The answer, of course, is heck yes. There are many. At the top of list is Sabbath. Notice in your Bible that the very next line after "you will find rest for your souls...my yoke is easy, and my burden is light," is two stories about the Sabbath. That's not a coincidence. Biographer Matthew has that for you the reader to connect the dots between Jesus' open invite: rest for your souls. What's next? Two stories about the Sabbath. Rest for your soul and the sabbath go together. Now, the word Sabbath is from the Hebrew Shabbat, which literally means to stop. The Sabbath is a day to stop. Stop working. More than that, stop wanting. More than that, stop worrying. Just stop, and rest. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Think of the pictures that come to us through lifestyle advertising. From a new throw for your bed, or a picture frame, or a bathrobe, or a new set of tiles, or a tray for wine and cheese, or a lamp or a table or a new bonnet for your boy or girl. Or a couch for your dog, whatever it is. Almost all of these images are images of Sabbath. Of stopping. Unless the advertisement is for a car or for hard alcohol, nine times out of ten -- pay attention -- it's almost always an image of Sabbath. It's an image of stopping. We'll talk more about this in a few weeks, but the irony of this is that the marketing wing of Kinfolk, or Snowy, or Blue Dot knows you ache for this and you don't have it. They know you look at that couple in bed -- and of course, they're gorgeous and all that stuff -- and you think, "ahh, breakfast in bed? With that cool little walnut tray? And the thread count on the sheet? And the candle with the essential oil that's soy-based? Like uggggh." They know you're tired, you're stressed out, and you're busy. You don't have this! And you ache for it. Guess what? Here's the irony: they offer to sell it to you. But the crazy part is, do you need to pay $99.99 in order to Sabbath? Tammy just got me one for Christmas, I'm 64 all of a sudden and it's glorious. It is glorious. Ahh, the bathrobe life. Hashtag that. But...do you need an organic Canadian down comforter to Sabbath? Okay, yes, maybe that one. Do you need the candle with essential oils? No, you don't need any of it. It's all great stuff -- you don't need any of it. You don't need to buy anything. You don't need to look like a model. You don't need to reinvent your life. You don't need to hire an interior designer. You don't need to be rich. You don't need to be cool. You just need to Sabbath. You just need to stop. This is an ancient practice long before the invention of the Lifestyle Magazine. In fact, it actually predates Jesus of Nazareth. It actually predates Israel. Next week we'll lay out a Biblical theology of the Sabbath. Do you know where it starts? It doesn't start in the Ten Commandments, it does not start with Israel. It starts on Day 7 of creation. Genesis 2:1. It predates Cain and Abel. This is an ancient practice. It is not new, but tragically, it is new to many of us. I grew up in the church. It was not even remotely on my radar until my mid-twenties. Again, our friend A.J. writes this: "Sabbath has been largely forgotten by the church, which has uncritically mimicked the rhythms of the industrial and success-obsessed West. The result? Our road-weary, exhausted churches have largely failed to integrate Sabbath into their lives as vital elements of Christian Discipleship. Notice: vital elements of Christian discipleship. It is not as though we don't love God -- we love God deeply. We just don't know how to sit with God anymore. It makes sense that commandment number four of the ten is "remember the Sabbath." Why? Because we are prone to amnesia. We often forget the things that matter the most. I would argue -- this is an ancient practice from the way of Jesus, and even from before, from creation itself -- that we desperately need to remember, especially now in our cultural moment. Now, before we talk about a few steps to begin, there's just one more key idea that you need to get. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter four, to the right. Again, this Sunday is a kind of high-level, 30,000 foot overview for the next few months. Hebrews chapter four. I don't normally read from Hebrews. Not because it's anything less than spectacular, but because if you're not a first century Jew it's really complex. So, we'll read a few paragraphs. If at any point you're lost, don't stress at all. Just keep reading. The gist is clear by the end. Hebrews 4:1: "Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands…" Right, think of Jesus' promise: come to me, rest for our souls. That is on offer to all of you. "...let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." Remember, he's writing to the church, not to a city. He's writing to you and to me, and He's saying "listen, watch out. Make sure you're careful that none of you in the church miss out on this promise of rest." "For we also have the good news proclaimed to us, just as they…" Just in context, the Hebrews in the wilderness did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. In context: they did not go into the promised land. He's saying, it's one thing for you to hear about the rest on offer for you. It's a whole other thing for you to obey and experience the rest He has for you. He's saying don't be like the Hebrews, who had a path forward into this rest and were always on the outside of it. On the wrong side of Jordan. "Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said." This is a quote from Psalm 95."'So I declared an oath in anger that they shall never enter my rest.' And yet His works have been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere, He has spoken about the Sabbath in these words." Next is a quote from Genesis 2. If you ever don't know where scripture is in the Bible, this will make you feel better right there. One of the authors doesn't know where it's at, and it's from Genesis, alright? "On the seventh day God rested from all his works." And again in the passage above, He says "they shall never enter my rest." "Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” The patience of God. Second chance, a third, a thousandth. "This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.' For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest." Now