Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
Well, welcome everybody. Welcome If you're watching
online, welcome to all you up in the mezzanine way up Yonder.
It's great to have you here in the House of the Lord together.
I love Sundays, Amen. Last Sunday we were away
celebrating my son, who's here today, graduating.
College. And congratulations to all the
graduates, high school and college.
By the way, big week happening. Well done take.
Time to celebrate. It's worth it.
That's a long journey. It's worth it.
It's an expensive journey, and Gee, OK, Hallelujah.
But I wanted to honor Pastor Drew for filling the pulpit last
week just spitting fire. We we were moving the piano this
morning a little bit further back and a tennis ball popped
out. So we're like, Pastor Drew, one
of your pieces of chaos is over here.
So thank you, Pastor Drew, for your heart to serve.
He's back in there with the worship team.
Now. They have team time during the
second service where they pray and fellowship and all sorts of
good things happen back there. So anyway, so today we continue
our series Unrest. Has it been helpful, yes or no?
Helpful? Yeah.
What are you going to say? No, That would be awkward for
all of us. Mostly for you.
I want to begin by telling you what one of my favorite things
in ministry is to do. It'll be 30 years in ministry
this coming August. And one of my most favorite
things is to officiate weddings and specifically that I get the
absolute best seat in the house. No one has it better than me.
I'm standing right there with the groom.
All of y'all come and sit out in the hot sun for.
Hours and hours because we're running a little late typically.
And then the moment everybody is waiting for my favorite moment
of any wedding. Some of you may say it's the
kiss that uses. The bride and groom's favorite
part? But my favorite part is when our
honored guest arrives, everyone stands and turns and I got this
direct view of the best moment when the bride finally arrives.
Do you love this moment? Say yes.
So touching. It's so powerful.
I remember standing and watching just recently at a wedding, and
there's a guy next to me, 6 foot 7.
He's a big, brawny dude. He was a bouncer at a bar before
he knew Jesus. You don't mess with this guy.
He's tough, he's rough, he's crying.
What's up, Bob? Yeah, I remember seeing you come
down the aisle, Cindy. I mean, it's just breathtaking,
this moment. When they lock eyes and this
journey is not culminating, it's like this new launching that's
happening. God has done this miracle work
to take two people out of 8 billion people and draw them one
to each other. And that moment is so precious.
I love that arrival. What I want to share with you
today in this message called Welcome the Bride, is that when
you practice the Sabbath every week, you get to have a moment
like this. Where you've been going through
your week, all this stuff's been happening, but then it just
stops. And there's this moment where
you get the welcome to bribe. We're going to talk more about
that in just a minute. But today I want to to begin, I
want to remind you what we learned in Week 1, many, many
weeks ago in this series called Unrest.
Remember, we are unlearning the way that we rest to learn the
way that others rest. I have some resource material
here to help you in case you love to study.
Some of you want more than what we're able to give here.
You want high academia? You want you just want to go
deeper. I've referenced this book.
My favorite book on the Sabbath is called The Sabbath.
There it is. Abraham Heschel.
He is a Jewish rabbi who passed away in 1972.
But he left us this treasure called the Sabbath.
He calls it Sabbaths are our great cathedrals more than a
space we go to, it's time with the Lord that transforms us.
So highly recommend that book. The next one is called the Rest
of God by Mark Buchanan. A fabulous book if you like the
breakdown of the Scripture in high order.
Some of the things I've taught with are from this book, an
incredible book about the rest of God.
And then you have this book called Rest, which is a secular
book. It's by Alex.
Let me get this right, Alex Sojung and Kim Peng.
It's a great book. It's secular, it's not
Christian, there's no theology in it, but what when you read
it, this is what's fascinating. You find out that everything
that God has told us they're starting to figure out in
science. So when you hear me sharing the
science, they're learning it in here.
Great book. And then a new book that was
just published this week. It's called Unrest by Me.
30 years it took in ministry to write one book.
That's the reason that I wrote this book is because the Lord
put it in my heart. To write, and for no other
reason alone except that he saved me from the grips of
anxiety and it was debilitating. And I know that I'm not the only
one. So if you have a cure, you
better share the cure, not hoard the cure.
And so we wrote this book so that anybody who needs help,
anyone who needs to learn how to rest, which is anybody with
lungs, right, Then you can learn from what is in this book.
We're selling them here at the church today, but they're not
here because they got destroyed on their transportation ride
here. No joke.
