Click the link below to download the PDF.

Today we start a three-part episode all about friendship. And I hope discussing this topic on this podcast makes all the sense in world to you.

The Year Long Celebration of God is all about worship. And there are two applications of all worship — we can worship God directly as we relate to Him, but we can also worship God indirectly as we relate to everything else around us. 

The Scriptures command us to love God and love others, and every facet of our personal celebration of God must include evangelism and discipleship. And — even though we haven’t yet defined what it means to be a friend — I’m pretty sure you will agree with me that a person who evangelizes and disciples is being friendly.

So, yes, the friends we have in our lives and the friend we are to others are massively important parts of our yearly celebration of God.

And, speaking of friends, I want to invite you to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. We can get to know each other better on the socials, and — hopefully — one day we can actually meet in person. That would be awesome! But until then, the socials will have to do. Feel free to like and share and comment. I try to interact with everyone who takes the time to participate.

And also, don’t forget that we have free episode notes, transcripts, and one-anothering resources at CelebrationOfGod.com. You can find the link for that in the description.

And now, let’s look at the single most important topic in the cosmos.

“Really, Aaron, are you suggesting that friendship is the single most important topic in the universe?”

In a way, I am. 

More specifically, friendship is a facet of the single most important topic in the universe. The most important topic itself is influence.

1. Influence should be your biggest concern.

My favorite Merriam-Webster definition of the verb influence is “to have an effect on the condition or development of” someone or something.

Now, believe it or not, the English word “influence” doesn’t show up very often in the Bible. In fact, in the NASB, it shows up one time in the Old Testament, and one time in the new.

The one time it shows up in the New Testament is II Thessalonians 2. Verses 8-10 show us that the context of the passage is the tribulation period, and then in verses 11-12 we read, “For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”

The word translated “influence” should sound familiar. It’s energeia, and it refers to an operative power. Though this is the only time this particular word is translated “influence,” it shows up 7 times in total in the New Testament, and it’s rendered “activity” once, “exertion” once, and “working” 4 times. 

I love how all of those words beautifully show how influence works on something to accomplish a goal. And in the II Thessalonians passage, the energy being exerted is from God, and it’s designed to lead people away from truth so that they will believe a lie.

That reality should definitely give us all pause to think. That’s a powerful and scary influence.

But even though the word “influence” doesn’t appear much in Scripture, the entire cannon deals heavily with the subject.

Let’s start very broadly in our consideration. We’ll get more specific at the end of today’s show.

Think about it. All humanity is born into the world dead, blind, and lost. Without the direct influence of God, we would all be separated from Him for all eternity in the Lake of Fire.

The very Bible itself was given to us to influence us. In addition, the Holy Spirit works in us to convict us — that’s a specific kind of influence. And God’s people are called to be a salty and bright influence in our lives. And it’s all designed to bring us to a place that we recognize our need for a Savior and King.

But when we submit to the truth we’ve learned and are born again, the influence doesn’t stop there.

Have you ever wondered why doesn’t God take a Christian to glory immediately when he or she is born again? God leaves us here for an indeterminate amount of time because He has a job for us. And what is that job? That job is for us to influence the world for Him as others did for us. And — as was already observed — the sum of that influence includes evangelism and discipleship.

But God is not merely using us to influence others, we’re still being influenced in order for us to mature in Christ.

And the really cool thing is that as we submit to the discipling influences in our lives and progress in our sanctification, our influence in others’ lives is to become more influential because it’s more and more conformed to the image of Christ!

So, we can easily say that without proper influence, there is no hope for anyone. Therefore, the question of what we will allow to influence our thinking is absolutely paramount in all things.

Now, hopefully, you are already born again; so the necessary evangelistic influence in your life has already had its effect, and you need to praise God for that. But what about the continuing discipleship influence? How is that?

You see, the biggest problem you’re going to face today is not merely a lack of good discipleship influence; every person who has ever lived also receives a ton of bad discipleship influence every single day. While the good influences are working hard to draw you to God’s truth, the bad influences are trying to drag you as far away from truth as possible. 

And — as we’ve already seen — in addition to the good and bad influences pouring into your life, there’s also the question of the quality of influence you’re pouring into others’ lives — are you being the evangelistic and discipling influence you should be?

So, as we look at the various influences surrounding us, we will quickly discover that we have given the people we call our friends a significant influential role in our lives.

Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we understand the nature and consequences of influence in general, but also the influences of friends in particular.

So, let’s start by recognizing that  . . .

2. Aside from God, friends are your biggest influencers.

Now, I don’t know how you define what a “friend” is. That’s something really important we’re going to discuss shortly, but — generally speaking — regardless of how we define what a friend is, they are the people whose influence we’re more than happy to accept. And even though we all like to believe that our friends represent the best influences in our lives, we need to hold our friendships up to the light of God’s Word to see if they are what they should be.

Now, if we’re honest, we all can recognize that there have been people in our lives who we knew were bad influences, and yet we still considered them friends. There have also likely been friends who we thought were good influences, only to find later that they weren’t. And there may have even been people who we thought were bad influences who ended up actually being really good influences.

And if none of that has ever happened to you, you probably know people who have experienced it.

So, yes, the question of what a friend is, who your friends are, and whether or not you’re being a friend to others should be of paramount important to all believers because they represent a massive part of the influences in our lives.

So, now, let’s consider . . .

3. The World’s understanding of friendship.

Merriam-Webster has five definitions:

1. a : one attached to another by affection or esteem b: an acquaintance
2. a : one that is not hostile — such as b : one that is of the same nation, party, or group
3. : one that favors or promotes something (such as a charity)
4. : a favored companion
5. : a member of a Christian sect that stresses Inner Light, rejects sacraments and an ordained ministry, and opposes war — called also Quaker

I don’t know if you have too many Quakers in your life, and I don’t know whether your definition of friend is so immature that you consider anyone who’s not openly hostile to be your friend, but the definitions get only more subjective from here.

For example, a woman by the name of Gretchen Rubin categorizes her friends in this way:

First, she has “Just Friends.” She defines this as “a person you see — at a weekly poker game, at your child’s school — who is enjoyable company, but you have no desire to socialize outside a specific context or to get to know that person better.”

Second, she defines “Rust Friends” as people “you’ve known for a long, long time; you’re probably not going to get any closer to [them] unless something changes, but a part of your life” nonetheless.

Third, are her “Trust Friends.” These are people “who show integrity, [people] you feel comfortable with, that you’re always glad to see, but not in your inmost circle; perhaps [people] you’d like to be closer to, if you had the time or opportunity.”

And lastly are is her “Must Friend.” This is your “best friend, a member of your inner circle, a person you count on when something big happens in your life.”

Perhaps some of those definitions remind you a lot of your own.

But I really like Sydneysider Mobinah Ahmad's six stage friendship-acquaintance theory.

I’m sure you can tell just by the name why I like this one so much.

She starts her list with Pre­Acquaintance and gives the statistic that this group makes up 10% of people she knows. She defines this group as people of which she knows nothing beyond their name.

Her next level is Acquaintance Level 1. She explains this as the “to know of someone” category. She also conjectures that this makes up about 20% of people she knows. She further describes this category as follows: “We know of each other through mutual friends/acquaintances. We met briefly at a party/social event/university. You’re a work colleague or business client (who I haven’t spent much time with). We run into each other now and then by coincidence. We have convenient Interactions. Meeting up is not planned, and only because it is convenient and easy. Details about each other are superficial.

Then she has Acquaintance Level 2. This is the “Liking & Preliminary Care” category. She believes this makes up 30% of people she knows. She describes this group like this: We went to school together, or I have known you for a long period of time. We usually meet in groups, rarely one on one. If you needed my help, I would actively participate in helping them to the best of my ability. I can handle a 20 minute small talk chat with you, any longer and I will get bored.

I love that last part! Apparently, this group doesn’t have a very influential impact on her.

Now, if you’re keeping track, so far her acquaintances make up 60% of Sydneysider’s relationships, but she’s not done with her acquaintances yet.

Her next category is Acquaintance Level 3. This is the “Significant Connection & Care” category that makes up about 25% of people she knows. Now, that description may sound like a “friend” to you, but even though she says that she and the people in this group have a really good connection, have some very meaningful talks, care a lot about each other, and don’t see each other all that much, just now and then ­when we plan to meet . . . she doesn’t yet consider these people friends.

And — believe it or not — the same is true with the next category. This is the Pre­Friend (aka Potential Friend) category that’s made up of about 14% of people she knows. She describes these people as someone she wishes were a friend (as defined below and NOT as society currently defines it), and someone she wants to spend more time with and establish a proper friendship with them.

Now, if you’re keeping track, all of these Acquaintances and Pre-Friends make up 99% of the people she knows!

That’s right, she reserves her final category for the 1% of people in her life she actually would call a Friend, and she defines this group as “Mutual Feelings of Love.” 

She describes this group like this: “I care immensely in every domain of their life (academic, physical, mental wellbeing), how their relationships with their loved ones are. I also care about their thoughts, ideas, elations and fears. I can easily give my honest opinion and thoughts. This person notices when I am upset through subtle indications. I see this person regularly and feel totally comfortable to contact them for a deep and meaningful talk. Someone who takes initiative and makes sacrifices to work on this friendship. Mutual trust, respect, admiration, forgiveness and unconditional care define our relationship. And if it’s not mutual, then we’re not friends.”

This group clearly has a lot of influence in her life.

Now, perhaps after hearing her definition of friend, you understand what she’s saying. Maybe — based off her definition — you’re having a hard time thinking of even one person in your life who fits that criteria. Perhaps this is why people are tempted to call so many people friends. If we used Sydneysider’s definition, most of us wouldn’t have any friends at all. And — if you’re a child or teen in our culture — not having friends is unacceptable. So we’d rather rename our acquaintances than admit to not having friends.

This is why Sydneysider has additional notes on her six stage friendship-acquaintance theory. She says, “There is no shame in being an acquaintance. I think society has made the word derogatory and that is why it seems offensive. It’s just about being honest. Friendship is not that complicated to me (I know, the irony of making up a theory and calling it uncomplicated). There may be a small few that cannot be categorized because there is history and shades of grey, but I look at my relationship with most people as being black or white, categorized, uncomplicated. The theory is flexible in the sense that people can go up or down the levels and understands that throughout a dynamic friendship, people become closer or further apart from each other. My theory originates from personal experiences. I realize that one of my biggest vulnerabilities is that I’m too sentimental; this theory combats this problem quite efficiently. I understand that this theory cannot be applied to everyone, but it significantly helps me.”

Now, as interesting as all of that is, perhaps you’re wondering why we spent so much time looking at a few examples of how the world makes sense of friendship.

We went through it to prove my earlier assertion that everyone has their own opinion on the subject of friends, but to also show that when we take a moment to really think about our friends, hopefully, we’ll come to some deep and extremely introspective conclusions. And I think that’s missing in most of our relationships. 

So, now you need to consider . . .

4. Your understanding of friendship.

It’s too easy to assume we have the same definitions as God, but when we carefully contrast our working definitions with God’s, it’s often too easy to see the dangerous differences. 

And it’s even easier to do with such a culturally familiar concept. But have you actually sat down and meditated on God’s definition of friendship? Do you understand that people exist on a relationship continuum? Do you understand that you should interact with people differently depending on how they relate to you? Do you understand the powerful influence your friends exert on your life?

As you give careful thought to the practical outworking of your beliefs about influence and friendship, I encourage you to answer a couple important questions that will help us build a framework for discussing this topic over the next couple of episodes.

In addition to the questions I posed earlier, I encourage you to carefully consider how you define friendship and influence. Some of you may want to write down your thoughts. Perhaps you may even end up creating your own friendship theory.

Perhaps it will help to think about how other people define the word friend. How do your friends define it? You may be surprised to discover that you and your friends understand the concept very differently.

Now, as you consider all of this it will be very important for you to come to a conclusion about whether or not friendship has to be reciprocal. Can you be someone’s friend if they’re not yours? Can someone be your friend if you’re not their’s?

Some say “yes," and some say “no” — we know what Sydneysider thinks — and it has everything to do with how they define friendship.

It may also be helpful to ask, by your definition, how many real friends do you have in your life?

Now, I know that we’ve talked a lot about what the world thinks about friendship, and not a lot about what God thinks of it. But we did this in order to jumpstart our brains.

I desperately want to short-circuit that bad habit we all have to simply assume we’re looking at a concept the right way. Sometimes it takes hard questions and contrary viewpoints to help us honestly understand the depth or shallow nature of our worldview.

But, before we finish today, I do want to look to one more passage.

So far, we’ve talked about the eternal importance of influence. We learned that even the world recognizes the huge influence that friends have. And we saw some specific examples of people who go through great lengths to curate how much influence others have in their lives.

Now, let’s consider a seminal passage when it comes to who we allow to influence our lives.

Psalm 1:1: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”

Influence is so incredibly important that we not only need to embrace the right kind, we absolutely need to reject the wrong kinds.

In addition to that — God’s personal blessing is tied to rejecting the wrong kinds of influence.

So, as we wrap up today, I pray that we will be thinking long and hard about the kind of influences in our lives as well as the kind of influence we’re having on others.

This is not a passing novelty. These questions are of eternal importance, and I’m honored to be discussing them with you as we learn to worship God better this year than we did the year before.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that your friends can learn more about your maturing view of friendship, and never hesitate to reach out to Counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com if you would like some personalized assistance in your discipleship.

And join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll continue our discussion of true Christian friendship by considering the biblical nature of friends and enemies — and why we so often get them mixed up.

Welcome back to The Year Long Celebration of God where we seek to better know, understand, and love God while also trying to help the people in our lives do the same.

On our inaugural year we introduced the holidays in the Celebration of God, and so far this year we’ve been spending the majority of our time looking at the rest of the days.

Holidays are those High Days of special emphasis, and they are gorgeous and wonderful and necessary. We definitely serve a God of feasts and celebrations and special times. But we also serve a God of the Low Moments — the non-holidays. And — let’s be honest — there are far more Low Moments in our lives than there are High Days.

So, we’ve been looking a lot at the weekly line-items that fill our days. We started most broadly looking at worship and discipleship in general, and then we discussed how to give God the preeminence at work and school. Then after we studied the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, we got super nitty-gritty with discussions about the food we eat and the vacations we take. And most recently we just finished a short three-part study on worshipping God with our sleep and rest.

Of course, there’s still a lot to talk about. For example, a big one is learning to worship God with our finances. As a biblical counselor, this one comes up a lot in our sessions.

So, let’s take a few minutes to look at an average July and talk about the many opportunities we have to worship the Lord.

Then — after the show — follow the link in the description to access our transcript and tons of July resources.

Let’s start by remembering that July is the second month in the Season of Power. We’re spending a focused time meditating on God’s omnipotence and the infinite implications of serving an all-powerful God. And we’re also studying a specific application of that power in our Sanctification. 


It’s my desire in the upcoming years to dedicate short series to each of the four character traits we highlight during the year as well as work through the four facets of our salvation.


So, if you’re listening to or reading this in the future, be sure to look for those studies. But if we haven’t done them yet, I encourage you to make God’s power and your sanctification a focus of your study in your personal devotions. 


Learning more about God’s power and the access we have to it can dispel so much fear, instill so much trust, and actually make us really excited about our potential in Christ. And as we dig deeper into our sanctification, it should convict us that we’re not more mature, but also drive us to work in the power of the Holy Spirit to grow more.

And that’s something we can pursue all through the month of July.

However, when it comes to July High Days, we don’t have too many on the schedule. In fact, the only holiday on the calendar was inspired by the American observation of the 4th of July.

Now, if you’re new to The Year Long Celebration of God, please know that this is a discipleship experience geared toward worshipping God better. It’s not about patriotism or anything like that. I’m not saying that patriotism is inherently bad . . . in fact, I’d argue that it’s not if you live in an amazing country, but that’s not our focus here.

We want to approach our holidays by turning our gaze to our Creator and giving Him the preeminence. So, for that reason, The Celebration of God utilizes Independence Day to focus on the freedom and liberty we have in Christ. Whether it’s national or spiritual, whether it’s the freedom we have to obey God or the freedom we have to publicly worship Him, this is a great time of year to celebrate it. 

