Scripture referenced
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Psalm 23 Read in full twice (NLT and NKJV) as the main text for the teaching on God's rhythm of rest and recalibration
1 Yahweh is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.
6 Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in Yahweh’s house forever.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
Luke 23:56
Key verse for the teaching: the women rested on the Sabbath after Jesus was buried, illustrating the power of ingrained spiritual discipline
56 They returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Joy Obot brought the message this Sunday, drawing on Psalm 23 and a single verse from Luke 23 to talk about the power that becomes available when we recalibrate our lives to God's rhythm. The thread running through everything was Sabbath, not as a rule to follow but as a practice that prepares you for the hardest days before they arrive. She was open about her own sabbatical, the loss of her best friend Rachel, and what she has learned about rest and dependence along the way.
What was said
Joy opened by connecting what had come up in worship to Psalm 23, which she said is a picture of God's rhythm. Two translations were read aloud in the room, and she pointed out that the rhythm David describes does not begin with work or striving. It begins with lying down in green meadows and being led beside still waters, what her ESV footnote called "rivers of rest." That starting point, she said, is not an accident. It is the pattern God established on page one of the Bible, when the very first thing Adam and Eve experienced as humans was the seventh day of rest.
She talked about her family's own practice of Sabbath, which began during or just before COVID when the word kept showing up in everything she was reading and listening to. She was honest that her controlling, type-A personality resisted it, and that it started small, just a couple of hours with her phone off. Over time it grew into a Friday-evening-to-Saturday rhythm for the whole family, beginning with a meal, candles, and a deliberate act of saying that God is their source. She was careful to say this was never meant to be legalistic, and that their family has made plenty of exceptions.
The center of the message was a verse she said had screamed at her for the first time when she read it last Easter. Luke 23:56 says that the women who had watched Jesus buried went home, prepared spices and ointments, and then rested on the Sabbath as required by the law. Joy sat with the weight of that. These women had just watched their Messiah die. The work of preparing his body was not optional or trivial in that culture. And yet when the first star appeared in the sky, they stopped.
She connected that to the phrase "falling back to the level of your training." When Rachel died, Joy said her own capacity in those first hours was just autopilot, getting from one room to another, forming a few words when someone spoke to her. The women at the tomb, she said, had a lifetime of Sabbath practice behind them. Every seven days, their bodies had stopped, their mouths had spoken praise, their eyes had been fixed back on God. When the worst day of their lives arrived, that was what they fell back to. The power of recalibration, she said, is not for the good days. It is what you will have available on the darkest day you ever face.
A few people in the room added to this as she went. One pointed out that if the women had not rested, they would have returned to the tomb while the stone was still sealed and the body still there. Their obedience to the rhythm meant they arrived after the resurrection. Someone else reflected that God's ways are simply upside down from what our flesh wants to do, and that when her instinct is to panic, she is learning to let that be a signal to recalibrate. Joy received both of those and kept building on them.
She closed with two things. The first was for anyone who feels like they are already in Saturday, the day of grief and no visible hope. She said the disciples had no indication Jesus was coming back. What they could see was a body in a tomb. But Sunday was coming anyway, and she said the resurrection may not look the way you expect, but it is coming. The second was a direct invitation to start now, through whatever spiritual disciplines fit where you are, whether that is Sabbath, prayer, fasting, or reading scripture. You cannot wait until the front lines to prepare, she said. Boot camp has to come first.
Touch points
Things you could actually do this week.
- Pick one morning this week to turn your phone off, sit with your Bible, and let that be your starting point for the day.
- If you are carrying an offense against someone, bring it to God and ask him to show you how to respond the way Jesus described, giving more rather than pulling back.
- Try one small version of Sabbath this week, even just a few hours, where you stop working, put the screens down, and ask God to lead you into that green pasture.
- Sign up for one of the small groups launching at Tribe, whether that is the men's group, the women's group, the fasting group, or the outdoor group.
- If you are in a dark stretch right now where hope feels gone, write down or say out loud the words Sunday is coming, and let that be the thing you come back to when the weight hits.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Joy described Sabbath as an invitation rather than a command, something God offers so we can access his rhythm and his power. What has kept you from accepting that invitation, and what would it look like practically for you to take a first small step toward it?
- Joy talked about how the women at the tomb stopped their urgent, necessary work when the first star appeared and rested on the Sabbath, even on the darkest day imaginable. What situation in your own life right now feels too urgent or too important to stop for? What would it mean to rest anyway?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Resumen en español
El mensaje resumido, en español.
Joy Obot compartió una reflexión sobre lo que significa recalibrarse al ritmo de Dios. Usando el Salmo 23 como imagen central, explicó que Dios siempre comienza con el descanso: nos lleva a pastos verdes y aguas tranquilas antes de enviarnos a trabajar. Habló del Sabbat como una disciplina espiritual que no es una obligación legal sino una invitación, y describió cómo su familia ha intentado practicarlo semana a semana. El punto central fue que si entrenamos ese músculo ahora, en los días tranquilos, tendremos esa misma ancla cuando lleguen los días más oscuros.
Para ilustrarlo, Joy compartió la muerte de su mejor amiga Rachel, y luego llevó esa experiencia de duelo al relato de las mujeres que acompañaron a Jesús hasta la cruz. Después de ver su cuerpo sepultado, esas mujeres volvieron a casa y descansaron en el Sabbat, tal como lo indicaba la ley, aunque estaban destrozadas de dolor. Joy señaló que eso solo es posible cuando el descanso y la adoración ya forman parte del piloto automático de la vida. No fue algo que improvisaron en el peor momento de sus vidas: era el resultado de años de práctica.
El mensaje terminó con una palabra de esperanza: así como el domingo de resurrección siguió al sábado de desesperación, hay una resurrección esperando del otro lado de cada pérdida. Puede que no tenga la forma que uno espera, pero viene. La invitación concreta fue comenzar ahora a desarrollar disciplinas espirituales como el Sabbat, la oración, el ayuno y la lectura de la Biblia, para que cuando llegue la oscuridad, uno ya sepa a dónde volver la mirada.
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Pasajes bíblicos mencionados
- Salmos 23 (leído en su totalidad, en NLT y Nueva Versión King James)
- Lucas 23:56
Read the full transcript 15,002 words
Micus is in the house. Micus is in the house.
I love it. Hi, Kate. Well, let's just welcome the presence of the Lord in this place today. Lord, we say yes and amen to what you have planned for us today. You see us.
You see us here gathered. We've set this time aside and we come expectant today, not out of obligation, but out of a grateful heart. Oh, all we have to give back to you is our worship, our praise, our everything. There's nothing that we could do to earn it. To earn your love, there's nothing we could do to deserve it.
We just thank you. We stand in grace today as we worship you. Who we just with open hands say, come and have your way in this place. Yes. Come and have your way in us.
We come with our little sticks and our plans and our message and our songs. But Lord, we just say those are just our kindling. We ask that you would come and send your fire today. Come and send your fire of your spirit because that's how we're changed. We just remind ourselves this morning of where we would be without you.
We praise you that you found us. Praise you, Jesus. Amen. If you have enough room, let's stand up. Let's worship him together today.
We're gonna sing this to him. So we found
Gone are the days, gone are the days chasing after what won't last. Hallelujah. And I'm done with building these castles that crumble like sand. Knees on the floor, I finally found everything I needed,
always right in front
of me. You gave me a name, changed everything I am. I never knew, I never knew anything last forever till I found you, till I found you. I never dreamed anything would be better till I found you. Till I found you.
You're rewriting my story, and I'm brand new like a morning old. I never knew anything last anything last forever till I found you. Till I found you. You're rewriting. You're rewriting my story.
And I'm brand new like a morning. Oh, I never knew anything last forever till I found you, till I found you. You're rewriting, rewriting my story, and I'm brand new like a morning. Oh, you. It.
See now. I'm brand new like a morning go. I never knew anything last forever till I found you. Till I found you. Rewriting, you're rewriting my story.
Yes, Lord.
Just come before him with that today. I I was up here at the TMC last night just worshiping and I was just playing through that just thanking until I found you, till I found you. And then I just felt like the Holy Spirit say, well, I mean really I found you. I was like, oh, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. You turned your heart, but he found me. And I just started singing this.
