

Lastly, Brett Yormark is the CEO of the New York Knicks basketball team. He wakes up at 3:30 a.m. You guys in college, that’s totally different than p.m. Okay (Laughter)? 3:30 a.m. is really early. He’s not getting up at 3:30 a.m. because it’s the opening day of fishing season or hunting season or his child is teething. He gets up at 3:30 every weekday, and he is in the office by 4:00 a.m. On weekends he goes into the office at 7:00 a.m. and often works until midnight, which would leave him three-and-a-half hours of sleep. Now, I don’t mean to disparage any of these people individually, but they put all this information out publicly as an example.

What’s going on in the days of Nehemiah is that work has completely crowded out life, that work leaves no time for family or church or friends or rest or Sabbath or hobbies or joy. And some of you are feeling that same burden, that same difficulty, that same expectation. And I wrote down some things that I believe when we have work as an idol – an idol is anyone or anything that takes the place of God as the ruling factor in our life. And for some of us our job can become our idol, our position, our performance, our income, none of which is necessarily a bad thing, but if not kept in its right perspective where it is secondary to a loving, life-giving relationship with God, it become idolatrous. For some of these people I would say your cell phone is God, your email is God, your office is God and it rules over you like a tyrant. And the real God isn’t like that.

The result of having our work be idolatrous and all consuming is that, first of all, we cease being worshippers. We don’t have time for church, we don’t have time to read our Bible, we don’t have time to pray, we don’t have time to serve, we don’t have time to join a community group, we don’t have time to Sabbath, we don’t have time to rest because we’re too busy for God. Secondly, we lose our joy. Work just becomes performance and results and deadlines and meetings and emails, and joy is altogether lost. We also can, thirdly, lose our perspective to where you lose sight of long-term planning, you lose sight of recreation and vacations. You lose sight of people who you love and people that love you.

The result can be that then you lose hope. It says “If life gets bleak and dark and hopeless, if there’s not even time for human contact, there’s not time for God.” What happens invariably is that you lose your health. Some people lose it bit by bit. They get sick, chronic ailments, difficulties. Some it sneaks up on them all at once and they don’t see the wall coming. And the point is this: That we are to work and Sabbath. And if we don’t Sabbath, a Sabbath will be imposed upon us. So the question is not will you Sabbath (Laughter)? The question is will it be a happy or unhappy Sabbath? Those are the options. A happy Sabbath is “It’s my day off. I’m taking a nap, gonna join my friends, maybe read a book.” Unhappy Sabbath, “I had a heart attack, nervous breakdown. I’m in a red car with a light on top going very, very fast to a big building (Laughter).” Right?

The voluntary Sabbath is what God intends for us; and if we don’t take it, invariably we end up with an involuntary Sabbath. So the illusion and the myth is that you can work without Sabbathing. You will Sabbath. You will Sabbath. Now, in saying this, I’ll tell you my story since I’m chief of hypocrites. My story is that I like to work. I’m a worker. I have no problem working. I lied about my age at 15, got my first job, and I’ve been working ever since. I don’t mind working. And I like producing results. And I am like a dumb fullback. I just put my head down and keep moving my feet, right? Even if I’ve gone off the field, you know, through the stands, out the parking lot and into another zip code, I still – head down, feet moving.

And what happened was when we started this church, I just – head down, feet moving, push forward and work, work, work. The first three years there was no salary out of the church. Antioch Bible Church gave us some support. And I spent a lot of my time traveling, speaking, consulting. There was no one else on staff. Screen your own emails, phone calls, gone all week, come back, preach on weekends, you know, love my wife, pregnant with our first child Ashley, things are really busy, push, push, push. Well, then we get a little bit of traction, the church starts growing. Push, push, push. The next thing I know it’s 10 years, it’s a decade, and I haven’t taken a decent vacation. I would take a vacation, and then on the vacation in an effort to pay for the vacation, I would take speaking and consulting gigs. And I would bring my laptop and write books. So my first book was written while at the lake during a week, week-and-a-half vacation.

Bring my cell phone, check my email. Working, working, working. Taking what was supposed to be even just a week off around the holidays to study intensely to get ready for the next preaching series. In the middle of it all I’m not feeling great. I start getting acid reflux and heartburn. I start putting on weight. I go from cranky to really cranky (Laughter). It usually shows up in my mouth, which I know is shocking, in the words that I say (Laughter). I start putting on weight. I start eating a lot of high carbohydrate food to wake up, and then I’d crash, and then I’d drink caffeine to wake back up. And then I’m up all night with heartburn. Not a brilliant cycle (Laughter). And I had people telling me “You got to slow down. You got to take some time off. You’re not gonna make it.” I’d tell ‘em “No. Don’t you see the red cape flapping in the wind? I’ll be fine. I’m the exception to the rule (Laughter).”