Liberty is powerful. In my counseling ministry, change often really starts to happen when people get past the hopeless and the lie that they won’t be able to change. God’s truth sets us free, and His power helps us to thrive in that liberty.

At the same time, Independence Day is a very interesting time to recognize that though we may be independent from many terrible things, humans are never completely independent. Everyone — believer and unbeliever alike — is completely dependent on God for life and the experiences in it. There may be people who hate to acknowledge that fact, but it doesn’t change the reality.

So, regardless of when your nation has an organized Independence Day, we encourage disciples of Christ to take that time to be thankful to God for the nation in which you live, but — even more important than that — use that time to reflect on the beauty of spiritual freedom from sin and dependence on God.

And if your nation doesn’t have a good day to set aside for such contemplation and celebration, we invite you to join us on July 4th — not for a celebration of America — but for a celebration of the freedom that comes through God’s truth.

I look forward to the day that we’re able to add some new holidays to the month of July, but for now we’re thankful for what we have.

Now, there are some of you have that have birthdays and anniversaries in July, so those are also wonderful times to celebrate God, and I look forward to doing future episode about how to worship God on your anniversary and/or birthday.

So, that means that the remaining 30 or so days of the month could be considered those Low Moments. They’re the average days filled with the normal schedule. And it’s these days that are most easy to forget that they too should all be about God.

And that’s why we’ve been working on the episodes we have, so that every day of the week you have at least one celebratory focus.

For example, we have a foundational series for worshipping God on Sunday called Celebrating God at Church.

For your weekly Monday through Friday, we have Celebrating God at Work. But that’s not the only thing going on during the week. In the Northern Hemisphere there’s a lot of vacationing and sporting events, so you can check Celebrating God with Recreation and one of our newest episodes, Celebrating God on Vacation.

And of course, whether you choose to take a Day of Rest on Saturday, Sunday, or Anyday, our Celebrating God with Rest series should get you going in the right direction.

But if you only have time for a handful of episodes, I would strongly encourage you to listen to the What is Worship series, the Grow Your Worship series, or the Discipleship Spiral series.

Each of those presents foundational truths that will guide and inform any and all of the activities in which you participate any day of the week.

And though life always goes the way God plans, it often does’t go the way we plan. For moments like those, I recommend the episodes “Celebrating God when the Holiday is Over” and “Use Death to Celebrate God.”

God’s desire for us — every waking moment of every day — is to grow in our discipleship, help others to grow in their’s, and introduce those who are not yet disciples to our Creator, Savior, and King. So I hope you’ll familiarize yourself with our growing library of discipleship resources.

Whether your July is piping hot or covered in snow, I pray that you will continue to grow in your knowledge, understanding, and love for God. I pray that you will teach what you’re learning to the world around you. And I pray that you experience joy, peace, contentment, and thanksgiving through it all.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that your friends can learn more about The Year Long Celebration of God, and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be starting a series called “What is True Christian Friendship?”

This topic has far more daily import that most of us realize, and I’m very exited to learn what the Scriptures have to say about our friends.

I’ll see you then.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

I’m super looking forward to getting really practical today, but I need to start right here at the outset by making a couple things clear.

I know I haven’t done this topic the justice I want to. I know there are those of you who’ve heard what I said and are potentially more confused than you were before. I’m sorry, by the way. 

There are others of you who patently disagree with me and believe that I’m wrong. Hopefully we can still be friends. :-)

And there are likely those who think I’m saying something I’m not

So, I pray that after today’s episode a lot of those loose-ends will be all tied up, and — if nothing else — I really hope that we will be able to agree on the following four points:

1. God does not command New Testament Christians to observe Old Testament Sabbaths.

Old Testament Sabbaths were a compilation of two things: 1. It was an eternal expectation for the believer’s rest, but 2. It included theocratic expectations that were unique to the Children of Israel at different times and in different ways.

However, just because the Old Testament Sabbath included point two doesn’t mean that point one has no bearing on our lives.  None of that that means that God doesn’t have expectations for our rest. Therefore . . .

2. God does expect us to glorify Him in our rest.

Whether it’s an afternoon nap, quiet time, vacation, recreation, a Day of Rest, or sleep, as followers of Christ He deserves the preeminence in it all.

And . . .

3. God does command us to participate in the activities and have the motivations that we’re going to outline today.

I know that was vague, but we’ll get to them shortly.

And — as we synchronize all of this information — we should be able to agree that . . .

4. Observing a weekly Day of Rest to the glory of God is vital for disciples of Christ.

I know the jury may still be out on that one, but let’s wait to be too dogmatic until the end of the show.

And — of course — we have a link to today’s episode notes, transcript, and Day of Rest resources for you in the description of today’s episode.

So, now let’s look at the motivation for a weekly Day of Rest, what we’re to avoid on that day, what we’re to embrace on that day, and when we’re to take that Day of Rest.

1. The motivation for a Day of Rest is God’s preeminence.

My friends, this is the all-important focus we must have. Most of the Jews absolutely botched the whole Sabbath purpose because they made it about following man-made rules. They did what pleased them. But remember what Isaiah 58:13-14 said, “If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word, 14 Then you will take delight in the Lord, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

We quote Colossians 1:18 around here an awful lot, “He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”

The phrase translated “first place” refers to priority and preeminence. To be preeminent is to have paramount rank, dignity, or importance.

If we enter this discussion trying to see what we can get out of it, if we’re trying to earn brownie points with God, if we’re just trying to make ourselves feel comfortable or be able to check off some religious bullet-points, God is not going to be pleased.

Anything we do and don’t do on our Day of Rest must be to the honor and glory of God as an act of worship to Him.

So, if rest is all about ceasing, from what are we to cease?

2. What to avoid on a Day of Rest.

I originally had this point later in my outline, but it quickly became clear to me that we had to deal with this one first. But I’m not going to spend too much time on it, because — let’s be honest — God doesn’t spend a ton of time on it.

But there are four short points that will set an understanding about God’s expectations for us.

A. We need to cease everything that will disrupt our physical rest.

One day I want to share all of the medical research and scientific data that shows that God’s plan was always best. We need to rest. And there are two kinds of rest that are absolutely necessary.

We need the physical rest that allows our bodies and brains to rejuvenate. This involves healthy amounts of daily sleep as well as a one in seven rhythm of body stewardship. We are fools if we believe that God is glorified by the never-ending, body-wracking busyness of our modern existence. It’s artificial. It’s unsustainable without chemical enhancements. It’s unhealthy, and it’s biblically unwise.

Are there times we must push ourselves to the breaking point? Wars and emergencies and the occasional unhealthy sacrifice for the Gospel all have their place. We must never back down from such endeavors. But if such endeavors are the weekly norm of your existence, you are not stewarding your body well.

The other kind of rest that we need is brain rest. This is the rest required of people whose jobs require constant calculating, problem-solving, study, research, and the like. Just like our body needs rest one in seven, our brains need a one-in-seven east as well.

Please, for the sake of yourself, your family, your work, your ministry, “Come away and rest.”

But . . .

B. We need to cease everything that disrupts intentionally worshipping God.

Ceasing brain work and body work in order to rejuvenate our bodies is one thing, but spiritual rest does not arise from taking a break from spiritual things.

In fact, as we search the Scriptures we see that spiritual rest comes when we are actively trusting and actively loving.

Listen well, if we view a Day of Rest as an opportunity to engage in our own pleasures, to shelve the things of God, and do what pleases us, God is not pleased.

Resting physically is to cease from that physical work. Resting spiritually is to engage with spiritual work.

Now, don’t twist my words to fit your delusion. I’m not defining spiritual work as the work of a pastor or executive director of some non-profit. This spiritual work is the fulfillment of the first and second greatest commandments. We are to love God and love others.

Therefore, anything and everything that would distract us from intentionally and personally investing in our adoration of God and service of others needs to be ceased.

“Yes, but Aaron, aren’t we supposed to love God and others all of the time? That’s not really something we shouldn’t be doing earlier in the week. So, what’s the difference?”

Consider I Corinthians 7. In a discussion concerning marriage, starting in verse 32 Paul explains how the unmarried individuals have an advantage in a certain regard. He says “But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; 33 but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. 35 This I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.”

Now, we don’t have time to unpack this in any way, but we do recognize that there are certain “things of the Lord” in which married people cannot fully participate because of the concerns of the world. They have divided interests because they have a spouse for whom to care.

Are those of us who are married expected by God to love Him and serve Him and be a light in this dark world? Of course. But this passage shows us that we finite humans can only really do one thing at a time, and if I’m caring for my family, I can’t be caring for someone else the way a single person could.

What’s the application here? The point I’m making is that, yes, of course we’re to love God and others every day of the week, but the Day of Rest was specifically designed to remove most of the dividing distractions — the concerns about the things of the world — that could keep us from unencumbered love for God and others.

The Sabbath was the day that the Jews engaged in intentional corporate and personal worship in which they couldn’t engage if they were encumbered by weekly work.

Adam and Eve were created sometime on the 6th day. Eve was potentially created very late on the 6th day. That means that their very first full day was spent resting with God, talking with Him, knowing Him, and enjoying Him. How beautiful a picture! 

This reality started at Creation and will continue through eternity. The idea of taking a day to set aside the encumbrances of the world in order to fellowship with God and His people is not an Old Testament Law concept. It’s a whole Bible-spanning reality of the character and purpose of our God.

So, we set aside that which will distract from physical rest and spiritual rest. And . . .

C. We need to cease everything that disrupts intentionally loving the people in our lives.

I won’t spend much time on this point given everything that was said in the last. In the same way we should specifically and purposefully set aside a day to devote ourselves to the greatest commandment, we cannot fully love God if we’re not loving others.

This means that all selfish ambition, all personal pleasure, and all prideful self-worship needs to be set aside so that we can work toward God’s best interest in the lives around us.

And, yes, what I said on the last point applies here as well. Of course, we should always be seeking to love others. There is never any time in a believer’s life where selfish ambition, personal pleasure, and prideful self-worship is allowed. But the one-in-seven Day of Rest is a specific time to set aside the cares of the world to intentionally engage in corporate worship. It’s a relational thing with God and with others.

And lastly . . .

D. We need to cease everything that distracts from our anticipation of future rest.

Focused enjoyment of God and service of others is a very snapshot of our eternal future. In a way that we cannot begin to imagine, all eternity for God’s people will be perfectly fulfilling the first and second greatest commandments. 

And though there will be necessary work in glory, there will be none of the the self-fulfilling, self-protecting, self-initiated, self-required, self-providing, laborious work. 

We will be free from all forms of self-worship and self-trust. None of our work will be tainted by the fall. And God desires that our Day of Rest be a tiny, imperfect, look into the glorious future He has planned for us.

We need to set aside the laborious, self-providing work that so often tempts us to take our eyes off of God.

“But Aaron,” you say, “I need to work all seven days of the week, or I’ll never make ends meet.”

First, I would say that — if that’s really true — you need to reevaluate your standard of living. But — more importantly — the Day of Rest has always been about trust. In the same way that you must trust God if you want to experience the most peaceful sleep, you must also trust God with your provision. 

Yes, it’s true you may have made poor financial choices that need some extra work in order to recover from them, but who are you trusting more to provide for you? If God is Who He says He is, if God does all He says He does, and if God desires for us to rest from our work and rest in Him, then what is more important — flexing my mortal muscles or trusting the omnipotence and wisdom of God?

And that leads us to . . .

3. The Motivation for a Day of Rest is obedience.

To truly give God the preeminence in our lives, we must obey Him. It’s wicked to profess God but live as practical atheists. It’s never good enough to pay lip service while we offer our lives on the altar to self. True belief in God will always work itself out in our behavior. Living faith always produces Christ-honoring works.

And when we love Him and work according to His purposes, we know that He will work all things out for His greatest glory and our greatest good. But the key is the intentionality — the motivation. If we’re intentionally trying to obey God for the purpose of simply enjoying our day off, we’re doing exactly what the Jews did.

We need to engage in a Day of Rest because we’re purposefully trying to please the Lord. Everything that follows is simply the blessing on the cake.

Giving God the preeminence demands obedience to His commands and His example. That’s it. That’s the motivation.

Therefore, don’t cease from laborious work just to cease from work. Cease from the work that grows from trust in self because that’s what God commands. Let’s obey Him in our resting.

And now, the big question on the table is . . . 

4. What to embrace on a Day of Rest. 

On the past couple of episodes we’ve repeatedly seen that the Sabbath was designed to accomplish three major things. First, mankind has a legitimate need for physical rest. Second, God wants us to rest spiritually, and third, it gives us an opportunity to anticipate our future rest.

So . . .

A. We need to embrace rest for our bodies.

Now, this where the Rabbis messed up. In order to make sure everyone knew exactly what it was to rest their bodies, the Rabbis made a list of subjective rules and demanded universal compliance.

My friends, I refuse to do that to any of us. 

Long ago I had a pastor say from the pulpit that men need to love their wives by opening their car door for them. What’s really funny is if I did that for my wife, that would do anything but communicate love for her. She would hate that

Should I love my wife? Yes. Should other men love their wives? Yes. But does that mean that we all must communicate that love in the same ways? Nope.

And a Day of Rest is very similar. 

Let me give you a broad example. As was already mentioned, the Hebrew idea of rest simply referred to ceasing. Most specifically it referred to ceasing from certain kinds of work we mentioned previously. 

But the idea of taking a break from one thing in order to engage in another does not inherently mean that the activity has to be — in and of itself — restful.

For example, my job is exceptionally sedentary. Though I use a standing desk and often walk on a treadmill when I write, I never break a sweat or get anywhere near 10,000 steps in a day. I need to make those physical disciplines happen because they do not happen over the course of my job.

That means that a break from my work often involves me getting out and doing something physically active. I work in the garden, I tend the bees, I hike with my family, I swim. I’m resting from my work by taking a break, but I rejuvenate and re-create by engaging in dissimilar activities, not merely more sedentary activity.

Now, you may be saying, “Yeah, but Aaron, I though the point you made on the previous episodes was that we often push ourselves too hard, and we need to learn to be less physically active.”

Well, that’s true for a lot of people. I don’t know how many people listening to the sound of my voice are workaholics who don’t give their minds or bodies a break. Some stock analysts burn themselves out by never taking a break from number-crunching and research. Many construction workers never give their bodies a break from overtime. 

And both kinds of stress — brain stress and body stress — have a negative impact on our lives. We’re not stewarding our bodies well when we don’t have appropriate rhythms built into our weeks.

On one hand, I can definitely counsel a surgeon that she needs to get away from the hospital and engage in physical activities that stimulate her muscles, but at the same time an MMA fighter needs to get off his feet.

Now, while my life accommodates body restfulness nearly every day, being a biblical counselor can be mentally taxing. Ceasing from my work often needs to be an endeavor that doesn’t require deep meditation or carrying heavy spiritual burdens. 

On the other hand, those whose brains aren’t as exercised as their muscles could use a rest that involves significant brain exercise.

Here’s the key — healthy rest is a rest from our usual. We need a break from the norm. Consider your most productive work of the week — for many it will be their jobs, for others their school, and for others their homes. Your Day of Rest will be most physically healthy when you take one day in seven to cease from that work and find rest in something else.

Now, the immediate question that arises is from the stay at home parents. If tending your home and caring for your children all week is your productive work, you can’t very well take a break from parenting. How do people in that category rest?

Well, let me say that it would be inappropriate for anyone to stop caring for those who cannot turn to anyone else.

If it would be unthinkable for a farmer to refuse to water and feed his animals once a week — and it is — if it would be wrong to leave a man in a pit simply because he fell into it on a Day of Rest — which Jesus says it would — then it is never acceptable to stop doing the things that we must always do . . . loving the people in our lives.

Now, before I clarify the role of parenting on a Day of Rest, I will say that it’s completely appropriate and healthy and wise — if you’re a stay at home parent — to avoid unnecessary chores on your Day of Rest. Vacuuming and laundry and cleaning the bathroom generally don’t have to be done every day of the week, and when care is given to schedule such things around the Day of Rest, it’s quite easy to make sure that none of the chores have to be done on the day. 

And I can say, as a man who has worked from home for over 8 years, this can and should be done for all the same reasons a restaurant manager or a mechanic or a CEO needs to rest one day in seven from their laborious work.

Now back to the question of whether such people get a break from parenting.

