Live | Remember The Sabbath And Keep It Holy

Your calendar can be full while your soul is empty, and the Bible calls that what it is: life without Sabbath. We open Exodus 20:8-11 and sit with a command most of us treat like a suggestion, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” Sabbath (Shabbat) means to cease, to stop working, to take a real intermission, and we talk about why God hardwired that rhythm into creation for your good.

We also look at the surprising ways Sabbath shows up in the real world. From a study that highlights the longevity of Sabbath-keeping communities to a business example most Americans recognize, the point is simple: when you honor God’s design for rest, you stop living like everything depends on you. Sabbath becomes a weekly declaration that God is the source, God is in control, and your body and mind were never built for nonstop output.

Then we go deeper into Christian Sabbath practice and Sunday worship. We trace why believers gather on the Lord’s Day, how the resurrection of Jesus shifts the focus from finished creation to new creation, and why worship is not a show you watch but praise you bring. The goal is not mere rule-keeping; it’s physical rejuvenation, spiritual renewal, and reflection that leads you back to Jesus, the only true rest for your heart.

If you’re tired, distracted, or running to and fro, press play, share this with someone who needs rest, and subscribe and leave a review so more people can find it. What would you need to stop doing to truly keep a Sabbath?

Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Reading

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Kid Us Off First Podcast, where we're building transformed lives one message at a time. Each week you'll hear Christ-centered sermons from Dr. J. Perry Fowler, rooted in the truth of God's word. This is where real faith meets real life, because a life built on truth is a life that lasts.

