Video: I love Sundays because it makes for better Mondays
I Love Sundays, Part 3
Sermon: Because they make better Mondays!
Thesis: Sundays were designed by God for us to meet with Him, to be touched by His presence, to hear His Words of Life and to find rest! It is designed by God to be the best day of our week! It’s a day to honor God for what He has done for you the other 6 days of the week! It’s also a day of rest where we get to refuel, refresh and refocus!
This sermon was adapted and directly taken from “I Love Sundays sermon week 2 curriculum by Outreach some of the quotes from it are not noted in my message”
Introduction:
Question: What do you Love?
I love God
I love my wife
I love my kids and grandkids
I love vacation
I love boating
I love being outdoors
I love _______________ you fill in the blank!
Turn to the person next to you and tell them 1 thing you really love!
If you worked at answering this question awhile, I’ll bet you all could come up with a list of a hundred or so things you love. But I’m not sure if you’d think to include our series “I Love Sundays” on your list.
This is why we are doing this series: I LOVE SUNDAYS!
Barna Report on the city of Chicago:
Sadly this week I got the latest survey from Barna research on Chicago’s spiritual/soul condition as of this year 2015:
The report reveals the following about the soul of Chicago:
Chicago ranked the highest in the Midwest as one of the most secularized cities – secularized means:
• Secularization refers to the historical process in which religion loses social and cultural significance. As a result of secularization the role of religion in modern societies becomes restricted. In secularized societies faith lacks cultural authority, and religious organizations have little social power.
• 13% of the population of Chicago is considered secularized compared to the national average of 12%!
Church Attendance in Chicago land area according to survey has dropped dramatically!
• Only 39% of the people in Chicago go to church weekly!
• Only 11% of the people even go 1x a month!
• Only 11% go once every 6 months!
• 32% do not attend church at all today when they once went!
• 7% have never attended church!
Volunteering at church has also dropped dramatically
• 15% of the population volunteer at church. Means only half the people who attend church weekly help out at church.
Interesting facts from the survey of Chicago were:
o 56% say they are absolutely committed to their Christian faith.
o 37% say they are moderately committed to their Christian faith.
o By the way that = 93% of the people of Chicago land! BUT
Some other interesting facts from the survey of Chicago in 2015 (all participants):
o 64 % say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus!
o 54% say Jesus committed sins!
o 61% say good works get you to Heaven!
o 60% say the Bible does not have accurate principles!
I found another graph from Barna doing a survey about how Americans see themselves today:
How Americans see themselves from the year 2000
• Totally committed to getting ahead in life 2000 69% today 57%
• Concerned about the future 2000 64% today 77%
• Lonely 2000 12% today 20%
• To Busy 2000 46% today 34%
• Happy 2000 92% today 82%
• In serious financial debt 2000 13% today 16%
• Trying to find a few friends 2000 31% today 37%
• Stressed out 2000 29% today 35%
Our goal, over these few weeks, is to change your perception of Sunday so that your life is better the rest of the week. And we are praying that you will say “I Love Sundays!” because they make for better Mondays and the rest of the week!
Can we say it together “I Love Sundays!”
So why is Sunday so important in the rhythm of life? The Bible tells us exactly why it is so important?
Scripture Texts:
Isaiah 58:13-14:
13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’S holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.” The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Exodus 20:8-10:
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son and daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals…
Mark 2:27-28:
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
History of the observance of the Sabbath:
During Jesus’s day, the Jews had all sorts of laws about what you could and couldn’t do on the Sabbath. They had come up with thousands of rules and regulations about this day.
But one Sabbath day, Jesus was hanging out with His disciples, and they were debating which things applied to them and which things didn’t. In a show-stopping statement, Jesus clarified God’s purpose for the Sabbath once and for all when He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). By the way this was a radical statement to all who heard it that day. The religious leaders of the day taught that the Sabbath was created for God and God alone and you better set it aside for Him or else!
T.S. - What Jesus was saying was different. He gave us all that day a revelation that of all the days of the week, God knew we would need a day to break from everything else we were doing and refuel, refresh, and refocus. So, when God was arranging the rhythm of the world, He designated one day for refueling – for refreshing and for us to refocus on what was most important in life.
I. Sundays make better Mondays because they help us to refuel.
a. In others words Sundays help us replenish our souls!
i. This year we have been focusing on soul care:
1. So how is your soul? Is it restored healthy and whole as we move into the New Year? Is it wounded or damaged? Is it forgiving or bitter? Is it loving or hating?
