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Mark Chapter two is where we're going to land today. Verse 23. It says, One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields and his disciples walked along. They began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? He answered, have you ever read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need in the days of Abiathar the high priest? They entered the house of God and ate consecrated bread and which is lawful for only priests to eat. He also gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath. Glad to have one of my colleagues in ministry here with us today from Columbia, South Carolina, pastors an incredibly vibrant church called the Brook. Columbia Bishop Simeon Moultrie is with us today. Let's give him a good change church welcome and thank him for hanging out. An incredible leader. If you're in the Columbia area, you want to, you want to stick your head in the Brook, but I want, I want to use, I want to tag a title to this text. In our time together today, nine o' clock was okay. They helped me a little bit. 10:15, amen. 12:30. So I want to talk from this subject in our time together. Get somewhere and sit down. Get somewhere and sit down. Many of you know I was reared and raised in a small town called Killmichael, Mississippi. But what you may not be aware of is that I was actually born in a segment of Mississippi called the Mississippi Delta. It's born at Lafleur County Hospital in Greenwood, Mississippi. As a matter of fact, this is where the majority of my family on my mother's side actually resided. Grandmama was in Greenwood. So regularly on some weekends and consistently on holidays, all the family came to Grandmama's house to congregate and to celebrate. And I remember from time to time my cousins and I would get together and we would engage in what I call old school activities. This is prior to the proliferation of technology. So we couldn't just engage with devices, we had to engage with people. So we actually played. I'm about to lose some of you because it's about to be a little old school. Yeah, we play games like hide and go seek. We're going backwards now. We play games like it. I'm going backwards. We play games like freeze tag. We couldn't engage with devices, so we had to engage with each other. And there would be times where we would be so excited, my cousins and I, that we would begin to act unwisely and irresponsibly. And my grandmother seemed to have this unique maternal instinct and discernment. And even if she couldn't see us, she could hear us and sense when we were becoming so rambunctious and rowdy that we were getting reckless. And she wouldn't even be in the room to see it with her eyes, but she would hear it with her ears and sense it with her intuition. And all the way in a different part of the house, we could hear Grandmama say these words, Y' all need to get somewhere and sit down. And the phrase, when we initially heard it, felt like restriction. But the more I've aged, I realized it wasn't restriction, it was protection. It sounded like correction, but it was actually care. It felt like she's interrupting our fun. But now, in retrospect, what I realized she was doing was preserving our future. She knew if we continued to operate the way we were operating, then we would eventually end up hurting ourselves, hurting each other. Watch this. Or breaking something valuable. And as I was preparing this preaching presentation, I thought about how this personal experience can be a source of spiritual education for you and I, because I believe that just like that was the case at Grandmama's house, sometimes that's the case. God's house. In other words, what my grandmother used to say to a house full of rambunctious children is what our Heavenly Father wants to say to a bunch of restless, overworked, overextended, tax tired, and temperamental adults. Y' all need to get somewhere and sit down. And if you're wondering, when did God say get somewhere and sit down? And where did God say get somewhere and sit down? He said it when he created, created and commanded us to put into practice a principle known as the Sabbath. The Sabbath is God's way of saying to you and I, before you hurt yourself, before you hurt others, or before you break something that's valuable, you need to get somewhere and sit down. The word Sabbath is probably one of the most misunderstood and misconstrued subjects in contemporary Christianity. And I think it is very dangerous to form a theology of something without considering the etymology of something. What does the word mean? And if the theology you form around it doesn't align with the meaning of it, then you've misunderstood God's intention for it. And this word Sabbath is not about a day. The etymology of the word is not about a day. It's about a discipline. The word Sabbath has derivatives in a Hebrew word called Shabbat. And it means to stop. It means to cease. It means to pause. It means stop. It means cease. It means pause. It is something that God Himself implements in his own activity. In the creation narrative, we see when he creates the world, watch the order he creates. He evaluates and then moves on to the next day. He creates, he evaluates, and then he moves on to the next day. He does that for six days. And on the seventh day, the Bible says he rested Shabbat. And he rests not as a response to fatigue, because God doesn't get tired. He rests as a response to accomplishment. He is modeling for you and I that we cannot allow our obsession for the work that hasn't been done to cause us to ignore the work that has been done. You've got to be able to look at what you did on Monday and say it's good. And look at what you did on Tuesday and say it's good. And look at what you did on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. And even if it wasn't what you wanted it to be, you've got to have the objective ability to assess your productivity and fruitfulness and say. Good. God's activity is the personification of a principle I call the principle of the pause. And the principle of the pause suggests that strategic pauses aren't in the way of your productivity. They are the way to your productivity. Therefore, the inability to pause isn't always determination. Sometimes it's dysfunction playing dress up. It's fear playing faith in and unhealed wounds showing up in the inability to rest. And God built this principle into the rhythm of his creation because he knows the only way for us to be human as he intended is if we understand the work, rest, rhythm. It is not in the way of your productivity. It is is the way to your productivity. And it was so essential to human flourishing that when God gives Israel the first ten commandments, the fourth commandment was a commandment regarding the Sabbath. You know the Ten Commandments. