Will you knock it off?

Hey everybody…
 
Has anyone ever told you to “just knock it off”? The wording might be a little harsh, and it certainly stuns you a bit. But it usually grabs your attention, doesn’t it? Often, it’s exactly what we need to snap out of it and make an instantaneous change. How about when that someone telling you to knock it off is God? While God’s Word can sometimes be tough to hear, He is always gracious, merciful, and unconditionally loving with His ping. There is one topic I’m fairly certain He would tell every one of us to call it quits. Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below….
 
But first… some quick notes on our summer happenings:
                                                                                                                 
·      Help us gather school supplies through Tree of Life Ministries! Sponsored by our Women’s Ministry, Mt. Hope is collecting school supplies and backpacks for students who may not otherwise be able to purchase needed supplies for the start of the school year. Click here for a list of what’s needed; bring your donated items to the collection bin in the BROWN room at church by THIS Sunday, August 3!
 
·      Teens: Tonight’s firepit worship night has been postponed to August 15th, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Also… NO Youth Group THIS Sunday. To get plugged into our growing and awesome youth group, email Jessica Sauder: [email protected].
 
·      Join me for “The Daily Six” – six minutes each morning in the Word of God, Monday through Friday, on our YouTube channel. If you’d like to receive daily email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up!
 
·      Join us for Mt. Hope’s 190th Anniversary celebration on Sunday, August 24 – a great day of worship, fellowship, southern pot-luck yummies, historical experiences, and gratitude to our God for all He has done through Mt. Hope for nearly two centuries. Sign-up for the potluck is coming next week!
 
OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and you who have nothing God wants you to quit… BUT…
 
 
Some Deeper Thoughts…
 
I’m not very good at quitting. How about you?
 
I’ve had more than one boss in my two professional careers who has been troubled by my inability to let something go and give it up. They needed me to knock it off, but I just couldn’t.
 
One of my core personality traits is tenacity. The good side of that trait is a diehard perseverance that often keeps me going when things get tough. The bad side is that I have a really hard time letting go of things that other people need me to quit.
 
When everyone else on the team can see that this thing needs to fail and we need to go home and give it a rest, I’m still trying to plow ahead. When a conflict simply isn’t going to resolve without some cooling off time, I want to keep arguing. When I have a strong opinion that differs with everyone else, I want to keep making my case (I think they call that “beating a dead horse”).
 
One of my bosses once publicly called me the “yippie dog” on the team. I was known for constantly yipping at everybody’s heels ‘cuz I just couldn’t let it go.
 
As I have aged and matured, these traits have slowly softened. I’ve worked really hard to tame the yipper in me, and more often than not, I can keep that annoying little mutt quiet. But these inclinations are not altogether sanctified just yet.
 
Truth be told, while my hang ups may be unique to me and a few other high-driver type folks you know--and you might not be so hard-headed as me—I believe these impulses are rooted in the same sin issue that we all have. Even the most low-key among us struggles with this particular sin problem. Mine can manifest in the punchy, hard-nosed, yippie dog kind of way. Your struggle with this sin may come out in more quiet, less perceptible ways. But the sin issue is the same, no matter our personality.
 
The sin struggle is “self.” It’s you. It’s me. It’s our own stubborn way.
 
And God needs us to knock it off.
 
It may not seem obvious at first, but this is exactly why God gave us the Sabbath every single weekend. Our sin struggle with self needs to be attended to every seven days so we can stay on top of it. Otherwise, it’s such a slippery critter that by about day seven, here it comes once again. With amazing regularity, my self-absorption, my self-determination, my selfish ambition and pride pops us like a little whack-a-mole every time I think I have it licked.
 
So, God says “knock it off” every seventh day.
 
“There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God,” He says in Hebrews 4:9. The Sabbath is a way of life that we can enter into with all of our heart and mind. But to get there, we need to quit every seven days.
 
Oh… and friends, this is super important to catch: the Sabbath is not just about physical rest.
 
The Sabbath-rest God has given to us is a mindset shift. It is stopping the striving. It is ceasing from worry, anxiety, and stress. It is saying that what I have labored for is “good enough,” and I need to let go of my “self” and hand the results over to God. Taking a day-long break every week to revere the Lord, focus on Him, gather in His sacred assembly, and attend to our holiness is the antidote to our sin infection. We cease; God takes it from there.
 
“Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:10).
 
Entering into God’s rest is to surrender to personal holiness in the matters of selfish ambition, stress, fear, distrust, and anxiety. These sins are all about us failing to trust God with our circumstances, goals, desires, and needs. When we cease our striving by ceasing our efforts for a day, we are forced to put our trust in Him. It becomes a catalyst to a different way of thinking. Do it consistently enough—every seven days—and it can become our new way of life.
 
This Sunday let’s look at how to practically keep the command to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). We will look at Jesus and see what he did to observe the Sabbath in reverence. You might be surprised to see how wild and free he was, but the holiness that sprang from his Sabbath-keeping can be a powerful blueprint for us.
 
C’mon out to the Lord’s “sacred assembly” (see Leviticus 23:3) on Sunday--in-person is always best and fulfills God’s call to sacred assembly most precisely; online is a great tool for when you’re away or sick. Let’s study God’s Word and get a picture of what this can be like for each of us!
 
Much love to you all… can’t wait to “Sabbath” together with you this Sunday!!
 
Chris Eads
Mt. Hope Pastor
Friend