2. Listen to some other Bible verses speaking of the soul:
a. Deut. 4:29: “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
b. Deut. 10:12: “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul...”
c. Psalm 23: 1-3: “The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.”
d. Psalm 42: 1: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?”
i. The soul – yes your soul matters and it's spiritual health will determine what you become in your life.
3. You could ask the question: "What is the soul?" How does the Bible describe our souls? What does the Bible say about our souls?
a. John Ortberg describes it this way, “We each have an outer life and an inner one. My outer self is the public, visible me. My accomplishments, my work, and my reputation lie there. But inside is my soul that part of me that speaks in silence to others but yells at me. It's the inside stuff of real life - what is your soul saying to you - how is your soul? (Is it connected to the breath of life or is it deflated by the things of this world and self?)… My inner life is where my secret thoughts and hopes and wishes live. Because my inner life is invisible, it is easy to neglect. No one has direct access to it, so it wins no applause (John Ortberg – Soul Keeping page 37-38).”
b. How is that inner soul of yours doing – is it thriving and growing or wilting and dying? Are you feeding your soul or starving it? Will you soul thrive this week or die more this week-this month-this year?
4. Back to what Jesus said: Luke 10: 27: He answered, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
a. Jesus addresses the soul again – we need to love God with our soul – did you hear that – your soul – does it love God! Does your soul love the Lord or is it torn apart?
5. Your choices determine the health of your soul! Your giving determines the health of your soul! Your actions each week determine the health of your soul!
b. Study the history of Christianity and I think you’ll see that whenever people have taken the time to set aside a day for rest and refueling with God, their lives have gone better. They’ve felt better about themselves, enjoyed their families more, and experienced the blessings of God.
i. Just look around today: Are we better off in America by ignoring or skipping the honoring the Sabbath – Sunday? Has this new progressive mindset worked?
ii. Here is what I seem to be seeing around me:
1. The problem is, in 2015, we live in a never-stopping culture where 24/7 we never have enough time because we never stop worrying about deadlines and never feel like we’re making enough money to guarantee our happiness. Day in and day out we live with pressure. Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure.
2. This leads to Stress – Stress and more stress!
iii. We have according to a health study of 17 developed nations become the unhealthiest of all them:
1. The U.S. has:
a. The highest rate of death by violence, by a stunning margin
b. The highest rate of death by car accident, also dramatically so
c. The highest chance that a child will die before age 5
d. The second-highest rate of death by coronary heart disease
e. The second-highest rate of death by lung disease
f. The highest teen pregnancy rate
g. The highest rate of women dying due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth
2. The report does reveal bright spots: Americans are more likely to survive cancer or stroke, and if we live to age 75 we're likely to keep on living longer than others. But these advances are dwarfed by the grave shortcomings.
a. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/new-health-rankings-of-17-nations-us-is-dead-last/267045/
iv. Does this surprise you? Are you shocked by the report? I also have a few other charts which project bad news for the Us and its related to our economy:
1. In America today, most Americans do not make enough to support a middle class lifestyle on a single salary. The following figures come directly from the Social Security Administration…
a. -39 percent of American workers make less than $20,000 a year.
b. -52 percent of American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
c. -63 percent of American workers make less than $40,000 a year.
d. -72 percent of American workers make less than $50,000 a year.
2. I also have these charts showing that the ignoring of the Sabbath is not making us more prosperous!
c. Sound of boiling pot?
i. Do this for a minute. (It’s going to seem weird, but do it anyway.) Put your teeth together and just go “Sssssssssssssss.” On three . . . Sssssssssssss.
ii. You know what you were just doing? (No, you weren’t telling everyone to be quiet.) We were all letting off pressure like you let off pressure from a beach ball or an air compressor or a boiling pot.
1. I don’t want you to relax so much this morning that you go to sleep, but I do want you to relax enough to lower your blood pressure, listen well, and leave here in a little while feeling a weight lifted off your shoulders.
d. Set the clock back in our country 50 years, a hundred years, two hundred years, or three hundred years and there was a lot less pressure. Nobody worked on Sundays. Businesses were closed for the day. There were no kids’ traveling all-star teams. Sports did not supersede God on Sundays. Stores and café’s were not opened on Sundays. People used Sunday for a rest day. Which seems very old-fashioned. But doesn’t something about that old-fashioned lifestyle call to you?
i. Share about life in Amery! I loved it!
