Full transcript of “The Sabbath System That RESTORED My Peace”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 So how many of you guys are feeling tired and disconnected from God? I think a lot of us are, and we either don't have time to rest because we have to work, or when we do get a rest day, we wasted and we still feel tired, and then we have to go back to work the next day. So today we're going to be covering rest because you need a rest. And by the end of this video, you'll have a Sabbath system that you can actually use. But here's the thing even if you bill for the perfect Sabbath system, most Christians will eventually stop doing it. Which is why at the end of the video, we're going to talk about the one thing that actually keeps the Sabbath going over time. So the first step is to divide the day into three sections. Morning, afternoon and evening. And I do want to mention here that these dividers are fun bookmark activities that end each section of your day.
0:46 The ones I personally like using are good meals, naps, walks, getting coffee, and long showers. And this personally helps me because I typically fill my morning section these days with playing video games or watching TV. And because these dividing activities are things that I actually want to do, it makes it a lot easier to stop watching a screen and transition into the next part of my Sabbath. And the reason why is because dividers are safeguards to ensure that we don't waste time. So did you catch that? Because none of us should be playing eight hours of video games a day. None of us should be binging shows all day, and none of us should be staring at our phones for hours. Because when you stare at a screen for that long, I've found that it puts you in a very dangerous place. If you look over here at Galatians chapter six, verse eight, it says,
1:31 for he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit, will of the spirit reap everlasting life. So over here, I want to give you guys warning. So I want you to pay attention to those words, flesh and spirit. You see, if you're not careful, you can get consumed by something that was supposed to be refreshing. And if you do something, anything for hours and hours, that activity now turns into a work of the flesh that you now don't have control over. So if we don't learn how to exercise self-control during our rest days, our rest days will turn into us wasting time instead of us being recharged. I like that one quote that says idle hands are the devil's playground. So again, use these dividers not to just fill in a template.
2:16 Use them so that you can learn to exercise self-control on your Sabbath. All right. So let's go back to our steps. So after you designate fun divisions in your Sabbath, the next step is to schedule each section of your day. So I've been taking a Sabbath day for a few years now, and I've learned that it's a lot like a workout where you kind of have to try things out, and through trial and error, you find out which activities actually help you feel rested. So to give you guys an idea of how you can Sabbath, I'll share how I've been spending mine lately. My Sabbath day is the one day I get to sleep in and I don't set an alarm, so that's nice. And as an opener to my rest day, I try to have a meal and coffee before I do my morning activity. And when my wife and I pray for our meal, we dedicate the day to God and ask him to help us rest well.
3:01 So after breakfast, my morning section has lately been filled with either video games or watching Netflix. And after about a couple of hours of that, I'll use the divider activity and I'll either go for a walk, take a nap, or take a long shower. In the past, for my afternoon section, my wife and I have either gone shopping or we've cleaned around the house, which actually is kind of restful for me. Or I'll call my family and friends back in California, and I've also trained in kickboxing, and it's usually around this section that I'll do my devotion after my afternoon section. I'll use another divider activity and either take a nap if I haven't already or have a nice dinner. And for our evening section, my wife and I have been making popcorn and watching a movie, and I think for this year I want to try incorporating board games maybe. And I know some of you guys might be thinking, wait a minute,
3:47 where is God in all this? And we'll get to that in just a little bit. But I want you to notice here that I do a bunch of different kinds of activities that all refresh me, but you need to build out a Sabbath that refreshes you. If you look at Psalm chapter 139, verse 14, David says, I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And this right here applies to us. So understand that God gives us all different strengths, weaknesses, jobs, and schedules, which means that rest will look different for all of us. So for you, you may want to schedule activities like reading, swimming, playing an instrument, or drawing or cooking, or hiking, or going outdoors, or going to a coffee shop or shopping. I don't know, and odds are, you may not know either, which is okay. But as you schedule things, try to answer this question.