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or bow down to it. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And then there's number four. Remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy. When we read number one, we will say we should do that. When we read number two, we will say we should do that. When we read number three, we will say we should do that. When we read number five, honor your father and mother. We will say we should do that. Don't murder, don't commit adultery. Don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't covet. But somehow we treat nine of them as commands and one of them as a suggestion. And the context in which God even give these commands is a context of a people who are coming out of Egypt. And the only way of life they know is life under the oppression of Pharaoh, who was a narcissistic, inconsiderate leader who caused them to work incessantly so much that they were. They were commanded to make bricks without straw. And that's all. All they knew. So God knew these people are out of Egypt, but some of the ways of Egypt are not out of them. So I've got to detox them from a way of thinking that ties their worth to their work. Because he realizes and recognizes that just like they needed it then, we need it now. Because we live in an age and an era where many are getting our value from our production, from our possessions, and from people's perception of us. I'm not going to bother this. I said. I said we can get. We can get our value. Watch this. From our production, that's what we're doing. From our possessions, that's what we have. And from other people's perception, that's us operating under the illusion that we can control what people think of us and then overestimating the impact that their positive perception actually have on our life. Did you hear what I just said? So they like you. Now, what. Does that make sense? That when you understand things that way, when they stop liking you, you don't overreact. Because I didn't gain anything when you did like me. And I'm not losing. But when our sense of self is tied to production, possessions, and people's perception of us, it leads to a violation of work, rest, rhythm, which we glamorize and reframe in culture by calling it hustle and grind. And we sanitize in church by calling it faithfulness and commitment. And although violation of work, rest, rhythm may lead to accomplishment, and it may lead to achievement, and it may lead to acquisition of possessions, it comes with an expense that we wouldn't have to pay if we just do it God's way. And the expense is reaching our goals while destroying our souls. Therefore, disobeying the Sabbath doesn't mean you'll be stuck, but it does mean eventually your soul gets sick. It gets sick with what Dr. John Mark Comer would call hurry sickness. And he says there are 10 symptoms of hurry sickness, like irritability, hypersensitivity, restlessness, workaholism emotional numbness out of order priorities. Watch this lack of care for your body where you treat your body like a tool and not God's temple escapist behaviors. Slippage of spiritual disciplines where everything else gets a sit down but God's got to get a drive by. Come on in here. Isolation. Not always isolation by choice. Sometimes it's isolation by choice cuz you can be. Oh my right, okay, there's isolation by choice. Y' all sure you want me to bother it now you now you ask for it now don't. It can be isolation by choice or isolation by consequence. It means when I'm irritable and hypersensitive, then at some point people have to put a boundary with me to protect themselves from me. So even those that love me have to be boundaried because there's a version of me that keeps showing up and it is adversely impacting them. It's a hurry sickness because the you that God's calling you to be is a you that can't come into being when you're overextended, over taxed, worn out and worn down. And so many believers are overextended, overwhelmed, overtaxed and worn down because they have come out of Egypt, but Egypt has not come out of them. And to all of us who find ourselves caught in this rat race, Jesus wants to ask us a question that he asked his audience in the New Testament. What does it profit a man. To gain the whole world and lose his soul? God is asking you, with all this singing you doing about me, All this bragging on me you doing, all this hashtag God is good, all of these, all of this pontificating you're doing about my power, all this articulation about my omnipotence. Do you not believe I can do for you in six? Would it take them seven to do? Did you hear what I just said? The Sabbath is a visible declaration. God, I believe you can do in six days for me. What it takes other seven to do. And Jesus in Mark 2 offers us some insight on this subject of Sabbath. Mark 2 is a very interesting chapter in Mark's gospel because there's these sequence of stories Mark tells, but they're escalating events in terms of Jesus's tension and contention that he's having with who we would call second way of that day. Verses 1 through 13 expose us