Observing the Sabbath and Listening to a Sermon

welcome back to Everyday disciples, the show

where we try to follow Jesus wherever we are. And Pastor

Matthew St. Matthews, online pastor, and I'm so glad that

you're here with us today. On today's episode, we are slowing

down and we're resting as we talk about the practice of

Sabbath. Most of us if we think about it at all, probably think

about Sabbath as Sunday morning, going to church. But there's so

much more to it than that. And our culture today is so in need

of the blessings that Sabbath brings. Then in our second

segment, I sit down with Pastor Rob, to talk about a skill that

probably none of us were ever actually taught how to listen to

a sermon. When you go to church, or when you watch online and you

hear the pastor deliver a sermon. What do you do with

that? How do you respond to it or apply to your life and, and

get something out of it? You know, as pastors, we put a lot

of time and effort into preparing a sermon, but the work

doesn't stop with us. There's a lot of great stuff ahead. So

let's dig in. While I'm sitting again, with CJ and Aiden, here

to talk a little bit about some theological topics on our

podcast is we're back here. And this morning, we're talking

about a topic that I know is near and dear to all of our

hearts. But I know Aiden is a big, big champion of this one.

This is the hill I die on apparently it kind of is.

It's

it's one of those things he's known for

around here. And it's talking about Sabbath, talking about the

Sabbath, and certainly what that what that means as far as our

our spiritual rhythms and our spiritual life. It's a it's a

pattern that's laid out for us in Scripture. And so I just kind

of want to start first of all talking about what is Sabbath?

Or maybe even starting by when when Christians hear the word

Sabbath today, what maybe comes to their mind first, when they

hear that? What do you guys think

one of the first things that comes to my mind is

the seven day you can bring it all the way back to Genesis and

how God rested and enjoyed his creation on the seventh day.

Sure, I think people probably go to that.

Certainly work gets introduced.

Culturally, the Sabbath is understood. It's

just, it's Sunday. And so you aren't supposed to do any big

work like, I don't know, maybe you're not supposed to mow your

lawn on the Sabbath on Sundays, or you're not supposed to do any

laundry? No doing or I don't know, is that one that some

people would have? Or like Chick fil A and how you're both

closed? Because it's Sunday, and it's the Sabbath, and it's the

the holy day. So it's the day that we rest and and granted for

and so you sit you watch the bears because it's Sunday and

that kind of thing. That's what God did, apparently, yeah. He

watched the bears. If God was a Bears fan, he would I take

comfort, knowing God's just as miserable as I

am. Alright, well. I know for me growing up

like in the in the Lutheran church and Lutheran School, one

of the things that we had to do was memorize the Catechism. And

Luther always talked about in the, in his explanation to the

commandments. The explanation to the third commandment was like

you just said about worship, you know, gladly that, oh, gosh,

now, I've memorized this so long ago, I should have it still, you

know, ready, that we should like gladly hear God's word and learn

it that we shouldn't despise the Lord's Day and his teaching. So

Luther made this really strong connection to Sunday, and kind

of the activities of worship when he talked about the

Sabbath. And that was, I think, maybe kind of how that was

ingrained for me for a long time. I know when I first came

to town here in Grand Rapids, lived in a suburb of Byron

Center for a while, and talked to some folks who started coming

to our church out of a different Christian tradition around here

that they mentioned, like, in Byron Center on Sundays, even

when I first moved up here 15 years ago, like you didn't wash

your clothes and hang them outside, because people would

know you were working. And you weren't supposed to do that on a

Sunday, like that was still a big deal. And I was like,

really? That just seems so foreign to me that that we

didn't do those sorts of things. So the average person's probably

somewhere in the mix of all of this, right? They're they're

thinking about it's either church. When we hear Sabbath,

we're thinking about the day, as it's talked about in Genesis.

There's maybe all sorts of things people think of when they

think of Sabbath. So what is Sabbath? Really? Aiden, you want

to? Since this is your thing you want to you want to tell us? How

do you define Sabbath to like the youth group when they talk

about it?

I don't know how I got pegged as like the Sabbath

guy around here, like wow, why am I I don't know. But one of

the things you've talked about it, I've used value at high.