They were being transported. We got a note that says, hey,
all the books have been destroyed in transportation.
I'm like, is this spiritual? Anyway.
And so they, they're, they're reshipping them.
So all we're doing today is pre selling.
There's a big old line after the first service, pre selling the
book. They're $10.
I want you to know, and this is going to explain to you who we
are as a church, who I am as a pastor, that all the proceeds of
all the the books sold here at the church go to the church, not
to Tim and Christine's lunch fund.
When? Right.
We're not trying to make money off the church in selling this
book. There is, I need to be just
candid with you, an Amazon version of this where you can go
buy the book on Amazon. And the the idea is not that you
would buy those books. You would buy them here.
The money goes to the church. It actually pays just for the
making of the book more than us having proceeds to do ministry
with. But if you buy a book on Amazon,
I do want to be clear, it does benefit my family and I.
So if that weirds you out and you don't want to do that, don't
buy it on Amazon, right? And I anticipate my wife and I
are going to make dozens and dozens of dollars off of this.
All I'm trying to say is that the motivation has not, nor is
it now, nor will it ever be any sort of money making deal.
The Lord put this on our heart to share and we wanted to share
it with you. If it's helpful to you, if it's
helpful to somebody you know who's dealing with anxiety or
whatever the case needs rest, please get this into their
hands. There's also a digital cop of
the digital version available at Amazon.
One other thing, this is going to sound weird.
I hope that doesn't sound weird. I don't know, you tell me, but
I'm not going to sign any. Books, it's number one.
It's very presumptive of me to think that.
You would want me to sign a book that you may or may not buy, but
it just feels like it crosses a line into celebrity that I'm not
interested in and I, I, I don't want to like why do you need my
name on the book? What is it?
What value does it have? What's in the book is those out
of is what is of value. Amen.
So don't ask me because then we'll have an awkward.
Conversation like I'm I'm not signing your book.
Not signing your book, Bruno, this is your copy.
You want me to sign it? OK, OK.
Some of you already went online and bought them.
I'm getting pictures of people that have the books and it's
just, it's touching. It's amazing.
I'm grateful that the Lord is using it to help people find
abundant life in Jesus. That was a quiz you failed.
In Jesus. All right, so all right, in week
1, remember I was teaching you that we are unlearning our
concept of rest and embracing God's rest when we practice the
Sabbath. It's like marrying the Sabbath
in week 1, I asked you, everybody here, get married
today. A guy left the first service
today and he's like I for the first time married the Sabbath
today. I'm like perfect.
And if you don't know what that means, essentially follow me
here in this trail. First of all you have to
remember that God made Sabbath holy.
Genesis chapter 2 verse 3 says then God bless the 7th day and
made everyone say made it holy. God made it holy because on it
he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Then God told him in Exodus 20 verse 8.
Later on in the 10 commandments remember the Sabbath day by
keeping it holy. Everyone say keeping so God made
the Sabbath holy. Then he gives us a charge in
Exodus to keep the Sabbath holy. How do we keep the Sabbath holy?
You marry the Sabbath. Just as when you marry a spouse
you are set apart one to another.
When you marry the Sabbath, you're setting that day apart.
Ephesians chapter 5 speaking about marriage.
Look at this. Husbands love your wives.
How? Just as Christ loved the church,
gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the
washing with water through the Word, and to present her to
himself as a radiant church without staying a wrinkle or any
other blemish. But holy and blameless thanks be
to God. Jesus asked husbands to sanctify
their wives, to lead them from sin and lead them towards God.
Just as Jesus did when he went to the cross and overcame the
tomb, He led us from sin and he led us into relationship with
God our Father. When you marry the Sabbath, you
were taking that day and leading away from sin and towards God.
This day I'm making our keeping holy.
God makes it holy, we keep it holy.
And you may say, well, shouldn't I do that every day?
And the answer is yes. The reason that we practice
Sabbath. It's so that we are trained on
what to do the rest of our days with an extra command.
On that day, The Sabbath day, you don't work.
On the other days you work, but you still want to walk in
holiness. We are training during the
Sabbath that one day for the other six days.
Fawn Horne, you're here today. We were talking about this one
time in a group, like, shouldn't we be living Sabbath every day?
And the answer is kind of yes. And Fawn said, But what's
different about the Sabbath is just like, you love your kids
every day, and don't you parents love your kids every day?
Say yes, even if you don't mean it prophetically.