B. We need to rest our spirits.

Here is the integral reality of utter-importance that we must believe. When we talk about physical rest, we refer to a ceasing of work. But when we talk about spiritual rest, we’re not talking about taking a break from spiritual things.

Remember, we rest from work, but we rest in (or to) God. This means that all of the commands in Scripture about loving others still stand.

We need to continue evangelizing and discipling. Parenting falls under these categories just like every human relationship. I don’t get to stop loving my wife on my Day of Rest. It’s not about avoiding those who need help. That would be selfish.

I need to one-another and serve and invest in and disciple and parent and prefer others above myself.

A Day of Rest isn’t “me time.” It’s not about “self-care.” Will it result in renewed physical and spiritual vitality? Definitely! But that’s not the goal; it’s just the benefits. The goal is to love others.

So, yes, the Levites continued to offer sacrifices and people helped animals out of pits and doctors treated emergencies and pastors tended spiritual emergencies in the flock.

A Day of Rest is not a day to selfishly ignore the needs of others. 

And why do we do this?

As was mentioned earlier, spiritual rest involves setting aside those things that would distract us from serving others, but — most importantly — we need to rest our spirits by removing the distractions that would keep me from worshipping God.

Now, as we’ve said so many times, everything is an act of worship to God or self. Therefore, six out of seven days God should be worshipped with our work. But He doesn’t want that worship on our Day of Rest.

And, yes, caring for others and resting or exercising my brain and body should be offered as an act of worship to Him. But it’s also a good idea to increase our personal devotion. Time in prayer, time spent in the word, time spent praising God, and time spent in corporate worship follows the pattern the Scriptures lay out for us.

And not only does God deserve this, and not only does this provide all the benefits of resting from work and in God, but it also helps us look forward to our future rest in Christ. 

The return of Christ is to motivate all we do. 

In II Peter, Peter takes the first third of his letter to explain who God wants us to be, the second third to explain who God doesn’t want us to be, and the third third to explain the motivation for the first and second thirds.

Starting in II Peter 3:10 we read, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.”

A Day of Rest is designed to have us stop and dwell on the joyous realities of our future with God!

Okay, so far we’ve talked twice about the motivation for a Day of Rest, and we’ve looked at some general principles of what we shouldn’t do on a Day of Rest and what we should do, and I have three more points to discuss.

5. The motivation for a Day of Rest is conformity to Christ.

In order to give God the preeminence, we must fully obey Him — not merely in word and deed, but most importantly in our heart. 

And as we obey Him by doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason and in the right power, we are being conformed to the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another. It’s the beauty of progressive sanctification — striving to be practically conformed to the image of Christ as we are positionally conformed to the image of Christ. 

Again, having the right motivation informs our Day of Rest. As I become like Christ, I’m reminded of the future day that I will be glorified as He is glorified. We will be sinless — like Jesus, and what a glorious day that will be!

Obedience is a necessary part of our becoming holy. Holiness is setting something apart for a specific purpose.

In the same way that God commanded that the Day of Rest be set apart for all the things about which we’ve been talking for the past three weeks, participating in a weekly Day of Rest (specifically) and all true obedience (generally) is further setting us apart to God.

Now, we’ve already hit on this, but I want to touch back to one reason that many Christians believe that the idea of Sabbath rest is no longer necessary for followers of Christ. I believe it was John Calvin (along with others) who argued that there was nothing unique to the Sabbath that Christians shouldn’t be doing or enjoying every day. If I remember correctly, He had a similar view about holidays. Why set aside a day to celebrate God’s goodness when we should be celebrating it every day?

And though I agree that we should be growing in our sanctification every day, I believe the Day of Rest was designed to afford us undistracted time to emphasize that worship and growth.

Now, aside from a burning desire to have a clear, itemized list of what you “not allowed to do” and what you’re “allowed to do” — which neither I nor God are going to give you — the remaining question on most of your minds is . . .

6. When to have a Day of Rest.

A. There are those who argue for Saturday. 

I can see the value of continuing the seventh day format God established in Creation. I’ve been intentionally taking a Day of Rest for about 5 years now, and half of the time our family has chosen Saturday to be our Day of Rest.

But for the first half of the time that my family has intentionally observed a Day of Rest, it was impossible for my to do it on Saturday because of my schedule at Victory Academy for Boys.

B. There are those who argue for Sunday. 

Since many people believe that Sunday has replaced Saturday as the best day to corporately worship the Lord, I can completely see the value in observing a Day of Rest on Sunday.

However, again, for the first half of the time that my family has intentionally observed a Day of Rest, it was impossible for me to do it on Sunday because of my schedule at Victory Academy for Boys.

Saturday and Sunday were my busiest days. And though I took the boys to church on Sunday, given the nature of life with at-risk teens, Sunday was definitely laborious work.

I would say many of the same things could be argued for a pastor.

And that’s why I’m going to argue for this last point . . .

C. There are those who argue for Anyday.

Again, a Day of Rest where we exercise our trust in God by removing the wordily distractions in order to love Him, love others, and engage in healthy rhythms of rest is the expectation.

Did God want the ancient Jews as a nation to observe this day on Saturday? Yes. Is it okay for modern believers to take a weekly one-in-seven rest on Sunday? Yes.

But one-in-seven is the expectation from God. In fact, if we’re getting really specific, there were many weeks on the Jewish calendar where they had more than one Sabbath. There was always a weekly Sabbath, but there were a number of High Days on the holiday calendar that were extra Sabbaths. That means that the idea of rest didn’t only ever have to fall on Saturday. There was flexibility for a number of them.

And I believe that flexibility is just as free to us today.

When I worked at the boys home, my only day off was Monday. So, guess what? Monday was my family’s Day of Rest for the first few years.

Now, personally, I like the idea of Saturday for its symbolism, but I love the idea of Sunday since most modern believers already meet for corporate worship on Sunday. But it doesn’t have to be on Sunday. We can worship corporately in many ways whether we’re at church or not. Wouldn’t it be cool to have more times of corporate worship during the week?

Now, if you are going to encourage your local body of believers to observe their Day of Rest on Sunday, then I believe the church needs to reevaluate how they go about some of their programs and structure.

Unfortunately, we’ve already used some much time today, I can’t dive into that now. Perhaps, it will have to be a future episode.

So, allow me to recap and then share one last thought.

As we make God’s expectations, character, and deeds our only motivation, we’re going to want to set aside one day in seven so that we can cease from our worldly distractions — namely the work we do that’s required to keep our world spinning — in order to embrace the work it takes to undistractedly love God, love others, give our physical selves the necessary rest we need, and look forward to the day we get to Sabbath with God for all eternity.

And that leads to our seventh and final point for the day.

7. The motivation for a Day of Rest is evangelism.

Points one, three, and five all brought our minds back to the most important concept of our weekly rest — why are we doing it? What are we trying to accomplish?

Point one set the foundation that God is to have the preeminence in all things. Point three developed that concept by reminding us that God will never be preeminent in our lives if we’re not obeying Him. Then point five unpacked the idea of sanctification — as we give God the preeminence in our lives by obeying Him, we will be conformed to the image of Christ.

And so our final piece comes from Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

The only reason God leaves believers on this earth is that He wants to use us to draw others to Him. Our devotion to God that produces obedience needs to cause the world to think differently about our God. And as we are matured into the image of Christ, our light becomes brighter, our salt saltier, and our obedience more glorifying.

Our Day of Rest plays into this in a beautiful way. When God’s people intentionally participate in a God-motivated, counter-cultural, and counter-intuitive Day of Rest, it should cause the world to stop and think.

Let’s be honest, a Day of Rest dedicated to resting from laborious work and resting in God will look weird to the world. 

“Why do you not ___________? And why do you __________?” 

Those questions give us opportunities to magnify God and introduce them to Him.

Therefore, in conclusion, the motivation for a Day of Rest is the same as everything else we do. God deserves the preeminence in our lives, therefore we must obey Him, be conformed to His image, and point the world to Him.

And I believe that though I haven’t done it the justice it deserves, we’ve seen that God’s core expectations for a one-in-seven Day of Rest are just as relevant and alive as they were on the seventh day of Creation.

He wants us to steward our bodies in a healthy way. He wants us to steward our spirits in a healthy way by giving special weekly attention to loving Him and loving others. And He wants those experiences to focus our minds on the glorious future He has planned for all His people — which in turn stokes the fire we have for continuing to give God the preeminence in all things.

In order to accomplish this, we simply need to cease from the work that is necessary for life. That includes the jobs which provide the money or materials necessary to live as well as the daily tasks that keep our little worlds spinning. 

As we set these aside, we not only have more time to focus on truly resting in God, but we exercise our trust in Him.

And then we get to engage in all of the work necessary to rest in Him.

I hope this has given you a lot about which to think. I pray that you will continue to study this. I pray that you will be open to knowing God’s mind on the subject. And I pray that you too will learn to appreciate and take advantage of the rest God wants for all of His people. It’s not just a future rest. It’s not just a spiritual rest. It’s also a weekly physical rest designed to conform you to the image of Christ and draw the world to Him.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other disciples of Christ can be challenged with this study, and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing how to worship God in July.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Welcome to the show, I hope you’re ready for a biblically exciting discussion. And I hope you leave any a priori assumptions at the door. Don’t come into this thinking you know what I’m going to say. 

Set aside your tradition and biases, and let’s approach God’s Word together for the purpose of answering a crucial question. There are those who believe that Christians are sinning if they don’t observe the Sabbath the way the Jews did. There are those who believe that God has absolutely no expectations for our weekly rest at all. And there are those who fall on a wide spectrum in the middle.

And I pray that by the end of today’s episode, we have some hard and valuable principles and conclusions from the Scriptures.

But before we do that, I hope that you will subscribe to this show on your favorite podcast provider, and I hope you’ll engage with The Year Long Celebration of God on social media. We love to provide worship prompts for you throughout the day, and we pray that can play a small part in your sanctification and discipleship. 

And — as always — today’s episode notes, transcript, and worship resources will be available for you at CelebrationOfGod.com which you can access from the links in the description of this episode.

So, are Christians required to observe the Sabbath?

The first thing we need to lay out briefly is that the answer to this question is . . .

1. A Matter of Theology

For example, if you’re a Jew or part of any number of groups that believe that modern Christians should keep Old Testament laws, you’re going to have your answer to this question.

If you’re a Seventh Day Adventist, then your theology demands Sabbath-keeping.

Even the covenant theology of Presbyterians should lead them to unashamedly observing a weekly Sabbath — even though many don’t.

However, when it comes to Baptists and similar denominations there’s a significant amount of disagreement and often even disinterest.

Honestly, the disagreement makes sense. But the disinterest confuses me. To completely disregard the concept of a one-in-seven-day-of-rest is to not only ignore the biological sciences that clearly emphasize the need, but it’s to reduce the 10 Commandments to 9 Commandments and 1 Suggestion.

Do we really think that God made a mistake? Is it possible that — along with 9 testament spanning laws rooted in His character — He slipped in a solely Jewish, soon-to-be-done-away-with-at-the-advent-of-the-new-covenant command?

In addition to that, we have to recognize that the foundation of Sabbath-keeping was rooted in something God had done thousands of years earlier at the very creation of the universe when there were no Children of Israel or systematized religious system.

I think the disinterest surrounding this subject is one of ignorance. And I can say that primarily because that was my state for decades. I simply did not recognize how important a day of rest was to God.

But how important is it? What does God really expect of us . . . if anything . . . when it comes to a weekly rest.

2. The Old Testament Sabbath

The idea of Sabbath was simple, we were to stop doing some work and increase our engagement in other work. We’re going to distinguish between condemned work and commanded work.

And — honesty — the Bible didn’t have very many specific examples of condemned work. With the exception of traveling, there are only 4 categories of prohibited work to be found in the entire Old Testament. And some of them weren’t directly commanded, but were illustrated in later books to be examples of condemned work.

By the way, I don’t believe that Exodus 16:29-30 truly forbids travel from one’s home. This time in Israel’s life was unique from all others in that God was providing manna. One of the prohibitions we find in the Bible was collecting manna on Saturday. Well, God doesn’t send manna anymore, so that prohibition doesn’t apply to anyone living today. I believe the prohibition on travel was an over-exaggeration of a unique prohibition on the people at that time.

A. Daily food production was prohibited. 

Other than gathering manna in Exodus 16:23-29, this could include gathering wood from Numbers 15:32-36, and kindling a fire from Exodus 35:2-3.

Now, we don’t have time to dig deep into each of these prohibitions, and — too be honest — there’s no reason to, but I want you to know that if you decide to study this further, you will find — as I said before — that God did not itemize every possible thing the Jews weren’t supposed to do. But from the commands and illustrations we see, it is very easy to understand what God was trying to accomplish with a Day of Sabbath Rest.

B. Laborious work was prohibited.

Today’s notes will have a bunch of helpful references for this point that I won’t mention here (Leviticus 23:7, 8, 21, 25, 35, 36; Numbers 28:18, 25, 26, 29:1, 12, 35), but this category specifically included: Field work (Exodus 34:21), treading winepresses (Nehemiah 13:15), selling goods (Nehemiah 10:31, 13:15-22; Amos 8:5), and bearing burdens (Jeremiah 17:19-27) — specifically with the understanding that the burden was being carried away to sell.

C. Godless personal pleasure was prohibited.

Allow me to read Isaiah 58:13-14, “If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word, 14 Then you will take delight in the Lord, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

This is a very important point we’re going to revisit later, but it makes perfect sense. God is never pleased when we pursue that which attacks His character. We’re never to lean on our own understanding or do what’s right in our own eyes.

And, lastly, D. Fasting was prohibited.

Not only did the Lord command various feasts to take pace on various Sabbaths, but there are illustrations of God’s people being commanded to eat on the Sabbath. For example, in Nehemiah 8:9-10 we read “Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law. 10 Then he said to them, ‘Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’”

And here’s what all of this condemned working has in common:

First, it distracted from worship. Not only were the Jews to cease from work, the 10 Commandments make it clear that is it was supposed to be a day set apart for the corporate worship of God. 

Second, it encouraged trust in one’s ability. God said, “Don’t work.” So, why would I work? I would work because I believe that if I don’t work, I won’t have what I need. But God promised the people that when they stopped working and put Him first, He would provide all they needed. It was a question of whether I trust God or myself.

This was illustrated in a massive way on the Sabbatical year where the people were commanded not even to plant any food one year in seven. This required epic amounts of trust as the people would have to believe that God was going to provide.

And therefore all such work, encouraged trust in one’s ability

God provides. We trust. God does what we cannot. We have faith. God says, “Rest.” We rest.

And that’s why not all work was condemned. Some work was condoned, and other work was commanded.

For example, military campaigns (Joshua 6:15), marriage and dedication feasts (Judges 14:12-18; I Kings 8:65), as well as Levitical duties (II Kings 11:5-9; II Chronicles 23:4, 8) like preparing showbread and putting it out (I Chronicles 9:32), offering sacrifices (I Chronicles 21:32; Ezekiel 46:4-5), and guarding the temple (II Kinds 1:5-9) were all allowed or expected.

So, we see that the forbidden work was work that resulted in providing for oneself. It encompassed all business activities that put coins in the coffers. It could be argued that it also included traveling for work. And the preparation of food was an interesting one because it’s the ultimate end of all work — sustenance and flourishing. Of course, feasting wasn’t forbidden, just the work that went into preparing the meal.

On the other hand, there was a lot of necessary work to be done. We’ll look at more examples later, but realize that doctors didn’t get the day off if someone desperately need him.

The Old Testament was purposefully vague on what constituted condemned work because it was not intended to be about the activities. It was about corporately worshipping God, caring for creation, developing a weekly reminder of just how much we need to trust God, and loving each other. 

Ceasing from work to worship God, give creation a rest, caring for the community, and placing our complete trust in God to provide for our needs was the ultimate goal of the Sabbath. And the laborious work that was motivated by and contributed to nothing more than personal gain was the antithesis of that kind of lifestyle.

Now, unfortunately, the Jews did what we all do, and they ran from the spirit of the law in a vain attempt to keep the superficial letter of the law. God wanted their passionate worship; they wanted a list of do’s and don’ts that would cover their hineys.

3. The Rabbis and the Sabbath

For people like the Pharisees, all work became bad work.