Welcome. You're but you found me in my shame. And my power was surrendering to your deadliest grace. It was all about you. It was all about you.
You're rewriting. Just thank him. Rewriting my story, and I'm brand new like a morning. Oh, I never knew mountain high and valley low. Sing.
Remind my soul that I am yours. Am forever yours. Sing that again. Love came down. Love came down and rescued me.
Love came down and set me free. And I am yours. I am forever yours. A mountain high, a mountain am am yours all my days. Jesus, I am yours.
Sing love came down. Your love came down and rescued me. Love came down and set me free. Now I am yours. I am forever your mountain high, let heaven on end.
Come rest on us. Come rest on fire and wind, fire and wind. Come and do it again. Open up the gates, let heaven on end. Come rest on us.
Come rest on us. Yes. Oh, we give you permission. Yeah.
Maybe while we're singing and worshiping, maybe the Lord is putting a picture, a word, maybe a scripture, an encouragement on your heart. And sometimes if you're new here at Tribe, this is we just we love to leave time open. This is not just about people who have a microphone, but the Lord longs to come and speak to all of us corporately. It's why we're gathered here today. And so Lord, we just say that if you have something you want to speak to us corporately as a body, we just say yes and amen.
And maybe your heart is pounding, maybe you've never stepped out and taken that step of just, Lord, is that you? Is that you? And I just always feel like the Lord says, there's one way
to find out. And we do
a livestream for our people who can't be here in this room with us and so we do use a microphone and it's for our livestream people. So you won't hear your voice in the room but they love to hear what we have to share and if there's something that's shared in this room and you don't say it into the microphone they won't be able to hear you. So just take a minute, just ask the Lord, Lord are you speaking to me today? And if you are a part of tribe regularly you probably came ready like, Lord are you gonna you gonna speak through me today which I love. And if you're new here just ask him, Lord, are you speaking through me today?
A lot of times I have to ask him, he's putting so much on my heart, I have to ask him, Lord, is that just for me? Is that just for me or is that for me to share? So let's just take a minute. Let's be still in his presence and if you if you feel like the Lord's putting something on your heart, Clay right there has the microphone and just get his attention, wave your hand and he'll get the microphone to you and just let's just embrace the presence of the Lord in this place today. That this is a unique gathering.
This we've never met this group of people ever and the Lord would just would come and do something new and unique today.
Just wanna start out with a with an encouraging
Yeah. Go for it, John.
Yeah. Encouraging verse first, which says to guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And that just leads me into where my heart is last couple of days, which if somebody seems to have come against you in a offense or if you feel taken advantage of, I I Lord took me to the to the scripture that says, if someone steals from you, steal something from you, give them more. Give them your tunic too, the scripture says, if they take your your coat. Give them your skis.
So if anybody is struggling at all with with an offense or or anything in their heart that's keeping you from God or from another person, think of Jesus' heart and his words, his truths. And it does say, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
That's right.
Thank you.
Yes, Lord.
Lover of my soul.
Lord, search our hearts if there would be any offense in us, just like John said, that would keep us from experiencing your presence today. We give you permission to point it out to us so we can repent.
When less Lisa said, did you have a picture come to mind? And I did. And the Lord says, I am all that you need. I'm everything that you need. And if you will step into the green meadow that I have placed before you, and if you will listen to this peaceful stream, the brook that is flowing beside you, I will give you rest.
I will restore your strength. And I want you to know that I will, that I am honoring you as I anoint your head and the blessings overflow your cup. The blessing, my people, you are blessed. I am blessing you. I will continue to bless you.
And those blessings will overflow. Step into the reality of what I'm speaking to you now. That my blessing is not just a word. It's not just something nice to say. In the spirit, there is power.
There is power. That overflowing blessing, Release it, yield it to those around you, your family, to people that you don't even know. Thank you, Jesus. We bless your name and we receive. We step into what you have for us today.
We step into what you have for us in these future days. Amen.
Amen. We receive that. Lee, while you were saying that, I just I was picturing that and the part that stood out to me was the Lord saying to all of us, if you will step into the green pasture. Yes. That's our You know, sometimes we wonder why am I not experiencing this peace.
I feel like the Lord's like, if you will step into the green pasture, he'll lead us there. His word said in in Psalm 23, he'll lead us there. We have to follow him. We have to step into that pasture. And I'm just so convicted this morning of just like, Lord, I I need to sometimes I'm like rolling around in the green pasture loving it and then I like, I just wander on out.
And then I just wonder why I have anxiety or whatever's gonna end. The Lord's like, get back in the green pasture. That's on you. So Lord, this morning we just ask that you would just reveal to our hearts where we are. Are we in your green pasture and there's just circumstances of the world around us swirling or Lord have we walked out of that green pasture, out of your safety, out of your umbrella?
We know with nothing can separate us from your love, we know that. But we can walk away from trusting you. We can walk away from surrendering everything to you and pick up our old stuff. So, Lord, I just declare this morning, I willingly step into your green pasture today because I hear you calling my name and you're a good shepherd. Anyone else feel like the lord has put something on your heart this morning?
So I just got back from a camping trip, Thursday and Friday, and it rained. And, when you go on a rainy camping trip, you find out that you forgot a lot of things that you needed. And I think as Christians, we need to make that list as well. What what are we leaving out? Where where are our shortcomings?
We need to know what we believe. We need to be prepared whether it's sunny skies or rainy skies or snow, cold, hot. It didn't matter. Be prepared. Know what you believe.
Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and he is out there. And we're seeing it more and more. So please dust off your bible. Don't depend on your phone so much. Get in the word.
Embrace it and let it lead your life, and it'll be so much better.
Sing this with me one time. Just like Clay was saying. Lord, we just pledge ourselves to you this morning. Recalibrate our minds, recalibrate our hearts today. And just like the Israelites in the in the desert, Lord, we just everyday seek you fresh so we can get realigned with who you are, what your promises are.
We wanna care about the things that you care about and let everything else fall away. And we thank you for who you are. We thank you for your presence in this place and we thank you that you always show up. You just always do to meet your people. You don't have to but you do.
What an amazing God we serve. Almighty, all powerful, and yet comes every time by your spirit to meet each and every one of us. Oh, don't let us ever take that for granted. We tell you we love you. You're forever.
We're forever yours. In Jesus name. And everybody said, amen. But we have a special privilege today. Joy is gonna bring us the word today.
And one of the things at Tribe that we're super excited about is we're launching Tribe Mountain Adventures. And I'm looking at the thing right behind Chris's head. Tribe Mountain Adventures where we're just we wanna be able to all get out in in God's creation, why we're all living here. And we get so many new people that come through Tribe and young adults. And so yesterday and today, Justin and Brian are taking their p s I.
There's is that what it's called? Single p s I don't know. It's for climbing so that they can single pitch instructors. So wouldn't it be s p I? Yes.
Okay. And so they're doing that yesterday and today so that they can take all of our folks out safely and and so he's super excited to also have Joy come and share the word with us today. And if you've never sat under Joy's teaching, it is a blessing. And for years she was down there teaching our littles and she's just on a sabbatical right now. Sweet Carla is down there teaching our littles down there today and so we get joy up here today.
So it's such a privilege and she's gonna talk to us about recalibrating our hearts and there's no one better I can think of that lives this than the Obots and they do it in practice and so we're gonna be absolutely blessed today. So while Joy comes and we get her set up here, turn and meet somebody if there's people that you don't recognize or know and it's so fun
to have our old friends in the house today. And fill up
your coffee and get out God's word.
This is
No, I got some. I was just gonna wait. Do you think? Okay. We're gonna go ahead and get started.
Move this a little bit closer to me. Thank you for the lovely introduction, Lissa. For those of you who don't know me, I'll give a little bit more of a bio. I am I've been a part of staff here at Tribe since the very beginning and then in January went on my sabbatical. And not a sabbatical in the traditional sense of we're packing the family in the car and we're traveling across the country and taking a big time off, I sabbatical I I am sabbaticaling in the sense of I'm homeschooling my seventh and ninth grade daughters full time.
And my husband is a company that's going and I'm getting more involved in that. And then my other daughter is going to private school and and and and. So needless to say, the resting and the healing has come way slower than my type a personality would really have liked it. And when I say healing, wanna be clear. I don't mean like any sort of like hurt from being on staff or church or anything like that.