And all of a sudden I’m pushing, pushing, pushing, and I’m just sort of grinding down, winding down, would preach 48, 49, 50 Sundays a year, not take any time off. And then this last year I was really falling apart coming into Christmas. And I thought “Well, I’m gonna take two weeks off around Christmas, and I’ll sleep and enjoy my family, and I’ll rest up and start feeling better.” So I take that break. I go to bed, and it’s like 11:00 or 12:00 at night, I’m kind of an night owl, and I wake up two, three hours later. I can’t sleep. I am wide awake at like 2:00 in the morning. And I feel really dumb because sleeping is supposed to be fairly simple. I mean (Laughter), I’ve seen people who aren’t incredibly intelligent do it, I’ve seen people who have never read a book on it figure it out. It tends to be a one-step situation. Lay down (Laughter). Step one. What’s step two?

Response: Close your eyes.

That’s it. After that, the rest sort of just happens (Laughter). And I can’t sleep. And I figured “Well, this will be okay.” A couple nights later I’m still not sleeping. This goes on for two weeks. I’m exhausted, and I can’t sleep. I got big bags, and I got black lines underneath my eyes. I’m really tired. All of a sudden the world looks very foggy, literally. There’s Sundays I’m sitting on the stage when I go back to work, before the first sermon in the morning, I’m dozing off at the start of my day. Sleeping through my own sermon is what I’m in the process of doing (Laughter). Not a good deal. All right? Doctors tell me things like – and I’m not against, you know, conventional medicine. Everybody freaks out on this stuff. Okay? I’m not against conventional medicine, but I was told things like “You need a sleep pill. Your blood pressure’s high. You need a blood pressure pill. You need an acid reflux pill. You need a, you know, cranky Irishman pill (Laughter), you know, all this stuff. You need all these pills.” And I thought “Well, maybe this is my body’s way of saying ‘You need to change.’ You know, maybe this is the body’s way of giving me some warning. So I go to a naturopath.

I know some of you are gonna freak out. “Naturopath? Isn’t that new age?” My naturopath loves Jesus, he’s got a Bible, he’s an ordained pastor, he prays over me to Jesus. If you’re a, you know, podcaster in the deep south who hears this, you know, he’s not a hippy, you know, new age guy who comes in, you know, and rubs a crystal on my nose and tells me to put my heel behind my head and take a bunch of garlic and stick it in my ear and then that’ll – you know, I mean, he’s not that guy. Okay (Laughter)? You know where I’m going. So anyways, I go to this guy, and what he says is this: “You got to change your whole life.” All right? “Got to change your diet. You got to work out, you got to pump weights, you got to hit the treadmill, got to drink water. You got to take a lot of vitamins.” I mean (Laughter), I have like 20-some vitamins. I have one of those grandpa pill boxes (Laughter). It’s actually like seven buckets like screwed together on the counter, and it’s like, you know, I’m just – I take huge amounts of pills, and I do what the doctor says.

This was starting in January. I had to get more assistants, reorganized the church, everything else. And by God’s grace, repentance for me looks like lifestyle change. A day off, which is Saturday. My ten-year-old daughter calls it pajama day (Laughter). So Saturday is pajama day. That means we wake up whenever we want, we wear our pajamas all day, we play games and hang out as a family. Don’t do anything else. If we want to go for a walk, we go for a walk. If we don’t want to go for a walk, we don’t. We play games at night. We snuggle up on the couch and we watch a family movie. We do a little Bible study, and we go to bed early, and that’s our Sabbath day. Putting that in as sacred was really helpful.

Getting exercise. My blood pressure went from 140/110 to 110/70. I’m sleeping like a baby. I nap now and then, and it’s really quite good. I like napping now and then. And I’m still really productive, but I put in my date night with my wife, put in our vacations, try to get my life back under control, email under control, cell phone under control. Turn it off. Turn off my cell phone and emails on my days off or when I’m home with my family for dinner and such. And it was just a bunch of lifestyle reorganization to help me learn how to Sabbath. Okay? How to Sabbath. I was a guy who prided himself on the ability to go. And it got to the point where probably had I not made some changes, I wouldn’t be your pastor this year, and I’m not sure I’d be a great husband or father this year.

And so in that I want to start by telling you about work, and then we’ll deal with Sabbath. Okay? so when it comes to work – now, some of you are sitting here saying, “That’s right. Work stinks. I quit (Laughter). In fact, hold on a minute. I’m gonna put it here on my Blackberry. ‘I quit.’” Don’t send it yet. Okay? Don’t send it yet. That’s not what I’m saying. Okay? It’s a good thing to work. Genesis 2 says this, this is before sin enters the world, “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work.” So we’re made to work. How many of you like to work, you need to work? Okay? You need to work. It’s good for ya. Especially you 20-year-old guys, you got to work, otherwise you’re gonna spend your time breaking commandments. You need to work. It’s good for ya (Laughter). Got to have something to do. And we like to work, and we do work. And I’m a person who really likes to work.