Yes, not that the rest of us don't I value it too. If that's

what I'm known by, that's fine. I am happy about that. Um, so

the word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which means

to cease or to stop. And so when we think of the Sabbath,

culturally or even just inside the church, the Sabbath is for

ceasing and for stopping and the words associated with that is

usually rest or relaxation, that kind of thing. We we get the

idea of this Sabbath day from like CJ said earlier, the order

of creation where God worked, and he created for six days, and

then the seventh day he rested. And he delighted in his

creation, that we're delight, I think is one that we've kind of

separate, not separated completely from the Sabbath,

because usually you do some good things on it. But we don't

intentionally do restful, good celebratory things on the

Sabbath. And I think that's kind of what it's it's meant for is

we we treat the Sabbath day, not only as a day for us to rest,

but to celebrate and to look at what we've done in the week

before, and to really just enjoy our creation, our work that we

have done just like God did, on the seventh day in the garden.

So

and that's what I love about really helping

people understand what, what Sabbath is really all about.

When we when we unhook it from going to church, that we kind

of, in our culture, we lump it along to it just means Sabbath

is church that hour on Sunday, that no, it's when you watch the

Old Testament, like you just said in Genesis were God sets

the stamp as rest, as you watch the Exodus as he's like, Okay,

I'm going to give you twice as much on Friday, so that you can

be ready on Saturday, and, you know, go collect that and you

rest and you just enjoy my creation. And trust that God

will provide like, boy that opens up a whole wider picture

to what Sabbath is that it's not just going to church. In fact,

we've we've kind of mentioned it a couple times already here that

in the Old Testament, it's the seventh day, which is Saturday.

It's I think it's sundown on Friday until sundown

on Saturday, right? I think Orthodox Jews still observe it

in that short timeframe. And

that's and that's from from Genesis one,

you know, there was evening and there was morning the first day.

That's how how they reckoned time back then. Anything, we're

really not all that different, right? Our day begins at

midnight in the middle of the night. So it's really not that

far off. But for the Old Testament, it was Saturday. Now

today, most of us think of Sabbath as Sunday, the day that

we do worship. But what if it's not even connected to a specific

day?

Yeah. And personally, I don't think it is.

I think of Sabbath as like our intentional time during the day,

because it's not just like the holy day, but it's the only time

we take we set aside intentionally for worship in our

rest, to delight in the creation that we have, and the work that

we've gotten to do alongside God, not the stuff that we have

done by ourselves. But the stuff that we have seen. God has

partnered with me, I've partnered with him in my job

this week, in my work in my vocation in my school and my

like, whatever you have done in the week leading up to your

Sabbath, if that is on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, who knows. That

is the time that you get to really just look back and say, I

God and I have really just had a good week, or maybe gotten I

have not had a good week. But I hope next week is a good one.

And I'm just gonna look at all the things that He has blessed

me with, and all the ways that I have just tried to serve others

and love people well, and I'm going to celebrate that on this

day on the Sabbath. So like me, for example, when I was in

college was when I first started practicing Sabbath every week.

And being a college student like your your schedule, there's, if

there's any consistency, it's it's just haphazard all the time

anyway. And so my Sabbath, quote unquote, was from 9pm on Monday

nights, when I would get back from the the youth group that I

lead. So it'd be 9pm on Mondays until 4pm on Tuesdays when I go

to my first class. And so it was like, not even a full 24 hours.

Tuesday. So like it's not the day of worship, it's just the

middle of the week.

Right? Or Dave rest. Yeah. Well, even just so

pulling back the curtain a little bit of to the the four of

us that are sitting in this room, so Aiden and CJ and me and

then Adam, who's over there recording this for us. We're

recording this on a Sunday when all of us had work to do here.

CJ is a volunteer, but had had a job to do today and Aiden

teaching youth and me playing organ and Adam leading worship.

I mean, it was we're all involved in different ways.

Today, Sundays typically are not a restful day for us. We're all

we're all doing our work here.