More along the lines of healing from burn out, pushing myself too hard, and just needing to refresh and get things back in the right priority that it needs to be. I heard somebody talk about sabbatical is more like a hospital visit than a vacation, And I can really actually because it's it's bringing stuff up, and then it's bringing stuff up that needs to be healed and dealt with, and then healing never goes as fast as you want it to. A few years ago, I broke my arm, and oh, it just like full stop on my summer as I just needed to wait while my bone healed. And so it's a really slow process, but I'm super thankful for the support that I've had from the church to be able to take this time in the midst of all the things that are going on. They've been very patient with me as things have just been going a lot slower.
I, again, my type a personality. I was like, okay, two months, I'll be back. Just wait. Here I come. And like two months, I was like, I'm not even close.
So anyways, but one of the things that I miss the absolute most is teaching. And so I'm super excited and honored to be here today and to be able to do that a little bit more. My style of teaching, along the lines of pastor Brian, I still welcome a conversation from you. I generally pull from things that God is currently teaching me, and then I love the conversation aspect because we can as I kinda share what I'm learning, if you're getting revelations along the way, it kinda deepens what I'm learning. And so please feel free to share and to interrupt me and say, oh, I'm just now making this connection or what about this?
And we can continue on that conversation. I love that part of it because it helps me to this all sounds super selfish. This is all about me, guys, and what I'm learning, and so just help me learn more. But I do I do appreciate that that aspect of it. So and again, similar to what we were just doing in worship, if you do wanna speak, go ahead and grab that mic for the livestream.
So Alright. So today we're talking about recalibration, and I put up here the power accessible in recalibration. This is something new to me. I've been thinking a lot about recalibration in the sense of just getting on God's rhythm, and following his way instead of my own way. But I have not recognized the power that's accessible by doing that.
I think it's a good way to live is calibrated to God's rhythm, but I I'm now starting kinda to see the why. And that's what we'll be talking about a little bit today. Actually, last week, we talked a little bit about recalibration because pastor Brian was talking about Pentecost and the three reasons that we acknowledge the feast is to, hold on, remember, to recalibrate, and to rehearse. Right? And the recalibration aspect of that has to do with he said, and I wrote it on the slide so I'd remember the exact words.
Christian, if you can put it up, I can read it. The God of the Bible has a rhythm. He always operates according to predetermined objectives in his heart. So we talked about that last week in the sense or Brian talked about that last week in the sense of, on the calendar, there's the seven major feasts that, is a rhythm and a picture of really the whole story of creation. It starts with it starts with hold on.
I'm trying to think. I I'm thinking it starts with it starts with our need for a savior, and then it ends with that new heaven where heaven the new earth and heaven meet and Jesus comes back. It's pictures of of the whole plan that God has for us. And so when we calibrate to his rhythm and acknowledge those feasts, it gives us a chance to remember and to understand his rhythm and to be looking for there's parts that have been fulfilled like you talked about, but there's still things to come. And possibly, we can see some of those things to come.
So I want to kind of take something, the recalibration of the year, and bring it down to applying some recalibration on a on a more regular basis in your life and possibly as much as weekly. So I believe that God has a rhythm for us on a weekly, if not daily basis, that if we can recalibrate our lives and follow his rhythm and his way, then we will be able to access the power when we need it. I was gonna talk about Psalm one nineteen because that's what we talked about with recalibration last week, but I actually because of what was said today with Lee and Alyssa, I do I wanna switch over to Psalm 23. If you don't know, Lee was pretty much quoting Psalm 23, and I love it. I was like, oh, that's the verse I need.
Those are the verses that I need. This is a picture of God's rhythms. Good
job, Lee.
Thank you, Lee. So I appreciate it. A picture of God's rhythm. And I would love for I would love for us to take a couple of runs at it in different translations so that we can hear a couple of different ways it's worded. So who's my mic guy?
Is it you, Clay? Okay. So if just wave your hand at Clay if you'd be willing to read through it and mention what translation you're reading, and then we'll try one other one to just kinda get a little bit of comparison. So Psalm 23, all six verses. Thank you, Kat.
I'm in, uh-oh, NLT. Great. Perfect. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd.
I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows. He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths bringing honor to his name.
Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup over overflows with blessings.
Surely, your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
Oh, your goodness and mercy will pursue me. I love that. Anybody have a non NLT translation they'd like to read for us?
I've got the ESP.
Great. Go for it. Thank you. Okay.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.
He leads me in the paths of righteousness in his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod, your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil, and my cup overfloweth. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
He restores my soul. Oh, love that line. Okay. So if we're talking about recalibration and we're recalibrating to God's rhythm, I'll throw it out to you guys first. What do you see about God's rhythm in this?
Anybody? It's a little bit more abstract, but I know you can do it.
God is comforting us Mhmm. Always.
Yes. And then I'll get you started and piggyback off what Lee was saying. But it starts with his rhythm starts with lying down in green pastures. Right? And then leading me beside still waters, and I have the best footnote on my I'm also in the ESV.
Still waters, it says in my footnotes, or rivers of rest. Waters of rest. He leads me beside waters of rest. So we have a a clear rhythm, a starting point for God, and it's rest. We start with rest, and then we go on.
We see this This is later in my notes, but we'll say it now. This starts on page one of the Bible. Jesus Or God creates Adam and Eve on day six, and then day seven, their first full day as humans on this earth. And what do they do? They rest.
They Sabbath. He calls that a holy day. And he spends that time, he doesn't give them any assignments to cultivate the garden, there's no naming the animals, there's no doing any of the work that he has for them. Because I do think work is a God ordained thing. I'm not saying we don't do that, but it starts from rest.
And that's the example that God has given us, that's the rhythm that he established for our lives, for our bodies. The very first humans, that was the rhythm that their bodies began under, was we began with rest. Being led beside the still waters, lying down in green pastures. That green is really important. Right?
Because it tells that there's life, there's nourishment if you're this is from the perspective of a sheep with its shepherd. Right? And so if you're lying down in green pastures, it's green pastures that you can feast and feed off of. Right? And be nourished and be rested.
There's the rhythm that God has established that begins with rest. And then, even still, as we go on through the rest of Psalm 23, the rhythm is never we're not gonna find in here, you let's go to verse four. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. So I've hit some hard parts in my life, but I'm walking through. It doesn't say I'm toiling and I'm running through.
It doesn't say that I'm working and I'm striving and I'm doing the best that I can to get through. It says I'm walking through it. Even then, the rhythm that God has established for us is one of total dependence on him, the beauty of sheep and a shepherd. Right? I am sometimes a little insulted to be compared to sheep, because when I see them at the fair with the little four h kids trying to, like, keep them in line so the judge can come by or whatever, oh, man, those sheep are ornery.
They are bleeding and so loud, and then they're they're running around, and you you're not allowed to have a harness on them when you're when you're showing them. And and if you lose one sheep, it's really hard to not everybody loses all the sheep. Like, they're just they're crazy out there. And I'm like, god, this is it? This is what we're this is what you're comparing us to?
One of my favorite sheep illustrations is also from, like, one of the very first VeggieTales, and they do Dave and the Giant Pickle is what it's called. David and Goliath. And David is the shepherd, and he's taking care of the sheep. And the sheep are just these little, like, two dimensional guys going, meh. And then they fall over.
And then he has to go over and, like, pick them up. And then, like, a couple more hop around, meh. And then they fall over again. It's true because wool gets so heavy that they literally cannot even pick themselves up. They just fall over and they have to wait for the shepherd to come and write them again.
Again, a little insulting, but but it's this idea, but accurate. It's this idea of that, living that life of surrender and needing that leading, and how our good shepherd guides us, doesn't drive us along, doesn't force us to work and earn our keep, but guides us on paths of righteousness, leads us to rivers of rest, takes us and restores our soul, which I believe soul probably there mean is the word nefesh, which doesn't just include what we consider like like the ghost in the machine kind of a thing, but our whole physical being. He restores everything, our whole our body, our spirit, our soul, all of it. He restores my soul. That's the rhythm that he's called us to.