Believe it on their birthday, even though you love them every
day. You highlight, you accentuate,
you focus on that child. You know my wife, Christine, I
love her every day, all the days.
But since today is her actual birthday, happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you, Lauder. Yay.
Yeah, y'all pray, pray for me. Sorry, she said don't do
anything, but it just fit the message.
So I had to, right? I had to.
It's from the Lord. Amen.
Yeah. So on all days, of course I love
her. But today it's emphasized.
It's the same thing with the Sabbath.
Every day we're walking in holiness.
Every day we're walking away from sin and towards God.
But on the Sabbath, you stop working like you're dialed in
and then it spills over to the rest of your life as we welcome
this honored guest each week, the Sabbath.
Now, I've been teaching this message series for like 4 or
five weeks now. I don't even remember what week
we're on. And it's been about why, why,
why? Why they convincing you that you
need this Sabbath rest? I haven't been convincing you.
The word of God has been convincing us we need the
Sabbath rest and I've heard from any of you will like how give me
some how everyone say how, how right.
Four things all centered on the concept of marriage and weddings
#1 you have to prepare for the wedding.
Everyone say prepare. I made a mistake one day and
looked at bride.com talk about way too much information on one
pink page. It's like overwhelming and what
what I learned and I have it here I I printed it out is that
there are 77 steps to a wedding day prep list 12 months out find
a fiance. I'm kidding.
Step one, right? No, Determine your budget.
That's the first step, which is always interesting because the
budget determines the rest of the stuff.
And for many people, the budget is the buzz kill.
I have so many dreams, but here's reality.
So we're going to have the wedding in the backyard.
Good kids mark it down. Make a guest list a year in
advance. Hire a wedding planner.
Decide formality. Select a venue.
The caterer 11 months out, choose a color theme.
We're going to be mauve with white.
Start thinking of overall design.
And then it says, hire vendors who book up quickly.
Listen to the list. Photographer, band, DJ,
videographer. No.
Efficient. You know what happens?
Hey, we're getting married in two weeks.
Are you free? That's not what y'all did.
Cindy is very planned. Cindy, you probably had 97 steps
fly. Wedding around.
Europe, you booked your wedding around my schedule.
So nice. It must be nice.
OK, ten months out, start shopping for your wedding dress.
Book hotel rooms. Nine months out, say send.
Save the dates. I'm skipping a bunch. 8 months
out, register for gifts. Yeah, select bridesmaids
dresses. Meet with the potential florist.
Five months out, Book transportation.
Book a honeymoon. Buy or rent the grooms with
tuxedo. Begin premarital counseling.
Yes, yes, yes. Four months out, Choose your
cake. Very important.
Buy wedding bands. I'm skipping lots of things.
Three months out, Order the invitations.
Great. Two months out, first dress
fitting. Got to wait till you get close
to the wedding to make. Sure it's the.
You know I ain't going to get in that.
All right, Pick your marriage license up.
Word of counsel from an officiant who's done probably
100 weddings. Don't wait till the last minute
to get your wedding marriage license and make sure when your
officiant signs. It it is legible otherwise Gavin
and Sarah will call you and say our wedding license was rejected
because they couldn't read your handwriting.
I said well then you're not married yet.
So Yep, whole thing over it says assemble gift bags one month out
and just, you know, remember the officiant.
OK. Anyways, take care of things
like final week, refreshing hair color.
This must be for the ladies. Getting your eyebrows done,
manicure, pedicure, getting a massage, final dress fitting.
Pack your bags, clean your ring, practice your vows out loud.
Write your partner a note the night before, the day before.
Eat a healthy meal. Drink water good night's sleep.
Stay off the feet. Drink even more water.
Take your dress and veil out of the bag early on have.
Somebody steam them if nothing. OK, it's a lot.
I read just a small portion and probably if you've been through
the process yourself, you're like, it's way more than 77
steps. It felt like 6 billion steps to
get to that. Moment, All I'm trying to say is
the wedding day effectiveness is tied to the wedding day
preparedness. And if we do all of this work
for 1/2 hour service and then a four or five hour reception,
what should we be doing for the 24 hours a week that we spend
with the Lord? Certainly not nothing.
I I want to say to you that your Sabbath day effectiveness is
absolutely tied to your Sabbath day preparedness.
We need to prepare for the wedding they had to prepare in
the old days. Exodus chapter 16.
Let me just read some of them. We'll get some context.
Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when
the sun grew hot, it melted away.
What's the IT the IT is manna. This is heavenly bread that
showed up on the ground each day.