Secondly, what happened though in Genesis 3 is we sinned against God, and now because of sin, it’s affected everything, and our work is now called what word? Toil. So whatever your job description is at work, they should just erase and in like 24-point bold font it just should say toil. That’s your job description ‘cause it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s toil. Some of you quit one job, got another job. It’s just a different kind of toil (Laughter), but it’s still toil. Okay? And so work is toil. Now it’s hard, and because of sin, things don’t work right. And because we’re messed up, the world is messed up, and work now is not like it was. It is now toil. But God gives us grace to do the work that he’s appointed for us to do. It says this in Ephesians 2: 8, 9 and 10. In Ephesians 2:8, 9 it says “We are saved by the grace of God, that we’re saved by a gift of God, that Jesus is God. He lived without sin, died and rose. If we give him our sin, he gives us his salvation. And we’re saved by grace, a free gift of God through the work of Jesus.” And then it says in Ephesians 2:10 that “We are saved by grace to do the good works, which he prepared in advanced for us to do.”

So all Christians and all of you who become Christians there are certain things, work that God has for us to do. Now, we’re saved by saving grace, and we’re empowered to do good work by empowering grace. Too many Christians think “I’m saved by Jesus, but then I got to work really hard.” No. You’re saved by Jesus, and his grace and his empowering grace will enable you to do the good works he’s appointed for you to do. Paul says this in First Corinthians 15:10: “But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without affect, though I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Paul says, “I worked really hard, and I got a lot done, but that’s because God gave me the grace that empowered me to do the work.” And so to do the work in spite of the curse that God has appointed for us to do will take the saving and empowering grace of God, connecting us to God, and then giving us the power and life of God to do the work.

The result of that is that we actually have the potential of enjoying our work. It says this in Ecclesiastes 3:22: “So I see that there is nothing better for a man to do than to enjoy his work.” We know we’re made to work and that work is toil, so it is now hard because of sin. But because of the empowering grace of God, it can be done. We now have the possibility of enjoying our work. And the key to enjoying your work is this: Do it for Jesus. Work for Jesus. You may say, “I don’t like my boss.” There’s somebody higher up the food chain than the middle manager guy with a clipboard. His name’s Jesus. And the key to enjoying your work and having God’s grace empower you is to do it for Jesus. It says this in Galatians 3: “Whatever you do, whether you drive a bus, pour coffee, sit I a cubicle, return emails, you know, walk dogs, whatever it is you do, do it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you’ll receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” We who are Christian work ultimately for Jesus.

And so we can work well, we can work hard, and as we work for Jesus, work is also a form of worship. It honors God, and it’s sacred unto God. And so then we must also look at Jesus and not only work for Jesus, but work like Jesus. Our God comes to the earth, spends 30 years swinging a hammer as a carpenter. He spends 90% of his life on the earth working a blue-collar job, and he does it well. I would be certain that Jesus didn’t show up late, didn’t steal supplies, and didn’t have shoddy work. All right? He was sinless. And then he spends the last three years of his life doing ministry. And Jesus sets for us an example of the sanctification of normal, everyday work, in particular labor.

Now some of you are here and you say, “I wish I was in ministry, but I have a job.” We’re all in ministry. The Bible says that all Christians are the priesthood of believers, and that we’re all out in the world doing sacred work unto Jesus by the grace that he has empowered us to have. And whatever you are doing, even if you’re a kid who’s doing chores for your mom and dad, you’re a student who’s studying hard, you’re someone who’s got a part-time job to pay your bills, whether you’re someone who’s in management, whatever you are doing, it’s sacred work. It is ministry if it is done for Jesus, if it is done like Jesus, and if it is done with Jesus and the grace that he gives. Martin Luther, the great reformer, says it this way: “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps, but because God loves clean floors (Laughter).” All right? All the women are like “Amen (Laughter).” Okay? Now, for you college guys, the floor is what’s under the laundry. That’s what Martin Luther here is referring to (Laughter).

He goes on to say the Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes – should send this to all the Christian bookstores – but by making good shoes because God is interested in good craftsmanship. So the first thing you learn is that work can and should be worship, but if you work all the time, you are an idolater who has elevated your work over your God, and in that way you’ve taken a good thing and you’ve made it a bad thing to your demise. So we have work and we have Sabbath, which is rest. And according to the scriptures, God worked for six days in the creation of the world, and then he rested on the seventh day to enjoy his labors. And God has set in place for us a seven-day week. That’s why we have a seven-day week, six days of which we work and one day on which we Sabbath, which is rest. Okay?

