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Today is the third and final Sunday of a three week series I’ve shared called “Discovering

Joy.” For three Sundays we’ve examined joy, one of the eight Core Values that we proclaim at

Chain of Lakes. This series has been a lot of fun.

Let me share a summary of where we’ve been. The first week I talked about three

biblical descriptions of joy. Joy is intense happiness; joy is looking forward to the future, in

particular salvation, and finally joy is coming into the presence of God when we suffer. I talked

about the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness depends on something going well in

our external situation; joy depends on coming into the presence of God. It’s possible to

experience joy and be unhappy. At the end of the sermon on the first Sunday we lighted candles

around a table and prayed for joy.

Last week we looked at some obstacles to joy. We probed into the personal faith of the

apostle Paul that was described in the book of Philippians. Even though he was in jail and under

a death sentence Paul shared joy in this letter. At the end of the sermon I got practical and

encouraged us to let go of our anxieties by doing three things when we are anxious. 1) ask

ourselves the question, “what is the worst thing that can happen;” 2) think about how likely and

probably unlikely it is that the worst thing will happen; 3) let go of our anxieties by turning them

into prayers. I challenged everyone present to read the book of Philippians this past week.

Many of you did—you shared that with me. Thank you. When the sermon was over I asked

everyone to write their anxieties on a piece of paper as Kellie sang for us. We went outside to

burn the papers. Despite the cold weather we were able to burn them with the boy scout help of

Stephen Muhia.

Today we are going to close by looking at staying centered in the Almighty. The faith

practice we will celebrate is Communion.

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I encourage you to get out this brochure that is in the bulletin. In this devotion you’ll find

a place for daily readings. This week I shared a Bible Study on the idea of rest—both Sabbath

and heavenly rest. You also have a place for prayer requests. And you have a place to take notes

as I believe God will speak through me to you. You’ll want to write something down.

(…) I’m starting the sermon at the Table because this is where we can receive rest, or

stay centered on the Almighty. When we celebrate Communion we start by sharing the Great

Prayer of Thanksgiving. At the beginning of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving the person

presiding at Communion shares a welcome. One that I usually share is this.

“Come unto me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon me and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest
for your souls.”

When I share that welcome at the Communion Table I try to look directly into as many

faces as I can. When I do that I see a lot of weary faces. I often see people who are carrying

heavy burdens. It is very moving to me to offer the rest that Jesus Christ offers. One reason—

among many—that Communion is special is we receive the rest that Jesus promised us.

Question—does anyone think they have too much rest? This week I discovered some

interesting research on our sleep habits. The National Sleep Foundation does a poll every year

that looks at the sleep habits of Americans. Look at some of this information:

SLIDE
About a third (32%) of those surveyed say they only get a good night’s sleep a few nights
per month;

SLIDE Nearly half of those polled say that they don’t wake up in the morning feeling
refreshed. (49%) Or they are awake frequently during the night

SLIDE
The number of Americans (20%) that report that they get less than 6 hours of sleep on
average has increased significantly since 2001 (13%), while the number of Americans
who report that they get 8 hours or more has decreased since 2001 (38% to 28%).
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Remember the idea that technology was going to give us more time in our life and let us

live a more relaxed life. I don’t at all consider myself techno-savvy, thought I try to keep current

with the technology of the day. When I started as a pastor I had a rotary telephone. I don’t even

think it had an answering machine. Today on my desk at work I can talk to people on the office

phone (we have two lines) and my cell phone. I communicate with people through E-mail—I

have four E-mail accounts—work, personal and two Spam E-mail accounts. Then there’s

Facebook. I can keep in touch with people via Facebook status reports and Facebook messaging

and Facebook texting. I use Twitter too. If I wanted to be keep up to date with people I

Check my answering machine on two phones

Check my 4-E-mail accounts
Check Facebook—status reports, messaging and texting.
Check Twitter.

By the time I get through all of that, I could start over again. No wonder we’re not sleeping well.

