When our worth becomes about bricks, we become machines.
Sabbath gives wives, husbands, workers, employees the energy they need to make another week.
The ancient rabbis said about Sabbath: “It gives us the energy to survive the voices that consume my world”.
As you go through a week, there are voices: Mummy look! Mummy look! Mummy look! Mummy look! Honey, come here. Honey, come here. The dishes need to be done! The dishes need to be done! Go to bed Johnny. Do your homework Johnny.
All of these voices consume your world. Sabbath is a day where you take a break from all of them - because all of those voices create cracks in your soul. That's why, if you're a mum here tonight, and you have more than four children, your eye twitches. Something happens, there's too many voices in your world. It does something to you. If you're under a lot of stress at work, there's something that happens.
Where have we missed God, because of all the clutter and the noise in our world? There's one scripture that says: God was with me all the time - I just didn't know it. Where have you missed God, because of all the noise, and the voices, in your world?
Sabbath was the day where you step back and you mended. If you picture your whole life as a windshield, you mend the broken places, so that you can go through another week. If you go through another week without it, the breaks get worse, and worse, and worse.
It is reminding us that: God wants to spend time with me, without me doing one thing for Him. He just likes me.
Big question: are you okay, without your achievement?
For example: are you okay, when you have to say ‘no’ to things you can't afford? Are you okay with yourself if you gain 20 pounds? Are you okay, not accomplishing something? Are you okay leaving one realm – bricks; and entering into another?
A new car (or a bigger house) is a great thing to have, but: if you're not enough without it - you'll never be enough with it. You'll never be enough! A bigger house is just more to clean - it's just more bricks! If you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it.
Matthew 3:17. Jesus is baptised, and God says: “this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”; and He said that before Jesus had done anything. Sabbath was a day to remind you of this.
Matthew 13. The word of God is like seed, and when you throw seed out it lands on four types of soil. It lands on good ground, stony ground, thorny ground, or hard ground; and the way we tend to teach that is this: which type of ground are you? Are you good ground? Are you stony ground? Are you thorny ground? Are you hard ground? (As if you're one or the other, all the time).
The truth is: we are all four types, depending on the topic. If I'm preaching on tithing, and you're a tither, then it's good ground; but if you're against tithing, then it's going to be hard ground, until God softens your heart about that.
If I'm up here preaching on anger, and you're a very peaceful person, then that's going to be good ground; but if you've got an anger problem - you might have promised God 100 times that you'll cure your anger problem, but that stony ground won't let it - it just depends on the topic.
The one I want to focus on is the thorny ground. Matthew 13:22 – “the seed falling among the thorns refers to people, who hear the word of God, but the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth, choke the word out, making it unfruitful”.