there's a lot here we don't have time. This is like exegetical, rabbi ninja stuff. Don't have time. This is basically him teaching a story from Genesis 2 about the Sabbath, the story from Deuteronomy about the Exodus, and all through this vantage point of Psalm 95, a poem. It's a long story, but the point of it for the writer here is: Sabbath is more than just a day; it's a spirit of restfulness that comes as a result of living in God's presence all week long. You can frame it like this: restfulness is margin over busyness. It is a life of slow, presence to the moment over a life of hurry. It's quiet over noise. It's deep relationship with family, friends, and community over isolation and individualism. It's time alone over crowds. It's delight over distraction on your phone or whatever. It's enjoyment over envy -- what he has or she has, or they have. It's clarity about who you are. What you're made to do, what you're not made to do, over the confusion, and the fog, and the tyranny of the urgent. It's gratitude. I can't believe this is my life, thank you, over greed and the lust for more. It's contentment. I'm okay with my life as it is. More than okay, I'm good -- over discontentment, that nagging sense that I need more. It's working, but it's working from love, from a sense that your self-worth is grounded in God's love. Your identity is who you are loved by, not what you do, or what you have, or how cool you are, or what other people think you are. Rather than working for love. It's working as a contribution; to play your part in the human story rather than working for accomplishment and accumulation. Above all, it is a life of trust in God over its opposite, which is not doubt, but anxiety. Which list best describes you? Do you resonate more with being so busy and being in a hurry all the time? Like "I'm around people all the time, but I just feel so alone?" Or envy: "I wish I had his life or her life, and I'm not really sure what I'm doing with my life. I don't feel like I have enough." Or is it… "I have one word to describe my life, and it's margin. I'm just a click above lazy but I love my life. I just feel present. I get out of rhythm, but overall I just feel present to the moment of each day, I receive it as a gift. I just have so many deep relationships. I do life in community and yet I feel really comfortable alone and more and more crave the quiet with God alone, which is weird for my personality, but I just love to hear from God. I just have this sense of gratitude more and more each day. I just find myself saying 'thank you' first thing. I feel really content. I used to feel like my life is out there, but more and more I realize it's right here. I just trust God with the stuff that's really hard." I make it sound really idealistic, but my point is, which one do you resonate with. Really, my point is guilt and shame. (Laughs) No, I'm kidding. My point is, most of us, I'm guessing, resonate more with restlessness than we do restfulness. Ronald Rolheiser, my favorite Catholic writer, has it like this: "We are a restless people. Restlessness is the opposite of being restful. Restfulness is one of the most primal cravings humans have. We crave rest to the point where we identify it with heaven: 'Grant us eternal rest.' Today, as our lives grow more pressured, as we grow more tired, as we begin to feel burned out, we fantasize more about restfulness. We imagine a peaceful, quiet place: we see ourselves walking by a lake, watching a peaceful sunset, smoking a pipe in a rocker by the fireplace. But even in those images, we make restfulness yet another activity, something we do...then we return to normal life. True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness, a way of being in life. It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace, and prayer. We are restful when ordinary life is enough." Is your ordinary life enough? Today. Not when you graduate, not when you get into a new apartment. Today. Is your ordinary life enough? One of the key tasks of our apprenticeship to Jesus, especially in our day and age is to find the goodness of God in our actual life today. Not in our idealized life tomorrow. But our actual life today. Trust me, your life no matter how hard it is, is full of goodness. It's full of the love of God. It's full of restfulness that is on offer for you. But notice the irony of Hebrews, that last line. "Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest." Did you catch that? Work your tail off. That's my translation. Do everything in your power to enter that rest. To live from the spirit of restfulness. Honestly, many people don't sabbath because, with all due respect, they're lazy. Or it's too much work. It takes a plan to sabbath, especially if you adopt a number of the best practices that come to use from the tradition. They are not a to-do list, not a rule. Just best practices. Like turn off your phone and things like that. There's a discipline to the Sabbath that is hard for a lot of us. But Sabbath is the primary discipline by which we cultivate the spirit of restfulness in our life as a whole. It's like Sabbath is to restfulness for what a soccer practice is for a match on the weekend. Or what band practice is to a show on Friday night. It's how we practice for the best moments in our life as a whole. Walter Brueggemann has this great line: "people who keep Sabbath live all seven days differently." I love that. Some people take this idea of a spirit of restfulness in Hebrews 4 in particular and use it to justify not practicing the Sabbath. Okay. I would just say as a general rule, beware of any teaching in the church that wants to allegorize the literal and literalize the allegorical. So when you read a story about a talking snake, and people want to die on a hill that there's a talking snake -- okay. Just be a little wary. And when you read a story healing on the Sabbath, and people want to make it about how we have a spirit of rest because we're loved. It's not about earning favor. It's about what Christ has done. And then [they are] a workaholic for Jesus who's just on their phone all the time. Be wary of that too. Sabbath is more than a day but it is not less.