We need something that the world is not giving us. It’s rest

Come unto me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdened and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon ne and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will
find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light

When Jesus spoke these words he spoke them to a group of people who were also

stressed. They were stressed out by all the religious regulations of the day. Jesus was a Jew, so

he grew up with the teaching of the Torah. A significant part of the Torah was the Ten

Commandments. But by the time of Jesus these Ten Commandments had been turned into

hundreds of regulations. Keeping track of all these regulations was almost impossible.

Most of the people who traveled with Jesus and to whom Jesus spoke could not read or

write. They wanted to follow God and they wanted to follow the law, it’s just there were so

many regulations the people were never sure how they were doing.
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Jesus didn’t come to overturn the Commandments, but he didn’t want the people to be

burdened by all of these regulations.

The burdens that you and I have in the 21st century are quite a bit different than the

burdens of the crowd who listened to Jesus speak these words. The causes of our weariness are

different, but the prescription is the same for both of us. It’s resting in God, or another way to

say it is it is staying centered in the Almighty.

We might ask the question, “What did Jesus mean by rest?” The word that is translated

as rest comes from the Greek word anapauo. It meant a condition of relaxing. This rest was like

having a sense of contentment or a peace of mind. It’s not far from the interior peace that Paul

shared in his letter to the Philippians. It’s similar to the joy that I’ve talked about in this series.

It’s coming into the presence of God and experiencing rest, peace, joy. It’s the peace of God that

passes all understanding and imagination.

I want this rest for all of you. I want this rest for everyone at Chain of Lakes Church. In

fact I want this rest to define the people of Chain of Lakes to people outside our congregation.

Anybody here want some of this rest? Can I get an Amen to the importance of this rest for our

lives?

This leads to the question of how do we rest? Does rest mean we sit in our favorite chair

with our mouth open with drool spooling at the corners? We can experience this rest in a lot of

different ways. One way I want to share with you today is Sabbath rest. Experiencing Sabbath

rest can help us discover the presence of God and experience joy.

We can’t talk about Sabbath rest without going back to the very first chapter in the Bible

—the creation of the world. Genesis 1—God created the world. This is a beautiful story The

beauty of the story is not in its history; it’s in its theology. God created for six days.
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Remember what happened on the 7th day. What did God do? Remember?

The story tells us:

SLIDE And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he ___ on
the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and
hallowed it, because on it God _____ from all the work that he had done in creation. Genesis 2:2

It’s amazing to think that God would rest. I doubt that God the almighty was tired or worn out

from the divine act of creating. We’re not told why God rested, we’re just told that God was

done with the work of creation and the God rested.

Let’s move forward to the 10 commandments and in particular the 4th commandment,

which is this: Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Exodus 20:8

We all understand that remember has to do with a memory. So a natural question is what are we

supposed to remember on the Sabbath?

We remember that God rested on the seventh day. The commandment goes on:

SLIDE Six days you shall labor and do all your work. Exodus 20:9

Who else labored for six days? God

SLIDE: But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God Exodus 20:10

The commandment then went on to share who should rest on the Sabbath. It’s significant that

even the aliens or immigrants of the day were supposed to rest. Even the livestock were

supposed to rest. Then the clincher to the commandment went like this:

SLIDE: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,
but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
Exodus 20:11

Our rest is profoundly spiritual. When we celebrate Sabbath we are connected to the rest

of God on the 7th day of Creation. When we rest we aren’t being lazy or non-productive. We’re

coming into the presence of God. What a beautiful description of Sabbath.

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Unfortunately we humans have turned celebrating Sabbath into an instrument of control.

We’ve created all these regulations on how to rest. The intentions for celebrating Sabbath were

originally good. People had legitimate questions about how to celebrate Sabbath. Religious

leaders would come up with many regulations on how to keep Sabbath. But over time these

regulations came more important than remembering Sabbath.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of us grew up with religious regulations regarding the

Sabbath.

How many of us are familiar with or have read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books?