According to the Jewish Publication Society, “In the Mishnah, the Rabbis enumerated 39 major categories (with hundreds of subcategories) of labor that were forbidden . . . based on the types of work that were related to the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, which ceased on the Sabbath.”

Later it says, “The Rabbis decreed that one not only should avoid forbidden acts but also must not do anything that (1) resembles a prohibited act or could be confused with it, (2) is a habit linked with a prohibited act, or (3) usually leads to performing a prohibited act.”

And this is how far they went to avoid breaking the letter of the law . . . “The rabbinic enactment of measures to prevent these possibilities was termed ‘putting a fence around the Torah’ (Avot 1:1). For example, ripping up a piece of paper was forbidden since it resembles ‘cutting to shape’ or could be confused with it. Similarly, agreeing to buy something was prohibited, because most agreements are confirmed in ‘writing;’ climbing a tree is forbidden, because it may lead to breaking twigs or tearing leaves, which could be construed as ‘reaping’ (i.e., separating part of a growing plant from its source). Other activities that by extension are prohibited on the Sabbath include the following: Adding fresh water to a vase of cut flowers (sowing — any activity that causes or furthers plant growth). Making a bouquet of flowers (making a sheaf). Separating good fruit from spoiled fruit (winnowing, selecting, sifting). Brushing dried mud from boots or clothes (grinding). Cutting hair or nails (shearing sheep-removing outer covering of a human or animal). Applying makeup (dyeing). Braiding hair (weaving). Drawing blood for a blood test (slaughtering).”

But all of this was too much. It was never commanded by God. The Lord never specifically said that the tabernacle work that ceased on the Sabbath was to provide a template for all other work. They lost the whole point of delighting in and trusting God, and the attempt to protect people from displeasing the Lord actually displeased the Lord because following the rules became the main goal. In the end, God was not glorified because the actual purpose of the Law was being completely missed.

Now, let’s consider . . .

4. The New Testament Sabbath

As we discussed last time, the Sabbath rest was designed by God to fulfill the following purposes: 

A. It instituted healthy cycles of work and rest for the creation. 

In the New Testament we see that nothing in this category has changed. Modern Christians aren’t superheroes who no longer need to care for our bodies because we have caffeine and electric lights. Our animals still need rest. Our land still needs rest. We still need rest.

B. It provided a consistent time of corporate worship. 

Of course, we no longer live in a theocracy. Like all of the other rules and regulations that were unique to the Jewish people under the Old Covenant, we are not commanded to corporately worship God on Saturday any more than we’re commanded not to eat shellfish or bacon.

Also the Scriptures and history are very clear that the worship of Yahweh among Christians was moved to Sunday in observance of the Resurrection. Still, modern believers are to make sure they assemble with God’s people for corporate worship. This is not something we’re allowed to forsake.

In the New Testament, the Sabbath still . . .

C. exemplified the spiritual imagery of spiritual rest in a relationship with God.

The imagery is still true today. We look forward to the future Sabbath where we enter our eternal rest with God. And when we don’t rest, it’s easy to miss the anticipation of our future rest.

And D. The New Testament Sabbath still promoted the need to trust the Lord.

And — guess what — we still need to trust God. He is still our refuge and strength. He still wants to provide spiritual rest to all those who trust in Him. He still provides peace and contentment that passes all comprehension.

This means that from the beginning of the Church Age until now, the key functions of the Sabbath are just as applicable to Christians as they were to the genuine believers in the Children of Israel. 

But before I go too far down this road. I want to talk about . . .

5. Jesus and the Sabbath

A. Jesus observed the Sabbath.

Some might argue that He didn’t have to observe the Sabbath, but — if that’s true — we can’t deny that He still chose to.

On the other hand, I argue that Jesus absolutely had to observe the Sabbath. He observed the very first one right after finishing Creation, He was the one Who demanded that the Sabbath be holy unto God, and that is precisely why He and His followers observed it while He was on earth.

The Sabbath was more than a mere theocratic show. It was tied directly to Creation, and it was designed to do so much more than give us a break from work.

However . . .

B. Jesus didn’t follow the manmade rules that stole God’s glory.

In the same way it’s important to acknowledge that Jesus submitted to the Old Testament expectations for the Sabbath by avoiding condemned work and embracing commanded work, it’s important to realize that He rejected the manmade additions to the Sabbath.

This makes all the sense in the world because the manmade additions completely missed the universal point. It focused too much on the action and completely missed the motivation.

So, it’s helpful to recognize that Jesus’ practice on the Sabbath brought the Sabbath observation back in line with God’s expectations — rest, worship, love, and anticipation. We can learn a lot from what Jesus did and said as we grow in our understanding of the Sabbath.

For example, Jesus never missed a chance to spend time with the Father on the Sabbath. He often healed on the Sabbath. There was nothing wrong with Him and His disciples picking heads of grain on the Sabbath. And we know that Jesus traveled to Bethany on the Sabbath.

Everything He did on the Sabbath was God’s will for Him, involved elevating the Father and preferring others above Himself, and perfectly fulfilled the expectations for a Sabbath rest.

So . . . now let’s consider . . .

6. The Christian and the Sabbath

If we take all of today’s observations, we’re going to come to the following conclusions.

A. Modern Christians do not need to observe the Old Testament ceremonial laws that were concluded with the fulfillment in Christ.

However, the one-in-seven Day of Rest cannot be swept under ceremonial law rug. The main purposes of the Day of Rest supersede the specific ceremonial requirements that were part of the Old Testament Sabbath traditions. The core of the Sabbath wasn’t rooted in tradition and law, but in God’s very character and man’s very need.

This means that . . .

B. Modern Christians need to rest one-day-in-seven so they can be Christ-honoring stewards of their bodies.

We aren’t superheroes unfazed by overwork. The same is true of our animals and land. Just like before the fall, man and nature need to rest once a week. 

C. Modern Christians need to rest one-day-in-seven so they can be Christ-honoring stewards of their spirits.

The Scripture is very clear that God’s people need to participate in corporate sanctification and that God gave us pastors to facilitate that process. 

Gathering as the Church on Sunday is very important. But I don’t think that a mere 1 to 2 hours of services is exactly what God intends.

I believe the Western Church needs to seriously reevaluate their corporate worship times in light of the Scriptures. I believe we fall far too short in giving God the 1-in-7 preeminence that He demands.

And when we steward our bodies and souls in a way that pleases the Lord . . .

D. Modern Christians need to rest one-day-in-seven to give God the priority in their lives.

We need to trust Him. We need to obey Him. We need to rest in Him. 

E. Modern Christians need to rest one-day-in-seven as a unique way to love the people in their lives.

And finally . . .

F. Modern Christians need to rest one-day-in-seven in order to appreciate the future rest God has planned for them.

Are Christians required to observe the Sabbath? 

Simply put, yes. But there is a difference between the way modern Christians will observe it and the way that ancient Jews observed it.

In order to put our full trust in God, we need to submit to His plan for our physical and spiritual thriving.

Now, the question on the table is, what does the practically look like? What are we allowed or not allowed to do? What day should we rest? And so on.

So, in preparation for answering those questions, I hope you will share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other followers of Christ can learn how to worship God better with their rest, and then plan to join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be getting super practical as we discuss “How to Celebrate God with a Day of Rest.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

This is a topic I’ve been waiting for a long time to tackle, but I’m still approaching it with great trepidation because it’s such a hugely significant topic. I want to do it justice, but I also know that I can’t do it justice . . . especially on a podcast.

But we need to do it whatever justice we can. So, over the next three weeks we’re going to begin a conversation that I hope to build on many more times in the future.

So far we’ve hinted at it, we’ve talked around it, and we’ve even made partial comments about it, but I really look forward to taking it to the next level.

I pray our free episode notes, transcripts, and celebration resources will also help you as you work to better know, understand, and live in the reality of of this glorious truth.

And for those of you who didn’t catch the title of today’s show and have no idea what I’m talking about, we’re discussing Celebrating God with Your Rest.

We’ve talked about celebrating God at church, at work, and at school. We’ve talked about using death to celebrate God. And we’ve talked about celebrating Him with your vacation, recreation, and your food and drink. So, it’s definitely time to add rest to the list, and . . . while we’re at it, even talk about sleep.

So, let’s start with the easier of the two. Is it possible to please or displease the Lord when you’re asleep?

You’ve probably heard me say a number of times on this show that God deserves our worship every waking hour of the day. But we’ve never talked about the worship He’s due when we’re sleeping or what that would even mean for us.

So . . .

1. Celebrating God with Your Sleep

Whether I’m awake or not, I know that my God is still worthy of preeminence. Colossians says that He should have preeminence in all things; and yes, that includes my sleep.

A. We please God with our sleep when we recognize that He is the one Who provides it.

Psalm 127:2 reads, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”

Now, I’m not saying that unbelievers don’t sleep well, but I am saying that God is not pleased by their sleep because they consider it an act of chance or of their own doing. 

Are you thankful to God for your sleep? As you go to bed tonight or wake in the morning, take some time to thank the Lord for the rejuvenating sleep He provides.

B. We please God with our sleep when we trust Him as we go to sleep.

In Psalm 3, David starts by explaining how his adversaries were increasing and taunting him and how he cried out to the Lord, but then in verse 5 he writes, “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.”

Psalm 4:8 tells us, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety.”

Psalm 37:7 says, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.”

Now, contrast this with the night Darius realized he had condemned Daniel to the lion’s den. Daniel 6:18 tells us, “Then the king went off to his palace and spent the night fasting, and no entertainment was brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.”

Darius didn’t know the Lord. He didn’t trust for sure that Daniel’s God would preserve Daniel. That’s why, in verse 20, he cried into the den, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?”

How many of us are like Darius, fretting about things over which we have no control when we should be sleeping? As you go to sleep tonight, you can please the Lord by thanking Him for sovereignly doing all the things you never really had control of anyway. 

This includes things like keeping your heart beating and your lungs pumping, but it also includes protecting you, your family, and your home, keeping the world spinning, and so much more.

C. We please God with our sleep when we sleep at the right times.

The Bible says that you can sleep too much if you’re lazy. Proverbs 20:13 says, “Do not love sleep, or you will become poor.” 

And Proverbs 6:9 asks, “How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?” Though sleep itself is amoral, the oversleep of sluggards doesn’t please the Lord because the reason for their sleep doesn’t please Him.

The Bible also illustrates that you can sleep at the wrong times. Matthew 26 is very interesting in that the disciples chose to sleep when they should have been praying. 

And it’s also very interesting to realize that the Bible provides many examples of people who didn’t get enough sleep simply because they chose to be awake and sinning instead.

I Thessalonians 5:7, “For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.”

Proverbs describes how adulterers also use the night to veil their sinful deeds, and John 3:19 explains that “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” This is just as true when it comes to physical darkness and light as it is with spiritual darkness and light.

Take careful stock of your sleep patterns. Do they glorify God? Is He pleased with the amount of your sleep and the timing of your sleep?

And finally, when it comes to sleep . . .

D. We please God with our sleep when we please Him with our waking.

Proverbs 3:21-24, “My son, let them not vanish from your sight. Keep sound wisdom and discretion, 22 So they will be life to your soul And adornment to your neck. 23 Then you will walk in your way securely And your foot will not stumble. 24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid; When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.” Living wisely leads to sleeping wisely.

So, yes, my friends, God deserves our worship every waking moment of the day. But it’s in those waking moments that we become the people whose sleep also pleases the Lord.

Alright, so that was sleep. That includes napping and any other time we’re unconscious. But what about . . . .

2. Celebrating God with Your Rest.

Rest is a big topic that covers many states of mind and body.

Therefore, for this topic, we must start at the beginning.

On our Celebrating God on Vacation episode I referenced Genesis 2. Let’s go back there for a minute.

Genesis 2:1-3 reads, “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

And we made these observations:

A. God did not need to rest. Instead . . .
B. God rested from His work on the last day of the week as an example of healthy rhythms for His creation. And . . .
C. God also rested to symbolize the experience of faith in Him.

The first observation doesn’t need too much detail, but God obviously did not need to rest because He is never fatigued. He never needs to catch His breath or regain His strength. 

However, let’s consider the second and third observations in more detail.

God rested from His work on the last day of the week as an example of how His creation was supposed to live, and God rested to symbolize the experience of faith in Him.

If this were the only time in the Bible that we heard about God resting, then there would be a lot of unanswered questions. Thankfully, though, the Scriptures repeatedly reference this event and explain to us the meaning behind it.

For example, in Exodus 20:8-11 we read, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” And a similar explanation appears in Exodus 31:17.

God ordained that the Children of Israel would have a cycle of work and rest every day and every week. Every day they would wake and sleep, but then every week they would work for six and rest for one. That’s not to say they would sleep for one full day, but God expected them to cease from labor. That’s was rest means. It means to take a break from something, and — in this context — it’s taking a break from work.

Now, on our next episode we’re going to talk about whether modern Christians have any responsibility to “keep the Sabbath.” For now, though, we need to see that when God rested on the seventh day, He was not resting for His own benefit; He was resting for ours. He was setting a precedent for physically and spiritually healthy rhythms. 

Just like the Jews, we must sleep every 24 hours or suffer intense and even fatal consequences. And also just like the Jews, there are numerous health benefits to taking a break from our work.

Now, I’m not going to get into all of the science right now. But here’s the thing, sleep science and work science and exercise science verify the reality that bodies, minds, relationships, and overall wellness thrives when they’re allowed to rest one day in seven. 

So, yes, God rested on the seventh day in order to teach mankind an important lesson about their physical wellbeing, and it can be argued that the physical benefits of rest are exceptionally important to God.

For example, as we’ve observed in the past, in Mark 6:31, when the disciples returned from their first evangelistical journey, Jesus said, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’ (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) 32 They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves.”

Many times Jesus invited and even pushed people to rest. It was Jesus Himself Who designed us to need sleep. He designed us to flourish when we have cycles of work and rest, and we can celebrate Him with our rest when we submit to those cycles in order to please Him. 

But second, God also rested on the seventh day to symbolize the experience of faith in Him. And as we cycle through those rhythms, our minds should be weekly drawn to the reality of rest in Christ.

Now, the Old Testament is not the only place where the Bible references God resting. Let’s look at Hebrews chapter 3.

Starting in verse 12 we are warned not to provoke God the way the Children of Israel did. In verse 18 and 19 we read, “And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.”

Even though the Children of Israel would have to work hard to capture and cultivate the Promised Land, God is illustrating the blessing of entering the land as rest. It’s the blessing of obeying God. But the nation disobeyed God, and so they were not allowed to experience the blessing of God. They weren’t allowed to enter His rest — the Promised Land.

With that as the backdrop, the author then starts chapter 4 with, “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest.”

Okay, so in the Good News — the Gospel — we too have received promises. And we need to believe that word in such a way that it profits us — namely that it produces Christlikeness in us. And if we have truly been born again — and subsequently conformed to the image of Christ — we too have a future rest to which we look forward.

Then in verse 4 the author of Hebrews references that God rested on the seventh day from all His work and ties that event to the Israelites who weren’t allowed to enter the promised land because of their unbelief. 

Now, let’s jump to verses 8-11. “For if Joshua had given them rest [referring to when Joshua lead the obedient people into the Promised Land], He [speaking of God] would not have spoken of another day after that.”

What is this other day?

Verse 9 continues, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”

Now, these verses are all too foreign to too many Christians, which is sad for many reasons. 

The key we need to grasp here today is that when God rested from Creation, He was giving us a picture of the believer’s relationship with God. We’re born into this world that — because of the fall — involves thorns and sweat and toil, but that will all one day end, and we will enter the rest God has promised.

But even though the verses I just read are unfamiliar to many Christians, what’s interesting is that the next few verses are very familiar to most. "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

These very popular and beautiful verses were written within the context of a conversation about God’s seventh-day rest as a picture of the future rest God is preparing for those who believe in Him.

The point of these more well-known verses about the Word of God is that the Scriptures perfectly discern whether or not we believe God, whether or not we’re truly obeying God, and whether or not we will enter His rest.

Then the chapter ends with another set of very familiar verses about Jesus being our High Priest who understands our weaknesses. And it encourages us to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

To what end? For the goal of believing God, obeying God, and entering into His rest. 

Jesus promised that He was going to prepare a place for us and then return to collect us unto Himself. Eternity with God is the spiritual fulfillment of the final day of Creation. 