The Lord was teaching them, I'm going to feed you daily, and so
you're going to collect this bread daily.
On the 6th day, however, they gathered twice as much, two
omers for each person, and the leaders of the community came
and reported this to Moses. He said to them, this is what
the Lord commanded. Tomorrow is to be a day of
Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.
So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil.
Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.
So they saved it until morning as Moses commanded, and it did
not stink or get maggots in it. Yummy.
Eat it today, Moses said, because today is a Sabbath to
the Lord. You will not find any of it on
the ground today. No mana on the ground on the
Sabbath day, six days you already gather it.
But on the 7th day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.
So usually on regular days they would just collect one day's
worth. If they collected 2 days worth,
that extra would rot and get maggots in it.
But on Friday, the preparation day, maybe you've been reading
the scriptures and you've seen the word preparation day.
That's the day before the Sabbath.
They were told to gather twice as much.
Go ahead and get enough for Friday, but also get enough for
Saturday as well. You got to prepare.
You got to get ready. Two things that you can take
from this, and really both of these could be messages in and
of themselves if we would did a deep dive.
First of all, if they were not prepared, they wouldn't find any
provision. It didn't show up on the Sabbath
day. There's something in this
theologically about being a prepared person because when you
were prepared, the provision comes with it.
When you're not prepared and you get to the place like maybe I
should have been prepared. Secondly, it says on the Sabbath
day, if you have prepared, then the Lord has already provided.
What does that mean? Well, some of us have this
notion in our hearts that makes it hard to rest because we
think, if I don't do it, there won't be provision.
I've got to get something done or else it won't happen.
And God's saying, if you will do what I'm asking you to do, then
when you get to the Sabbath, you'll see that it's already
been provided for. Your peace, your output, your
productivity, your fruitfulness, your ability to rest all comes
when we make preparations to do so.
In our house, we used to do our chores on Saturday mornings.
Washing bathrooms, washing baseboards, doing laundry, you
name it. Whatever your chores are, we're
doing the same thing at our house.
But when we started practicing the Sabbath, that went away
because Friday into Saturday is our Sabbath.
When we Sabbath because Sunday we work.
Right, everyone understand you following me?
So there's a flurry of activity that happens as you prepare for
the Sabbath. Getting the meal ready, getting
the house ready, getting the table.
Ready. Getting all everything in its
place and then everything ceases and we're able to rest and let
the chores just be what they are.
I'm going to show you something that may be considered a graphic
photo to many of you, so you may want to hide your eyes and then
peek. I'm giving you warning right
now, but this is our sink during the Sabbath.
Is anyone breaking out on hives? Yeah, I get it.
Listen, it's interesting when you have permission to have this
happen, it feels totally different, like it's supposed to
look like that. This means that we're honoring
the Sabbath. This means that we're ceasing
our regular labor and laboring with the Lord in rest.
And it's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing, but it
happens because we're prepared. And then the chores pile up And
after the after the Sabbath is over, then we just get busy.
Sundays we're doing laundry and whatnot, and it works out for
us. By the way, I'm going to talk a
lot today about what we do as a family.
I want you not to hear legalism and feel like you got to do what
we do. You just got to listen to the
Lord HBO here, Believe and obey and do what's right for you and
your household, whatever that looks like.
And everything I'm saying is also ideal state.
Like some Saturdays it goes perfectly this Friday, Saturday,
just this week, perfect. Great Shabbat, great family
devotional, great rest, restoration, great eating.
But some weeks it's just a train wreck.
We don't even make it to the table.
Some weeks we're in Boston. So eliminating a graduation or
whatever, you know, so don't get legalistic and don't get like, I
got to be perfect, right? Right.
Excellent. So we need to plan, prepare for
the wedding. Secondly, we need to welcome the
bride. Everyone say welcome.
It's the name of the message, but it's also the second point
here. In the Hebrew culture and the
Jewish culture, there is a song they sing called Lacha Dodi.
Everyone say laja Dodi. Yeah.
Did you get that? Excellent.
If you did it right, there should be something on the
person in front of you is back. It means come, my beloved.
It's been sung for hundreds and hundreds of years as the
traditional Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday
night, you gather, the Jewish people gather in the synagogue
to begin the Sabbath. And during that time together in
the synagogue, they sing the Locha Dodi.
And at the very last verse, you can go watch YouTube videos of
this. I have.