And when we follow that rhythm, what I'm understanding now is and we create and we choose to recalibrate to that rhythm now, they're great, great source of power for later on. So let's get into it. I need to give you a little bit of backstory before I get into the other verse that I have for you today. But talking a little bit specifically about Sabbath and the rhythm that our family has chosen to follow. We this began I think it was during COVID or maybe just before COVID, but one of the ways that God speaks to me, Amanda's touched on this often, is through repetition.
And that season, it seemed like every podcast I was listening to, every book I was reading, every person I was talking to, the word Sabbath kept coming up. And it was something that I had been taught about a little bit before, but always felt I justified not practicing it for a couple of reasons. Number one, too legalistic. I don't I don't need any of that. Number two, I am admittedly a recovering control freak, and to stop and not work and not control things, that's a lot.
That's asking a lot. And so I did not want to you know, I I have lived my life with a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel of my life, and Sabbath was asking me to take my hands off, and I was like, no, I got this. Like, I trust you, God, but I'm still white knuckle, so I don't really trust you, God. But I felt I I could speak the words, but living it was a different story. Anyways, so during that time, was like, okay.
Well, I'll give it a try. So it it was a slow progression for me where it was just a couple of hours just for me where I would turn my phone off and just spend time in the word reading. And, you know, like Clay was saying, you gotta get your all your camping gear and things ahead of time. And so it was taking time to do those things, like reading the word, that I just was not really prioritizing because I was so busy, and I was so busy trying to control my own life that I wasn't taking time for that. So it started real small like that, but then it became a little bit more of a rhythm.
And Isaac, my husband, joined me, and then my daughters, and we finally created kind of a family rhythm. And it's been an ongoing process. It's kind of evolved with us. Again, we don't want to get into a spirit of legalism with it, so it hasn't been something that we're like, it must begin like this, and it must end like this, and there's no exceptions. But it has turned into, our attempt to follow one of God's spiritual disciplines to to recalibrate and to do what he modeled for us on page one of the bible.
So there was a time of just simply resting and celebrating God's goodness. You know, we have from just before that as God is creating everything, he's calling it good. Right? And so, he is establishing not only the things that are good, but he is also establishing himself as the one and only judge. Mhmm.
He's the only one that gets to decide what's good and what's bad. And so, he creates things and he I try to use, as Brian would say, my sanctified imagination to imagine that first Sabbath, that first day seven, where you're just surrounded by this beautiful creation. I mean, things that I just we just went through biology for homeschool this year, and as we dig deeper and deeper into the science behind things, It is an amazing creation that we live in. The things that we can't see but are happening at cellular levels that make it all go, what? Like, it's and and Adam and Eve are experiencing it for the first time, and it's only with their physical eyes.
They don't have microscopes and books to consult and things to figure out what's going on. But just to just to be overwhelmed with God's goodness and beauty, that's the spirit of Sabbath. Right? That resting and and and celebrating his goodness. So for our family, it looks like on Friday evening, we begin with a special meal of celebration, where we turn the screens off, and we light some candles to make it feel a little bit more special, and we eat dessert, and we have a big feast, and sometimes we spend it with friends or family, and we just just enjoy God's goodness.
And then we take time on Saturday, so sunset ish on Friday to Saturday evening. So we take time on Saturday during the day to be with family, keep our screens off, and just spend time focusing on God and God's goodness, as opposed to just numbing, if we're being honest, and by with putting our screens on and and our phones and things like that. And like I said before, we're not this is this was never intended to be like a real legalistic thing. So there are, I have to admit, a lot of exceptions. In the three years that we've been trying practice this, there's there's our girls are in sports teams that are traveling on the weekends, and then there's, you know, holidays or whatever that we do, and it's rainy, and it's gross, and we just go ahead and snuggle on the couch and watch some movies.
Like, there's there's definitely exceptions of it. So what I wanna I want you to hear from this is not ever a, like, this is how it should be done. I was just listening to a podcast. I was talking about how the spiritual disciplines, Sabbath being one of them, are all invitational. You're not gonna find in the Bible that God has commanded, again, with his gavel as judge and said, if you don't do this, bang bang bang, you are bad.
If you don't do this, bang, bang, bang, this is your punishment. God has there is that is not that is not the rhythm that he has created in the Bible. That's not the precedent.
The fourth commandment?
Oh, yes. To observe the Sam. Okay. Well, there is that. We don't live under the old law.
We're under grace. Yeah. Yeah. It's in there. We'll talk about I I think we'll kinda scratch on why.
Because that is something that practicing Jews even today do practice, and there's and there's a reason for it. Anyways, I don't wanna get ahead of myself. But So I want you to, again, as we're talking about Sabbath and we're talking about God's rhythm, I believe that a lot of the spiritual disciplines fall into recalibrating ourselves to God's rhythm. It's an invitation. It's an invitation for you to come and be a part of something.
God is our designer. Right? So he knows how our best life could go. And he's inviting us as we practice these things to get ourselves recalibrated on his path, those paths of righteousness, so that we can live our best life. That's his heart behind it.
It has never been a, if you don't do this, you're a terrible person. That's never been his heart. He's like, come here. Let me show you something. This is gonna even make life better.
Are you ready? Walk this way. Try this rhythm instead. So that's what, Sabbath has become for us. And, I just wanna I'm putting that there because we're gonna talk about Sabbath again in just a second.
And it looks a little bit different in the bible, but just so you kinda have an understanding of where I'm coming from and why the verse that we're gonna talk about jumped out so much to me. One more note, a bit of backstory, a bit of creating a picture for you before we get in is on a much sadder note. So I'm gonna try and get through this without crying. We'll see. But my best friend passed away two years ago, almost two years ago.
Same age as me, and her name was Rachel. She the best description I could come up with was, stardust personified. That's the hopeless romantic writer in me. And I just she just she just she had red, like, strawberry blonde hair and all the things that you associate with redheads. Yes.
Like, she was fiery. She was a tiger. She was she was magnetic. And I I remember the very first time that we met. We were both teenagers.
We had gone to a summer camp in the sleepy tiny little town in Michigan. And I was in Cabin 10, and I was the fur it was the first time I'd ever gone to summer camp at this camp and she actually came a day late. So I came in, the cabin was all established, we were missing Rachel, I didn't know who that was. But a lot of the people that came to the camp were coming from one church that was on the East Side Of Michigan. And so they a lot of them already kinda knew each other and had a relationship.
And so they all knew and my counselor knew everybody, and I always knew coming in and just deer in headlights, trying to figure things out. And the second day, she comes, and I come into the cabin, and there she is sitting on the bottom bunk, and she has headgear. Like, if you're old enough to remember this. Like, the actual like, the wires were on the outside of your head to fix your orthodontic teeth, and she's sitting there with her fiery red hair. Yes.
Like, woman who plays harmonica. Her fire red hair. And and that's and I I just clearly remember that, but I wanted to be her friend. Like, it was there was just something magnetic about her that even with this goofy looking head of her, thank god, we don't have to do that anymore. I hope we don't.
That I just wanted to be her friend. And our friendship began there and but it was always long distance. She lived, like I said, on the East Side of the state and I lived on the West Side. So we were over a 100 miles apart. And this was back in the day when if you made a phone call outside of your little town, you had to pay long distance charges.
What? Per minute. I remember spending time going through my parents', like, 10 page phone bill and highlighting all of my charges to call Rachel. I even had, like, adults come to me and be like, so what can we do to kinda cut this back? I'm like, what?
No. I'm gonna keep talking to her. Don't care. Anyway, so our friendship just always exceeded the miles. My family eventually moved down to Oklahoma, so now we were over a thousand miles away.
But AOL and instant messenger began. And all of a sudden now, we could converse on the computer, and we didn't have to pay long distance charges. It was a glorious day. I also have a box of handwritten letters that we had to each other. Like, it just didn't matter the distance, we found a way to communicate.
Then after college, I moved to Japan, so now I am 16 time zones away. 13. 13 time zones away. And still, we found a way to remain close. I came back, she was engaged, I was in her wedding, she was in my wedding, we were pregnant at the same time.