to an individual who is suffering with some sort of infirmity that the Bible does not name. But there's the infirmity causes him to be Immobile. He's paralyzed. The sickness, some way, has them stuck. And the Bible says that four of his friends get word that Jesus is in a house that's in proximity to their paralyzed friend. So they did not have cars during those days, so they couldn't call an Uber. They go over to the man's house. Four of them grab the four corners of a mat, they put the man on the mat, and they carry him to the house where Jesus is. Once they get to the house, there are so many people at the house, they can't even get in the house. They can't even get in. They got two options. Go back or go up. I'mma say it again. They got two options. Go back or go up. The text says they couldn't get through the door, so they go up on top of the roof, dig a hole in the roof, and let their friend down through the hole they put in the roof. Now, here's something. I'm not going to bother this too much, but I'm getting ready to take my summer break in a few weeks. I'm going to be gone three weeks, and after Father's Day, I'll be gone three weeks, and then I'll come back on July 19th. And I'm starting a series on the 19th called Relationshipology. And one of the things I'm gonna. I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take that Bible up there, because we use the book at this church. I'm gonna take that Bible up there and. And we're gonna have several conversations on several subjects. But one of the subjects we're gonna have a conversation on is friendships, because I think some people you calling friends God would disagree. Y' all not talking to me now? Yeah, if all you. The Bible wouldn't agree. Did you hear what I just said? I'm gonna tell you why this is important. An associate is not going to come to your house, put you on a mat, carry you to where Jesus is, and then refuse to go back. Come on here. An associate would say, well, I tried. A friend to get an attitude with you. The Bible says, faithful are the wounds of a friend. A friend to get an attitude with you. You complain and saying, go back home. Your friends say, be quiet. You getting healed today? You think I'm gonna let you stay here in this state? When healing's in the room, you can heal today. Put some clothes on. I'm coming to pick. It's illogical to assume all four of those men had the idea at the same time. Let's go up to the top of the roof. There's probably one of them who had that idea. And you need one of them kind of friends. You need a friend say, we going on the. We going. We going on the roof. Because, you know, you had a friend in the group that said, we can't tell these people, house up. I pay for it. We going. Important. Because, see, people want friends like that, and they want spouses like that. But. But you got to understand that sometimes character traits that are assets in one season are irritants in another. You just have to decide, is the irritant worth the asset. Did you hear what I just said? So I am very. I'm a very disciplined and regimented man by choice. It's not natural. I'm a very. What we want to do today? My wife. And sometimes the. And the. Is that too real? Are y'. All. And I can be irritated by the. Until I need some paperwork for something. And she say, third drawer, underneath the kitchen cabinet, the blue folder. Be like, praise the Lord. Amen. Thank you, baby. You're so organized. Praise God. Those friends go up, cut a hole in that roof, let them down. Here's the issue. Jesus says, your sins are forgiven. The religious of that day are like, wait a minute. Who does he think he is? Only God has the power to forgive sin. And Jesus is. Jesus is thinking, exactly. Only God can do that. Jesus, like, exactly, I'm God. So they're questioning his authority. Then that's verses 1 through 12. Then verses 13 through 17, he calls. He invites an individual named Levi, who's a tax collector, to be a part of his 12 disciples that are going to be apprentices. And a tax collector was seen as a very immoral, exploitive individual. And so there are already questions about his selection. And then Levi's life has changed. So what does he do? He invites Jesus into the life of people that are in his circle, tax collectors and things of that nature. And the religious become upset. And here's what they say. He's a friend of sinners. So in the first part of the chapter, they're questioning his authority. In the second part of the chapter, they're questioning his associations. Then the third part of the chapter, they're accusing him of spiritual apathy. You're not as serious about Jesus as we are. Because they say, now, wait a minute. John's disciples fast regularly, and the Pharisees fast regularly, and your disciples don't fast as regularly. So since you're not practicing your faith the same way we're practicing our faith, you can't be as serious about your faith as we are about our faith. So I want you to see the escalation of the tension in the passage. So by the time you get to verse number 23 and you're talking about the. The Sabbath, you see this consistent pattern. They're questioning his authority, they're questioning his associations. They're accusing him of spiritual apathy. And now they're about to question his activity because his disciples decided to just eat some kernels of grain on the Sabbath. And this sort of activity reveals to us a very sobering truth that we're going to wrap our head around if we're serious about our spiritual formation. Your spiritual health, wealth is going to be largely determined by how you handle spiritual bullies. Because in every instance, Jesus had to resist the influence of spiritual bullies. Spiritual bullies are individuals who are unaware of their own pride. They overestimate their own prudence, and they project their personal convictions as universal standards for everybody else. They are. Some of them are children of God who have the spirit of God. But in their