It's interesting. The very last verse, the entire
congregation stands up and turns around and faces the doors as if
someone. Is about to arrive, and that
someone to them is the Sabbath. The Sabbath's arriving.
Our guest has come. It's just like we do at
weddings. We stand and turn around because
the honored guest is here. It's this moment that's special
and powerful. So I'm going to read in English
the words to the song. I'm going to make this motion
like this at some point, and you're all going to stand up and
turn and face the doors and the mezzanine.
I don't know what you're going to do because I wasn't planning
on that. Just look at the exit sign or
whatever. You'll figure it out.
But it's only going to have meaning to you if you have
expectation in your heart that the Lord God wants to give you a
gift on the Sabbath. And when you begin your Sabbath,
that gift arrives and you get to unpack it each week.
This beautiful time, 24 hours soaking with the Lord, soaking
with family and friends and nature and whatever brings you
restoration. It doesn't have to mean laying
on a couch. Here are the words.
Come, my beloved. To greet the bride, let us
welcome Shabbat. Observe and remember were
uttered as one, so we heard it from the singular one.
God is 1 and God's name is 1, reflected in fame and splendor.
And then praise Come shrine of our sovereign royal city, rise
up from destruction and fear no more in your dwelling in the
tear filled valley. That's our week, right?
The tear filled valley. For with God's compassion you
will be upraised. I almost raised my arms.
Come awake, rise up from the dust, dress yourself in this
people's pride. By the hand of Jesse's son of
Bethlehem's tribe. Bring my redemption without
further delays. Come awake, rise up from the
dust. Don't stand.
Dress yourself in this people's pride.
By the Oh, I just read that one. Rouse yourself, Rouse yourself,
for your lamp is lit. Let the flame rise up and glow.
Awake, awake. Utter songs of praise for God's
glory is revealed to your gaze. Come, do not be embarrassed.
Do not be ashamed. Why are you downcast?
Why do you moan the poorest of your people trust in this.
The city will be rebuilt as an ancient days come.
Your despoilers shall be despoiled, your tormentors
removed. Far away God and you will
celebrate together a bride and groom in joyful embrace.
Come, face the door. Welcome the bride.
Come. In peace, crown your spouse.
Surrounded by gladness and joyous shouts, come to the
faithful, the people you treasure with pride.
Come, my bride. Come, my bride, come.
The first wedding I ever did, I forgot to have the people stand
to greet the bride. So the next wedding I had
everyone stand and I was sure I was going to make everyone stand
to the extent that I forgot to have anyone ever sit down.
So they just stood for a really long time.
And I only tell you that to say now be seated at our home on
Friday nights, we prepare the table and I bring out this
stole, which is just a priestly garment.
You've probably seen it in more traditional churches, a pastor,
a reverend, whatever, wearing the, the the robes.
And then they'll have a stole around their neck.
And the stole represents priestly covering and I wear it
to begin the meal and to end the meal to remind us that we are
covered by the Lord. And I am a representation of
that as a priest of my home to my family.
And so I put on the stove and we hold hands and we pray.
And as we pray right before we eat the dinner, I say, hey,
let's remember this is ideal state doesn't always happen
exactly right because. People are people.
I say, let's take a breath and I say, Lord, we cease all of our
regular work and enter into your rest.
And you can feel the atmosphere change as it's happening, as
this is going on. You feel like the weight is just
melting off, no matter how many times we've done it and we're
entering the rest. And then I'll pray something
like this. Come, Lord Jesus, meet with us,
be with us, and then whoever is there, we have different people
take turns lighting these two candles that we have, and we
light them as representation of God's presence with us.
And very rarely we will turn and face our door.
And sometimes, even more rarely, we'll go and open the door as if
to say, come on in Sabbath, we've been waiting for you.
You're our honored guest. We need you.
We're glad that you're here and we personify the Sabbath, which
really is the rest, the powerful presence.
Of the Lord. Meeting with us over this 24
hours. At the end of the meal, I put
the stall back on and I place it on all the children's head 1 by
1. And I pray a blessing over them.
And they used to be tiny little heads and now they're grown up
heads. And then at the end of the meal,
they, we, we all gathered around mommy and all the kids placed
their hand on mommy. My wife Christine and I probably
sit on her head and we pray a blessing.
The Sabbath has begun. And we rested that for the next
24 hours by welcoming the bride. And as wonderful as it is to see
a bride walk down the aisle, it's the same feeling but
different each Friday when we begin the Sabbath.
And it can be for you as well. Amen.
