Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing—a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. May your delight in Christ and His vision for your life so far exceed every other earthly desire that no enemy-conceived distraction could ever pull you from God's good plan. Nehemiah's simple declaration to his detractors points the way. I'm doing a great work. I cannot come down.
In the famed tale of Odysseus's return voyage, the hero had learned of the mythical sirens, whose beautiful voices lured sailors ashore, where they'd meet their demise.
So Odysseus ordered his men to plug their ears and to strap him to the mast, shackled. Though Odysseus was fiercely drawn to the sirens' song. When mythical Jason later sailed that sea, instead of plug ears and chains, Jason brought aboard the finest musician on earth, who would play the lyre and flute more beautifully than the sirens' songs. And they sailed victoriously by the island, kept safe by a transcendent sound.
So I bless you to delight in the sound of heaven and live undistracted by the noise of earth. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Allen Wright. If you were to ask me, well, what are the list of things, pastor, that we shouldn't do on Sabbath, that we should do? Like I can't tell you, because what's work to one person is life giving to another. That's Pastor Alan Wright.
Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series "Gateways to Grace" as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, which can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.
Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org, or call eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. While at our website, please let us know how we may pray for you. Submit your prayer request to our prayer wall and be uplifted and encouraged as the community around this ministry starts praying for you and receive notifications as you're.
Request is prayed for. That's the prayer wall at Pastor Alan dot org. We're honored to stand with you in prayer. More on all of this later in the program, but right now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Allen Wright.
Okay, people of God, are you ready for some good news? Yes. There is in Christ real rest. Sabbath rest. We're talking about what I'm calling gateways of grace, the spiritual disciplines, and how it is that we can develop rhythms and habits in our lives that make room for the grace of God to abound in us, that make room for spiritual growth and intimacy with Jesus, that make room for the Love and joy and peace—that's in the Holy Spirit—to be appropriated in our lives.
And today, we're talking really kind of part two from last week, when we saw the invitation from Jesus to those who labor and are heavy laden. He said, "Come to me, and I'll give you rest." And today, more specifically, we look at the texts about Sabbath. There's been so much confusion amongst Christians about this.
Some have grown up under a heavy feeling of guilt, and Sabbath almost felt like a burden. It was legalistic, and then there's our whole crazy, busy culture where people don't seem to rest at all. And I want you to be liberated today, and I want to talk about about Sabbath that ultimately points us to Jesus. When I lead a small group, one of my favorite icebreaker questions—you know, those questions you do at the beginning just to get people talking—is to say, "If you had now, and think about this: if you had tomorrow off to do anything you wanted to do, and let's say money's not an object, and you could do anything you want to tomorrow, what would it be? Think about that." And I tell them, so money's no object, but that doesn't mean you can get to Hawaii and back because that'd take too long.
It's got to be something you could really do. What do you want to do with your one day? And people go around the room and they share, and it's a good icebreaker question. And I was thinking about as I came to this text today, over the many, many years that I've been asking that question, I've been asking that question for nearly four decades. And you know what I have found?
The most common answer is something like, "I'd like to find a really good beach and a really good book and a nice lounge chair and just relax for the day." I've heard young mothers say that. I've heard busy executives say that. I've heard retired people who can't believe how busy they are say that. Everybody says something like that.
Some people might say, "I would like to go take a wonderful hike or bike ride in the mountains or something like that." But it's usually so. One thing for sure, I've never heard anybody say. And all the years of going through small groups, asking if you could do anything tomorrow, what would it be? Nobody has ever said work. It's really surprising, as much as we seem to be driven by our work.
I've never heard anybody say, "You know, it would be great to have a day, to just do those miserable household chores that I hate doing." I'd love to do that. Nobody's ever said, "I really want to just catch up on my bill paying, and I got some taxes I need to do." I've never heard anybody say anything like that.
So, if what we would do if we had a gift of the day is something that sounds a whole lot like. Sabbath. Why do we have such a hard time taking a Sabbath? I want to talk to you about about really what it is when we're talking about Sabbath, and what's so unique about it, and why is this so important to the heart of God, and how could we ever get released into that kind of mindset that thought we could really Really rest. You know, a day can be so different according to your perspective, and if we have a mentality that we are human doings, and there are measurement of our lives is our productivity, then we'll have a hard time ever really enjoying anything like a Sabbath.
Charles Francis Adams was the grandson of John Adams and son of John Quincy Adams. He served as a Massachusetts state senator and a U.S. congressman, and he was ambassador to Great Britain under Abraham Lincoln. He was a hard-working statesman, very conscientious about keeping a daily journal, and he encouraged his children to do the same. Henry Brooks, the fourth of the seven children, Followed his father's advice and began journaling at a young age, and a particular entry was written by a young Brooks when he was eight years old.