Yeah. Or the church staff. So if we're, if we're not

resting on site, right, oh, gosh,

right. We are the Yeah, the professional

Christians here. So I know for me for you right now like in my

life, my Sabbath tends to be Friday tends to be Saturday

depends on kind of what the schedule is. Always try to have

that. But you know, there's some times that the the schedule just

dictates you can't and things get out of your control. But

boy, those weeks that I have it always better always better when

I take that data to rest and recharge.

And my stay is very similar. I work Monday through

Friday, and Sunday is typically a busier day for me so I tried

to do my Sabbath on Saturday. But I had a question what is

like the rest in the ceasing work? Where does that draw a

line? Because we saw Jesus heal during the Sabbath, like the

Sabbath doesn't necessarily mean we sit and do nothing. So I

guess where does that where's that line?

That's certainly something that they

wrestled with around the time of Jesus, because that's when you

had all of the rabbis and stuff kind of coming up with. Okay,

we're supposed to rest. So what does it mean? And let's start to

let's start to define what is rest mean? What is how many? How

many steps can you take, and it still be rest? How much can you

do and it still be rest? And as humans, I think we'd like to do

that we like to, we like to figure out what the letter of

the law

is. We'd like to find the line and then tow it as

much as we Oh,

absolutely. I mean, if the speed limit is 55

mile an hour, how much how many of us are going 54. Right? We

are right up on that line, but

here is going 58? Yes.

Present company and yeah, we we want to, we want

to find that line and push it. Where I think so much of what,

especially what Jesus does for us in the gospels in the Sermon

on the Mount, is he takes that letter of the law, and then kind

of reveals, what's the spirit behind it? What you know, where

he does the, you know, just because you haven't murdered

somebody, if, if you hate them in your heart, like, that's just

as bad. Well, the letter of the law said, don't kill Jesus

reveals like it's more than just that. So the Sabbath, it's not

about like, did you? Did you just sit and not do anything

today? It's not about that. It's I think, as Aiden said before,

it's Did you reflect on God's goodness in your life? Did you?

Did you trust him to provide today that you didn't feel like

you had to do something so that, you know, God didn't have to do

it? That's, that's what God calls us to do on His Sabbath.

Now, can you do that? We were saying, just before we hit

record here, that I find that I get recharged on my days off by

mowing my lawn. I look forward to that. Partly because as a

pastor, it's like I can, I can actually see something start and

finish, which you don't often get to do in ministry. And that

just brings my soul tremendous joy. And plus, it only takes me

like 45 minutes or so it's not like it's a huge thing. I get to

be outside and get some of that exercise. And it's just a good,

good thing. I enjoy that. So yeah, I can't can you then they

would have counted that as work. But for me, that's a relaxing

thing.

If something for Matt, for example, might be

restful, like mowing the lawn, that would not be wrestle for

me. So I would not do that. But he and I have because we know

ourselves well enough, we probably will have a slightly

different definition of things that are going to be row and how

Sabbath expresses itself. Exactly. Yeah. So like me, for

example, I try to think of something that I would do on a

Saturday. Like I would wake up at seven I'd wake up early in

the morning to watch soccer. Matt, would you do that? I would

not do exactly so for other things, but not for soccer.

Yeah, so you don't do that I do that and like that's something

that I find a lot of very life giving and a very joyful for me

are like you don't you're not a coffee drinker either. Like I

have to have my morning coffee on my Sabbath. It's it's an

every I have heard you're talking about donuts before and

I'm all over them. I think donuts should be a requirement

for

donuts that that might even be you know,

when God bless them with manna and twice as much Manna for the

Sabbath I those that might have been doughnuts that's

twice as much done that's on the Sabbath. That

sounds that sounds about right. And so and one of the other

things I think about, and this is a practice in Sabbath that I

learned through a pastor named John Tyson, who is a pastor at

church of the city in New York. It's called pleasure stacking.