Prepare for the wedding. Welcome the bride, and the next
part is to put a ring on it. No, Huggy, no.
Kissy till I get a. Wedding ring.
Anyone remember this song? Don't give me no lines and keep
y'all. Exactly.
It's a, it's biblical. It's 100% accurate.
I believe in this song. Right?
Or there's this one. I'd better stop when I
officiate. Weddings We get to the ring
portion and I'll take a ring and say, you know, the ring is an
unbroken circle of love. So poetic it it's one because
the two are. One right And then I.
Literally say like and blah blah blah blah blah.
Like. All of that is poetic and nice.
Like OK, whatever, we get it. But let me tell you what the
ring really can mean for you. And those of you that have done
your weddings might remember these words, but the ring will
hit stuff sometimes. Or you'll be sitting in traffic
on I-4 and you'll see it there, right?
And I tell the couple I like, listen, when you see the ring,
feel the weight of it, hit it against something I wanted to
remind you of right now, 25 years from now, I want you to
remember right here. So we pause and I say, take a
look around because you've been rushing through things.
I mean, wedding mornings are busy mornings for the bride.
The groom's like, I got dressed. And so they look around, they
look at each other, they take in the beauty.
And I say when, when you for years now, when you feel this
ring, see this ring, I want you to remember the beginning, the
joy of your weddedness, the purity of what's happening here.
Remember past glory? Like, Oh yes.
I say. But I also want you to know that
this ring that you now put on your finger is the only thing
that's not changing out. Meaning you're going to change
outfits literally thousands of times in and out of your
clothing. Not to be eating weird, but one
garment, one article never changes.
It stays on your finger all the time.
When you get old and saggy and your body changes, it's
happening. I feel it happening.
This doesn't change. And so the ring reminds you of
the permanence of what God has put together and the promise of
what he's put together. And not just that, here's the
other promise. When you're having a bad day,
you're out there in the world, you feel your ring.
You're like, man at home. There's somebody who loves me.
I'm going home to a safe place. I'll be next to in the bed, the
warmth and the strength of my spouse and your ring reminds you
of that promise of future glory. Past glory, future glory.
Here's the last thing. When you're married and you walk
into a place and your hand is in your pocket or hidden, all the
single people in the room go. Interesting.
Is this person an opportunity? Maybe a future spouse and then
you take your hand. Out of your pocket and you rifle
it through your hair. Or move your hat.
Or scratch your. Arm and the whole room goes.
The. Universal knowledge is that
you're off the market, you're taken, you're spoken for, you
belong to another, and that one belongs to you.
And so no kissy, no touchy, off the market.
That's what the ring symbolizes. Past glory, future glory.
You belong to another. The Sabbath is the same thing as
a wedding ring. Exodus chapter 30 verse 12.
Then the Lord said to Moses, say to the Israelites, you must
observe my sabbaths. This will be a sign between me
and you for generations to come, so you may know that I'm the
Lord who makes you holy. The Sabbath, when we practice it
week after week, reminds us of our.
Salvation Psalm 51 says return to me the joy of my salvation.
Remind me what it was like at the beginning when your grace
invaded my heart and your love overwhelmed me and I received
you as my Savior. Remind me of that time from the
beginning and and what it really does.
It takes you back to the garden where there's unbroken
fellowship with the Lord our God because of Jesus sacrifice.
Past glory. We remember our purity.
But when you Sabbath and spend time with the Lord and set aside
supernaturally, you are saturated in the promises and
the permanence of. God, I wonder how differently we
would live if we rightly accounted for heaven and the
glory that awaits us. You've heard me say it before.
These are not my words. I stole them from somebody else,
but you cannot threaten me with heaven.
Meaning I'm not. Afraid to die because the
greatest thing ever is about to happen when that moment comes
decades and decades from now in Jesus day.
I'm not saying. Bring it on.
Let's. Go right.
Future glory becomes part of your knowledge, part of your
existence, when you practice spending time in rest.
With the Lord your God, and not only that, but the world will
know when you act differently on your Sabbath than most people
act that you belong to another that you're taking.
They're like, man, your family's weird.
You don't do any chores on a weekend.
You guys just laying around in lounge chairs.
What are you all doing? Like, hey, we're Sabbathy, what
is that? I'm glad you asked.
We're different on purpose. We're different for a reason.
And not only does it speak to the world, but you better
believe it speaks to the devil. Who looks around like a prowling
lion, seeing whom, seeing whom he may devour.