And so it just it was a friendship that exceeded that did not need to be, like, right next to you. She encouraged me in the things of God, and I tried to encourage her, and we spent a lot of time on our knees for each other. She dealt with chronic illness for at least the last ten years of her life, maybe longer, and it took a toll, obviously. And at the very end, cancer jumped in and just ate up what little health that she had left. And so I flew from here to Michigan to be by her side and as she took her final breath, and that moment was devastating.
That was the hardest forty eight hours. I don't remember a ton. I just the things that I was able to do was just what our bodies do on autopilot, you know? Like, I could get up and talk and respond to people. I can eat a little.
I was breathing, you know, not much, but I was doing, like I wasn't doing much, but the things that I was doing was all just autopilot. It was horrible. I came home. I came back to her family's house and held her mom who was just screaming, like, this isn't fair. And her 10 year old daughter was wiping my tears away and telling me that she loved me.
It was just it was horrible. Isaac was able to book me a plane ticket so I could get home because I just just needed to grieve privately. And the first part of that was a lot of sitting on the couch and staring at the wall. And my brain literally I think my body was just and my brain was so overwhelmed with everything that it literally buzzed. Like, I remember hearing like a white noise sound because it was just like my body was like, no more.
No more. Just just for a second. But it was so it was so devastating and so hard to function on any level, especially in those first couple of days. And on that happy note, we're actually going to transition into the verse. I've I've shared that story for a couple of reasons.
Number one, to kind of give a picture of the devastation and the grief that comes along with death. But also, perhaps, I'm guessing most of you in here have your own story that you could tell of the time that you've experienced grief on that level, and you just the world stopped for a minute because it was so hard. But if you haven't experienced that, I wanted to kind of create a picture because I believe that on a small level, when I read this last Easter, when I read about Jesus' crucifixion, I was able to put my experience on top of that and understand it in a more profound and deeper way than I was able to before. So if you want to turn in your bibles to Luke 23, we're gonna just read 56, but I'm gonna tell you what's happened. Jesus has been crucified, brutally just disfigured in front of him, lost his life.
And I try to put myself in the shoes of the women that were following him and his disciples, and the families that everybody who had given their lives. Again, using my sanctified imagination, trying to imagine what it was like for Peter. Peter's the only disciple that we know of who left who had a wife at home, who was followed the calling of Jesus, but that meant a lot of time away from home, and a lot of time away from his wife. And so here he is, putting everything putting his yes on the table, like pastor Brian says, but putting everything on the table. And it the bible doesn't go into a lot of it.
I believe that there was a grace and a strength for him to do it. But also, I believe it probably was hard. It was probably really hard on their marriage and on their them individually. Like for Isaac and I, when Rachel was passing away, to be states apart was hard. There's just a there's a strength to just physically being next to each other.
Right? Mhmm.
And
so so I can't even imagine that Peter through all the I know this is a trendy word right now, but through all the trauma that he's just gone through, watching his Messiah and everything that he's put his whole family's life on the line for die. Can you imagine that devastation? Can you imagine his final memory of Jesus alive was denying Jesus that he ever knew him? And I believe making eye contact with Jesus and knowing he heard that. I've just given everything.
This is horrible, but also, the last memory that Jesus has of me is me denying him, and walking away with that sorrow, and with that devastation. I imagine like he came to his home much like I came back home with Isaac and just fell into his wife's arms and was just devastated. There there's the Bible doesn't give us a lot of indication that there was any hope that Jesus was coming back. Jesus told them over and over again. They even had the feast.
Passover itself had just happened, but, that gave them pictures of him coming back. But there isn't any indication all we know, I think, is that he they locked themselves in a room, which I get that. I do get that. And just tried to figure out, where do we go from here? And so so all of that has happened.
This verse specifically is about the women who watched, again, have given their lives to following Jesus, watch him die in this horrible way. See his body taken down by Joseph who's gone to Pilate and said, hey, can I take care of his body and bury it? And Pilate said, sure. So he takes the body and they the Bible says in the verse just before this, that they watched him lay the body in this tomb. And then, we get to 23 verse 56.
So we're Luke twenty three fifty six. Can I have somebody read that for me, please? Thank you.
Oh, yeah.
I mean,
there you go. We
can put it up on the yeah.
Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Okay.
I don't remember which version I put up here. I think it's m l t. What did you just read from? Is it the ESV? New James.
New King James. Okay. So on mine, it says I can't look that way. It's really awkward. Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body.
But by the time they were finished, the Sabbath had begun, so they rested as required by the law. Anything stick out to you? This verse screamed at me for the first time ever. I've seen it before. I've read it before.
Anything stick out to you?
It's the Sabbath, and it is the Greek.
Yeah. Like I said before, when we observe Sabbath, there's a lot of exceptions. Don't you think that of all the times to have an exception to following observing Sabbath, this is the day. This is the day. And to try and and mix my experience of Sabbath and my experience of, you know, the exceptions that we have put over it, and the grief and the and the horror and the trauma of what they're experiencing in that day.
And to come home with potentially just no more strength left in their bodies, no more tears left because they've cried it all out. They've they've yelled what wasn't fair as well. They've they're feeling it, not just in their hearts, but in their whole bodies. And it's the son of God. It's Jesus' body.
Like, Sabbath is a holy rhythm, but I'm pretty sure decaying bodies don't stop decaying. Right? Like, what they were doing was so necessary in the time period. Right? That they needed to take care of and properly prepare his body in that situation.
But the Bible says that so the tradition is what Sabbath is that that Friday night when, somebody spots the first star in the sky, that's kind of your cue that Sabbath has begun. And in a traditional sense, people who observe it now, there is there's the first star in the sky, families and friends have been preparing for it, getting their last, you know, things from the market and and finishing up their work and everything. And then, they gather together, generally around a table and it begins with a feast. And it begins with sitting around a table with your family and friends, lighting candles. They're they sing a a worship song or a blessing over the candles.
And basically, the idea of that blessing is that we are acknowledging that God brings us this light. And then, they break the bread. And there's another song sung and another recalibration, another fixing their eyes on Jesus to say, it's God who brings us this life from the earth. And then they they sing over the the wine and it is again a blessing where they're recalibrating and they're focusing on God and saying, praise to you God who brings us fruit from the vine. You're our source.
You're our provider. All of this life is because of you. And so, like the precedent set in the Garden of Eden, they they their day is spent stopping from the work and the anxiety and all the things, but also celebrating God's goodness, and getting their eyes fixed back on God, and being able to say, you're our source. You bring us life. You bring us light.
You bring us fruit. And there's nothing that we can do without you. That's how Sabbath is established and and practiced. And so to think about that night when Jesus' disciples and these women who've already started the work of preparing the spices and the ointments to be able to come home. And when that first star come appears to set it all aside and stop and rest, I personally, it blows my mind.
I can't imagine how they're able to do that. Did they did they gather with friends and family around the table? Did they sing praises to God or were they so angry? Right? Or were they so disappointed that that was that they were choking on the words as they're trying to, you know, acknowledge God who brings us life, who brings us the fruit of the vine.
What was that like? The verse that the only verse we have is here. It says, so they rested as required by the law. I would I would guess as required by the law means they did gather around the table. They did sing those blessings.
And here's where I believe the power of recalibration comes into play because the they were able to do it. And I I I think there's a possibility that they didn't choke on the words. Mhmm. I think that there's a possibility that they were not just going through the motions, but, Amanda mentioned this last week, but they were falling back to the level of their training. Every seventh day from the first week of their lives, they have been recalibrating to God's rhythm of rest first and then work.
Every seven days, we set it all aside and we worship God as our creator and as our provider. Every seven days, which adds up to in a lifetime ten years ten years worth of twenty four hours Sabbath spent. And so, I think that the power accessible in that recalibration is that if you are recalibrating on a regular basis to God's rhythm, remembering that he's the good shepherd, that he is leading you to green pastures, he's leading you besides rivers of rest. Mhmm. He's restoring your soul, and you are every seven days, you get not just your your mind involved or your heart involved, but your physical body involved in stopping and remembering, speaking those words out of your mouth, praising him for his goodness.