And what you do is you intentionally keep things keep

yourself from like enjoying certain things during the week,

so that you can enjoy them on the Sabbath. And so every week

you're looking forward like oh, man, Saturday, I get to go to

get done that's good to go to marches and have have a great

doughnut or I get to go have a certain coffee drink during the

week that I don't want to pay for maybe on a Wednesday but on

the Saturday like I'm I'm gonna treat myself I'm gonna enjoy and

rest and celebrate so you're doing certain things that you're

you're doing, you know are going to bring you a lot of joy and a

lot of pleasure as not maybe not gonna be the thing for everybody

but that's something that I've tried doing and I've found like

I'm looking forward every single week to

that literally just happened this weekend. Oh

yeah. I printed out a whole bunch of music to work on and

it's just a new music that hadn't played through yet

wanting to want to try it i i almost came home Thursday night

and sat down at the piano and I was like, No, I'm gonna save

this for tomorrow because I partly I wasn't thinking of it

in terms of Sabbath I wish I would have now because I was

like I got nothing else going tomorrow this will fill a bunch

of time but I sabitha I didn't even know it. Sorry. Save that

for my Sabbath today.

So I another thing, parts really on top of like

doing things that you know are gonna bring you rest on the

Sabbath. Also getting the things done. Before the Sabbath that so

that you don't have to do them so they don't interrupt your

work. So like the Israelites when they were in the wilderness

like they would collect twice as much Manna the day before. So

like they're doing more work to kind of like play, not even

catch up, but to get ahead, so that on that Sabbath day, they

can rest. So me for example, like I do not do any homework on

except because I'm in seminary, I don't do any homework on the

Sabbath, because I know it's gonna not be wrestle for me,

it's gonna bring my mood down a little bit, even though I find

it interesting, even though I love to learn this is like,

nope, not going to wrestle, or another thing. And I think just

as much as I'm known for maybe the Sabbath guy right here, I've

noticed a guy who hates email with all of my, I just hate

email. I do it. I think I'm pretty good at it. But just

Gosh, it drains me. I do not check my email on the Sabbath.

So if you try to email me on a Friday night or Saturday

morning, I will not get back to you until Sunday or Monday. And

like, that's the boundary of stuff for myself, I don't even

let myself look at it. Because I know that I'm not going to be

fulfilled, I'm not going to be like, filled up by five minutes,

checking my email.

And some of that, too, is just that healthy.

Work life balance. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Which, which, as you

were saying, All That reminded me just how, again, the the

practices of God and the practices of spirituality are so

at odds with the world because our world is 24/7, on with the

gas pedal florid the whole time. And there's rhythms that God is

setting up for us here. And Sabbath helps us to, in some

ways, live different from the people around us as we pause as

we just enjoy God's creation and do these things.

Once again, I'm sitting here with Pastor Rob apple. And we're

coming today with a question about how to listen to a sermon.

So I thought this topic? Well, I thought, you might say that for

two preachers here to have the opportunity to talk about how to

receive a sermon. Man, this could be buckle up, we could be

here for a while. So when if you ever been asked that question

before, about how do I listen to a sermon? I

don't think anyone's voluntarily asked me that

question. I've given assignments that students have listened to I

tried to teach them that it is a skill, but

sure, yeah. So like, we asked our confirmation

students to, to, like, listen to a sermon to do kind of a report

on on a sermon every week. Right, right. They have to do on

every every three out of 404 out of the month. Okay, at least

Yeah. And it's funny, because I'll see some of those come

through the ones that do them online. And so the last couple

of Sundays, as we're recording this, I've preached it. So just

looking at the notes that come in from the kids of what they've

heard, versus what I said, Hey, you didn't know you said that.

Right, exactly. I'll look at some of those and go, did I say

that? Is that what I said? Or I could tell, like, they wrote

down the first three things that I said, at the first two minutes

of the sermon, and then they just checked out for the whole

rest of it, because they had enough points to fill up their,

their paper, and that was it. So yeah, it was, I know, for me, as

a as well, as I was going through seminary, and learning

how to preach it sort of and started getting into the habit

of doing that. Like it sort of clicked for me. Like, wow,

there's there is actually I think, a skill to listening to

and receiving a sermon that I was never taught. Growing up. I

had to do confirmation, sermon report, you have to, I don't

remember how many we had to do if we had to do just a handful

of them throughout our semester or whatever, that we did it. But

I do I remember writing those I couldn't tell you what any of

them were about. Other than Jesus, I'm sure they were about

Jesus, but couldn't tell you the specifics from any of those

sermons this many years later. But so maybe just thinking about

the the average person coming to church on a Sunday morning ready

to come to worship? What, what would be great for them to be be

doing while they're preparing for that?