interaction with other believers, they're not led by the Spirit of God. They're led by the spirit of Jezebel. And that is manipulative and controlling. Where there are issues of nuance, where the Scriptures give space for and latitude for you operating according to your personal convictions, they take their personal convictions and make those personal convictions universal standards for everybody else. And there is this aura and attitude of spiritual superiority because they assume their adherence to their personal convictions means that they are more biblically faithful and spiritually serious than you. Not realizing that sometimes your personal conviction convictions are not even an indication of spiritual strength. They are the way you are managing unbridled weaknesses. Huh? Did you hear what I just said? Yeah. It means. So let's say a person has a personal conviction on music, and they say, I only listen to Christian or gospel music. I think that is fine. That is your personal conviction. And I have my no issue with you operating in a way that is in your best spiritual interest. You become a spiritual bully when you try to take your personal conviction and you say, because you only listen to the Mississippi Mass Choir. I can't listen to Mint Condition. That doesn't mean you stronger than me. It might mean you weaker than me because you listening to Mint Condition put you in the wrong bed. That has nothing to do with mint condition. You sin. You are drawn away by your own lust. That's not me condition. There are places where the Bible is very clear. This is a universal standard for everybody. And then there are places, well, hey, if eating meat offend your brother, don't eat. That's your personal conviction. And for you to disobey that conviction is sin. And this is the approach they're taking with the Sabbath. This is the approach they're taking with the Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples is the Sabbath day, which was Saturday. Let's be clear. In the Old Covenant, it was a day. Now, the issue was never about the day. The issue was about the discipline. So God picked a day to schedule the discipline. But the issue with the day, and here's what Christians fight over, and it's like. And they shouldn't be fighting over this. The issue with the day is not primarily worship. The word means rest. So people are arguing on what day we should worship when the principle of the Sabbath is rest. All of the critiques that people had in the New Testament about Jesus or people that were influenced by Jesus violating the Sabbath had something to do with work, not worship. Remember when the man Jesus said, take up your bed and walk, and then they said it was on the Sabbath day. That's work, that's not worship. Am I making sense here? So, yeah. So in. In the Old Covenant, it was a day. But in the New, in the New Covenant, it's a discipline. Work, rest, rhythm. I don't even have time to deal with this, But I could take you to Old Testament and show you where God made the. Made them take a Sabbath with killing the ground in the land. My God, he said, even let the land replenish itself. It's about replenishment. It's about rest, it's about recovery. It's about optimization. Am I making sense? And Paul and people, people been arguing about this. And I need you, if you're a member, change. I need you to raise your argument standards. Some stuff you need to hear and you need to have enough discernment to say, ain't no way I can argue with you. Let me go to this side over here. Just the fact that you made that statement, let the fact that you was okay with that coming out of your mouth, let's. I can't. It's nothing. I'll be able to. I can't. Here's what Paul says in Colossians. He says, listen, he says, let no one judge you. Let no one judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon, a celebration, or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality is found in Christ. So when Somebody said, you don't worship on the Sabbath. I say, right, you either, You can worship on the Sunday. As New Testament believers, we never said Sunday was a Sabbath. This is our dedicated day of worship. Cuz this is the day. Watch this. The founder of our faith engaged in the activity that is the anchor of our faith. It was early Sunday morning that he got up. So we come together on the day he got up. We send praises up on the day that he got up. And yes, for some of us, this is our Sabbath because we start the day by replenishing our souls and then we spend the rest of the day enjoying his goodness and creation. We rest, we replenish, we refuel. Because we got so much faith that we believe God can do it in six. When I tell you I feel something on that thing right there, I said he can do it in six. Imma keep saying it until it gets in your head, until it gets in your heart, until it becomes your conviction he can do it in six. Tario, let's go. They tired. Jesus's disciples are literally walking through a field. There's wheat and barley. They take the top off the stalk, they grind it together, they blow away the chaff, and there are some kernels that they eat. And then Pharisees say, you working on the Sabbath? And Jesus says these words. He said, this man was made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. And he says, the Son of Man is lord over the Sabbath. I determine what you don't. Tell me what the Sabbath mean. He's saying, this is my idea. He put this like prayer and like the study of scripture and like fasting. He wants us to implement this into the rhythm and the ecosystem of our life, because it is the only way we can be human as he intended. He takes it so seriously that in the Old Testament, if you violated it, you have to go through a season of ostracization because you become a toxic presence to the community. If you're never refueling yourself. Come on, talk to me. The empty you, not the best you. So he gives us this gift of work, rest, rhythm, for the purpose of reflection. Because