That just when those first twenty four hours when Rachel passed away, for me, I I all I could fall back to was autopilot. The level of my training in that moment was I could I could get myself from one room to the other. If somebody talked to me, I could, you know, get some words out and respond back. I could just I just fell back to what I could do on autopilot. And that's the beauty
of
recalibration. Because if your autopilot is to fix your eyes on God, to stop, to rest, to worship God for his goodness, then even on the darkest, darkest day of your life, that is what you'll fall back to, and that's the power that you have accessible to you. The day that Jesus died was not the day to start practicing Sabbath. It is something that begins now. And it and it's like I said, it was a lifetime of practice for them before they were able to tap into that.
Let's see. I think that the power, because you can't wait until the until you're on the front lines to prepare for battle, that all happens in boot camp way back at the beginning. Right? Where you're training and you're you're dealing with the hard hard situations, but they're simulated. I almost said stimulated.
That wouldn't make sense. They're simulated. Right? So there's not any real danger in it yet because you're training and you're preparing. Mhmm.
That's why I believe that now is the time to recalibrate. Now is the time to prepare yourself for those days because when if you can stop and fix your eyes on God and worship him on the good days,
Mhmm.
Then, you will be prepared for when the darkest days of your life hit to still stop, fix your eyes on God and worship him Mhmm. As your creator, as the giver of life. This is the value in recalibration, specifically, obviously, I've been talking about Sabbath, I do believe that so many of the spiritual disciplines that we are invited to, not commanded to do, but invited to, whether it's reading our bible, or prayer, or fasting, or worshiping. Those things are all recalibration that if we begin now, that they provide they will provide the power that you're gonna need when the days are dark. I think there's two different there's two more takeaways from this.
Number one, this goes back to what my pastor said when I was when we were living in Oklahoma. His name is Willie George. And he used to always say, after every death, there is a glorious resurrection. He said it with a lot more twang than I can come up with right now.
I'm gonna try it.
Good old local event. Oh, no. No. No. Anyways and it was always just this this, like, I don't know, like, intangible out there statement.
After every death, there's a glorious resurrection. I mean, I get it. Jesus died and then he was resurrected. So I get that part. But, like, every death?
After every death? And I began to see and understand more that God is saying, this is my rhythm. And, actually, if you look through the bible we don't have time to do all that right now. But, as you're reading through the bible and my prayer is that as you go from here and you read through the bible, you'll start to see that rhythm in the bible and in the stories of things that would look like all hope was lost, but but God. Right?
So I'm let's see. So I wanna I wanna, speak to two things. Number one, if you're like, well, that sounds great, but I'm already in the Saturday of my life. It feels like all hope is lost. Everything that I was planning my life for, everything that I was banking on, everything that I've been striving towards, gone.
Or you've create or you have some sort of you've had some sort of maybe a a literal death in your life, but it or something that has happened that has pulled all the hope out. To be if you're in that dark time right now, I want to remind you that just because you're not seeing something happening right now, like I said, the bible doesn't give us any indication that the disciples or any of them were like, just wait guys. He's coming back. They were all hiding and locking themselves in rooms and pulling away from everybody. So, they didn't see any hope in that either.
And to imagine the absolute devastation that they were going through, even though they could not see, What they Actually, what they could see was Jesus' body getting buried in a tomb. Mhmm. That's what they could see. And so, if you feel like you're in that desperate, horrible, grieving moment and something has died that was supposed to be it for you. It could be a relationship, it could be a job, it
could
be it could be anything related to money. It it could be any of those things that we were putting our hope into, and it's gone. Sunday's coming. I just wanna encourage you that even though you can't see any of it, we have the foresight and we already know the end of the story. That's not the end of the story.
The end of the story is not watching Jesus' dead body get laid in the tomb. The end of the story is Sunday is coming. Jesus comes back and he rises from the dead and he defeats death, the ultimate bad guy, and now Satan has no power. He takes the keys back. He is he is alive now.
That's the end of the story. That's the part to get excited about. Right? And I just want you to know that if as we recalibrate to God's rhythm, we can understand I like it. Keep going.
Keep going. Lord? He's excited too. As we recalibrate to his rhythm, we can know that no matter whether we feel it or not, no matter whether there's hope that we can physically see with our eyes or not, Sunday is coming. Hallelujah.
The resurrection is coming. Now, it's not necessarily going to look the way that you expect it to look. Gosh, I would have loved for Rachel to literally have been raised from the dead the next day. That would have been wonderful. That's not how it came for me.
But, there is a resurrection in the form of friendships. There is a resurrection in the form of relationship. Even with God, my relationship with God has grown through this as opposed to losing it completely. There's a resurrection coming for you. And, you know, we actually the picture that we have is of Jesus.
He actually he had he was in his resurrected body, and he was familiar, but he was different. Right? Because the the men on the road to Emmaus didn't recognize him right away. And even Mary in the garden, was talking to him and thought he was a gardener, which what a beautiful picture, but we won't get into that. But but she he has to say her name, and then she finally realizes who it is.
So that resurrection may not look exactly like you're expecting it to look, but that doesn't mean it's not coming. It's coming. And we all have an opportunity to be able to hope in God that even when we're in our dark Saturday night, that Sunday is coming. So, there's hope in all of this, but also, again, I just want to emphasize the I'll get to you. One second.
I just want to emphasize that right now, the call or the invitation is to developing spiritual disciplines in your life, to preparing yourself so that when you do fall back to level of your training or you fall back to autopilot, where are you going to be when you're on autopilot? Are you gonna be able to fix your eyes on Jesus and worship him as good? Go ahead. I have a comment over here. Go ahead.
Good morning. I just wanted to basically tie everything together because as I was, you know, listening to your message and rereading verse 56, I mean, as we could have all understood that the women would have, you know, even in in today's day, would be like, oh, well, I think this is more important. I think it's more important to stay and continue making spices and to return to the tomb to do it right now on the Sabbath. Mhmm. But I just think that what's instructive is the fact that it was so important for them to rest in that when they would or had they returned, don't know if if the story would have happened the way it did where when they did return, the tomb was the tomb stone was removed and there was nobody there to spice.
Mhmm. So so basically, it is that they could have in their own human interpretation felt it more important to continue working on that day, to continue preparing the spices and to go ahead and to to put that upon his body because that's what they thought was more important. But instead, in the law or in whatever way that God wanted it to happen, they did rest. Mhmm. And it was able to cause for what we know a resurrection because there was no spicing needed because there was a whole other plan than what they would have perceived is a better way of spending the Sabbath.
Mhmm.
Yes. I love that. I love that in their own strength and what they would have thought was best. How much of my life have I operated according to that? What I think is best.
Again, I'm taking that judge's gavel and saying, this is good, instead of allowing God to say, no, no, no, is good. This is good. And how much of my life have I spent, you know, maybe maybe like Peter taking that gavel and on that night saying, I am bad. I just denied him to his face. I deserve punishment.
How much how many times in my life have I done something and decided as my own judge, well, now I'm not worthy. Now I deserve to punish myself or withhold things for myself or withhold myself from other situations because I've done this bad thing. And God says, no, no, no. I don't think that there was any, judgment in Jesus' eyes when he looked at Peter that last time. Any judgment that would have come on Peter would have been his own doing.
Jesus knew what was going on. He was not judging and like, oh, now you're terrible. That's it. I'm writing you off. Jesus knew exactly what was going on in that, and I believe there was only love in his eyes.
And depending on where Peter was, mentally and spiritually, he could have either taken that love and accepted it and said, he he loves me. Or he could have taken that love and said, I don't deserve that. I definitely don't deserve that. That was misplaced. I'm I'm gonna go lock myself in a room right now.
Are there any other I I didn't give a lot of pauses for people to interject, so let's take this time now. But if there is there anybody else who something was bubbling up or stirring inside of you as we were talking?
God has been talking to me a long time about needing the Sabbath. And then just kind of restating what I just heard was stop doing what you think is best, what you think needs to be done so you can receive the best God has for you. Mhmm. That's good.
Anybody else?
The thought I was having when we were reading that scripture is just remembering that I'm remembering God's ways are so different than our innate human flesh ways. You know, like the world tells you like panic. Mhmm. Things are terrible in the world like panic and the Lord says, rest? Mhmm.
Like, horrible is happening and the, you know, the world loves to create a swirl and and, you know, we've all had, you know, certain friends or things that they wanna add to that swirl and the Lord's like, his ways are just so much higher than our ways. His ways are it's such an upside down way that our flesh thinks, you know, and so I'm just reminding myself when my innate reaction happens, let that be a moment for me to recalibrate. K. My flesh is saying to do this. Mhmm.