Get those words out right. And he's going around to see who
he can devour. And he looks at your family.
He's like, yeah. And then you start Sabbath.
Thing and he looks around like the demons are like this family
is taken. This family is spoken for.
They're practicing the Sabbath. They're resting in God.
They're finding their source and strength, not in what they do
and what they can produce, but in the one who made them and can
give them life. Past glory, future glory.
I'm taken. Put a ring on it.
Here's the final one. The two become one in Sabbath,
just as in marriage, the 2 become one.
And it's interesting. They say the older you get, the
more you start to look like each other.
Maybe I'll find out where, you know, climbing that ladder.
But certainly identity is transformed when the 2 become
one. So it is with the Sabbath.
Your identity will be transformed more and more into
Christ likeness as you Sabbath. Let me say it another way to
you. No one marries up.
Have you heard this phrase before you married up?
Somebody say that to you. It's usually said to the dude by
the way. I don't know why that is.
What's up with that? Right.
Hey, come on up here. Turner's.
Yeah. I didn't prepare you on purpose.
Oh yeah. Y'all can do better than that,
Mike and Joanne Turner. Now, I know y'all love me and I
love you, but you're going to have to just love me through
this, OK? So come stand right here in the
nice bright light where all of America.
Can see you. How you feeling?
Nervous. Don't.
Yeah. I love you too.
You sound different up here. Yeah, I look shorter too.
Whatever. I thought you'd be bigger.
I know me too stand side by side.
All right, so typically how this goes is that you you you make
some assessments as humans and you say, wow, here is a 10 this
woman of character or that's your son clapping beauty,
bravery, wisdom, all of these things.
She's a 10 and then. You look to the other side,
you're like. And in your humanness, you say,
well, here's a 5 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
And so then we make this statement.
Hey, Mike, you married up, right?
I'm going to tell you it's a lie from the pit of hell.
And it's been repeated too many times to too many.
Couples. Here's why.
If Joanna is A10 and she oops I can't bear hide the mic and she
is then a ten. In all of their wisdom, beauty,
glory, brightness, bravery, boldness.
Would never pick a 5A10. Only ever picks 10s.
You understand what I'm saying? And a 10.
Doesn't pick the other one based on pity.
The 10 picks A10 because in all reality the 10 used all of his
tenness to win that tenness. They're both 10s is what I'm
trying to say. Thank you all you.
Have a seat Jesus, the King of kings is A10 and when you
practice the Sabbath and spend time with your Lord, look at me.
He looks at you, spends time with you to remind you that you
also are a 10. The. 2 become one.
You gave a clap like you're going to believe it later.
You need to believe this now because it's the reason God
brought you here. Now when you Sabbath and spend
time with those. Certainly before Jesus we were
all zeros, at least in our own mind.
I don't think that the Lord saw us as zeros, but we were lost,
broken, hurt, angry, arrogant, prideful, sinful, you name it.
And then the moment we met Jesus, he says the old is gone,
the five, the zero and the new is here, the 10.
It's been applied to you to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and
he'll remind you of that. You're a 10 when you Sabbath
because Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Sunday, whatever days you're not Sabbath.
They'll tell you you're 0. Am I right the mirror?
Will tell you you're 0 and when you Sabbath the Lord will tell
you a 10. I have some scripture to go to
that, but first I want to tell you a story.
True story happened maybe five years ago.
I wake up on a Sunday morning and I have a text from a friend
who's living in Africa. So he wrote this in his morning,
but for me it came like at 2:00 in the morning.
I don't even know he's like 9 hours ahead.
So I wake up to this text and I just want to read the text as it
is. But part of me, I've been
dealing with some. So just let me drink this.
Thank you. I'm going to read the text as
is. This is him speaking to me.
I which is him. Believe when people suddenly are
thrust upon my heart it's for a reason and so I usually start
praying. Rarely do I get visions though,
but when I have they have been life changing so I don't want to
just blow this off. I was praying for loved ones the
other night and you me suddenly came to the forefront of my
mind. So I focused my mind, heart and
soul on you in prayer. Isn't that precious?
Shouldn't we pray for others like that?
Several minutes, several minutes later, as I'm praying, I come to
realize I'm watching an old man on his knees, bent over with his
face near the ground. I was curious, so I got down
close to see what he was doing down there.