It begins in Genesis 2 that God rested on the seventh day, which was what day? Saturday. You say, “Well, what do you do on a Sabbath day?” Well, you could sleep, you could take a nap, you could read, you could go for a walk, you could enjoy your friends. You can practice hospitality and get together with folks. It’s a day to enjoy people. It’s a day to connect with God. It’s a day to give your body a rest. It’s a day to enjoy the things that God has given you like people and possessions and health and breath and life. And it begins in Genesis 2. And then if you move forward to the Ten Commandments, which are mentioned in many occasions, but you can go, for example, to Exodus 20. The Fourth Commandment says, “God worked for six days and took a day off. You work for six days, take a day off.” That’s a commandment.

The Jews, God’s people in the Old Testament who were waiting for the coming of Jesus, they began obeying this early on, and Saturday was the day of Sabbath. But then Jesus comes, and Jesus lives without sin, dies on a cross in our place for our sins, and on the third day he raises from death. What day does Jesus resurrect? Sunday. So then there’s a debate, “Should we worship on Saturday or Sunday?” And the early Christians transitioned from worshipping on Saturday to worshipping on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. That was, for them, a workday initially. So they either had to work – they had to worship together as the church before they went to work early in the morning or after they finished their work late at night. That’s how devoted they were to worshipping God together as the church.

Then time continues until we get to the Roman Emperor Constantine in 321 A.D. He declared himself to be a Christian. Whether or not he was, God only knows his heart. But he then made the official decree that Saturday would no longer be the day of worship, but that Sunday would be, and that there would be an official transition in the western world from the Jewish Sabbath day of Saturday to the Christian Sabbath day of Sunday. Fast forward to the United States of America. There is then a conflict over what our seven-day week should look like and which day we should have off. They couldn’t decide between the Jewish Saturday or the Christian Sunday, so they said both.

Response: Amen.

That’s how we got the two-day weekend.

Response: All right.

Say thank you, Jesus. That’s great. That’s how we got our two-day weekend in our culture. Now, it leads to a number of theological debates today where Christians debate what day is the Sabbath day? Some will still argue for Saturday, and there are groups like the Seventh Day Adventists that adhere to that very strictly. There are others who will adhere to Sunday. And sometimes groups argue amongst one another. Paul speaks of this in Romans 14. Here is what he, in fact, says: “One person esteems one day is better than another while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord.” That was Verses 5 and 6. He goes into Verse 10 to say, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Here’s what he’s saying: “If you want to worship on Saturday and your heart is pure and you love Jesus, great. Make that your day off. If you want it to be Sunday, great. That works too. Thursday, fine. Tuesday, fine. Wednesday, fine. The issue is are you setting aside a day each week to Sabbath and to enjoy God and his people and to rest?”

Some of you can’t Sabbath on Sunday because you have to work like I do (Laughter). All right? I’m working today. That’s why Saturday with my family tends to be my Sabbath day. That’s why we have evening services because some people have to work on Sundays. Some of you may need a new job to accommodate the worship if God corporately, but we try to accommodate you as best we can. Some of you may have felt guilty that Tuesday is your day off. Don’t let anyone judge you. That’s what Paul says. Pick a day, make it sacred, commit it unto the Lord, make that your day of Sabbath. That’s what counts. Now, in this religious people freak out when you give this sort of permission because you’re saying, “Follow your conscious. And if the Holy Spirit dwells in you as a Christian, the Holy Spirit and your conscious will figure it out.” Religious people freak out because religious people try to do the work of the Holy Spirit and the conscious. And that’s why some religious people even want to make all kinds of rules about the Sabbath, what you can and cannot do. There are books written on this, debates had about this, and we don’t like religious people because they’re not any fun at all (Laughter).

Religious people take good things and make ‘em bad things, take fun things, make ‘em painful things, take enjoyable things and make ‘em excruciating things, and they call it religion. Religious people are the kind of people that if you gave them a sucker, they would flip it around and stick the stick in their ear (Laughter). That’s just how they are. They do everything wrong (Laughter). They do it wrong. Okay? And in Jesus’ day the religious people told Jesus “You’re not obeying the Sabbath.” Jesus is like (Laughter) “Well, that’s funny since I made it. You would think I would be the expert (Laughter).” Now, Jesus never sinned, but he also broke some of the crazy, dumb, religious rules that people made around the Sabbath. One of the rules was you can’t heal anybody on the Sabbath. And Jesus healed somebody on the Sabbath and they went “tisk, tisk, tisk.” That was work. Jesus said, “He was sick. It seemed like a nice thing to do.”