The Lord is saying to do the opposite of that of what my flesh is feeling in this moment. Mhmm. To take that deep breath into like, okay, Lord, your peace it says that if I don't worry that your peace will surpass all understanding. Like, I don't have to understand it. In fact, I won't understand it.
Mhmm. Because it's higher than our ways. It's it's different than what the world has to offer. And that I was just remembering while we were talking about resting is before I knew the Lord, was 23 years old and that was my very first prayer. I was in just a anxiety swirl and I just said, Lord, if you are real, could you give me peace?
And he did. It was the most tangible thing I could have ever experienced. And I was like, oh my goodness, like, is this real? I couldn't wait to get alone and try this thing again of like, Lord, are you real? Could you really give me peace?
We just can't underestimate what his peace does in our life when we just make the time to rest. Like Lee said, to step into his green pasture, that's our part. Mhmm. And for him to send his peace.
Yes. Yeah. Lee, wrote down what you said. I will give you rest. I will restore your strength.
And then, let's say, also wrote down what you said, it's your choice to go into that green pasture. And, you know, going back to Psalm 23, he is the good shepherd. We are the sheep, and we may be kind of dumb and fall over and can't even pick ourselves up every once in a while, but also he wants to lead us into those good, green pastures. He wants to restore our soul. I believe that in our in our practice of Sabbath for us as a family, I don't I don't think that there's ever been a time that we've made an accept an exception, and God is, like, again, pronounced judgment on us.
But I do believe that we could have accessed that much more power by not making those exceptions. Regardless of if we do it or don't do it, I think that that is a choice that we can make, and again, it's an invitation. But the invitation is if you were to really not even make any exceptions, that much more power is accessible to you on the level of your Messiah dying, and you can still rest. I believe that that applies to to all of the spiritual disciplines. Like, there is a power that's accessible in that.
And, the more that we are guiding along God's paths of righteousness and following that, the more power that's acceptable. I have to I have to believe that that's the case. It's like prayer. If I don't believe that if I don't pray, things don't happen, and on the flip side, which means that if if I pray, things happen on either side of those, then what's the point of praying? It's not just the motion that we're going through.
There is something that happens in the spiritual realm when I pray. Our prayers are powerful. It's necessary. And when I and along those lines with with spiritual disciplines and Sabbath or fasting or anything like that, when we do it, we are accessing a level of power that just continues to grow when we do it. And when we choose not to, it's only we're just we're missing out.
We're not we're not being judged. God isn't upset or angry at us, but he's like, here's the invitation again. There's more power available. You can also you can keep on going with that. And that that's the opportunity that we have.
I'm gonna take a two second shameless plug for starting a small group, which I believe Liz is gonna talk about a little bit more in a second. But I am leading a four week small group on the spiritual discipline of fasting. And, like I said, I believe that it's the same principle, that we're gonna have a time to just dig in and to get our bodies involved in something that God has invited us to do. Sabbath gets our bodies involved in the sense of resting and stopping and celebrating. And fasting is another spiritual discipline that gets our bodies involved in cutting off the access access to well, to of our flesh.
And when I say our flesh, I'm not saying, like, our physical bodies. I'm talking about flesh in a more, like, you know, spiritual way. But instead of feeding the flesh, feeding the spirit. And, again, the more that we do that, the more that we have that time where we take ourselves through some uncomfortability and continue to fix our eyes on Jesus in the midst of that. And in our weakness, you're made strong.
And I am a living sacrifice, literally sacrificing right now the desires in my body to give to you that we are accessing and we are able to when we hit our dark Saturday, we're able to fall back in our autopilot is to fix our eyes back on God. Mhmm. I've been in rough times before. I've denied my flesh before. I've had times where I did not feel comfortable.
I did not like it, but I fixed my eyes on God. And and, you know, like, pastor Brian talks about the feast. There's a time that we can say, oh, this is that. This is that that you've talked about in the Bible, or this is that that we've been practicing even, I think. And, I'm ready.
Okay. This is not simulation. In battle, it is front lines. But I'm ready because I've had all of this training before. I'm gonna pray real quick, and then I just want us after I'm done praying, just be still for a moment and allow the Holy Spirit to continue to make that, as pastor Brian would say, 18 inch drop from your thinker to your knower, and how this applies to you.
Also, I want you to know that in my in the moment of quiet, your the invitation remains open that if God is sharing something that you feel you need to share with the rest of us, that invitation is still open as well. So, let's pray. Lord God, thank you so much for the rhythm that you have created, and what a beautiful rhythm that begins with rest. It's so much easier than the rhythm that we put on ourselves to work, work, work, toil, toil, toil, and then maybe take a rest. Lord, help us to understand your rhythm, to recalibrate to your rhythm in the way you have designed for our best life now.
I pray, Lord, that each person within the sound of my voice would know in their heart of hearts what the next right thing is for them. Taking this message, taking this revelation from your word, and applying it to their lives. That they would see you, hopefully, as Peter saw you in those last moments, look with the eyes of love and the eyes of all knowing and non judgment to say, my son, my son, I love you. This isn't a surprise. I still love you.
I'm still going to the cross for you. Lord, open our eyes to see you guiding us into those green pastures and along the rivers of rest, restoring our soul. And that even when we do walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we're walking and you're with us. That as hopeless as our situations may feel for those that are in, what somebody else term the dark night of the soul, help us to know, Lord, Sunday is coming. It's coming.
We may not see it. We may not understand how any of that could be resurrected. But after whatever this death is, there is a glorious resurrection coming, and I pray that you stir that hope up within us and that expectation that that Sunday is coming, and we give you the glory and the honor for that in Jesus' name. Again, the invitation is open to share if you have something burning in your heart. Otherwise, let's just take a moment to do business with God.
Thank you, Joy, for being so vulnerable too. Oh, Lord, we just ask that we wouldn't just hear these words, but that we would consider them whatever's uncomfortable. If you're touching our hearts, if you're speaking to our spirit that we would not try and wiggle out of it, but that we would be convicted by your spirit. Let's be still before you. I just felt like as Joy was just wrapping up, you know, I always sometimes words are they're easy to hear, but then it's like the how.
How do I do that? How do I step into a green past ure? How how do I do that? And I just felt like the Lord just say, all you have to do is just come to him. And how do you do that?
You just say, Lord, I need you. Lord, I don't know how to rest. It's hard for me, but will you show me? Sorry.
He
just says come to him. Just let him just the Holy Spirit just minister your heart for me, and the Lord just sing over you. He would say,
come to me and I will give you rest. Come to me. Let him sing over this. I will give you rest. He says, come to me.
Be quiet and be blessed when you lay, when you lay your burdens down. Yes, sir. Come to me. You come to me. And I will give you rest.
Let the Lord sing this over him. Come to me, be quiet and be blessed. Come to me, come to me, and I will give you rest. He says come to me. Be quiet and be blessed.
Lord, we come to you. Lord, we come to you.
We thank you that we can find peace and rest in you even when our hearts are torn in two. Even when there's a swirl of grief around us or just chaos and busyness, Lord, we know that we can always come to you. But it's our part to step into that green pasture. That's what I will take away from today. Lord, let me be reminded by your spirit that I need to step into that pasture of your peace and your grace and your rest because it is always available to us.
You made a way. Oh, we praise you for it in Jesus' name. Thank you, Joy. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. Clay. Please.
A week from Wednesday, Jacob and I will be starting a men's group, 20 and over. 07:00 here. It's a focus on the family. The truth project is kind of a a series on suffering through and then recover, the stages of suffering. So there'll be a video and discussion, and I may bring something to eat.
I don't know, but we'll we'll see. There'll be plenty of drinks here, and I may bring some goodies for for the for the men. So that starts a week from Wednesday.
Love it. Great transition. I was gonna say there's we're so one of our core values at Tribe is connecting through community. And like this room is pretty full today. We actually have a few empty seats which is amazing.
But there's a whole another group on Tuesdays that fill this room as well. And so we really like, it's mostly primarily our young adults. We didn't design it that way. That just tends to be when they gather because there's also food there too and they work on weekends. So but Tuesday is is a is a service just like this.