1. In prior generations not so long ago Americans got a lot less done on Sundays. But as a result, they got a lot more done on Mondays and the rest of the week. After a day of rest, they attacked the week eagerly. Work was considered a noble thing.
2. Athletes have found they perform better by working hard and then resting, working hard and then resting, instead of working hard all the time. Our muscles were designed for stress, and then release. Our souls were, too.
ii. Imagine this for a minute: what if we took a step backward in order to go forward?
1. BIBLICAL PROOF: Way back in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was about to enter the Promised Land. For forty years they had lived in the desert, without houses or jobs or responsibilities. As they got ready to enter the Promised Land, where they would occupy homes and lead working lives, God visited their leader, Joshua, and talked to him about his priorities. He said, [Author’s note: Hold up a Bible so they know what you’re talking about.] “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8).
a. God was saying, “Joshua, once you and your people settle in, you are going to be very tempted to work, work, work, work, work to get ahead. But if you work, work, work, work, work to get ahead, you won’t get ahead. You’ll fall behind.”
b. “Joshua, the secret to getting ahead is to spend time in this Book. Because if you get into this Book, this Book will get into you. And if this Book gets into you, you will become the kind of person who is prosperous and successful.”
iii. And that’s been proven true, friends. In eighteenth-century England, Jonathan and Charles Wesley started a movement that resulted in 100,000 weekly Bible studies by 1798. And for the next one hundred years, England was the most prosperous nation in the world.
iv. In 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier started a noontime prayer meeting in the Dutch Reformed Church in downtown New York City that sparked a movement of Bible reading throughout our country. As a result, the history of America’s westward expansion was marked by households huddled around their kitchen tables at night. Mom would do some sewing while the kids played quietly and dad read the Bible to them all, out loud, for an hour. Once that Bible-reading habit was ingrained in our families, over the next one hundred years, the United States became the most prosperous nation on earth.
v. People today say they’re too busy to read the Bible/got to church because they have to work more hours to get ahead. But the Bible says that if you’ll read it regularly, you’ll become the sort of person who gets ahead.
e. Give the stats again is our nation prospering today?
i. We have moved away from the Bible and honoring God on Sunday and it’s impacting our nation negatively!
ii. Just go look at our economy, our broken families, divorce rates, suicide rates, stress rates, blood pressure rates, and other health factors. Look at the last weekend report of shootings in Chicago!
iii. How do you think it is going for us as we ignore honoring the Lord on the Sabbath?
1. Are we more prosperous?
2. Are we happier?
3. Are we more content?
4. Are we less stressed?
5. Are our souls healthier?
T.S. – Sundays were created by God and given to us by Jesus to refuel our souls and if we don’t use them our souls become depleted and they will stop running. Sundays were also gifted to us so that we could be refreshed by God’s presence, God’s power and God’s voice.
II. Sundays make better Mondays because they help us to be refreshed!
i. The same is true with the Sabbath. We think we can get ahead by working more. But sometimes the best way to be productive is to rest and be refreshed by the Holy Spirit on a Sunday.
1. Refresh – definition - give new strength or energy to; reinvigorate.
a. That’s one of the main concepts of the Sabbath, and God invented it to refresh our souls-our physical body and yes, even our spirits.
b. The way to make your Mondays better is to start with Sundays.
2. THE RHYTHM OF LIFE: In the Bible, God prescribes fifty-two Sabbaths a year as part of our health-maintenance plan. That’s seven and a half weeks of spiritual vacation! God did this because when He wired us up, He constructed us to run best on a rhythm of engagement and withdrawal, or stress and then release. This pattern is sewn into the fabric of the universe. Days were made for work. Nights were made for rest. Summers have more daylight so we can work more. Winters have shorter daylight so we can work less.
b. God made Sundays as a day to be refreshed to in essence release the pressure of life from all its other days. A Sunday rest day is part of our divinely designed nature.
i. Do this with me and pray this prayer “Lord please relieve the pressure today in my life and in the process refresh my soul!”
1. Pray Lord – Give them No pressure today, just release and refreshment by your Holy Spirit!
c. You’ve got your Bibles bookmarked to Isaiah 58:13. Look there now and listen to this as I read it to you. God says . . . “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13–14)
i. Isn’t that good? Repeat line three after me: If you call the Sabbath a delight. (“If you call the Sabbath a delight.”) And repeat line eight: I will cause you to ride in triumph. (“I will cause you to ride in triumph.”) God’s secret for riding in triumph is to call the Sabbath a delight! Which means that Sunday ought to be the best day of your week!