Likewise, if you’re a strict – we call ‘em strict Sabbatharians. If you’re one of those folks and you’re driving to Mars Hill on a Sunday and you see a car wreck and the car goes upside down and it’s in flames and there’s someone that needs to be pulled out, you shouldn’t drive by and go “Too bad it wasn’t Tuesday (Laughter).” No. You should help. You should help. And the religious folks didn’t get this. And so Jesus made the most insightful and helpful statement on the Sabbath. He says this in Mark 2:27 through 28, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” That’s all we need to know. Jesus said, “The Sabbath is a gift for you to enjoy. It’s not a burden for you to be dominated by. It is something I give you because I love you and I care about you and I want you to be healthy and happy and well.” That’s all we need to know. That it doesn’t rule over us, but it’s given to us as a gift. And so in this what Jesus is getting at is that there is not just a Sabbath day, but in correlation with that, there is a Sabbath heart. There is a Sabbath heart.

And you can take a Sabbath day and not enjoy it if you don’t have a Sabbath heart. How many of you have taken a Sabbath day and the whole day you’re checking your email, checking your cell phone, voicemail, you’re stressed out, you’re thinking about work, you’re planning for work, you’re doing work? You don’t have a Sabbath heart. It takes a Sabbath day and a Sabbath heart because there is both the letter and the spirit of all of God’s laws. And a Sabbath heart is one who can sleep. A Sabbath heart is one who can play. A Sabbath heart is one who can enjoy. And so Jesus is telling them “You’re so worried about the Sabbath day, and you’ve overlooked the Sabbath heart.” Now, that being said, my introduction is concluded (Laughter). We’ll go to Nehemiah 13. The reason I give you this lengthy theological excurses is this: These people had Biblical knowledge and worldview. They understand work, and they understand Sabbath.

And as we get into the text, you’ll see that they’re not living according to the teaching that they’ve received. If you work all the time, you’re an idolater. If you Sabbath all the time, you are a sluggard. Both are sins. Some of you need to work less and Sabbath more. Some of you need to Sabbath less and work more. What we see in Nehemiah 13 are a community of people who claim to believe the Bible and who work too much and Sabbath too little. Nehemiah says in 13:8 that his emotional state as a result is “very angry”. We’ll read the story beginning in Nehemiah 13:15. “In those days I saw in Judah”, that’s a region like the Puget Sound, “people treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wines, grapes, figs and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.” What are they doing? They’re working. It’d be like “And all the Christians went to work and didn’t go to church.” And it wasn’t that they had to work. Why are they working?

The illusion is that if you work more, you’ll make more money. That’s the illusion. That’s why people work. And that’s why Jesus said, “You can’t worship God and money. You can worship God and enjoy money, but you can’t worship money instead of God. Otherwise, you’ll stop worshipping God and just start working all the time.” And the illusion is if you work all the time, you’ll make more money. I’ll give you a few reasons why that is not true. One, your performance will decline if you don’t rest. And you work more hours, but with lower productivity. Secondly, God will judge you. One way he might judge you is to increase all your expenses. How many of you have noticed that when you don’t walk with God faithfully and you work a lot of hours, your expenses just mysteriously go up? We call that divine economics (Laughter). Or you find that god judges you. You don’t get a promotion, you don’t get a raise, your income stream dries up, your business doesn’t do well.

It really comes down to an issue of faith. Working hard unto the Lord and Sabbathing well in faith to the Lord. And these people are working because they’re thinking they can make more money. And so he says this: “And I warned them”, he starts with a warning, “on the day when they sold food.” “Tyrians also”, these are non-Christians, and they were supposed to be a good witness to these people, and here it is they’re blowing their witness, “who lived in the city brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself, right up to the church.” So all of a sudden there’s business all around the Old Testament Church, and people decide not to go to worship God and to enjoy the Sabbath day and their family and read their Bible and pray and take a nap. Instead they go home and get all their stuff and they open a business too.

“Then I confronted” – you’ll notice the escalation from warning to confrontation – “the nobles of Judah,” the business leaders are the ones who are causing the problem. They are the ones who are promoting, work, work, work, not Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath. Some of you are bosses and managers and company owners, and you’ve got to search your heart. You must ask, “In the name of more productivity and economic viability, am I causing my workers to sin against God?” It’s not that they shouldn’t work hard, but if there’s no room for worship, then there is something wrong. And he says, “What is this evil you are doing, profaning the Sabbath? Did not your fathers act in this way? And did not our God bring all this disaster on us in the city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” What he says is “Don’t you remember this how the city got destroyed in the first place? And it laid desolate for 141 years, and we repented, and now we’re obeying God, and he is being gracious and blessing us. And now we’re going right back to where we started.”