What Sabbath Means In Practice

The Blessing Of Stopping Work

Why God Commands A Sabbath

Rest Blessed And Set Apart

Why Christians Gather On Sunday

Worship Story And Praise Lesson

Reflection Communion And Resurrection Meaning

Invitation To Receive Jesus

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. What a great day this is. We're so rejoicing in it. And it has already been an amazing day, hasn't it? It's been a great day already. And we're just so grateful for it. If you'll take your Bibles, turn to the book of Exodus, the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. And in Exodus chapter 20, we read these words. Exodus chapter 20, verses 8 through 11. Remember the Sabbath. Let's say that together. Remember the Sabbath. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. And on the seventh day, it's a Sabbath. It's a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. You shall, or your son shall not, your daughter shall not, your male and your female servant shall not, nor your cattle. Do you find that interesting? Or your sojourner, who stays with you. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and he made the earth, the seed, and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, say with me, therefore, therefore the Lord, here's what he's done. Blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. If you go to Israel today, one of the things that you would notice that's different than any other nation of the world is on Friday night, what will happen is, is on Friday night, as soon as it gets dusk, all the stores will close. And the reason why is because they are about to celebrate what we know to be the Sabbath. They call it Shabbat. And when you go there, it's very obvious. And on that day following, on the Sabbath day, it is a quiet, peaceful place. It's very interesting. You'd say, Well, why do you celebrate the Sabbath? Well, the word Sabbath or Shabbat means this: it means to cease, take an intermission, or to stop work. Now we've done that today. We've ceased. We've taken an intermission and we're taking one now. And what we know we're doing is we're stopping work. And as we do that, what we know is the Bible tells us that that's going to be not so easy in the last days. Because the Bible says in Daniel chapter 2, verse 4, it says, in the last days, in the last days, this is what the reality is going to be. Many shall run to and fro. How many have been running to and fro all week long? You say, Wow, I'm constantly moving. I'm constantly involved in something. I'm constantly moving from one place to another, to another, to another. And we pause and we say, Where's the Sabbath these days? But yet when we look at this call to Sabbath or to Sabbat, as it's called among the Jews, what we see is as God said, I'm going to bless it. I'm going to bless it. And I want to talk about this for just a minute. Some of you may know who Josh Howarton is. Do any of you know who Josh Howarton is? Some of you do know who he is. Josh Howarton, he's a pastor out of Texas that recently did a study of a group called the Seventh-day Adventist. Now, I don't agree with all their theology. I don't think all their theology is biblical, but one of the things that I believe that they do, of course, do right, is they believe in the value of taking a Sabbath. And what they do is they take a Sabbath. And what's very interesting is Josh Howerton did a study on this, and he found out that Seventh day Adventists actually live about 11 years longer than the average American. Now follow this. Now, the average American lives 77 years. That's our lifespan. I know some of you are looking at your clock right now, going, boy, we're moving on forward, right? But 77 years is the average American lifespan, but for the Seventh-day Adventist, they live about 11 years longer on average than the average American. Now, what's intriguing about that is Josh did a study and he's begun to look at that and he said, okay, in 77 years, how many Sabbaths would you have? Now, for example, 77 years, you will live 28,105 days. But you will have 4,015 Sabbaths. Now, if you look at 4,015 Sabbaths, and they keep the Sabbath, all 4,015 Sabbaths, what's interesting about that is if you get your calculator out and you begin to look, and remember, they live about 11 years longer than the average American, guess how many Sabbaths, how that adds up in years? It is precisely 11 years. So one of the things he made mention of is he said, listen, it appears that God says, if you'll keep the Sabbath, I'll give you those days back. At least that's the way it appears with the Seventh-day Adventist. But I said, I want to do my own study on something else. I started thinking, well, what restaurants or stores stay closed on Sunday? Can anybody tell me? Chick-fil-A, everybody's gonna be okay, Chick fil A, you know the holy chicken. They call them holy chicken for one reason. The reason why is because they're not open on Sundays. And I did a little study of that, and I thought, okay, in six days, they do their work and they rest on the Sabbath. Now, what's very interesting about that is they are able to do more in six days as far as revenue than any other single store restaurant in the nation. Now follow this. To put it in perspective, okay, in six days, what we know is Chick-fil-A, every individual store, if you put it on average, every individual store, they average around 9.374 million dollars per year. And I believe it, every time I pass Ackworth, I mean that is the that Chick-fil-A is the busiest Chick-fil-A in the Southeast. But yet, I say, yeah, I could see them coming up with$9 million out of that store every year. But just down the road from it, not far from where I