In the first book Laura lived in the Big Woods near Pepin, Wisconsin. Laura was this

young girl who constantly was active and enjoying the lifestyle of a pioneer. Except she

couldn’t play on Sabbath--Sunday. On the Sabbath she couldn’t go outside or get together with

her friends. She had to sit still and read the Bible and be quiet on the Sabbath. She didn’t like it.

I have a pastor friend who grew up in northwestern Iowa. He grew up on the farm and

understood the necessity of hard work. Except on Sunday, he spent the morning in church, and

then read the bible or visited family in the afternoon, and then went back to church at night. It

was a lot.

One of the ways the Sabbath was institutionalized in the United States was through blue

laws. A blue law regulates commerce and behavior on Sunday. It’s designed as a moral code to

enforce the Sabbath. Even today it’s not legal for alcohol to be sold in a liquor store in

Minnesota on Sunday. Car dealers can’t do business in Minnesota on Sunday.

I don’t know. I would prefer that if car dealerships and liquor stores weren’t open not

because of a law, but because people were celebrating Sabbath on Sunday. We have soccer and
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hockey tournaments on Sunday mornings, so it doesn’t seem consistent to me that people can’t

sell a car on Sunday.

The key question for us is what does it mean to celebrate Sabbath? Sabbath doesn’t have

to be Sunday. I celebrate my Sabbath on Friday. It’s my day off. I usually don’t do any work

on Friday. I try to do some stuff around the house, or I’ll go help with Hannah’s class at school.

One thing that I almost always do on Friday is go for a run. I run on other days. But I almost

always do on Friday. I run to keep my body fit. Running also is refreshing for my mind.

Running is like prayer in that when I’m done running my mind is clear.

The challenge for me is not to so jam pack my Fridays that I’m heavily burdened. The

purpose of Sabbath is rest, rejuvenation and enjoyment.

For the past 12 months Amy, Hannah, and I have started a family ritual called “family

fun night.” On Friday night one of us gets to choose the activity we’re going to do as a family.

Amy chose this past Friday night. We went to the children’s theatre in Hopkins; this Friday I’m

choosing the Valentine’s party at Chain of Lakes; the following Friday Hannah will get to

choose. We’ve found this can help us be refreshed and rested as a family.

This series on joy was meant for folks who are 45 and under. My word for all of you is

to cultivate the practice of Sabbath. Participate in activities at least one day a week that brings

rest and refreshment and joy. .

Sabbath is meant for all ages. Many folks in our community at Chain of Lakes are

retired. It’s easy to think that when we’re retired we don’t need to celebrate Sabbath because all

of our time is Sabbath. Throughout my ministry I’ve had many retired people share with me that

they feel more burdened and weary in retirement than when they were working. Retired folks
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need Sabbath. Take a day each week to participate in activities that are very special to you—

activities that help you experience rest, activities that clear your mind.

Some folks in our community don’t have a job. It would be easy to look at an

unemployed person and think, “why do you need to take Sabbath, all you have is time.” Sabbath

is probably more important for a person who is unemployed. Whoever doesn’t have a job needs

to be refreshed from the anxieties of not working.

To celebrate Sabbath means we’re released from the burdens that occupy our minds.

I know many of the rationales that many people use against taking Sabbath. I don’t have

time, I have so many other responsibilities, I have to run errands or run my kids somewhere.

These are solid excuses, and I have to run errands. But when I remember the Sabbath I’m

brought back to a central point. The point is this. if God could rest on the seventh day, then I

can also rest. Do we really think that we are so busy and important that we know better than

God what is best for us?

How does this relate to joy? Remember we experience joy when we come into the

presence of God. When our minds are clear, when we have let go of our anxieties, when we feel

fresh, then we are open to experiencing God. We’ve helped create the conditions where God can

move to exert the divine presence in our lives.

(…) I’m ending the sermon at the Table because I want all of us to receive rest today. We’re

going to sing a traditional hymn. Today as we come to the Table I want to encourage all of us to

focus our attention on how we can celebrate Sabbath this week. Ultimate rest is here—at the

Table, celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. So let us come and enjoy God