The journal entry said, "Went fishing with my father today, the most glorious day of my life." It was so precious to him that Brooks talked about that particular day for the next thirty years. He spoke of it. He Has written more about it, and after all those years, it occurred to him to go check his father's journal and see what Charles recorded on that day. Imagine his disappointment when he found that day's entry for his dad. It read simply, "Went fishing with my son.
A day wasted." What would be the most precious day of a boy's life, if you had the mentality that life is about doing more and producing more? It could feel like you wasted it. We're talking about how much is at stake. We're talking about gateways of grace, and I want you to remember as we talk about this that all the spiritual disciplines—none of these are laws. They're not.
Merit badges, they're gateways, they're avenues, they're pathways, rhythms, and habits that are helping you to experience God and to experience what's most beautiful and wonderful and needed. Let's start with this: the Sabbath is something that is utterly unique in the ancient world, and honestly, it is in the modern world. We don't really know why it's a seven-day week.
Some people, some historians, say went all the way back to the Babylonians, but most say it began with God and His Word, because seven doesn't divide into thirty or thirty-one days of a month. Could have been a five-day week. Could have been a ten-day week. Could have been a whatever week. But it's seven days.
There's something about this rhythm that. Was really important to God that there be this rest day, and it's odd, you know, in our culture now to even think of something like that. And it was weird how we handled this. I was when I was young, we still had in North Carolina the thing we call the blue laws. And it forbade certain things on Sundays, and businesses were closed.
And and and the thing that a lot of people gripped the most about it, you couldn't buy liquor till six p.m. on Sunday. There's a whole bunch of people just waiting around till six p.m. on Sundays. I ain't gonna get there late, you know.
Like we didn't know what to do. It's like, is that what Sabbath is? Like, okay, you can't buy liquor, you can't buy cigarettes. That's what Sabbath is. And and then and then finally, when Seven Eleven came, you know, and it was open more than Nine to five was like wow that changed the world around us like that and now everything's open all the time and we're a little bit impatient if we can't get it the next day or on that moment so it's a little odd what it is but you know the oddest thing of all about Sabbath is to me the oddest thing about this being one of the Ten Commandments for example is that God would have to ask it of us at all.
Isn't that seem a little strange to you that God would have to put this into one of the Big Ten? Hey, rest some. I mean, like this is not the thing that parents usually have to like say to their teenager. Hey, stop making up your bed so much. You know we are tired of you cleaning up that room.
Just take the day off and let it get get it get messy. What teachers say to their class? I am so tired of you going home and working all weekend on your homework and getting ahead on your assignments. If anybody goes home this weekend and does any homework whatsoever, you get an F. It just doesn't make sense, right?
That's not the way we talk. We always want to do more, work harder, be better. And God comes in in the middle of all this and says, "Stop and rest. Enjoy being." In fact, the prophecy comes through Isaiah's pen in Isaiah fifty-eight. If you call the Sabbath a delight, if you call the Sabbath a delight, I'll make you ride on the heights of the earth.
I'll feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father. If you call the Sabbath a delight, why wouldn't we call it a delight? What what what what wouldn't be delightful about? A wonderful, delicious day off to be with friends and family, and feast, and relax, and have fun, and have romance with your spouse, and and laugh a lot, and let the children play, and what? Why?
Why are we having to be told that we need to make it our delight? Shouldn't it just be? Then evidently, we needed to be told this. Because what should be the easiest commandment to keep that God ever gave seems like it's one of the hardest, isn't that weird? You know, the the Jewish people they wanted to understand.
Well, what did he mean when he said don't work on the Sabbath? And so the scholars and rabbis came up with thirty nine different kinds of work. That by the time you got done with all the nuances of it, it was like you would dread the Sabbath, like. You just like there are thirty nine things I got to remember that I can't do. There's a certain number of steps I better not take more than that number, or else I'm under judgment or something.
And Jesus came into this where the Pharisees had made the made a mess of the Sabbath and was a heavy yoke. And so Jesus had to say in Mark chapter two, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. What was he saying? The Sabbath is a gift to humanity. It is a gift.
Let us be up front with this. It's not a law for Christians. Paul says in Colossians, don't let anybody tell you you need to keep a new moon or keep a Sabbath or keep a certain feast. You're not under law. You're under grace.