live, I mean, it's just less than this is a quarter of a mile, there is another restaurant called McDonald's. Now, McDonald's, when you think about McDonald's, you say, okay, they've got to have the most revenue. Well, they do have the most revenue, but not per store. They have the most revenue because everywhere you go, there's a McDonald's. But some of you are still praying that there will be a Chick-fil-A that will move in your neighborhood, right? But every single store at Chick-fil-A averages about$9.3 million a year. But guess what? They do that in six days. But guess how much the average McDonald's store averages in revenue, even though they work seven days? The number will blow you away. It is simply this$3.7 to$4 million a year. What does that tell us? Chick-fil-A more than doubles them when you think about every individual store, and you'd say, well, why is that? Well, there's a reason for that. The reason for that is because I believe God has given blessing to them. And the reason why is because the scripture says the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. Then when you look at Chick-fil-A, you would stop and say, Well, how do they do that? Well, there's multiple things we know. I knew and got to meet Truett Cathy one time, and Truett Cathy explained his business and said, We're not going to open on Sunday. We're going to honor God on the seventh day. And what he did was that he also said, We're also going to give away a lot of food. How many of you have ever gotten a free Chick-fil-a sandwich? Probably almost everybody in here has gotten one. I remember Truett Cathy before he passed, I sit and listened to him talk, and what he said was, he said, you know, we have a tendency to hand out multiples of cards for Chick-fil-A sandwiches. And every now and then there'll be somebody that walks in and they will have 30 different cards for a free Chick-fil-a sandwich. He said, It's interesting when this happens in the drive-thru. He said, one of the first things we had is just we had people who would drive through and say, I want 30 Chick-fil-a sandwiches. And they'd get up and they'd hand me 30 cards. And we'd say, We can only honor one per visit. You know what people would do? This is what he told me. He said they would go through the drive-thru 30 times. And he said, I said, quit doing that. Just give them 30 sandwiches. But that's the other thing about Chick-fil-A. They build their business and have built their business. Trick Kathy made sure he did this, built that business on the principles of God's word. And one of them is to take this commandment and keep the Sabbath holy. And the other is to freely give away. Be generous and be somebody that says, It's my pleasure. They do it all the time. And find pleasure, you know, and there are multiples of biblical reasons why they even say, It's my pleasure. The reason why, whatever you do, do it heartily as in the Lord and not in amend. It's always a pleasure to serve Jesus. So when we look at this particular commandment, we'll see that God promised to bless it. And this morning, I want you to look at this and ask yourself a question: Do I have a Sabbath in my life? Do I pause? Do I keep the Sabbath holy? We're going to kind of unpackage this today because I think it's something that needs to be talked about, something needs to be seen. And also, because we study the Bible verse to verse to verse, guess what? We land on Exodus chapter 20, verse 8 this week. I find it interesting as well. Next week it's Mother's Day. I didn't plan it this way. God planned it this way. Next week it is honor your father and mother. That just shows me the sovereignty of God in our life. But nonetheless, when you look at this beautiful commandment of God, what we read is as we read, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. So the question is, is why does God want me to keep the Sabbath? It's a real simple question. It's a question we should all ask ourselves. We should look at this and remember, God came down on Mount Sinai. I mean, he came down and he personally etched this in stone. So this, with the finger of God, he wrote for us. And as he did that, he taught us we all need this Sabbath. Why? First off, because of rejuvenation. Rejuvenation in verse 9 jumps off the page because it says this, six days you shall labor. In other words, you're going to work six days. And then he says, and you're going to do all your work. Emphasis on all. You're going to do all this work in six days. But then he pauses and he says, This, but on the seventh day. But on the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. Notice how he packages this. This is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. It's a commandment of his. And what he tells us to do is he tells us to remember. Now, this is a Hebrew word. The Hebrew word remember is the car, which means this. It means not just having something in your mind that you believe, but it also means it's something that you back up by your bodily response. It's not just head activity, it's bodily activity. It's the same word that is used when it says that God kept the promises he made to Abraham. God didn't just keep that in his head, he made it happen. He brought it about. There was a bodily response from the kingdom of God, from the king of kings. And what God did is God kept his promises to Abraham. And he wants you to have a sacred pause in your life. And that's why he says this remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. What are you supposed to do? We're supposed to stop working. Why? So that we can remember that God is the source of everything we have. Second off, we're to pause. Why? Because that helps us to understand and helps to