We will finally have eternal rest from the curse. We will have eternal rest from sickness and pain and death. And — most beautifully — we will have eternal rest from sin. 

We will be able to flourish in perfection with God for all eternity!

And we definitely should celebrate God by praising Him for those future realities.

But what about our present rest?

Consider Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

This is a concept we’re going to talk more about later, but I wanted to introduce it here.

Our weekly and daily times of rest are designed to be physically refreshing, and they’re also designed to picture the future glory of eternal rest with our God, but they’re also designed to provide much needed spiritual refreshment in the here and now.

Now, I’m not saying that the promises of Matthew 11:28 refers only the dedicated times where we stop working and put our feet up. God can and does provide soul rest even in the midst of trial and work and persecution.

But we know that God deserves our worship and praise every moment of the day, and that definitely includes our rest and relaxation.

Are you weary physically? Are you heavy-laden spiritually? Christ wants you to rest on Him. Take His yoke on you, learn from Him. Jesus is gentle and humble in heart; He is divinely happy to condescend to us and give us the rest we need. His yoke is easy. His burden is light.

In this passage, Jesus quotes from Jeremiah 6:16, "Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

We find rest when walk the paths God’s prepared for us — in His holiness, in His righteousness. But He also gives us the choice to refuse Him. 

When we rest in ways that don’t please the Lord, when we rest for our own honor and glory, we are refusing to walk in the paths He’s set, and our rest will not satisfy like it could.

Please allow me to bring today’s discussion to a close by reading Revelation 14:11-13.

Referring to the those who worship the Beast during the Tribulation period, John writes, “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”

Our rest will never do the physical and spiritual jobs God intends if we do not put Him first. Those who reject Him in this life will not only experience unsatisfying rest in the here and now, they will also experience a restless eternity.

But then verses 12-13 say, “Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. 13 And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”

God’s people need to live in the reality of the future rest He’s promised. They need to allow their temporal rest to draw them to praise the Lord for their future, eternal rest.

But we also need to understand the very real and practical plans that God has for our temporal rest. He wants it to rejuvenate us physically. He wants it to refresh us spiritually. But how is that done? How do we take our physical rest and use it to benefit our spirits?

Well, I hope to discuss all of those practical realities in the next couple episodes.

So, since this is such a Bible-spanning topic that affects all people, please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that disciples of Christ can better learn to celebrate God with their rest.

And join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be answering the question “Are Christians Required to Observe the Sabbath?”

I’ll see you then.

I don’t know about you, but June is one of my favorite months, but it is so for just a couple reasons.

Reason number one is that June is my birth month! Many years ago my parents celebrated D-Day by welcoming me into the world. And for those of you not up on your world history, D-Day occurred on June 6th.

Reason number two that I’ve been growing in my love for June over the past couple years is that June is the beginning of the Season of Power. I love all the Seasons, and I love the character traits of God that we celebrate during those Seasons, but this one — in particular — is my favorite.

So, after the episode today, be sure to head over to CelebrationOfGod.com to access a bunch of amazing June resources for worshipping God.

The Year Long Celebration of God starts in September and divides the year into four meteorological seasons which begin on September 1st, December 1st, March 1st, and June 1st. 

Each of these Seasons focuses on a unique aspect of God’s relationship with us.

September starts with the Season of Mercy. December ushers in the Season of Grace. March introduces us to the Season of Life, and June rushes in with the Season of Power.

The Season of Power is a celebration of the omnipotence of God. But it’s not merely an acknowledgement that God is all-powerful, it’s also a celebration of the implications that reality has on us.

As we get into Year 3 of The Year Long Celebration of God, we’re going to take time each Season to study in more depth the glorious realities of Mercy, Grace, Life, and Power.

But, for now, let me tell you why the Season of Power is my favorite.

For me, my justification is in the past. In a short while I will have been born again for 40 years. And though I am a daily recipient of God’s Mercy, Grace, and Life, it’s God’s Power that excites me.

If God were not omnipotent, His Mercy, Grace, and Life would be limited. It’s His holiness, love, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence that are the infinite framework within which His other character traits function.

An all-powerful evil God would be most petrifying. An all loving, impotent God would be worthless. An all-powerful ambivalent God would leave us in a constant state of uncertainty. And even an all-powerful, all-loving God without perfect holiness would be incapable of truly knowing and accomplishing what’s best for us.

So, not only does God’s Power thrill me because it’s a vital characteristic of the one true God of the universe, but it also has stark implications for God’s people.

God is able to share that power with us. Humans completely lack the power to understand His Word, the power to be saved, the power to be conformed to His image, the power to live any kind of holy life.

So, for me, my ability to stop being the wicked, old man I once was and to become the holy new man God is creating, is absolutely contingent on God being omnipotent and inviting me to share in that omnipotence.

And the same is true for all of us. Without the divine ability to submit to God, this podcast would be worthless. It would make no sense to be a biblical counselor because we would all be incapable of doing anything God commands.

So, yes, I cherish God’s Mercy, Grace, and Life, but — at this time of my life — I am infinitely thankful for the Power of God which characterizes all He does and without which I am doomed.

And that’s the Power we hope you’ll study, meditate on, praise God for, and grow in this Season.

And it’s because of God’s Power that we take this Season to celebrate Sanctification. Sanctification is the cooperation of the Holy Spirit and God’s people whereby the believer chooses to trust what God says about life and godliness and submits to it thereby being conformed to the image of Christ.

This is the perfect time of year to deepen your knowledge and understanding of Sanctification that you may also increase your participation in it.

To this end, toward the end of this Season, we’re going to be publish a multi-part study on the nature of biblical obedience. I’m really looking forward to that because it’s the very bread and butter of Christian living.

Just those two focuses alone could capture our minds for all of June and into eternity. But there are many other opportunities in June to give God the preeminence.

For example, let’s look at the June holidays. 

Within The Year Long Celebration of God we observe Family Days, Father’s Days, Mother’s Days, and Grandparent’s Days. So, we also look forward to observing International Children’s Day on the second Sunday in June.

I love that Children’s Day falls in the Season of Power. They always seem to be a near-never-ending supply of energy, and they are one of the best physical examples we have of what it means to grow. 

We did a whole episode on preparing for, discipling during, and celebrating Children’s Day. We also have a Children’s Day Bible Reading and Anticipations. So that you can locate them easily, I’ll provide a bunch of links in the description of today’s episode for June worship resources.

The other holiday in June is Father’s Day which falls on the third Sunday of the month.

I know, you’re jealous. My birthday and Father’s Day fall in the same month. :-)

I also really like how Father’s Day occurs in the Season of Power. God has equipped men to be physically powerful enough to care for their families in all the ways that matter most. But God also expects the leaders of the home to be spiritually powerful. 

The history of the world — starting with Adam Himself — is a sad picture of men abdicating their spiritual strength and forcing that burden on the wives and mothers. May it never be! We men need to grow in our spiritual strength by the grace of God. And I hope the resources we have at CelebrationOfGod.com will help you in that.

So, as we enter June, I encourage you to immerse yourself in the study of God’s Power and the gift of Sanctification. And I also hope you’ll take full advantage of Children’s Day and Father’s Day.

But — as always — there are countless other Low Moments in which we need to exalt the Lord. Well, this year has been all about growing our collection of free resources that God’s people can reference as they learn to worship God with every waking hour of their day.

We have tons of resources for worshipping God at church, while you’re at work or attending summer school, and when you’re on vacation, recreating, or resting. 

Of course, we should always be growing in our discipleship, so we hope you’ll take advantage of our discipleship resources. And we have an exciting new series coming up all about biblical friendship. I’m really looking forward to that one.

But we also have other specialized resources for dealing with the unexpected — like celebrating God in the face of death.

And all of these episodes, Bible readings, transcripts, and worship resources are free for you at CelebrationOfGod.com.

We want your June to be as Christ-honoring as divinely possible, and we’re here to help. If you need individualized Biblical counseling, don’t hesitate to reach out. 

And please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other disciples of Christ can join us in celebrating God this June.

And be sure to catch our next episode as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing how to celebrate God with our rest.

As I compiled my notes for today’s show, I was preparing to go on a much anticipated family vacation.  That vacation has come and gone in-between when I started working on this episode and when it published.

I mention this because this was a very practical and extremely timely study for me that was both very encouraging and challenging, and I pray that whenever you go on your next holiday, this discussion will be just as valuable for you.

The Year Long Celebration of God is an Evermind Ministry. This special group of ministries includes a one for families, one for biblical counseling and discipleship, one for speaking and training, and one for discipleship and worship. We pray that each of the Evermind Ministries would have an opportunity to impact your life in one way or another.

As we grow our online presence, you can access the tons of resources available at TruthLoveFamily.com, CelebrationOfGod.com, and AMBrewster.com.

In the future you’ll also be able to access Evermind Ministries and Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship.

It’s so exciting to watch God grow Evermind and increase our audience.

Of course, a large part of how we equip God’s people are our free episode notes, transcripts, and worship resources at CelebrationOfGod.com. Just follow the link in the description of today’s episode.

And now let’s talk about our vacation time.

1. Vacations in the Time of the Bible

I’m sure we can all appreciate that the ancient Jews and early Christians didn’t have any conception of what we now call vacations. The length, the scope, the cost, the thrills, the sheer opulence of our vacations might give a first-century believer a heart-attack.

But the Bible does have a lot to say about rest, rhythms, and even recreation.

Speaking of recreation, these two topics are very closely related, but I am not going to take the time to revisit everything I talked about on our Celebrating God with Recreation episode. But I will slap a link in the description so you can check it out if you missed it before.

Either way, it’s important to start with the understanding that the Bible does not specifically discuss the unique animal that is modern American vacations, holidays, and retreats. But that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t give us everything we need for life and godliness when we’re on vacation.

So, let’s see what the Bible does have to say.

2. Refreshment is Important on Vacation.

A few episodes back we talked about the Sabbatical year, and we’ll be starting a conversation in the very near future about weekly rhythms of rest, and the topic of recreation and vacation are all part of that biblical concept.

And though there are a lot of passages I could cite in regard to rest, I want to look at two main ones.

The first is Genesis 2:1-3. Every single discussion of rest needs to start here. “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

I know you’re very familiar with this passage, but let’s quickly acknowledge some key points.

A. God did not need to rest. Instead . . .
B. God rested from His work on the last day of the week as an example of how His creation was supposed to live.
C. God also rested to symbolize the experience of faith in Him.

And the rest of the Bible was going to revisit and reinforce this physical and spiritual reality.

The second passage at which I want to look is Mark 6:30. This is a practical, physical example of the need for a break from our work.

Mark 6:30 relates, “The apostles *gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. “

Jesus had sent the disciples out on their first evangelistic crusade. He gave them power over sickness and demons. They preached and healed, and it was all very exciting.

And now they’re returning and telling Jesus all about it.

I can promise you that they likely worked harder in that time than they had preparing for it.

And then in verse 31, Jesus “*said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’”

Then the next verse explains Jesus’ reasoning, “(For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) 32 They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves.”

What do we see here?

A. The disciples had worked very hard.
B. God commanded that they vacate.
C. One goal of this vacation was to completely remove themselves from their job.
D. Another goal was to refresh their bodies by resting and eating.
E. We can also assume from this passage and others that this time was also designed for spiritual refreshment. We’ll talk about this point much more in future episodes.
F. In order to achieve this refreshment, they went away to a secluded place by themselves.

Now, we could probably take the balance of the episode to practically apply just what’s been illustrated here for us. But I hope the applications are intuitive.

I am a little concerned by supposed-vacations that leave you less healthy and less rested than you were before you left.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t have a lot of high energy fun, but I do think you need to be wise. My family and I have pretty low-key work responsibilities. We’re not digging ditches or brokering multi-million dollar mergers. So, for us a trip to Universal Studios is definitely in order.

But many American families live such a frenetic, sleepless, constantly busy, caffeine-fueled, adrenaline-pumping life that more of the same does not constitute much of a vacation. In fact, I would argue that people who fit that description do not have healthy, biblical rhythms of rest in their lives.

Now, there’s another passage I think is important to mention at this point in the discussion.

Vacations are super valuable for physical and spiritual reasons, but they’re also important for relational reasons.

Deuteronomy 24:5 says, “When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness to his wife whom he has taken.”

Now, it can probably be assumed that this guy wasn’t lying around at home all year with nothing to do. Free at home carries more of the thought that he was free to be home, working with his new wife and family to keep life moving forward. And that is contrasted with being taken away from the home for military service, diplomatic employment, and the like.

But the difference between the practical ancient reality and the practical modern reality is still stark.

First, far too many couples make it a practice to get married right before one or both of them is deployed. I get why they do it. I’m not saying they’re sinning, but I am saying that they’re not going to experience the intense benefit of doing things God’s way.

Second, many newlyweds have their honeymoon and then jump right back into full-on modern employment. Often they’re working over 40 hours a week, they’re traveling for work, and because they’re putting so much emphasis on working as much as they can before they have kids, many of them only have to invest in their new spouse what little leftovers they drag back home with them after work.

But the Scriptures are clear that God desired for His people to have plenty of quality time with their spouses at the very beginning of their marriage.

Now, I know that we don’t live under a theocracy, and I know that money issues are a real thing, but I’m only trying to make the point that the longest and most important ancient vacation was designed to build and strengthen the most important human relationships in existence.

Our modern day vacations can be used to do the exact same thing. We should invest in our families and friends on vacation. We should look for opportunities to do things that bring us together not separate us into isolated self-worship.

But vacations can also be the blessed consequence of hard work. 

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 says, “I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; 13 moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.”

It’s the gift of God that the arduous work to which He calls us should have an enjoyable payout in the end. This is true physically and spiritually. Vacations can and should be the natural experience of having completed a job well done. 

I’ll mention this again later, but this point needs to help us put appropriate boundaries on our vacations. If our employment pays for our vacations, then there isn’t wisdom in spending too much on our vacations.

Now, other than the observations we’ve made that mankind is designed by God to need rest, and that proper rest allows us to escape work, refresh ourselves physically, refresh ourselves spiritually, and refresh ourselves relationally, and the fact that that enjoying the fruits of our labors is the natural blessing of having worked, the Bible doesn’t have too much else specifically to say about vacations.

But there are a ton of principles that need to be applied to our vacations as they are to be applied to every other area of our lives.

3. Godliness is Important on Vacation.

A. Your vacation must please the Lord.

Colossians 3:17 commands, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” This obviously applies to vacations as well. 

Getaways are not for us to get away from God’s expectations for our lives. In fact, it’s God’s expectations for our rest, refreshment, and recreation that gives our vacationing real purpose and value.

I think meditating on this one concept will absolutely revolutionize how you approach and experience your vacations whether you’re single or have a family.

Before I move to our next point, let me mention church attendance. 

I’m not saying that missing one Sunday because of vacation is definitely a sin. However, I believe it can be. I also believe that an attitude that isn’t even trying to assemble with God’s people over the course of multiple weeks reveals that worshipping God on vacation really isn’t that important to us.

I know. You may have to pack “church clothes.” You may have to do the research to find a Christ-honoring church where you’ll be. But doesn’t the annoyance or bothersome feeling that we experience when considering these reveal that engaging in corporate sanctification and weekly worship of God just isn’t as important to us as what we want?

Now, full disclosure. My family is going to be away from Friday through Tuesday. We already know there isn’t a good church where we’ll be going, and Sunday’s schedule is going to make it very hard to travel the distance necessary to get to a good church.

But I have a plan for intentional family worship in its place. Is this the best plan for a “normal” week? Nope. Is virtual church a replacement for physical church? Nope. But can we glorify God this one time on this one particular short getaway designed to worship God in other ways? Definitely. 

Listen, I don’t want to promote empty legalism or unbiblical expectations. The point is, what is your point?

If a vacation is your opportunity to escape God’s expectations on your life, you have some serious issues.

So, God’s glory must be the ultimate goal of our vacation, that means that conversely, we mustn’t live for vacations.

B. Your vacation must not be the main goal.

Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The vast majority of individuals in 1st World Countries absolutely live for the weekends and live for their vacations. In many ways, the only reason they have the job is so that they can afford to get away from the job.

But by making the vacation our ultimate source of happiness, we’re stealing what belongs to God and giving it to a temporal experience that cannot satisfy us the way He can.