And let me be clear about this. If you were to ask me, well, what are the list of things, Pastor, that we shouldn't do on Sabbath or we should do? Like I can't tell you, because what's work to one person is life-giving to another. I don't know how to tell you that. When our family goes on vacation, the first day they pull out some impossible thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and lay it on the table in the middle of everything and say, "Yippee, we're on vacation." I hate jigsaw puzzles.
I can't find a single piece. I don't know what kind of dysfunction in my brain. But they said, "Come over here, Alan. Get some work on this puzzle." You can hear it right there. Work.
That's why they call it work. Work on this puzzle. I look. I'll stare at it and I'll stare at it and I like. I'll get one and I finally I'll try to cram it in somewhere.
It doesn't fit. I can't even get them to do the ones that go around the edges that are supposed to be easy. I hate jigsaw puzzles. If you told me that I got to go on vacation and work. Jigsaw puzzles for hours a day.
I would much rather stay home and come over my office and do some ministry. Isn't that weird? I was talking to somebody in the prayer room this morning, and she was like, "I love mowing the lawn." Well, more power to you, mow the lawn on your day off. I hate it. Don't make me do it.
The principle here is that there's that which is restful, stress-reducing, life-giving, relationship-building, and recalibrating every week. Why wouldn't we call that a delight? What is wrong with us? Should be the easiest commandment ever, and we're driven to God. It's clearly important, and it's going to point us to something even more important in Christ.
There are two places where the Ten Commandments are given: Exodus and Deuteronomy, and it's interesting that. The commandment to keep Sabbath is the same in each, but a different reasoning, a different part of why it's important in God's heart. And I want to show you this: Exodus twenty, verse eight. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God.
On it you shall not do any work. You, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner is within your gates. In other words, I want it to be your whole culture, and of course, it looks like we've lost that forever. But it it would be wonderful if we had it, but we don't. But every now and then, you can feel it just a little bit, like maybe Christmas Day.
Where there's not any real pressure for you to land a big sales account on that day, because nobody wants you to call them. But this is what the principle was: it's for everybody in your community and in your family, all of you. And he said, "This is the reasoning." Verse eleven: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that's in them. And rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Did you see that? Look again. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that's in them, and rested on the seventh day. It's because the strangest, most wonderful, most surprising, and beautiful thing happens in the story of creation in Genesis chapter two, verse one. Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished.
And all the host of them, and on the seventh day God finished His work that He done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He done.
So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from His work. Be clear about this: the whole of the old covenant narrative. And the whole thrust of the Word of God is to point you to the purposes and power of God, which find within the Triune Godhead Him to be altogether sufficient within Himself, and He never grows weary or tired, for He is all powerful and all knowing, and He is providentially watching over all things, and He does not slumber or sleep. But this is the picture. He nonetheless rested on the seventh day.
Pastor Alan Wright, our Good News Message Sabbath Rest from the series The Gateways of Grace. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back, joining me in the studio, sharing his parting Good News thought for the day. In just a moment. What if growing closer to God isn't about trying harder?
So often we approach spiritual growth with a list of things we need to do: pray more, read more, be better. But what if the secret to spiritual transformation isn't found in greater effort, but in experiencing more of God's grace? In his book *The Gateways of Grace*, Pastor Alan Wright invites you to discover a fresh perspective on spiritual growth through timeless practices like Scripture, prayer, meditation, wonder, and rest. You'll discover how to create space for the Holy Spirit to work in your life. These spiritual disciplines aren't obligations that earn God's favor.
They're gateways that open our hearts to experience more of God's goodness, peace, and transforming grace. When you give to Allen Wright Ministries, you help share the gospel with listeners around the world. And when you give today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's book, The Gateways of Grace, as our thanks. To discover these aren't just disciplines; they're gateways. Step through them and discover the grace that's been waiting for you.
The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
That's eight seven seven. Five four four forty eight sixty, or come to our website pastorallen dot org. Back here now in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day in our series, the Gateways of Grace and the Spirit. When you think of spiritual disciplines, and when you think of turning something that was meant for our good into this horrible legalistic thing, the Sabbath rest comes to mind every time. Yeah, it's almost crazy that we would include it in the spiritual disciplines because.
Why would we need a discipline of rest of Sabbath? Why would God even need to give a law of Sabbath in the Old Covenant? Right?
Well, because we are prone to be driven, we are prone to not stop, we're prone to think that life is more about productivity than it is relationship.
So, of course, we'll as we'll be talking about the the Sabbath is not for Christians. A law anymore, the rhythm of it makes a whole lot of good sense, but delighting in the Sabbath and structuring our lives so that we receive from God this as a gift is absolutely vital and beautiful gift of a discipline that can change your whole life. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox. Free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen dot org. That's pastorallen dot o r g. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