Now, how many of you have done this? Your life’s a wreck, you come to God, things start going well, and you decide you don’t need him again? “I’m doing pretty good now. Thank you, God. I’ll be back when I blow it again.” And life is just this continual walk around a cul-de-sac with no forward progress, but lots of expended energy because of habitual disobedience and folly. “As soon as it began to grow dark, which is when the Sabbath was to begin, at the gates of Jerusalem”, so the doorway to the city, “I commanded”, so now he’s making orders, “that the doors be shut, and gave orders that they should not be open until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.”

So he is enforcing a Sabbath day. And in this we could enforce on you perhaps a Sabbath day, make you tell us what the Sabbath day is, we put a camera in your house and, you know, we call you if you’re breaking the rules. He imposes a Sabbath day, but the problem is they still don’t have a Sabbath heart. It really is about your heart. If you have a Sabbath heart, you will take a Sabbath day. If you don’t have a Sabbath heart, even if you take a Sabbath day, you won’t Sabbath. I’ll show it to you. “Then the merchants and sellers”, Verse 20, “of all kinds of wares lodged outside of Jerusalem once or twice.” Rather than going home and Sabbathing, they line up around the city right next to the gate, waiting for the gates to open.

It is as if Halo 3 is coming on sale, and they’re camping out all night (Laughter). That’s what’s going on. “But I warned them.” He’s warning them again. “Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” That is not in the let me pray for you brother way (Laughter). That is in the – in ultimate fighting we call it the clinch. You may have seen this in a Randy Couture fight. We also call it dirty boxing. And that is where someone gets in ‘cause you got to close the distance. You say, “What does this have to do with anything?” I believe he’s a muay thai fighter. That’s where I’m going (Laughter). You got to close the distance because if you’re too far away, somebody can get full-extended reach, knock you out, goggles back in your head, cuts off the blood flow, you pass out. You don’t want that. So what you do, you close the distance, you get in close, you get ‘em in the clinch, and then you throw knees, this muay thai, elbows, and you wait for ground and pound if you can take ‘em down. That’s what he’s saying (Laughter). All right?

Full contact, mixed martial arts pastor. That’s who Nehemiah is. He says, “I’m old, but I’ll close the distance, and I’ll dirty box ya, break your nose, knee in the middle for Jesus. That’s what I’m gonna do (Laughter).” “From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.” The guys are like “Yeah, we’ll come back tomorrow. That’s a good idea right there (Laughter).” “Then I commanded the Levites, the spiritual leaders, that they should purify themselves, repent of sin and get right before God, and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath day holy.” And then he closes in prayer. And here’s what he says in his prayer: “Remember this also in my favor, oh, my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.” These were people who were being called to repentance to have a Sabbath heart and a Sabbath day, to work six days and Sabbath on one.

I’ll close perhaps with some questions for you. My first question is this: Should you be angry with yourself? Had these people been angry with themselves, Nehemiah wouldn’t have needed to become angry with them. How many of you should be angry with yourself because you’re lazy? You Sabbath really well, and you don’t work very well. You should be angry with yourself because your sin is toward lethargy and sluggardness, if that’s a word. It’s toward being someone who is lazy. How many of you should be angry with yourself because your work is your idol, that you have to pull the most hours, that you have to make the most money, that you need to be in a certain position at the expense of your health, your family, your walk with God, your witness to others? 

How many of you should be angry with yourself because you are just disorganized, you don’t plan your vacation or your day off to Sabbath, and so it never really happens? You don’t order your budget and your schedule well, and so your life is disorganized chaos, and you’re always behind, you’re always 15 minutes late, $100.00 late, a day late, a month late, a week late, a year late, and things fall apart, and you want everyone to rush in and give you mercy “Oh, I’m so sorry”, when the truth is you should be angry with yourself because in many ways you’ve done it to yourself, and there’s no one to blame but you. How should you repent? What acts of repentance do you need to undertake? As I told you, for me this is dietary change, life change, life coach, doing what my doctor says, being proactive with my schedule. It is taking time off with my family. I took another three weeks to write and finish six books that I got coming out next year. All right?

I’m a guy who gets things done. I’m productive. I like working. But what do you need to repent of? What changes just need to happen? In what ways do you need to stop working in your life and pull back to start working on it? Who do you need to humbly seek for help if you don’t know how to do that to teach you how to get your life in order? Do you need to come to Jesus? Here’s what we love about Jesus. If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, the reason you may be working so much is because you’re trying to pay God back, you’re trying to make God happy, you’re trying to be the kind of person that God would love. The good news of Christianity is that you can rest in the finished work of Jesus. On the cross he says, “It is finished.” Jesus lived without sin, died for your sin, and rose for your salvation. If you give him your sin, he will give you salvation. He will give you saving grace and empowering grace. The saving grace will make you a new person. The empowering grace will give you a new life.