In fact, suicides increase shortly after holidays and vacations. These people worked all year for this one experience, but when it was over, and they were faced with going back to work, and they had spent too much money and made poor decisions, so many people just don’t want to do it any more.

Vacation is also a time that people make really bad choices. They get in trouble with the law. They hurt their health. They get videoed doing something that ruins their testimony.

Consider II Samuel 11. Verse 1 tells us that it was the custom of kings to go to battle in the spring time, but David stayed home. His forces were at war, but he was at home. And we all know what happened with Bathsheba and Uriah. 

David wasn’t using his time off in order to please the Lord. He was using it for his own carnal pleasure.

By all means, yes, take a vacation. Enjoy that vacation. Look forward to that vacation. Soak it for all it’s worth, but it must stay in its lane. We worship God by taking vacations.

Remember that. I took my family on a vacation as an act of worship to God. My family was submitting to our cycles of work and rest, we grew in our relationship with each other, we tried to focus on Him and praise Him and thank Him and live for Him every day of the vacation. Now, we didn’t do it perfectly. And I can promise you that the absolute worst parts of our vacation were the times that we made our own personal enjoyment our main goal. That’s when selfishness and chaos ensued.

But joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness only flourish in submission to the Spirit.

By all means, vacation, but make sure your vacation as an act of worship to God.

Now, let’s get more specific about how our vacations can be that sacrifice of worship.

C. Your vacation must be a Christ-honoring use of time.

Ephesians 5:15-17 commands us, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, 16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil. 17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

And Psalm 90:12, says “So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.”

Wise living is taking what we know and understand and living in submission to what we know and understand to be true.

It is not pleasing to the Lord for the average person to spend more time resting than they’re to spend working.

How much time is too much time? Honestly, I can’t say. It’s not laid out in Scripture. Yes, the basic 6-to-1 ratio is God’s expectation for our physical and spiritual and relational well-being. But there are other examples of taking additional time. For example, in addition to the weekly Sabbath, the Jews had up to 20 additional sabbath observations throughout the year.

Well, 21 days is 3 weeks. Could we say that an additional 3 weeks of vacation time per year is a reasonable amount?

Sure. But we could also argue fewer or more depending on the circumstance.

The point is, if we’re vacationing for God and not only for us, then we’re going to use our earthly time in the most Christ-honoring way possible.

And that means that . . .

D. Your vacation must not be a product of laziness.

Proverbs 24:30-34 reads, “I passed by the field of the sluggard And by the vineyard of the man lacking sense, 31 And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles; Its surface was covered with nettles, And its stone wall was broken down. 32 When I saw, I reflected upon it; I looked, and received instruction. 33 ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest,’ 34 Then your poverty will come as a robber And your want like an armed man.”

And II Thessalonians 3:11-12 says, “For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.”

Christ-honoring rest is not laziness. It’s intentional. It’s pleasing to the Lord. Laziness is what happens when God would be pleased by our working, but we don’t.

E. Your vacation must be financially wise.

Again, a Christ-honoring vacation may likely cost something — maybe even a pretty penny. That’s okay. We work — in part — so that we can enjoy the blessings of work. But we must make sure that we’re not going into debt for a vacation. If we’re borrowing money for a vacation, then it’s clearly not a reward of our work.

Also, our vacation should not take money away from things that the Bible says are more important. I Timothy 5:8 warns that “if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Count the cost. Be wise.

F. Your vacation isn’t an excuse to stop one-anothering.

I don’t get a break from parenting, discipleship, and one-anothering on vacation. My responsibility to my God and the other people in my life compel me to love them. Romans 13:8 says, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”

I can’t ignore the spiritual best interest of those around me and claim to actually love them.

G. Your vacation isn’t an excuse to sin against God with your food.

On our last episode we started laying out a doctrine of worshipping God with our food and drink. You can listen to that episode for many more principles and verses.

And yes, it is appropriate to feast on vacation, but we still need to make sure that we are intentionally doing what we’re doing for the glory of God.

Hangovers, upset stomachs, sickness because of poor food choices, unhealthy weight gain, and the like are all signs that God was probably not ultimately pleased by the quantity and quality of what you consumed.

And we could go on and on with every other Fruit of the Spirit and command of God.

Whether it’s patience or kindness or integrity or purity or peace or joy or prayer . . . we don’t get a pass because it’s vacation.

Now, generally I encounter a couple different responses to this information.

On one side, those who love God say, “Yeah, duh. Obviously. Of course, I need to glorify God with my vacation. I love vacationing as an act of worship to God.”

But then there are Christians who actually recoil. They scrunch up their noses and furrow their brows at the idea of pleasing the Lord and obeying His commands on their vacations.

This reaction is a gracious revelation of your own heart. No true disciple of God should be annoyed or repulsed by the idea of living for His Lord.

Yes, we all sin; yes, we all call God a liar and offer our various life choices on the altar to self. But — when faced by our sin — genuine believers will confess and apologize and repent by the power of God.

Those who completely dislike the idea of following Christ on vacation probably aren’t really following Christ during any other part of their lives either.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that more of God’s people can be encouraged and equipped to worship Him with their vacations.

And join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing the various opportunities we have to worship God in June.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

I’m so glad you’re with me today. The title of today’s episode alone may have tempted some to keep on scrolling, but you’re here, and I pray that we’ll all be strengthened in our faith and more conformed into the image of Christ because of what we learn from His Word today.

As a biblical counselor, I love having the opportunity to work one-on-one with God’s people to help them grow in their discipleship. But I also really love doing conferences. If your ministry or organization would be interested in having me speak, please check out CelebrationOfGod.com or send an email to Team@CelebrationOfGod.com. I would be honored to serve you and your people by opening the Bible with you and speaking directly to your needs.

And while you’re at CelebrationOfGod.com, you can find today’s episode notes, transcript, and a growing library of discipleship resources.

Okay, let’s talk about how God expects us to worship Him every time we eat and drink.

In America — and like other countries — but in America for sure, our diets are sacred cows. By the way, please know that when I use the word diet, I’m referring to everything we consume, not just when we’re “dieting.”

I know that our diets are sacred cows because you rarely hear any discussion about it at church. The Bible has so much to say about food, how and why we are to consume it, and how we sin with it, and yet it’s rarely discussed from the pulpit, in Sunday school, Bible studies, or during personal discipleship.

However, a lot of jokes are made about food in those places. 

Growing up with the King James Bible, it was too common to hear Pauls words from I Corinthians 9:27 pronounced, “But I buffet my body.” 

And that’s another reason I know that our diets are sacred cows. Now only is it rarely discussed from any biblical perspective, but the effects of poor diets are rampant in the church.

There was a very interesting 2006 medical study entitled “Does Religion Increase the Prevalence and Incidence of Obesity in Adulthood.” Please allow me to read some interesting portions.

“Most find a positive relationship between religion and health. For instance, people who regularly attend church, pray, or read the Bible tend to have lower blood pressure than less religious people. People who are religious are hospitalized less often and are less likely to suffer from depression. They are also more likely to have healthier lifestyles, a stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction, stronger immune systems, and longevity . . . . Analysis of people who regularly attend church also found that they have lower rates of illness . . . . and death.”

And they continue . . .

“Although a large and growing body of research examines religion and health, relatively few studies have systematically examined religion and body weight. Given religion’s positive effect on health, one might suspect that religion is associated with less obesity. Most religions condemn overeating and gluttony, but little research supports such a conclusion about adherents’ actual behavior. Indeed, several studies show that some religious groups have higher rates of overweight and obesity.”

Later in this secular study they report, “There is some consistency across these studies that religion is related to higher body weight, but there may be many different explanations for this relationship. First, many religions in the United States place priority on constraining sins such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and sexual promiscuity. Gluttony does not receive the same level of pastoral or congregational condemnation in most denominations, perhaps indirectly creating an ‘accepted vice.’ It is even possible that religion’s success in curtailing smoking may inadvertently lead to a higher rate of obesity . . . . Some people use smoking as an appetite suppressant, and religion decreases the likelihood of smoking.

“Second, many religious functions use food, rather than alcohol, as the celebratory good to be consumed . . . . From Sunday School donuts to church pot-luck dinners, food, especially high-fat foods, are key to the social organization of many U.S. religions.

“Third, it may be that religion does not lead to overweight and obesity, but that the opposite causal process exists—a form of social selection . . . . Perhaps religious organizations provide a ‘religious haven’—a consoling and welcoming setting for people who are obese and seeking protection from social stigma.”

Very interesting observations.

And then they have a slew of in-depth measuring devices and explanations, tables, and graphs. I’ll link the study in the description of today’s show. But here are some of their findings.

“Baptists have the highest percentage of obese persons in the sample . . . . Fundamentalist Protestants have the second highest percentage of obese individuals in the sample . . . . Catholics also have a fairly high percentage of obese people, as do pietistic Protestants. Other non-Christians have the lowest percentage of obese individuals at both waves of data, followed by Jews. The remaining affiliations have percentages ranging from 2 to 9, and persons with no religious affiliation are within this range.”

I share this information from this secular study because . . .

A. Some Christians have never fathomed the possibility that God has any expectations for their diets and health.

B. Some Christians consciously ignore all issues of health as it relates to God. Of course, the exception is that any time we have a health crisis (which — if we’re honest — often grows from our own poor health choices), they ask for prayer.

And . . .

C. Some Christians choose to simply not care what the Bible has to say about food and drink.

Now, the rest of this episode has nothing to do with any specific kind of diet. I’m also not going to make any health claims. I’m introducing this topic with a discussion about eating and being overweight simply to highlight that the average American church is completely ignoring a topic about which God has much to say. 

And I want to spend the balance of our time looking at what God has to say about food, and then applying that to our lives so that we can give Him the worship that’s He’s due when we’re eating and drinking.

Of course, we can only skim the surface of this topic. One day I hope to detail a longer Doctrine of Eating and Drinking, but I’ll just have to add that to the list of studies I want to do.

However, for now, we must start with . . .

1. Eating and drinking is a gift from God.

A. Food sustains us.

In Genesis we see that God created the world to sustain mankind. Even after the fall, in Genesis 9:3 we read, “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.”

In Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3 Jesus encourages us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Later in Matthew 6:31-32 He explains, “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

One of my favorite Proverbs to pray is Proverbs 30:8, “Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I not be full and deny You and say, 'Who is the Lord?’ Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God.”

And God not only provides sustenance for His people, He lovingly provides it for those who are His enemies. Acts 14:16-17 teaches, “In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; 17 and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

But food isn’t jus a gift from God to sustain us. 

B. Food pleases us.

All throughout the Bible we learn of feasts (past, present, and future) with which God intends for us to celebrate Him but also enjoy.

In Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 we read, “I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; 13 moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God."

And Ecclesiastes 9:7 says, “Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.”

And James 1:17 teaches that, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

So, yes, we must start by acknowledging that just like every other good thing in this life, it is provided by God. But since we know that He is a God of purpose and order and intentionality, we can therefore know that He has a reason for giving us food and drink. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to learn what those are.

And we should also already know that Satan is a pro at taking what God created to be good and valuable and turning it into a wicked sin. Consider what Satan has managed to do with the gift of sexuality.

So, as we study the Word in order to better understand why God gave us sustenance and satisfaction, we’re going to discover that . . .

2. Eating and drinking are not as important as we like to think.

Yes, eating and drinking is necessary to life. I’m not going to suggest it’s not. But we do make them far more important to us than God intends.

Before I get to the specific passages that illustrate this point, let’s consider a topic we’ve talked often about during Advent and Lent — fasting.

This is a topic we’re definitely going to study more later this year — Lord willing. But for now, let’s remember that one of the more significant ways God’s people are to exercise their dependence on Him, devote their time to Him, and grow in their love for Him, is through the careful process of abstaining from food.

Each of the individuals on the Mount of Transfiguration (Jesus, Moses, and Elijah) experienced at least one 40 day fast.

Therefore, we have to acknowledge that there is at least one thing that is incredibly more important than food.

In Luke 12:23, Jesus said, “For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” What could possibly be more important than food?

Well, in Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4 Jesus says, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” He was quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3 which reads, “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”

Food is important, but attention and submission to God and His Word is infinitely more important. In fact, Jesus spoke of God’s Word sustaining Him in ways that made food less necessary at that time.

Now consider what Jesus said to the crowds that wanted to see a repeat of His feeding of the 5,000.

John 6:26-37 tells us, “Jesus answered them and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27 Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.’ 28 Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’ 29 Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’ 30 So they said to Him, ‘What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘HE gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” 

I love that Jesus called them out about just wanting more food, and when given a chance to talk, they did nothing more than prove Him right.

Picking up in verse 32 we read, “Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.’ 34 Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, always give us this bread.’ 35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.’”

In chapter 13, verse 9 the author of Hebrews writes, “Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.”

So, we see very clearly that knowing God, understanding His will, and obeying Him is desperately more important than eating.

In fact, the Bible even teaches us that delicious food is worthless if those eating it are not submitting to Him. Proverbs 15:17 reads, “Better is a dish of vegetables where love is Than a fattened ox served with hatred.”

And I Corinthians 6:12-13 teaches us that we should never be controlled by our hunger. Not only does God deserve our allegiance because we will always need Him, but mankind will not always need food. “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them.”

And this point is very important because many professing Christians prove — every single day — that their food is more important to them than God. And they prove this by sinning in the way they eat and drink. 

Even though God illustrates over and over that obeying Him is more important than food, we daily sin against Him with our food.

“So, Aaron, let me get this straight. You’re saying that we can sin in how we eat food?”

3. Eating and drinking can be sinful.

Have you ever stopped to consider that mankind was plunged into sin over a piece of food? In Genesis 3, Eve sacrificed absolutely everything for food.

In Proverbs 23:1-2 we find an interesting Hebrew poetic verse, “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, Consider carefully what is before you, 2 And put a knife to your throat If you are a man of great appetite.” Eating with no restraint can be offensive and disrespectful and may offend the ruler.

Proverbs 25:27 says, “It is not good to eat much honey, Nor is it glory to search out one’s own glory.” The passage doesn’t say why it’s not good to eat too much honey, but Proverbs 25:16 says, “Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, That you not have it in excess and vomit it.” 

And He compares the foolishness of eating too much honey to a person who arrogantly searches out his own glory.

I won’t read it here, but Romans 14:13-23 teaches us that if we eat and drink with absolutely no concern to the effect it may have on a spiritually ignorant and weak brother in Christ, we are sinning. Verse 15 says, “For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.” Verse 20 says, “Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense.” And verse 21 tells us, “It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.”

And we haven’t even gotten to any of the verses about gluttony. Let’s consider Proverbs 23:20-21, “Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; 21 For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe one with rags.”

And in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 God says, “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, 19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. 20 They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.”

And even though that prescribed way of dealing with the situation was for the Old Testament Jews, it still reveals what God thinks about such a person.

So, yes, God designed food to nourish and give pleasure, but food is never to be more important to us than submitting to God. So, when we disobey His commands concerning food, we’re engaging in self-worship. 

And that my friends is our final point for today.

4. Eating and drinking are an act of worship.

If you’ve never listened to our What is Worship? Series, please click on the link in the description and start listening. 

Absolutely everything we believe, think, desire, feel, do, and say is an act of worship. It’s impossible to not be worshipping, and there are only two Primary Recipients of our worship in this entire cosmos. We will either worship God, or we’ll worship ourselves.

The previous list I just gave are the things which which we worship God or self. So, let’s make this really specific. When we put things into our mouths, we’re either glorifying God or glorifying self. We’re either making His will our highest desire or we’re making our own will our highest desires.

And — of course — we know that God is the only one Who deserves our worship. And since God’s the only one Who deserves our obedience, and since our food is a sacrifice of worship, then it shouldn’t be surprising for us to learn that in I Corinthians 10:31 God commands, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

This verse comes on the heals of Paul using the Old Testament Jews as an example of how not to live your life. In Verse 7 he says, “Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.’”

It’s Exodus 32:6 that tells just that the Jews had decided that since Moses had been on the mountain so long he must be dead, they needed a better way to worship God. So they made a golden calf, proclaimed a feast to the Lord, offered sacrifices, and so on. But Paul helps us to see that their actions were not truly being done in worship to the Lord; they were being idolaters. And though, yes, it could be said that they were worshipping the golden calf, it was merely a Secondary Recipient Idol. The Primary Recipient of their worship was themselves. They made the idol because they wanted to. They “worshipped it” the way they wanted to. And their food was a big part of that self-worship.