T.S. – Sundays were designed by God and given to us by Jesus so we could be refreshed on them by the God. This happens in corporate settings of biblical community, worship, prayer and His Word! This is why we need to use Sundays to reboot and refocus on what is most important in life – Jesus!
III. Sundays make better Mondays because they help us to refocus on what is most important in life.
a. Refocus as defined by Rick Warren: That simply means that we look at life from God's viewpoint and recognize that material things are all temporary; they're not going to last. Instead, we can refocus on things that matter and give attention to things that are going to count and last for eternity — like loving, knowing, and serving God. When I focus on making God number one in my life, remembering that he made me unique and has a plan for my life, then competition becomes irrelevant. That’s because I'm not competing with anyone else. I'm unique, and so are you.
i. Refocus defined: to adjust (something, such as a camera or a lens) again to make an image clear: to cause (something, such as attention) to be directed at something different
b. Scriptures on the purpose of keeping our focus on the Lord!
i. Colossian 3:2-4: Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
ii. Psalm 63:1-3: O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
iii. Matthew 6:24: 24“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
iv. Luke 8:14-15: 14The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
v. 2 Timothy 4:10: 10for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.
c. If you want to be effective in your life for eternity, you need to be focused on Jesus. Why do we need to focus our lives on Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven? The following adapted from: http://dashhouse.com/sermons/2000/7/9/how-to-refocus-your-life.htmlTwo reasons:
i. Because the alternative is to waste your life on things that don’t count in eternity!
ii. Because if each of us gets refocused on the importance of the Lord in our life then our church as a whole gets refocused on Him and people’s lives are changed for eternity!
1. We need to realize God is here and everywhere and where two or more are gathered in His name- He is there!
2. Here are four absolute truths about our lives:
a. God knows what is best for your life! He created you, and wants the best for you.
b. We think we know what's best! We think what we want is best, and often say, "If I only had this, I'd be happy."
c. We're wrong! What we want is not always the best. In fact, sometimes it's the worst thing for us.
d. God will make sure you understand these absolutes. If you don't believe me, look at the life of Jonah!
i. I challenge you this week read the book of Jonah!
Conclusion:
How can you make Sunday a good Sunday so you have better Mondays – what needs to happen? What would it look like to make Sunday the best day of your week?
We need to honor God’s rhythm for our life by honoring the Sunday as the Sabbath – it was given to us by Jesus for the sake of our souls and we need to receive it (Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12).
You all know what it means to look forward to something. You hear about a great movie that’s coming out on Friday night, and you look forward to it all week. Or you hear about the game between your favorite team and their archrival, and you think about it and talk about it with your friends for several days before the game happens. Like the Cubs going into the playoffs and their games recently! Then, if it was a great game, you talk about it for the next few days.
Sunday is given to us to Remember. Observe. Remember. Observe. That’s God’s rhythm. You want to dance to that!
Sundays were designed by God and given to us by Jesus:
To refuel us
To refresh us
To refocus us
What if this Friday you posted on your Facebook page, “Sunday’s coming!” Or, “I can’t wait for Sunday!” And you started thinking about what you might experience in church this weekend?
There’s a phenomenon in psychology that says, Act your way into a new way of thinking. Counselors teach couples who have lost that lovin’ feelin’ to act like they’re in love so that they will fall in love again. And it works. A husband who goes out and buys his wife flowers finds himself liking and loving his wife more, because he did something that was loving. A wife who takes special care to prepare a great dinner for her husband finds herself loving her husband more because she’s putting effort into the relationship.
Isaiah 58:13 says we should “call the Sabbath a delight.” What if you don’t feel like the Sabbath is a delight? If you will make a decision to call the Sabbath a delight, you will begin to feel like the Sabbath is a delight.
In Psalm 122:1, King David gets invited to go to church. His response is . . .
I rejoiced with those who said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the LORD.” (Psalm 122:1)
He was all fired up about it, because going to church was the high point of his week. How could that happen for you?
Closing thought the what they need to from this message:
Sunday was meant to be the best day of my week – it was created for me and because of Jesus I need to make it the highlight of my week.
Here is my vision for Chicago: What if we can influence the 52% who only attend church once a month or once every 6 months – what if we could influence those who have left church to come home? What do you think would happen to our city? To our economy? To our families? To our marriages? I think it could be transformational for our city!
Altar call pray for people to be:
Refueled – Refreshed - Refocused