That’s why we hate religion. Religion is about working so that God will love you. Christianity is about trusting the God who already has. Jesus says it this way in Matthew 11:28 and 29, “Come to me. Come to me all you who are – who labor and are heave laden, and I will give you rest or Sabbath.” How many of you need to just get some time with Jesus? If you’re a non-Christian, you’ve got to come to Jesus and say, “I’m laboring and I’m burdened and I’m laden, and I need forgiveness, and I need help. And Jesus is the most humble and amazingly-kind God who is willing to serve us and help. And some of you are Christians and you need to come to Jesus before you organize your schedule, before you go to work, before you Sabbath. You need to connect with Jesus. You do that by reading scripture so that he would speak to you, through praying so that you might speak to him, by having silence and solitude and prayer and those kinds of times to connect with God. Are you doing that?

It’s good for your body, it’s good for your mind, it’s good for your soul. It’s good for you, it’s good for the people around you, it’s good for the glory of God. It’s good for the witness in the city. What that may require is you taking a Sabbath from technology and fasting from technology. We fast from food. We fast from speech to have silence. We fast from community to have solitude. And I believe a new 21st Century discipline needs to be we fast from technology. At certain points we just turn our phone off, we turn our email off, we turn our laptop off, and we fast from technology to enjoy God and his creation and his image-bearers, men and women all around us that we can easily overlook as we’re too overwhelmed and overcome by stupid and silly things that at the end of the day aren’t as important as loved ones and lost people, friends, family, coworkers that we ignore. People that we walk by every day. Jesus Christ died for people. Emails are fine and voicemails are fine, but people, people are dear to the heart of God, and they should be to us as well.

What is your day off? Do you keep it? If you’re married, what is your date night? And you need one. If you are a parent, what is your family day and night that is sacred? And what are you going to do to have some fun? And lastly, do you believe in the eternal rest of God’s people? Heaven is described in Hebrews 4:9 as a Sabbath day of eternal rest when you and I take a day off, we’re exercising faith. And we are practicing for heaven, and we are demonstrating the value of the kingdom of God here and now. And we are saying, “Even though I’m not working, God still is in control, and I trust him. And even though today I will not be laboring, I trust that the good God whom I serve faithfully will multiply my efforts so that all that I need to do will be done, and so that the things that he has appointed me to be working on will be completed.” And one day you and I who know Jesus will spend forever with him in heaven, and the curse will be lifted. We’ll still have work to do, but without the burden.

And we’ll have this eternal rest where work is worship and our Sabbath is worship, which means everything we do today both in work and in Sabbath is an opportunity to worship, and this includes things you don’t get paid for because that’s work too. Recently someone asked me “Does your wife work?” My lovely wife, Grace, looks after five children. She stays home. I said, “No, she doesn’t have a job outside of the home.” They said, “Oh, she doesn’t work?” She has five little children (Laughter). She has five jobs. And she has me, and I’m a high-maintenance drama queen of a husband, so that’s five more jobs (Laughter). So my wife has ten jobs. Now, she doesn’t get paid. If she did, it would be like a million dollars a year (Laughter) if I paid her a buck an hour. I mean, it’s a job. It’s work. And so all of life is an opportunity to worship God and Sabbath in addition to work as a way to worship God. And it is practiced for the eternal rest of God.

Now, this being said, some of you will think “Yes, but he’s an idealist. He doesn’t understand. I’m very busy. A lot of things going on.” I’ll tell ya about my last week and a half in closing. This will be our public declaration. I can begin the confession.

A week and a half ago on Friday we were going to do our baptisms. I thought “This will be a nice, fun day. I’ll show up, preach the Gospel, people will meet Jesus, we’ll dunk them, go home. Nice happy day. It’ll be beautiful.” It’s supposed to be our date night, but my wife and I agreed that we would instead give it away for this wonderful event. Well, in the morning (Laughter), as many of you know, a little baby seal climbs up on the shore and sits down at the exact place where we’re supposed to set up our stage (Laughter). Next thing I know, the federal government’s involved, all the media’s there, the television is there, all the environmental rights activists are there. They put a perimeter around the baby seal because apparently his mother went out into the ocean, I don’t know, to go out for drinks with the girls (Laughter), and she totally abandoned the baby seal. Totally irresponsible.