Psalm 78:17-18 is also very powerful. Speaking of the same group of people, but later in their journey to the Promised Land, Asaph writes, “Yet they still continued to sin against Him, To rebel against the Most High in the desert. 18 And in their heart they put God to the test By asking food according to their desire.”

This is the same root issue Jesus was addressing with the first century Jews. They wanted food. It was for their own pleasure. It had nothing to do with submission to God. And Jesus clearly unveiled the real idol of their heart.

And this is also the underlying truth from Matthew 6:25-34. This is the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells the people not to be “worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

He then points out that God cares for the birds by feeding them and that we are much more valuable than birds.

And then He gets to the crux of the issue. For these people, it all boiled down to worry. In verse 31 He says, “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

In this particular situation, God is to be trusted to provide more than we are to worry about how we will provide for ourselves.

It all boils down to worship.

Now, we must bring this to a close, but there’s an important objection I need to address.

There are those who may be thinking, “Yes, Aaron, we acknowledge that God provides our food, and we know that He is more important than our food, and we know that the Bible has basic principles to guide our eating, and — sure — there are people who sin in how they eat and what they eat. But . . . what about Colossians 2:16-17?”

Good question. Let’s look at it. Colossians 2:16-17, “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” 

This is a verse I referenced in the introductory episodes of The Celebration of God, which I highly recommend you check out if you haven’t ever heard them. 

Earlier in the chapter Paul discusses how we’re built up in Christ and how we’re not supposed to be taken captive by philosophy and empty deception according to the traditions of men. Instead, we have been alive together in Christ and are set free from the Old Testament expectations that were unique to the children of Israel.

And, yes, this passage says that no one is to act as your judge when it comes to food or drink. But if we rip this verse out of context, we’re not rightly dividing the Word of Truth. The context of this passage is dealing with judgements about food, drink, festivals, new moons, and sabbaths. This discussion is specifically about religious observations and celebrations. 

In our introductory episodes I pointed out a Christian is not under compulsion to recognize any specific religious holiday. Though we are to worship God in all things, we don’t have to recognize Christmas or Thanksgiving or Creation Week or anything else like that. We need to celebrate in thankfulness the God of Creation and the Incarnation, but we don’t have to do the whole festival thing on those holidays.

All of that to say, this verse is not carte blanche approval for eating whatever you feel like eating. God still has expectations on your food, the quality and the quantity.

So, let me finish today by making some practical suggestions.

If you’re in a place where you believe that your eating has definitely been more for you than for your Lord — and this is a huge struggle that I have — here are some valuable considerations.

1. Be intentional. 

Though praying before a meal is valuable, I think that most of us can thank the Lord for the very unhealthy food in front of us and that pig out just fine. It’s a bad habit we’ve created. So, add to your prayer a deliberate and intentional consideration that God truly be glorified by your meal.

2. Consider the quality.

Yes, this is a question of the health benefit of the food you’re eating. And yes, there are lots of disagreements about what is considered healthy, but — overall — we recognize that smoking and drug use is wrong in part because of the negative effects it has on our bodies. This is something that most people don’t contend. 

Smoking is harmful to your body. God wants us to steward our bodies for His honor and glory. It’s a sin to intentionally harm ourselves, and — when we learn that something we’re eating is hurting us just as much as drug abuse — we can’t even begin to pretend that God is glorified by that choice.

Another thing I hope to do one day is have a website dedicated to health questions that are answered from a biblical and scientific perspective. There is so much misinformation and contradiction when it comes to what is or is not healthy. We need to strive for truth. And we need to strive for it so that we can know that we’re doing the best we can to please the Lord.

So, we need to be intentional in our eating and drinking, we need to be careful with the quality of the foods we ingest, and we need to . . .

3. Consider the quantity. 

There are tons of great studies about healthy portion sizes. And, yes, for the most part, these too are going to be questions about health.

But the key is that we’re being intentional. We know that God can either be glorified by what we eat, or He can have His glory stolen by what we eat. We mustn’t just turn our brains off and metaphorically put our hands over our eyes and pretend that the potential to sin in our eating has disappeared simply because we can’t see it. 

By the way, for the most part, this was not an issue about which the vast majority of ancient Christians had to worry. In many cases modern foods are actually crafted to be less healthy. But even the food that is supposed to be good for us isn’t as good as it once was. We’ve depleted our soil, we’ve genetically engineered our foods, and the end result is that our food is not only not as healthy as it was thousands of years ago, but much of it is patently unhealthy as well. 

The first century believers didn’t have white sugar in all of their food. It wasn’t readily accessible. High fructose corn syrup and red 40 and all of the detrimental chemicals in our food simply weren’t in theirs. So, yes, it makes sense the Bible doesn’t have a ton to say about the quality of the food that was being eaten. 

But it still does has something to say about it. There are plenty of examples of what happens when you eat food that has gone bad. 

And, lastly, no, I’m not saying that its always wrong to eat something that’s less healthy or even to eat more of something than you normally would. When we exercise Spirit-control and moderation, it is pleasing to the Lord when we feast in His name and for His glory.

It’s appropriate to change the quality or the quantity, but it still has to be intentional. Mindless eating is self-eating. 

So, let’s do our best to worship God on purpose with our food.

If you want to be unfriended by most of the people you know on social media, please share this episode. 

I’m kidding! Relax! Anyone who wants to worship God better will be very happy that you shared this episode with them. 

And join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing celebrating God on vacation.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Last time we discussed the one-time ordinance of God, and today we’re going to look at the second ordinance that the Lord instructs us to to on an ongoing basis.

But before we do that, if you are a parent, grandparent, teacher, or you work with children in any capacity at all, I want to invite you to listen to Evermind Ministry’s award-winning podcast called Truth.Love.Parent. 

Truth.Love.Parent. is a resource of Truth.Love.Family. and it’s all about learning how to better worship God through our parenting. It’s been a massive blessing to produce and host these past six years, and I believe — with hundreds and hundreds of episodes — you will find something that will help you better celebrate God and benefit your family.

Because that’s what Evermind Ministries is all about. Whether it’s Truth.Love.Family., Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship, or The Year Long Celebration of God, we want to help you better know, understand, and love God.

So, after the discussion today, be sure to visit CelebrationOfGod.com to gain access to our free episode notes, transcripts, and discipleship resources.

And — with that — let’s talk about the Lord’s Supper.

This is a really big topic with which we could easily fill at least a week of episodes, but I’m going to do my best to skim the important elements and encourage you to continue your study of this topic.

1. The Ordinance of the Lord’s Supper

Just like baptism, communion is commanded by God and has an accompanying sign associated with it. Baptism demands water, and the Lord’s Supper demands bread and the fruit of the vine.

But — unlike believer’s baptism which is has a one-time fulfillment — Jesus commanded that we observe the Lord’s Supper with increased frequency. 

The ordinance of baptism is a public testimony whereby we proclaim to the world and the church that we are leaving behind our old lives and following Christ.

The ordinance of communion is a more private, family experience whereby we collectively rededicate ourselves to following Christ and long for His return.

By the way, you probably already observed that I’m using the terms Lord’s Supper and Communion interchangeably. Both of those terms have value when understood correctly. However, I’m not going to refer to it as the eucharist. Why not? Good question.

2. The Purpose of the Lord’s Supper

First, let’s review what we learned last time. The ordinances are not sacraments because they do not provide us access to special grace or merit to which we would otherwise not have access or is required for a fully Christian life.

Should we obey God by worshipping Him with the baptism and communion? Obviously. Are we blessed when we obey God? Definitely. Do we miss out on those blessings when we don’t obey or do the right things in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons? Yes. But that doesn’t make them sacraments of special grace.

Jesus Himself made it very clear that He wanted us to repeat the Lord’s Supper until He returns. What’s interesting is that this piece of information is only included in Luke’s Gospel. In the other Gospels we read about the bread and the cup, but only in Luke 22:19 do we read, “And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’”

Now, we know that Luke was one of the most thorough and detailed of all the Gospel accounts, but we also know that Paul quoted from Luke in his communion discourse in I Corinthians 11. In that extended teaching time, Paul includes the injunction to “do this in remembrance of me.”

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul further clarifies what Christ meant by explaining, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

The Lord’s Supper is simply an exercise in remembrance. We remember what Christ did for us, and we remember what He promised to do for us. His body was broken and His blood was spilled for us in order to purchase our redemption, and He also promised to come again and receive us to Himself.

That is the primary purpose of the Lord’s Supper. 

But there is a secondary purpose on which Paul elaborates in I Corinthians 11. 

We’ll talk more about the elements and the participants later, but Paul explains that as God’s people assemble to remember the Lord’s sacrifice and second coming we are also to search our hearts.

Salvation made us followers of Christ, baptism testified to our commitment to follow Him, and Communion provides us some regular accountability that we actually are following Christ.

In verses 27-32 Paul says, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.”

Earlier in the chapter Paul had explained how the Corinthians were involved in various sins including worshipping God incorrectly, sexual sin, divisions, selfishness, gluttony, and the like.

To partake in an unworthy manner is to participate in communion with unrepentant sin. This is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:23-24, “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”

The Lord’s Supper allows us to judge ourselves rightly, confess our sins, apologize, and repent — thereby returning to undefiled worship of God.

Now, let’s consider . . .

3. The Elements of the Lord’s Supper

After participating in the Passover with His disciples, Jesus broke bread and shared the fruit of the vine.

He first broke the bread — which would have been unleavened — and passed it out to the disciples proclaiming that this was His body. And then the Scriptures say He took the cup, proclaimed it the new covenant in His blood which was poured out for them. 

No doubt this terminology was unexpected, and yet very normal for Jesus. During His ministry He had already referred to Himself as a shepherd, a door, bread, water, the cornerstone, He compared Himself to the brazen serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness, and His teaching was always filled with parables, word pictures, and significant imagery.

This is another reason Protestants do not refer to the Lord’s Supper as the Eucharist. Catholics believe that the bread is transubstantiated into the actual body of Christ and the that the cup is transubstantiated into the actual blood of Christ.

This belief grew out of inappropriate literalism coupled with a dash of delusions of grandeur.

If we could argue that historically, grammatically, and biblically Jesus was actually saying that the elements He gave the disciples mystically trans-elemented into the actual body and blood of Christ without losing the physical characteristics of bread and wine — and that is an illogical and unbiblical stretch — still, what makes us think that our bread and wine does the same thing? Nothin in the passage gives us any reason to believe in either of these beliefs.

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic tradition whereby we remember the sacrifice of Christ. It does not impart grace, and God’s people are not cannibalizing the Messiah. It’s not necessary, because faith in Jesus imparts saving grace to our lives.

Now, I mentioned that the bread was unleavened, but what about the beverage? I’ve been careful to refer to it as the fruit of the vine — for the most part — because that’s how it’s described in the Gospel accounts. It’s most often called “the cup” and in Luke 22:17 Jesus — referring to the Passover meal — said, “I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.”

So the question is whether it was grape juice or wine. Well, the answer is, it was fermented to one degree or another. No one drank unprotected water back them. Believe it or not, wines and beers have been used all throughout human history to make drinking a safe exercise. 

Now, we can’t tangent off into a discussion of whether modern observances of the Lord’s Supper should include grape juice or wine. Suffice it to say, I believe there can be good reasons to do either. 

Again, the blessing doesn’t come from the elements, it comes from doing the right thing in the right way for the right reasons. The fact that their fruit of the vine had to have alcohol in it in order for it to be drinkable doesn’t necessitate that we must do the same thing. 

In fact, if one were to say that anything other than wine would be “unbiblical,” I would argue that their own arguments could be used against them to demand that if they don’t use the right fruit of the vine or follow the same recipe used by whomever prepared the Passover bread, they’re being just as unbiblical.

By the way, I was recently part of a discussion concerning the Lord’s Supper on a podcast called Theology Throw Down. I’ll include a link in the description. This podcast is a lot of fun. A bunch of believers get together to discuss theology with grace and love, and often many different viewpoints are kicked around. You should check it out.

Either way, whether or not your bread is gluten free, whether or not your church uses Welch’s grape juice, whether or not everyone drinks from the same cup or has their own disposable shot glass, whether it’s accompanied by a full meal or the minimalistic elements in many baptist churches, none of that was clearly commanded or illustrated for us.

Therefore, do your best to celebrate God the best you can while you submit to what you know and seek to please Him with what you don’t.

What we know is that the bread was offered first, the cup was offered second, and we know who participated and why. 

So now let’s move to . . .

4. The Participants of the Lord’s Supper

It is impossible for us to know the spiritual condition of every man who participated in the first Lord’s Supper. Some tend to think that Judas may have been present for it, and others believe the Gospels make it clear he wasn’t there.

But even if Judas wasn’t present, we know Peter was, and I believe it’s safe to say that Peter was not truly converted when he participated in the first Communion.

Does that mean that just anyone can participate?

Well, let’s look at what we know.

A. The Lord’s Supper has a purpose. It’s for God’s people to remember what Christ suffered in order to purchase their salvation. And it’s for God’s people to excitedly anticipate His return . . . because we’re going to keep observing it until He returns. The purpose of the ordinance makes it clear that only believers should participate.

B. There are consequences when people participated in the Lord Supper in an unworthy fashion. And what was an unworthy fashion? If people sinned as they participated or had not yet confessed known sin before participating, they were not judging themselves rightly. This too teaches that observing the Lord’s Supper would not be wise for someone who Romans 8 describes as an enemy of God for whom it is impossible for them to glorify God.

So, yes, I believe the Lord’s Supper should be taken by professing believers. But I also know that Jesus included Peter and may have included the pre-possessed Judas.

Therefore, we can conclude that — not knowing the true eternal destiny of anyone other than ourselves (and — let’s be honest — we can be wrong about that too) — it would be wise for us to explain the best case scenario to those with us and allow them to rightly judge themselves between them and God and suffer any consequences for their choice.

I don’t believe we should make an open invitation to unbelievers since it’s not going to help them, but only potentially hurt them. But I also don’t think it’s appropriate to tell non-members that they can’t participate. Communion is for the Universal church and all of God’s people, not merely the members of a local body.

In fact, it’s quite possible that any number of the members aren’t saved and some visitors or regular attenders may be truly born again.

My point is this, Jesus didn’t try to control who participated, you shouldn’t either. Stick to the Scriptures, teach everyone the purpose, warn them of consequences, and allow them to judge themselves. God will take care of the rest.

However, since the Lord’s Supper is not simply a remembrance of a past event, but it is also an opportunity to reevaluate our conformity to Christ, this is a good time for a body to engage in corporate discipleship. 

If I see someone participating in the Lord’s Supper who is living in unrepentant sin, that is a perfect opportunity for me to lovingly connect with him later and engage in Christ-honoring conversation.

This is another wonderful way we can celebrate God with the Lord’s Supper.

And, lastly . . .

5. The Frequency of the Lord’s Supper

Again, the Scriptures neither command nor give any hard and fast examples of how often God’s people are supposed to observe the Lord’s Supper.

Some believe that the early church observed it on a weekly basis, but it’s hard to say. 

Again, we’re left to fulfill the Spirit of the Law. Jesus intended for this ordinance to draw our minds back to the one thing we are so prone to forget. In II Peter 1, Peter talks about the salvation of Jesus Christ and the effect it is to have in our lives as we grow in Christlikeness. And in verse 12, Peter says, “Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you.”

I believe that the Lord’s Supper should be done with a frequency that makes it hard to forget what God has done, what He wants to do in us, and what He will do in the future.

As disciples of Christ, we must commune with the body of Christ as we observe the Lord’s Supper. It’s a non-negotiable.

And though there many be flexibility and liberty in how and when we observe it, we absolutely must engage with it for the reasons the Lord communicated in His Word.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing a concept related to the Lord’s Supper. We’re going to have talk about how to glorify God with our food in general.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

It’s great to be meeting with you again. I love our times together as we open God’s Word to better know, understand, and love Him.

The Celebration of God is all about giving God what He deserves every waking moment of the day. He deserves our faith, love, obedience, trust, praise, adoration, worship, preeminence, awe, glory, submission, and so much else. And when we use the word celebration, we’re including all of them.