communicate that God is in complete control. As a matter of fact, God took a Sabbath when he created the world, he took six days, and on the seventh he rested. And he makes mention of this in this commandment. Now, what's even more intriguing than this is God doesn't need to rest. God doesn't get tired. The Bible says he doesn't slumber asleep. And so what we know about God is God rested for a reason. And he explains this when we read the scripture in Mark chapter 2, 27. This is what was said, the Sabbath was made for man. In other words, you need a Sabbath. I need a Sabbath. We all need rejuvenation. We need a day off. And with that, what we find is we find that God says there's going to be a sacred shift that I'm going to put in my commandments. And what I want you to do is I want you to sacredly shift this. I'm going to call it the Sabbath, and I want it to be a Sabbath rest, and you need it because you just happen to be a human being. And so God gave that example even after he finished the six days of creation. Now, what's wonderful is there are many stories about the Sabbath, and I heard a story about a man years ago who walked by a Pennsylvania coal mine. And outside the coal mine, there were mules out there that were just standing at the entrance of the coal mine. And the man stopped and he said, What are these mules for? And this is what this boy replied who was taking care of the mules there. He says, These mules work in a mine all week long. And what he said is, This is, and today is the mule's day off. Can you imagine that? And it's and he said, so so we brought them out of the mine so they could enjoy the beautiful sunlight. And he went on to say, We learned that if we worked our mules seven days and we didn't bring them out the mine, not only would they break down earlier, but then they would go blind. And so that's what he said. So so you say, Well, okay, uh, how does that apply to the scripture? Look at verse 10. It says, But on the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter. Notice how specific he's getting. Listen, he's not giving anybody a way out of this one. Nobody's gonna weasel out it. Your mate or your fellow servant or your cattle or your, did you read that? Or your cattle? Your cattle need a day off. Uh so that's what he's saying. Or your sojourner who stays with you. So God is saying, listen, everything I created needs a Sabbath, including mules. But yet sometimes we're mule-headed. And we say, you know what, I don't want to take a day off. But there's two reasons physical rejuvenation and spiritual rejuvenation. Physically, what God does is he says, I want to interrupt your grind. I want to pause. I want our bodies that go nonstop with output continually. I want a moment so I can restore your energy, lower your stress, set, reset your rhythm of your life, and renew your mind. Spiritually as well, we need a Sabbath because we need to reconnect with God. We need time with God as well as with family. In Israel, what I know is they have a Sabbath day, and on that Sabbath day, they rest. They spend time worshiping, and then at the end of the evening, one of the things they do, and they've been doing it for thousands of years, they go out at the end of the Sabbath day, and they look up into the stars and they wait for the first three stars to come out. And when those three stars come out, after that happens, they play the pray this blessing. I want to just read it to you. Blessed are you, eternal God, ruler of the universe, who distinguishes between the sacred and the profane, between light and darkness, between your people and the other people of the world, between the seventh day and the sixth of a week. Blessed are you who distinguishes between the sacred and profane. And then they sing a song, and that ends the Sabbath day. They spend time not just for physical rejuvenation, but also for spiritual rejuvenation. And that's important for them. It's important for you, it's important for all of us. All creation needs a rest. And that's why God created the Sabbath. So, first reason is rejuvenation. The second is for rejoicing. Now, when we read verse 11, we read this, it says, For six days the Lord, notice what this reminds us of, that the Lord took a Sabbath, as I mentioned before. If you go all the way back to the book of Genesis, you'll read this. In the six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them. And notice what it says. And he rested, underlined that word, rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed, underlined that word, blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy, underlined that word. Those three words literally give the picture of what God wants us to do on this Sabbath day. So what is that? What does that mean? What does that all involve? Well, it involves resting, which is the word rest is a great is a Hebrew word, which means to settle down and have a habitation. And then we read the word blessed. If you want to just kind of unpackage it, blessed means to bow one's knee, and then holy is comes from the Hebrew word kadosh, which around God's throne, when you get to heaven, this word is going to be all around the throne of God, kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, which means make separate. So what does this mean? If God's speaking of this particular day in that way, what we know God is doing is God is saying, listen, I want you to take a day, and I want this day to be first off a day of rest. I want you to settle down. I want you to be still. I want you to slow down. I want a divine intermission in your life. And the second word, blessed, I want you to bow your knee on that day. I want you to spend time in worship that day. And then, holy, I