And so they’re saying, “You can’t go near the baby seal; otherwise, the mother won’t come and get it, and then the baby seal will die.” And then the media’s asking us, “Are you still gonna have your baptism? Do you want to kill the baby seal (Laughter)?” I’m thinking “Oh, Lord Jesus, please don’t let the seal die. This is Seattle (Laughter). That’s the worst thing that could possibly happen.” And for the record, Jesus made seals, and we love ‘em. So the baby seal was on the shore, and our guys prayed, and the seal didn’t go anywhere. And at this point I’m thinking “Satanic seal (Laughter).” That’s what I’m thinking. So then they got to move the stage, sound, light, video down the beach, set it all up. Now all the media’s all over it, covering this and “They’re gonna have the baptism, or will they not?” And so then people are calling us, “Hey, you can’t do that. All the people will scare away the mother. The seal will die.” They say, “We’re gonna impose a noise restriction ‘cause seals don’t like being preached at or worship music, so you can’t plug the speakers in.”

So we prayed. And we – just as we went to sound check, the baby seal gets in the water and swims away. Praise be to God (Applause). So the seal got baptized too. So it’s all good. It’s all good (Laughter). So then we have our meeting there, church service in the park. About 3,000 people show up. We baptize more than 220 people. We lose count. It was a long day, and it wasn’t a satanic seal. It was a sovereign seal because the seal left just in time for all the media to then cover the baptism and to talk about all the lives that Jesus has changed. So it worked out really good (Applause). So the next day’s supposed to be my day off. I’ve got a deadline to edit the manuscript, I’m hanging out with my family a little bit, throw a sermon together, preach four times on Sunday. Monday have dinner with the family, catch up on a few things, come in, preach a conference we had here on worship.

Tuesday morning, nice and early, get on a plane, fly to Raleigh Durham area on the East Coast, have a layover in Detroit, which I call Kid Rockistan. So I have a layover in Kid Rockistan (Laughter), get late to the East Coast. And I go to the hotel thinking “Okay, I’m gonna work out, and then I’ll sleep good.” But they don’t have a gym, and all the other hotels are closed. They said they had a workout room, but they don’t. They broke one of the commandments (Laughter). So then try to sleep, not so good. Three-hour change. Get up the next day, have some meetings, and that night I go to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, train a bunch of college leaders and answer questions, stay up late. Next morning get up really early, go to an Acts 29 bootcamp, we do ‘em around the country, train 300 guys. We assessed 37 church planters. Go to bed late. Get up early the next day. Go to the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, meet with some professors, preach a sermon, go to bed late, wake up the next day. This was yesterday. Yesterday morning I preached on the East Coast. This morning I preached on the West Coast.

I preached, then got on a plane and flew all the way back to Seattle, got back late last night, put together the sermon in an hour on the plane, was hoping to sleep on the plane. Went first class, got the one kid in first class behind me, a girl who screams for a living and kicks (Laughter). And I’m thinking the whole time “All right. We got to put her in the overhead bin. That’s all there is. Nothing’s really gonna happen. That’s all we can do (Laughter).” So I can’t sleep on the plane, and so I just prayed for the little girl and her parents. They didn’t know what to do with her. I understand. I got five kids. I’ve been there too. Land, get to bed late last night, early this morning I preached four times today. What am I doing tomorrow? Sabbath.

Response: Amen.

I’m gonna sleep in, maybe push a few weights, hang out with my family. Okay? And I understand that sometimes you have your week planned out, your kids get sick, you get the flu, something happens. I understand. We’re not legalists, we’re not religious folks. What we’re saying is six days work hard under the Lord, one day take a break. Occasionally life gets crazy, but get your Sabbath, and I’ll take mine tomorrow. Okay? So here’s what I want you to do. Think through any areas you may have sin, particularly in regard to your work or your Sabbath. Give time and prayer and repentance to Jesus. Don’t rush out of here. Start right now. Give it some time. Come forward for communion to celebrate the body and blood of Jesus, which takes away sin. Give of your tithes and offerings, and stick around and sing and celebrate and worship Jesus. Enjoy a moment of rest for your soul. Don’t just rush out because you have very important things to do. Use this as an opportunity to begin repentance. And we go from work to worship. That’s what we’ll do right now.

Father God, I pray for our friends that have gathered. I pray, God, that you would give them meaningful work to do. I pray that you would give them the grace to do it, that they would enjoy it, that they would do it for Jesus, with Jesus, like Jesus by the grace that he affords them. I pray, God, that we would work hard and that we would rest well, that when we are to work, that we would be on, and that when we are to rest, we would off. I pray that they would sleep like people who know God, that they would work like people who know God. I pray, Lord God, that you would save us from our proclivities to just push ourselves too far or too little. And, Lord God, it is our prayer that we would work well, that we would Sabbath well, and that when necessary we would be angry with ourselves for failure to take the very -