What would be great and when done, what's actually

practical and doable are probably, you know, two sides of

the same thing. But I agree I did. And no one ever taught me

how to listen to a sermon. And I do think since the advent of

writing, and easily accessible literature, probably spoken and

storytelling was a lot more prevalent. I'm talking back in

the much more ancient times. So this idea of listening is almost

a foreign concept to people. Why would I? Well, there's a kind of

a famous prayer that we would read how to receive God's word

read, Mark, learn and inwardly digest. And so those aspects of

okay, look at what it is. So that's the read part. Then note

the things that are important out of that. What are the main

points, and hopefully you can grasp the main points. And while

you listen to a lot of other things, but these are the main

points, and then to take it inwardly to this is the so watt

and this is where the we pray the Holy Spirit is. You're

you're receptive to the work of the Holy Spirit to say, alright,

what do I do with this? I just heard a message based on God's

word. What do I do with that? Obviously, optimally, if you

could read the Bible verses ahead of time? I know some

people do that. Probably not many. But because they're just

trying to get the kids in the car and get to church right

halfway decent.

We've got the the matters of just life in

general, that that we're all struggling with. And

I've, early on in my ministry, I started creating

note pages.

Yeah, I remember when, when I was

growing up, when when sermon notes started to become a thing

like that. We had a new pastor, and he always had a little

insert in there that had his sermon notes with the fill in

the blanks. And that was, did you try to guess what the blanks

were? Oh, yeah, I would always try to fill in with the blank

before we got there. And guess what it would be and sometimes I

was right, sometimes I was wrong.

And that's I kind of made a personal practice to say

I'm always going to provide that. Now. I backed off on how

much I expect people to do that, because some people just aren't

note people. And I get that too. So, and I've probably gone less

detail than I used to be. I mean, I think when they first

came out, it was like, you know, sub point A, B and C, D, and

you're like, Okay, nobody's gonna remember all of that.

Right?

Well, I love that prayer. And what that

prayer, what that prayer makes me think of, as maybe one of the

first steps in the whole thing is that expectation, expecting

that God's gonna speak to me today in this message, and

coming, like knowing that the pastor has a word from God,

that's prepared. If the pastor has done his job, he's prepared

the sermon for the people present, like that's what a

sermon I do remember that getting stressed in preaching

classes about the sermon is not what's in your computer, the

sermon is you delivering it. It's not the manuscript, it's

the delivery to these people that you have prepared it for,

for these specific people. So God has a word for you, for me.

And so coming, ready to hear that ready to receive it. And

expecting that God's gonna do something with that word, that

word is going to going to have some impact in my life. And

yeah, what is that? What is the what is the application? What is

the inwardly digest of this? Sometimes, it might be real

clear, sometimes it might be something that I've got to

really kind of prayerfully think about throughout the week that

God will make clear the implications of that message

that sermon for me. But yeah, I, for me, I think that

expectations, a huge piece of how do we approach that?

And for me, to help me get to that, I've made it my

own little metric to say, What's one thing I that I found helpful

from the sermon, and that I can, you know, greeting the nice

sermon pastor, you know, we hear that and that's always

affirming, I'd like that. But I want to be able to go out of the

sanctuary and say, Nice sermon pastor I liked, you know, maybe

it was a word that you expounded on or thought that you brought

that I didn't think of, or it couldn't be, hey, I knew it

already. But I needed Drew, you're reminded today, yep.

That's too. And that helped me from in my cynical life, to, you

know, dwell on all the things I didn't like come out something

which can overshadow and defeat the whole purpose of like,

you're coming to church, right?

In my Christian life. I have both heard and

delivered bad sermons. You know, and, and that's where too I've

tried to remember like, even in a bad sermon that I've preached

and been by bad I just mean like, partly delivered or like

I've walked away from one going, oh, man, like kicking myself, I

should have said this instead of that or whatever. Not that there

was anything wrong in There are inaccurate but, you know, to,

even in a, in a time where I'm listening to a sermon going,

this is a lousy sermon to know, like, God has His Word in here,

his word is for me. And God is going to do something in there.