want you to set apart this needs to be a sacred thing in your life. And what's very intriguing to me is studying, of course, Hebrew culture and so forth. Did you know they see this as a holiday? It's a weekly holiday. Matter of fact, they say it's even more important than Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And why do they do that? They say, well, it's that imperative that we do that. So God gives this divine intermission for us. Now I want to just say this. A lot of people look at this and they say, well, why in the world then, if the Sabbath was on the sixth day, why do Christians worship on the seventh day? Well, the reason is pretty clear. The reason is there was a transition that took place. You can read about it in the Bible as well as in history, and I want to share some of those with you, that there was a transition that took place when Jesus rose from the dead. When Jesus rose from the dead, the resurrection of Christ transitioned for the Christians, for those that believed in the resurrection of Christ, instead of taking that Sabbath on the Saturday, they took it on Sunday. And we see this backed up in Scripture. For example, in 1 Corinthians 16 1 and 2, we read that Paul instructed believers to even bring an offering, to set aside for the church this offering. He mentioned it in 1 Corinthians 16. He said, Do that, here it is, on the first day. Of the week. Now, the first day of the week is Sunday. Furthermore, what we read is as we read in Acts chapter 20, that the disciples gathered, here's what it says, on the first day of the week to break bread and to hear Paul preach. And then in Revelation chapter 1, it's commonly believed that what when John received the book of Revelation, it was also on the first day of the week because he said, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. That was a common way of communicating Sunday during that period of time. So it was over the called the Lord's Day, it was called I was in the Spirit and the Lord's Day, or it was called the Sabbath day, or the Sabbath day rest. But yet nonetheless, Christians began to do that. And the reason why they did it on Sunday is because it specifically not just set aside this reminder of creation, but it reminded us that Jesus through his resurrection makes us a new creation. That's the connection. And Justin Martyr, who in AD 150, one of our church fathers said in his first apology chapter 67, he said, Christians, and I quote, gather on the day called Sunday, because it is the first day of creation and the day that Jesus rose again from the dead. So what we know is that Christians begin this day of Sabbath on Sunday because of the celebration of Jesus Christ. And what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to come. Those words communicate. We're supposed to, it's a holy day, it's set apart, it's a blessed day. It's a day that we bow down on, bow our knee, and it's it's a day that we pause and we put a divine intermission in our life so that we can take time, so that we can get spiritually rejuvenated as well as physically rejuvenated. So what do we do when we come and worship? What's the purpose of that? If we're to bow down and we're to worship God, what do we do? Well, we do a lot of things. We hear God's word, which we see in Scripture. We also on this day, on Sunday, we come together and we sing. You know, I always wondered about that. I was always looked kind of at the musicians up on stage, and I've always been in awe with them because I really am not a very good musician as a musician. I I was in band growing up, and I do some of that, but I was really never very good at it. But I always saw anybody that was a pianist, I said, man, they really put it in. The reason why is because my mom would always make me try to learn piano, and guess what? I quit. How many of you quit piano? All right, all 50 of you are in here, obviously. And and so, so I didn't, I would always look at the piano, but I really and would really wish I could play it, but I really wanted to play it when I went to Michigan and I started planting a church. Let me tell you the story. When I was playing a church, we started the church and we had no musicians. And what we did is we had no musical instruments, and so everything we did, we did a cappella. And I would begin to pray. I said, God, we need somebody to come and play the piano, but the problem is we didn't have a piano. And so I began to pray. God give us a piano. And sure enough, a church from Arkansas called us and said, We got a piano. If you want to come get it, come get it and bring it back to your church, and you can have a piano. I figured, well, when we get a piano, God will see that step of faith. And so what we know will happen, God will provide a pianist. And you know what happened? Six years we went without a pianist. The piano just sat over there, and I was like, every week I'd say, God, please give us a pianist. I mean, I went and laid my hands on that thing. I prayed over that piano more than anything in that whole building, more than people, even sometimes. And so, so six years later, finally, this young lady came into our church. She walked in, and she said, What's that piano doing over there? I said, It is sitting, it's set for six years idle. And she said, Did you know I am a pianist? I want to tell you what, I had a Holy Spirit fit. I mean, I jumped up, I shouted, I did a Jericho run around the room, I did everything that you think you'd find in that kind of service. And I was so excited. And I said, Thank God. God, you have finally given us a pianist. Matter of fact, I got up in front of the church and I said, Listen, God has honored our prayer. We have been praying for so long, six