I put my face right next to his and saw he was an older
gentleman and then saw what looked like a rectangular wafer
or cracker or cookie on the ground before him and it was
crumbling before my eyes and he was picking up small morsels and
eating them crumbs. Really at that point I wondered
who he was and where we were. I looked down and the ground was
a very old marble or stone with a pattern to it, maybe three
colors. I looked up and I looked up and
around and in all directions as far as I could see.
The flooring went on and on and on.
We were alone and seemingly nowhere.
At this point I realized I was still praying for you.
And as if out of a fog or haze, I came to realize I was coming
out of a vision. I can still see it all like it
was just a second ago, but honestly I have no idea if it's
for you or me or what. Y'all.
As I was reading this text, almost simultaneously the Lord
is revealing to me the meaning of this before I even knew that
he didn't know what it was about.
I thought he was going to explain it later in the text but
he's like I don't know what it's for but I knew immediately the
lore was downloading to me so I texted him back immediately.
These are my exact words to him that morning.
I said eating crumbs when we've been invited to the table.
That's what I heard immediately. God could be saying to us.
I have so much more for you my son.
Choose it now or in 30 years we will still be crumb eaters.
I'm not sure what to make of the three colors, except it may.
Reveal the Trinity, The undending pattern of the floor
is what gave me a sense of the timeless trap of being a Crumb
Eater. It's an identity crisis.
Crumb Eaters live daily feeling unworthy, feeling undeserving.
Which we were. But now, as a son or a daughter,
we are so deserving. Not because of anything I've
done, we've done, but because of whose name we bear.
The enemy bows at the name of. Jesus.
Provision jumps off trees into my hand at the name of Jesus.
I'm not sure yet either if the vision is for you or for me, but
like Nebuchadnezzar, you could have dreamed the dream in
relation to me as I was the interpreter God wanted you to
bring the vision to. No matter, as both of us need to
live as sons and not as beggars. I wrote the text.
I wrote that text at 6:10 AM. At 6:17 that morning, I noted
the time because of what happened next.
I was reading my daily devotion and I follow a reading plan so I
don't just pick a scripture, it's already picked for me.
And this is what I ran into that morning 7 minutes after this
text of the vision. Galatians chapter 4 verse 4.
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of
a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that
we might receive adoption to sonship.
Because you are His sons. God sent the Spirit of His Son
into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ABBA Father, so you
are no longer a slave, but God's child.
And since you are his child, God has also made you an heir.
When you Sabbath, you ruin the enemy's plan, which is to give
you an identity crisis that you are a crumb eater and therefore
you need the toil every day. You don't have time to rest
because you need to get busy and you need to keep busy and you
run yourself ragged. These last two things I've
taught you put a ring on it and the two become one, I believe
are what actually cured me from anxiety.
Yes, it came through the practice of Sabbath, but as I
Sabbath I remembered the joy of my salvation.
As I Sabbath I remembered the future glory that awaited me.
As I Sabbath, I remembered that I didn't belong to the spirit of
fear, but I belonged to my Father and that he's called me a
son. I'm not a crumb eater hanging on
by a thread. I have the glory of heaven
deposited in me in the Holy Spirit.
And as I soaked in that, it took a while.
Wasn't like it took a while. I'm standing here as living
proof that debilitating anxiety was removed, eradicated,
extracted from my life. Because of the Sabbath.
Because of the Lord. So I'll just say this to you.
What? What's your story?
What do you need healed from? I think you'll find your answer
in the Sabbath. Maybe not in the 24 hour period
exactly that I'm talking about, but as you practice Sabbath,
you're going to unlock the supernatural of God into your
life and remember your identity and remember His identity and it
will carry you through. Let's pray.
So you bow your head and close your eyes.
Would you just ask the Lord, what is it that I'm supposed to
hear today? Why did you bring me?
What are you trying to cure me of God?
And you can go ahead and just bold that are you calling me to
Sabbath Lord? Just ask him if you're here
today and you've never received Jesus as your Savior.
I don't mean this as heavy as it sounds, but I it's a truth.
There is no rest outside of a relationship with Jesus, whether
that's on this earth or eternally.
But rest can be found as you receive Jesus as Savior.
And the Bible makes it clear. It says if you confess with your
mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be
saved. And so we're going to pray a
prayer today to let you do that. If you want to choose Jesus as
Savior this morning, whole church, would you just repeat
this out loud with me saying Father in the name of Jesus?
I recognize that I am a Sinner in need of a Savior.
And I confess and I believe that Jesus is Lord and receive Him
today as my Savior to lead my life.
And grant me rest. Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.