4:35 What do you think will make your heart, soul, mind, and body feel refreshed? And as you figure that out, go ahead and schedule them into the different sections of your Sabbath day. All right, so now that we divided the day and schedule to each section, now it's time to bring God in. So looking at our template again we have an opener. The morning section a divider. The afternoon section. Another divider. And the evening section. And the goal for this step is to bring God into all six of these parts. And a stressful as that may seem. Believe it or not, there's actually an easy way to do this. And you just thank God for everything that you do. For me, my Sabbath day is honestly just an unending prayer of gratitude. I wake up late and thank God for the extra hours of sleep I get.
5:21 And then I thank him for the video games I get to play and the shows that I get to watch essentially before, during or after any activity. I'll thank God. And honestly, that's about it. What I don't want to do is to create this big, huge list of things that you need to do on your Sabbath day because honestly, the day's pretty simple. On this day, God really just wants you to rest and learn to trust him. And if you try to have a Sabbath, try to remember Colossians 323, because should you rest, you should do it for God. All right, so I know some of you guys might be wondering what this little guy is, and we're going to cover that now. You see these three steps. And this template essentially covers how to have a good Sabbath. But there is one thing that can sabotage everything and make everything that we just covered worthless.
6:08 And it's having a strong enough. Why? You see, if you don't have a strong enough reason on why you're doing a Sabbath, one of two things will happen. And you'll either not Sabbath because you have more important things to do, or your Sabbath, which was supposed to be a day for you to connect to God gets reduced to being a day full of just hobbies. I honestly think that keeping the Sabbath is the one commandment in the Ten Commandments that most Christians don't care about keeping. I mean, if you saw me brutally murder someone, all of you would call 911. Or at least you should. But if you saw me work really hard at my job Monday to Friday, do some volunteer work on Saturday and teach a Bible study and help clean the church after on Sunday. Do you think anyone would have a problem with that? Well, for some reason I think God would in fact, if you look at the Ten Commandments,
6:56 why is it that honoring the Sabbath is commandment number four? But murder is number six. Sleeping with someone else's spouse is number seven, and theft is number eight. If you don't know the answer, let's look again at the Ten Commandments. Notice here how commandments one through four are about man's relationship with God, and commandments five through ten are about man's relationship with man. You see, I'd argue that the reason why honoring the Sabbath is ranked higher than murder is because having a Sabbath is connected to man's relationship with God. So did you catch that? When people have a strong relationship with God. They'll be more likely to treat people the way they're supposed to and maybe not kill them honestly. Sabbath is a pretty big theme in the Bible. God chose to model rest for us after he created everything in Genesis chapter
7:44 one and two. And then he made his example, a commandment in Exodus chapter 20. And Israel even got punished for not keeping the Sabbath. And you can read that in Jeremiah chapter 17. So all that to say, I can't give you your specific reason or purpose for keeping the Sabbath, but if I tried, I'd have you look at Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 to 40, because here it says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You see, if your reason for doing a Sabbath day is all about you, I'd say it'll only be a matter of time before you stop and you get tired all over again. But when you make your reason for resting about loving God and connecting to God, you'll have greater access to the peace that only he can give you.
8:30 Okay, so here's a nice screenshot for you guys that shows the Sabbath system, and we put links in the description below where you can download a clean version to fill out yourself. To close. If you guys do start implementing a regular Sabbath. Make sure you guard it. Personally, I don't schedule any work or ministry meetings on this day, and the reason why is because I try to make the focus of this day God and me, only doing restful things. And I'd love to hear how you guys do your Sabbath. So let us know in the comments below! So I hope this video helps you and as you grow in your Sabbath, I hope one thing that also grows is your understanding that Jesus loves you. Hey everyone!
9:15 Thank you again so much for watching. And if you haven't already, please don't forget to like, subscribe and click the notification bell. That's right. And if you want to take it a step further, you can become a member and support the work that we're doing here at impact. Check it out. Yes, and if you guys don't know already, our team is actually pretty big. So if you look at our description, it actually has all of the artists that actually made our whiteboard videos. And they also have work outside of impact. So I'd encourage you guys to look at their links and support them. God bless. God bless guys.