years for a pianist, and God has finally brought one. And sure enough, here she began a little children's choir. We had a Christmas musical, we had wonderful. I mean, she'd play that piano every Sunday, and I thought, I feel like I'm finally gone to church. I mean, I was so excited about it. But then what happened was after Christmas, she came in and she said, Listen, I hate to tell you, but my husband Ben has been transferred back to St. Louis. And she said, We're going to be moving in two weeks. Have any of you ever issued or a complaint against God? Is anybody gonna be honest? And if you think that we don't ever issue complaints against God, you need to look at the psalmist in the book of Psalms. I mean, there are certain sections that they just call it the complaint. And none of us ever have a complaining against God, do we? None of us ever struggle with that. Yes, we do. We all struggle. I was having one of those moments, and what I did was I, of course, the next day on Monday, went into my prayer altar in that little church, and I said, God, I am really ticked off. I am really angry. I am really upset because God, you've just kind of teased us. You brought a pianist, and she's only going to be here for six, only be here for six months. And I get in front of the whole church and said, Look what God's done. God answers our prayers, and now she's about to move in a week, and I'm so angry, I'm so upset. And I began to argue with argue my point to God. You know, he was just completely silent, didn't say a word. And that's how it works when we start arguing with God. What you do is he lets you dig a pretty good hole for yourself. Y'all been in there? I mean, he'll let you say whatever you're gonna say, and then finally, when you finish talking, then he'll get you repenting. That's what happens. And so, so I said, God, I'm so upset, I'm so angry. Why in the world did you bring her and then now gonna take her away? And God said something to me in the silence when I finally shut up. He said, My people are my instrument of praise. And I'm I I wanted to make sure I heard that right. I said, God, seriously? He said, My people are my instrument of praise. And you know what I learned from that? What God taught me from that? God taught me while it's we we should want a pianist, we should want musicians, and by the way, we want you to be here. And you know, I encourage you to go to the to the musical uh 343 that uh Jaston is having. I encourage you to do that because we need you, we want you to be here. But listen, that's secondary to the person that will be playing the guitar. That's secondary to the people that will be singing. That is secondary to everything because my people, God says, are my instrument of praise. And what God wants us to do is God wants us to bring our praises. I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song. Listen, that's what we do is the people of God. And listen, today you may feel like you're an audience, but you're not. You're actually on stage and the presence of God is in this place. And listen, we are here to worship Him. It's not about me, it's about He who gave His life for us. So listen, I want to encourage you, keep the Sabbath and be a part of being an instrument of praise. God will bless you for it. It's such a wonderful gift. Listen, I do believe that when we certainly get to that point, when we set aside a day of rejuvenation, a day of rejoicing, we will also have a day of reflection. I want you to see that. The Bible says, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Now we looked at that just uh just initially, but I want us to look at it a little deeper. And what that really gives us a picture of is of a recollection or a remembrance. Matter of fact, tonight we're gonna come back, and it's one of our Sunday evening services that we have here every so often. We'll have communion, and then we'll have, of course, tonight we'll have our quarterly conference, and when we sit down, we're gonna do something in remembrance. What we're gonna do is we're gonna sit down and we're going to have communion together. And Jesus taught us to do this, didn't he? Jesus said, Listen, as often as you take of this bread and drink of this cup, you remember and you declare the Lord's presence until he comes. And so what we do is this sacrifice. We celebrate it through communion. But also what we do is when we come and celebrate together a Sabbath and we pause and we have this divine intermission in our life, what we do is we take time to reflect. We take time to think it through. We take time to pause, just like Jesus taught us to do with communion. We do that at church every single week. And so when we do that, why do we do it? Why do we do it? We do it because Jesus Christ, of course, is our Savior and Lord. The distinctive sign of the early church was coming and worshiping specifically on Sunday. And why on Sunday? Again, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the first day of the week. Mark chapter 16, verse 19. Jesus Christ, he met with his disciples after the resurrection. Uh he did that on the first day of the week. Jesus Christ poured out his Holy Spirit on the church. Guess when? On the first day of the week. Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to go unto all the world. Guess when? On the first day of the week. See, there is a glorious transition from the Old Testament Shabbat or Sabbath to a New Testament Lord's day when Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Why? Because the seventh day commemorated the finished work of a creator. But the first day commemorates the finished work of Christ. The seventh day commemorated the beginning of natural life, but the first day commemorates the beginning of eternal life through Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead. Also, the seventh day commemorated the life of Adam, but yet the first day commemorates the everlasting life that the second Adam brought to us. And also the seventh day commemorated the work of the Lord's hand, but the first day commemorates the hand of God raising up his son from the tomb. Hallelujah! He is risen and he's in this place today. That's what we're here for. To meet with Jesus and to celebrate him. That's what this is for. So Colossians says this. It says the Sabbath was a shadow of the things to come. It was a shadow of the things to come. So in the Old Testament, what we know is the Old Testament sacrificial lamb was only a shadow of the ultimate sacrificial lamb that would purchase with his blood. The tabernacle was a shadow of Christ. It was only a shadow. But now Jesus tabernacles with us through the hallowed and holy spirit that he puts in every single believer the moment we are born again. And also the Old Testament priest is a shadow of Christ, of him who would ultimately be the great high priest who we know today stands at the right hand of the Father and makes intercession for us. This is how the pattern goes. The law was a shadow, the sacrifices were a shadow, the temple was a shadow, but yet Jesus is the reality. Jesus Christ is the revelation. The shadows hinted at him, but the resurrection revealed him. The shadow whispered salvation, but Jesus showed up and spoke up and was nailed up and rose up and ascended up and now lives up to everything he promised to be. That's who our Savior Jesus Christ is. So today we come, and every week we come to keep this Sabbath so that in turn the result will be that we can come and find rest, so that we can be rejuvenated physically and spiritually, but also so that we can come and we can rejoice in him who is the savior of the world. Somebody say thank you to Jesus. He is a good and wonderful God that he is. So as we close this morning, I want to ask you: do you have rest in your soul? There's only one way that can happen, it's through the person of Jesus Christ. You know, because he is risen, the Bible says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in your midst. So one thing that we've longed for and wanted to do this morning is to come and to be in the presence of Jesus. And we have been, you say, Well, I don't know if I've recognized or not. Listen, if you will be still, you can know him. This morning, if you bow your head and close your eyes this morning, and in the stillness of this moment where you sit completely still and you listen and you seek to hear the voice of God, what is he saying to you? What is he speaking to you? Is he saying, Listen, at this moment in your life, I'm calling you to be my own. Right now, where you're at, you know Jesus lived, you believe Jesus died, you believe he rose again, and right in this moment, God's opening up your heart. And right in this moment, God is speaking into your spirit. And you know Jesus, you've been sensing that, you've been wanting to become a Christian, but yet there's something that has held you off, and there's something that's been, you said, well, maybe another day, maybe another moment. Listen, the Bible says today is the day of salvation. Tomorrow might be too late. So that's why today I urge you to listen for the voice of God. And as he's calling upon your heart, would you receive him as your Savior and Lord today? Others that are Christians here today say, you know what, I'm bowing my head and closing my eyes, and I'm wanting to be still because I need some, I need Jesus to take control of every different day and every day of my life. Not just my Sundays, but my Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesdays, Thursday, and Friday. And Lord, I'm needing you to align to get me in the rhythm that you want me to be in, which will include a Sabbath. And God speaking to your heart this morning. And listen, would you just do business with God this morning? Would you just talk to him? Would you just share with him? And others are here today to say, you know what, God's moving in my heart. He I my heart is renewed this morning. I sense the Spirit of God here. I've heard his voice. I'm knowing that I am an instrument of praise. And today I want to serve the Lord. Maybe God's calling you to join this church and be a part of this fellowship, to get to work and to serve with us, just as several did this morning in an early service. And God's speaking to you this morning. Whatever it is, would you say yes to Jesus this day? Before we close, I don't want to leave without giving you an opportunity. If you've never called upon Jesus' name, to do that. And you can do that this day. The Bible says, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Your heart has to be there. And you have to be willing to repent. Say, Lord Jesus, I really am serious about this decision. I really want to become a follower of Christ. And this morning, if you really do, and God's speaking to your heart and you're sensing the conviction and the drawing of the Holy Spirit, listen, don't put that off right now. Would you open your heart to Jesus and would you pray something like this? Dear Jesus, I know I've sinned. And I know you died for my sins. I know you rose from the dead. And Jesus, I'm asking you right now to come into my heart and life to be my savior and my Lord. And Jesus, I receive you, and I'm gonna follow you. I believe in you. I follow you forever, and I rejoice in you always, because you're now my savior and the Lord of my life as I receive you now in Jesus' name. Amen.

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