there are certain things we can't see until we stop for the purpose of reestablishment. Because the Sabbath reestablishes in our mind. God drew my source. Are you here Realignment? Because the Sabbath allows me to realign my priorities so that my life is aligned. Watch. This is aligned with the things that God cares about, not just the things I care about. So I can reestablish order in A way that is consistent with God's design and not just my own desires. Am I making sense? There's a lot of conversation in contemporary Christianity about idolatry. And a lot of times people use words they mean well, and they can be spirited. But just because they're spirited doesn't mean they're spiritual. And just because they're anointed doesn't mean they're accurate about everything. And so people, when you use a word, you first of all have to use a word. If you're using a word from scripture, you got to use it in a way that is consistent with the way it's actually used in scripture. And many people confuse idolatry with the sin of transposition. And those are two different things. Idolatry is putting something where God belongs. The sin of transposition is not putting something. Where God say put doesn't mean you put it in his place. It just means you put it in the wrong place. Realignment allows us to see, you know what? I, I, I've got some stuff out of whack here. I'm not, I'm not stewarding my temple well, I'm putting this over steward in my temple. But if I destroy my temple, I won't be able to do this. Let me, it's transposition. Let me realign. Does that make sense? I'm, I'm giving more attention to the people that are dysfunctional than the people that are down. For me. Let me. Realignment. Somebody say realignment? And last but not least, restoration. The Bible says in Psalms 23, he restores my soul. And one of the ways God does this is through Sabbath. This isn't just physical recovery. It's emotional restoration. It's getting back what hustle stole. It's where God gives you, in his presence, what you've actually been looking for in your performance and productivity. What you've been looking for is security, because you want to know you're going to be all right. And God's like, God's like, I'm going to give you that in me. What you're looking for is significance, that your work matters and that you're making a difference. God's like, I'm going to give you that in me. It's not that you shouldn't be productive and generative. The Bible speaks against laziness. You should be productive. Not to produce. It's to be selfish. I get that. But he's saying, hey, I want you to produce for them. They need what you produce. I got what you need. So look At Pastor, I'm gonna read you this guided prayer I wrote this morning. That's gonna be our benediction. I want you to look at me. When I say restoration. Many of you just think rest. You don't think replenishment. And I need to do a teaching. I do this in some of my marketplace programs. I talk about replenishment, discipline, disciplines. Rest is getting you back to baseline. Replenishment disciplines is what gets you in overflow. Look at Pastor. Some of you have rooms in your home you never enjoy. I know. So when Solomon talks about enjoying the fruit of your labor book, which can be a replenishment discipline, Some of us are so oriented by Pharaoh's way of thinking, guilt and rest are synonymous for you. And then don't let you go from Egypt to a second way church that celebrates your self destructive behavior and call it service. I'm not saying you're stuck. I'm not saying you hadn't accomplished a lot. You have. I'm not saying you hadn't achieved a lot. I'm not saying you hadn't acquired a lot. You have. My question is not even how's your career? How's your bank account? My question is, how's your soul? Is your soul prospering? Now? Let me tell you why this is important. This isn't just important for you. It's an aspect of your assignment that many people overlook. So when we have purpose conversations, we talk about your activity, but we don't talk about your example. And here's what I want you to know. Here's what I want you to know. There is a group of people you've been called to reach that will never be impressed by what you do. I've been around a long time. It's going to be very few people can look at that can impress me with what they can do with a mic. I've been preaching since I was 19. There's going to be very few times I hear somebody with a mic and I'm like, whoa. But when I see how they respond to criticism, when I see, see the joy, when I see a healthy detachment from their accomplishments, then I'm like Nicodemus, I want to climb a tree. I mean, Zacchaeus, I want to climb a tree. I'm like Nicodemus, I want to come that night. Because when you rich there, you rich with everybody poor. Purpose is the, the example you set, the joy. You walk in the peace. So you want to talk about warfare. This, this is where so many of us are dealing with warfare. Off our feet and into your presence. We've been running, working, striving. And somewhere along the way we started believing the lie that our worth was tied to our work. So today we stop, we pause, we sit down. I recognize that I've allowed the issues of life and my own ambition to push me to live at a pace that has not only blocked your best for me, it is stalled who you're calling me to be. And I confess it. Weary, I'm worn. And I've tied my work and my worth together. And I repent. So today I ask that you to restore what hurry has stolen. Realign my priorities. Return me to a place of pure motives. Renew my strength. Settle the restlessness in me that will not allow me to slow down and sit with you. Teach me to value who I'm becoming more than what I'm doing. Help me to trust that your timing is always your kindness. And in a world that is constantly challenging me to speed up, give me the courage to slow down. In Jesus name, Amen. I love you. I'll see you Friday. Until then, get somewhere. We love you.