We just also have dinner, we want we've really been praying about a way to get our whole tribe family together for our wiser, more mature I've been putting myself I'll blame that, not the older people to be with the younger people who also have so much to offer and bring so much life. So we have four small groups starting up. I'm actually just gonna send the details out to everyone so you can look at them. They are on the refrigerator. There are sign ups.
Everything that is important happens and put is put on your refrigerator. Right? So there's so much stuff on there. There's a men's group. There's a women's group that Lanisha is gonna lead.
And if you don't know Lanisha, you will be blessed by being any part of study with her and they're gonna do a book study, I believe. And then there's the fasting group and an outdoor group. So if you love to commit connect through community by doing stuff outside together, that's gonna be an awesome group as well. So the whole goal is to connect through community and however which way you do that best. So check those out.
Also, when Joy was talking about recalibrating, I know for me one of a big change in my life of recalibrating an area of our life was when Brian and I were living in Tulsa and we had always learned about tithing and you know that you you need I think I always kind of thought you just need to give back. I was raised Catholic so my mom had those envelopes, you know, like for every Sunday of the entire year and I I never that's how I kinda like learned about tithing was my mom had an envelope and they actually had a set amount on it and it had a week and well, my mom was
like, I forgot the envelope,
you know, like, but they were so faithful that way. But I remember the Lord really talking to us about our finances and recalibrating our mind that everything that we have is the Lord's. That's right. And I used to think that I was giving up something of mine and the Lord was like, oh, that's so cute that you think that.
It's all mine anyway.
And so I just remember a time when we lived in Tulsa and times were tough and Brian was in school and we had two littles at home and we stood out in the driveway one day and we had a shoebox and we put all our checkbooks, we put our savings account, we put whatever money we had in the shoebox. I don't know why. But we did a ceremony and I just remember saying with the kids and I don't know if, Saylee, you remember this, but we're standing in the driveway and we just held a shoebox up and we said, Lord, this is all yours. And today, we put your name on the checkbook. We put your name on the savings account.
It's all yours. But Lord, we believe that you wanna flow your resources through us and so we need to be faithful now so that when the resources are large or small, you can trust us. So anyway, I just as we bring our tithe and offering today, there it's really easy here at Tribe. You can text it. There's a black box.
We don't pass buckets. If you have a local church and this is not it, tithe to your local church. But Lord, we just say to you, recalibrate our hearts about what belongs to you. Everything we have belongs to you, including our finances. Sometimes that is the hardest thing because it comes from the sweat of our brow and the work of our hands and so somehow we we tend to get off balance and think that it is ours but it's all yours and we are blessed with it.
So freely we have been blessed and freely we give. So bless our tithe and offering today and we just say thank you. Thank you Jesus. Let us be so generous to others with our finances as you have been to us in whichever way you lead us to do that. Amen.
Christian will throw a text to give up there whatever way is easiest for you to give if you wanna give to tribe, but again, tied to your local church or where the Lord's leading you. Small groups, touched on that. There's a bunch of stuff. The tribe mountain adventures, like I said, is starting up, and those are just adventures to connect together. There's some we're gonna serve at the Wind River Reservation that's on there in June.
So just check out the refrigerator. And then so last thing and then we'll get you out of here. So on Mother's Day, met at the Virginian and we because we were like full to overflowing here every Sunday. Mother's Day, all the moms I assume are like, for Mother's Day, I want everyone to go to church together. So Mother's Day is always so full.
So we met at the Virginian and, you know, we are always looking for tribes space where we're supposed to meet. A little bit of backstory was that we were meeting at the Snow King Ballroom and then COVID hit, they stopped renting. Bob via the Holy Spirit said, go look at these live work units because we needed something for all the other things we do. I mean, this building has something happening in it every day of the week. Like, there's stuff here every night happening here.
So this building is a huge blessing. But you can see Sundays, we we kind of have outgrown our little space. It's hard for visitors in the summer. So Mother's Day, we tried meeting at the Virginian. We met in the saloon.
The kids met in the little front seating area where the Billy's Burger seating is gonna be. And we tried it and it felt like an event. It felt good and they loved having us, but it felt like an event because I think in mine and Brian's mind, we're like, we're just gonna give this one try. And what we do know that we are not willing to compromise in what the Lord has said is this family vibe is what we're called to. Who would he ever change that and go back to what Brian and I call big church because we've served big churches too?
Maybe. But for right now, the Lord says this family where everyone can talk to each other and we can all see each other is is what tribe is supposed to keep. So how do you do those two? How do you fit more people and get everybody together and do all that and keep this element that we love? And so we brought it to the pastor's council who had great things to say and our board.
And we have decided that we're going to try. Brian had said after we met the Virginian, talked about he felt like he was wearing Saul's armor at the Virginian. He was preaching on that. And we had talked a lot about that, you know, because he had to like he had a handheld mic and he wasn't sitting here and getting up and doing whatever, you know, how we how we do here. And so we decided that we were gonna give the Virginian a four week try for Sunday service starting next week.
And what we're praying about is can we keep this vibe and this intimacy in that space? We'll see. We'll find out.
Only one
way to find out.
But here was the big kicker. The big kicker was that we need more space for our tribe kids. We can and one of our core values at tribe is connecting through community and building strong families. It's really hard to build strong families when you can't fit your kids safely in an environment. I mean, there's people if you haven't been downstairs while they're trying to do kids downstairs, people come in late, they're going in through the door.
It's just and then we had been able to use the unit next to us for the first year while we were here, and then they actually sold that or the guy moved in. So we we actually had to downsize since we've been in here. So we went back to the Virginia and we said, is there any way that we could use that massive conference room for our kids? We'll all cram into the saloon if the kids can have that huge open space that they're safe and play? And they came back and they said, yeah.
So normally they rent that for $3,000 a time and they came back and said that we could have it for 700. So it's still more money and we still have a mortgage here but we just we we don't not feel the peace of the Lord, but we also don't hear a huge green light. So we're we're just kinda throwing a fleece out. We're gonna do it for four weeks. We're gonna see if we can keep this vibe.
We do get a ton of visitors in the summer. We wanna have a place to welcome them. And we're also kind of viewing it as a little bit of an outreach, you know, just making more space for the people that need to join us. Tuesday is gonna stay exactly the same. If you're just like, I ain't going to the Virginian for whatever reason, that is totally fine.
Come on Tuesday. So will you just will you just pray with us for that we just hear the peace of the Lord? I mean, you can imagine behind the scenes, Brian and I, this is a constant, constant conversation. We need to
say the TMC. We need a bigger space. We need a oh, like, Lord, what are you doing?
And so it's all good things. Lord, we just come before you. Yes, Jesus. And we just lay down. Tribe, you are the senior pastor of this church.
We will go. We will do whatever it is you say. We just need to hear you clearly. So we're stepping out to feel your peace just like Joy was talking about. We're just gonna step out and and see, is your peace there?
Can we can we continue to do church and gather the way we feel like you've called us that this wonderful blessing of a space showed us and turned our cat around about what church needed to look like? We just ask that you would send the provision for that, for those extra finances, for that extra space. We pray families would come that wouldn't have normally come and they would meet you. That's our ultimate goal that they would meet you. And if we need to do that by creating more space for their precious littles, then that's what we'll do.
So we just ask for your provision. We ask for your peace. And that if that is not the space, Lord, show us. We just have open hands. We give it all to you.
We thank you for everything. We surrender to you again today. Thank you for the word that was brought forth today. Let it bear much fruit in our lives. Teach us more and more about resting in you and who you are.
We love you Jesus. Thank you for every precious heart in this room today. We pray as we leave this place that you would continue to speak to us. Thank you that you're never done with us. You're constantly rewriting our story.
In Jesus' name. Everybody said Amen. Amen. Any last thoughts? Anybody have?
Going once? Going twice? Alright.
Chris, welcome back from your honeymoon. You know how it is in Jackson. You gotta do your honeymoon when you can do your honeymoon. Chris and Keisha are one year? Two
years. What? And they finally got
to go on their honeymoon,
so welcome back. Thank you, guys. Have a great day. Have a great day.
And like Brian always says, in the Lord, you got this.
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