So sometimes I, as the listener have to put in a little bit of

work a little bit effort to figure out what is it that God

is saying to me, and I can't just be passive.

And that's exactly why I wanted to what helps me to

be that engaged listener, not a passive listener, oh, if it's

old, the joke in there, okay, now you got my attention. Well,

I'm thankful for a good, you know, chuckle, but I want to,

ultimately I want to hear from God, I want to hear something

from God here today. And keep me attentive to that. As as I'm

sitting. And it's easy to veg out, churning, it's just easy to

do that. Sure.

I should mention too, we're maybe making

some assumptions. You know, certainly in our tradition,

Scripture is a huge part of the message. Now, I've actually seen

things labeled as sermons that, that I've walked away from going

I'm not sure I actually heard any of God's word in there. Now.

wasn't wasn't quoted, it wasn't really referenced at all. And,

and so that there is we we, as Lutherans, we are working from a

definition of a sermon that it's, you know, it's an

authoritative proclamation of the faith based on a text of

Scripture for the people here, like, that's what we're working

with. And as long as that's what's happening, yeah, then

then, Yet God's got something there for me. I've encountered

some of those other sermons online, and that haven't had any

of God's Word. And those are the ones that I'm like, Yeah, you

know, what, I? I'm just gonna close that.

Right. And we've talked about that. That was a

great text, TED talk, or sure major podcast event, or

something like that. That couldn't be enlightening and

helpful for people. Is that a sermon? Exactly? Yeah. Maybe

not, are probably not. Yeah. So I think expecting God expecting

God's word, doing the the mental work to stay alert, which is,

you know, the devil is going to work on that and to stay

focused, because, you know, he's gonna,

I can't tell you how many times growing up, I

counted the stained glass panes in the windows up there, because

it was just getting a little bit a little bit boring or something

for me, right? So there is that sometimes it does take that

effort to stay focused. And I tell you, as a preacher, I love

it. When I see people like leaning in whether physically

leaning in or just like I can tell they're connecting. They're

really listening. They're engaged. I even I even like that

feedback once a while. Amen, or something. Loose? Lutherans, we

don't do that a whole lot. But I do remember saying something

when, when we kind of came back at the beginning of COVID. And

we're all masked up for worship. And the first time preaching to

a fully masked crowd, it was like, I'm preaching to a, just a

bunch of faceless people out here. Like you got to give me

some you got to give me a thumbs up or you got to give me a

hallelujah or something or raise your eyebrow. Yeah. Because

otherwise, I can't tell if you're if you're following with

me here. And so maybe even would say that to that to to somehow,

like connect with the preacher as much as you can, while you

while he's preaching while you're listening to, to show

that you're paying attention. And because I think that helps

you pay attention. Sure. when I'm, when I'm focused on a

teacher or something, man, I'm getting more out of it. I'm

hearing it better than than I do. And I'm just kind of staring

off into space.

I also wanted to just mention, you know, the

grace to say, even if you don't remember everything that

happened in the sermon, and I don't mean this in any way,

other than what I'm saying is know that God was still working

through that. I like that story of, you know, the guy, the

atheist who says I, how many sermons Do you remember? And the

guy said, Well, none. But he said, I know. I don't remember

any of my wife's food, you know, dinners that she cooked, but I

always knew they were nutritious. And while we may not

always cognitively remember every point of every sermon,

that's impossible, but to read, Mark, learn in an orderly

digest, God helped me do that.

Yeah, great stuff. So I hope this encourages

you on Sunday, as you're coming into worship as you're listening

to another sermon, to get to read Mark and really digest to

come in expectation of God to speak to you and to look for

what's the takeaway from that? What's the application. Thanks,

Mr. Rob. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to everyday disciples, everyday disciples is

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we are, and we hope you'll join us on that journey. If you found

this podcast helpful in your spiritual journey, we'd be

honored if you would rate us and review us wherever you listen.

It helps people find us and get the good news about Jesus out

there to the world. If you've got questions or suggestions for

things that you'd like to hear about on everyday disciples, let

us know with an email to media at St. Matthew gr.com.