So, how do we celebrate God with baptism?

That’s an awesome question, and we’re gong to get into the Scriptures to see what God expects of us. Then after you listen to the episode, you can head over to CelebrationOfGod.com to access our episode notes, transcripts, and growing collection of celebration resources.

Now, let’s hear what God has to say about baptism.

In the New Testament, we find two primary ordinances for the church.

An ordinance is something that God has ordained and prescribed. I’m being particular in my word usage, because some people refer to them as sacraments, but the word sacrament more often than not conveys an added layer. When people speak of sacraments, they often believe that by doing the sacrament we are gaining additional grace or merit from God. It’s not simply about doing what God commands, sacraments are viewed as a way of getting something from God.

But we’re going to see that this is not the case for baptism. It’s commanded. We should obey, and, yes, there are are blessing for our obedience, but baptism does not grant us access to something that we could not have otherwise had.

And, yeah, I think I may have inadvertently used the word sacrament a time or two on some of our earlier shows . . . I’m not sure, but — just so we’re clear — the Bible does not show us that baptism or the Lord’s Supper is a special means of grace.

But more on that in a minute.

Lastly, concerning ordinances, it could be argued that every New Testament command is an ordinance of God for His people, and that would be fair given the definition I’ve provided. But — historically speaking — there was one more idea that was required for something to be an ordinance.

Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper were instituted by Jesus and required a corresponding tangible sign. For example, in order to participate in the Lord’s Supper, you need bread and the fruit of the vine. And in order to participate in baptism, everyone agrees that you need water.

However, loving a person can take many forms, and we can’t say that you’re not really loving someone if it doesn’t involve chocolate. The same is true with every other command in Scripture. Reproving, rebuking, serving, preferring, honoring, encouraging, and the like don’t have a singular tangible element that must be present in order to properly obey them.

Now, one last introductory idea. The word baptize is used of many things in the Scriptures. We’re going to see that. I do not plan to discuss the baptism of the spirit or being baptized into Christ’s death or anything like that. This discussion is specifically about the ordinance of water baptism.

So, for starters, let’s establish that baptism really is a God-prescribed ordinance for His people, and then we’ll need to understand the purpose of baptism, and then we can discuss how a person is to be baptized.

1. The Ordinance of Baptism

As most of you know, in Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This is the passage that establishes God’s precise command that we baptize and be baptized. Of course, there are many more supporting passages in the Scriptures, but this came directly from Jesus’ mouth.

Now, in order to see baptism as an ordinance that is unique from discipling or teaching, we need to understand . . . 

2. The Purpose of Baptism

Why is baptism so important? We’ve talked a lot about salvation, discipleship, and teaching, but why would Jesus command His disciples to baptize people?

What’s the point of getting people wet?

Since the Bible doesn’t expressly answer this question, we must sharpen our study skills. Now, I’m going to keep my argumentation strictly biblical, but I will also suggest that a historical study of the ancient church will fall in line with our biblical findings.

First, baptism is always shown to follow genuine conversion. Jesus put it after someone becoming a disciple. Peter said, “Repent and be baptized.” Philip only baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch and Paul and Silas only baptized the Philippian Jailer and his family after they had believed in Christ.

But there were also people in the Bible who believed on Christ who never had the chance to be baptized. The perfect example of this is the thief on the cross. He professed his belief, Jesus promised that he would join Christ in paradise, and then they both died without the thief being baptized.

Here’s where the sacramental crowd starts having issues. Did the thief on the cross not truly get saved? Was he not imparted the grace necessary for glorifying God?

The point is that baptism was prescribed to follow salvation, and we know there were people who were truly born again but who were not baptized, and we know that there were people who were baptized but who were not truly born again. All of this points to the fact that baptism absolutely does not save us.

It was never intended to save us. It’s not part of the saving process. Baptism is something else entirely.

Now, to truly be able to appreciate the purpose of baptism, we do have to have historical context. For example, I’ve often said that modern Christians do not have the same understanding of fasting as the first century believers because we’ve lost must of what was commonly understood about the practice.

In the same way, if a future techno-archeologist discovers a degraded blog file from The Celebration of God and reads the words “Celebration Wall,” he won’t be able to truly understand its purpose simply because he understands what celebration and wall mean. 

Therefore, let’s take a moment to understand how the ancient Jews understood the purpose of baptism.

First, there were many ritualistic washings prescribed in the Old Testament that pre-pictured baptism. For example, after touching a dead body, a Jew had to wash himself in a specific way. This was not to make the individual physically clean, it was to make him ritualistically clean. It had specific spiritual imagery attached to it.

Second, if someone converted to Judaism, they were had to have their entire body immersed. Maurice Lamm in the book “Becoming a Jew” writes, “Ritual immersion is the total submersion of the body in a pool of water. This pool and its water are precisely prescribed by Jewish law. Immersion . . . is the common core component of every [traditional] Jewish conversion process, for male and female, adult and child, ignoramus and scholar. It is sine qua non, and a conversion ceremony without immersion is unacceptable to the traditional religious community and simply not Jewish in character.”

He goes on to explain that immersion had great symbolism attached to it, but it also required witnesses.

Why?

Well, this immersion was one of the very last requirements to convert to Judaism. Like any other binding contract, witnesses were required to vouch for the proper conducting of the ritual and for full inclusion to Judaism.

Now, there is so much more that could be said, but those are just some of the things that ancient Jews knew about baptism. It was full immersion, it was symbolic, and it was a testimony to the conversion.

Of course, unlike Jewish baptism, Christians are converted before they are baptized, but like Jewish converts, baptism was used to testify of the conversion.

In the ancient Middle East, to be baptized was to testify to the fact that the individual was fully aligning him or herself with a new way of life.

Maurice Lamm wrote, “Submerging in a pool of water for the purpose not of using the water’s physical cleansing properties but expressly to symbolize a change-of-soul is a statement at once deeply spiritual and immensely compelling. No other symbolic act can so totally embrace a person as being submerged in water, which must touch and cover every lesion, every strand of hair, every birthmark. No other religious act is so freighted with meaning as this one which touches every aspect of life and proclaims a total commitment to a new idea and a new way of life as it swallows up the old and gives birth to the new.”

Now, again, this is a Jew speaking of conversion to Judaism. But this is how the Jews of Jesus’ time (including the disciples and converts of Christ) understood baptism.

So, we can say it this way, believer’s baptism is when a new Christian publicly identifies with Jesus Christ. John MacArthur puts it this way, “This water immersion is a picture, it is an object lesson, it is a symbol, it is a physical analogy of a great, profound, spiritual reality. And here’s the point: It is the way God wants to teach the most wonderful truth of all, the union of the believer into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the salvation reality.”

We know that born again believers are to be the salt and light of the world. What better and profound way is there to be such a light than to meet at a public watering hole and there proclaim in word and deed that you are a full-fledged follower of Christ?

And that, my friends is the purpose of baptism. It doesn’t save us, but it’s a testimony to the fact that we are saved. We are born again. We’re a completely new individual.

My son invited some local teens to church on the day he was to be baptized. Afterward, one of them shared that he was a little confused. He wasn’t a Christian, but — as far as he knew — baptism was for babies. I explained to him that baptism couldn’t be forced on someone like a bath. Baptism was more than just being immersed under water. Baptism had to follow salvation which was a personal decision to follow Christ.

That was a very interesting idea that he had never heard before.

Now, there’s a lot more that could be said, obviously a short podcast episode is not the place to unpack the glory of baptism, so we need to move to our third point.

And for this we need to ask, “How is one baptized?” Well, ask ten different people, get twenty different answers.

So, we must then ask, how does the Bible say baptism is done? And that’s actually a really easy question to answer.

3. The Act of Baptism

A. The Way

The reason this is so easy to answer is not that the Bible offers a step-by-step how-to for baptism, but because the Greek words that are used.

For example, the word baptizo literally refers to dipping something in its entirety. 

Vine’s Expository Dictionary says, this word “was used among the Greeks to signify the dyeing of a garment, or the drawing of water by dipping a vessel into another, etc. Plutarchus uses it of the drawing of wine by dipping the cup into the bowl . . . and Plato, metaphorically, of being overwhelmed with questions  . . . . It is used in the NT in Luke 11:38 of washing oneself.”

In Greek, the word refers to being immersed into something else — whether figuratively or literally. Therefore, the act of baptism requires submersing, dipping, immersing someone into water.

And that is repeatedly illustrated in the Scriptures. Jesus’ own baptism in Matthew 3:13 says that He was immersed and then “came up immediately from the water.”

In fact, you will not discover anywhere in the Scriptures where it can even be remotely inferred that the individual was not immersed because of two things — 1. There’s no description of sprinkling, pouring, or the like. And 2. We must not forget that the actual word means to immerse.


As an example, if someone were to argue that the sentence "Jesus walked on the water” referred to Him sailing in a boat, we would have to conclude that either the individual is desperately trying to undermine the miracle of Jesus or that they literally do not understand what the English words mean

And that is the case with the words used for baptism. They literally mean to dunk.

Now, before we talk about the one baptizing and the one being baptized, we need to talk about some recent baptismal trends.

The first — and most extreme — is the idea of a virtual reality baptism. My friends, this is ridiculous. You’re going to have a very difficult time arguing from the Scriptures for the legitimacy of virtual reality baptism. And I would bet that anyone doing so likes to play loose and fast with the Scriptures any way.

Also, there are people who — especially during the governmental lockdowns — are supposedly being baptized in their bathtubs, often without the physical presence of someone to baptize them.

Now, this involves another massive topic concerning whether or not the church should have stopped meeting in person and whether or not virtual church is even a thing.

Suffice it to say, no, online church is not a thing, and therefore there are huge issues with being baptized in a kiddy-pool in my backyard all alone as part of some kind of online service.

As we saw before, baptism is designed to be a public testimony. Now, yes, modern technology has afforded us the ability to share things publicly without being physically present. And I’m not suggesting that you can’t be fully immersed in your pool by an elder in your church in the presence of some born again believers if that is the absolute best that you have. 

And I’m also not saying that we can’t make provisions for a hospital-bed bound newly saved 84 year old.

But I am saying that baptism is a significant and intentional one-time act that we should not be striving to make easier or more cool simply because we think we can.

There’s weight and substance, and it should be taken seriously. Therefore, like with everything else in our lives, we should strive to do our best.

So, that’s the process, but there’s another question we must ask. Who is doing the baptizing?

B. The One Baptizing

As we read through the Bible we discover that various people baptized others. John the Baptist, Philip, Silas, Peter, and even Paul — though he admittedly didn’t baptize many according to I Corinthians 1:15 — are all seen baptizing or saying that they baptized people. Obviously Jesus commanded His disciples to baptize. 

So, here’s what we know:

1. The men who glorified God as they baptized others were themselves born again. This is consistent throughout all of the biblical examples of Christ-honoring baptism.

2. They were all men. Nowhere in the Scriptures do we see women baptizing anyone. And this is important because . . .

3. They were all church elders. Now, we can get into some trouble with this term depending on how your church understands the term elders. 

Biblically speaking, the term elder can and should apply to every born again, spiritually mature man in your church. Therefore, it can and does often refer to pastors (who — as a side note — must be men), but that doesn’t mean that only the voted-in preaching pastor is the only person who can baptize. In fact, Paul’s argument for why he didn’t baptize many people could be easily used to suggest that allowing a lesser-known man of God to baptize new believers could help circumvent potential temptation for the new believer.

Now, obviously it would not be wrong for any mature believing man to baptize a new convert, but we have to acknowledge it’s appropriate for any professing Christian who has exemplified Christ-honoring character to baptize someone. We could put it this way, any man who could be biblically called upon to be a deacon or a pastor should be allowed to participate in baptizing.

Now, it’s my opinion that — using other relational principles we see in Scripture — we could argue that mature, born again fathers would be a wonderful choice to baptize his children, and we could argue that the mature Christian man who lead the individual to the Lord would be a good choice to baptize them.

Obviously, if a woman were to lead a woman to the Lord, it would not be appropriate for her to baptize her new sister in Christ. Though it may not be a role exclusively held for a senior pastor, baptism is exemplified in Scripture to be a role for someone who is in spiritual authority — and God clearly reserves that for men in the church and family.

So, now — as we consider the act of baptism — we need to ask, “Who is being baptized?”

C. The One Baptized

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, the Bible is excessively clear that baptism is ordained for people who are born again.

Yes, if you believe that baptism makes a person a Christian, then you would be foolish not to baptize every single person you can — whether they want it or not. Baptize babies, baptize death row criminals, baptize soldiers, in fact — you should even do a Nacho Libre sneak-attack and dunk your unsuspecting atheist best friend in order to be certain they wouldn’t go to hell.

But all of that contradicts the clear teaching of Scriptures. It contradicts what we’ve already seen about baptism and salvation.

Baptism does not save a person. It’s not a special means of grace.

People are born again when they believe in Christ’s crosswork and resurrection and confess Him as their Lord. Salvation is simply believing God’s promises as He communicates them in the Bible. Salvation is always the results of the gift of faith, and it is not procured by any act of righteousness.

And no unsaved person will ever see heaven. Everyone who has not put their trust in Jesus Christ will spend an eternity in hell.

So, the question is, why do some Protestants baptize infants?

It’s amazing how much I’ve heard and read on this subject, but there is never any consistent Scripture used to argue for the position. 

There have been many presbyterian pastors to whom I have loved listening. They rightly divide the Word of truth. They use the Scriptures to interpret the Scriptures. In fact, I have frequently said that if the only good church in my area was a solid Presbyterian church, I would probably not have any issue attending.

But even the best Presbyterian pastor’s I have followed fall short when it comes to their justification for infant baptism. They flounder, they include little to no biblical support for their conclusions, and they seem to focus primarily on the symbolic elements.

For example, since Presbyterians are covenant theologians, their main doctrinal belief concerning infant baptism is that baptism is a New Testament replacement for circumcision. In the same way the Jewish boy babies were circumcised to show their inclusion in the people of God, gentile infants born to believing parents are baptized.

Of course this is neither commanded nor illustrated anywhere in the New Testament. It’s also a stretch considering that Jewish girls didn’t have a comparative sign like circumcision. But that’s what they believe.

A tenuous biblical passage some will use is in Acts 16. This is the passage where the Philippine Jailer is converted. Verses 30-34 read, “and after he brought them out, he said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ 31 They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. 33 And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. 34 And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.”

I’ve heard the argument made that since “he and all his household” were baptized, then it was safe to assume that it included any infants who were present.

However, the issues with this are abounding. First, it’s an assumption that any infants were in the house. Second, the normal, natural use of language does not necessitate that infants were baptized.

If I have four kids, two teens, and a pair of twin two year olds, and I tell you that “My kids and I rode that new roller coaster,” it is completely appropriate for you to understand from the context that my children who are old enough and big enough rode the roller coaster.

Since baptism has a biblically specific purpose and clearly illustrated requirements, then it is expected that the sentence must be understood “and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household [who believed in the Lord Jesus].”

Listen, I completely understand and appreciate symbolism. I really do. I’ve made that abundantly clear even in today’s discussion. But we must never abandon clear biblical teaching in order to make the symbolism work.

Yes, there are Old Testament events that pre-picture modern baptism. But there were symbolic elements that didn’t fit as well. 

Yes, Noah and his family were saved as they passed through the waters. And yes, I Peter 3:20-22 says, “when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. 21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”

But even though this baptism is referencing how Noah was brought through the water, it isn’t referring to believer’s baptism.

Baptism does not save anyone. But no one can be saved if they have not been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. But that is a spiritual reality which symbolically fulfills Noah’s experience. It’s not a proof-text for baptismal regeneration. 

So, we must allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. The Bible will never contradict itself, and when we read it and understand it normally, it perfectly informs all of our decisions in Christ-honoring ways.

So, we’ve talked about the way to be baptized, the one baptizing, the one baptized, and now let’s discuss . . .

D. The Witnesses of the Baptism

I think this is where things get really interesting. 

It’s clear that the ancient Jews understood the importance of witnesses at a conversion immersion. And it appears that every time someone is baptized in the New Testament, there are more than just the one baptizing and the one being baptized. This was true of Jesus, the Philippian Jailer, the Ethiopian Eunuch, the converts on the day of Pentecost, and so on.

But this particular point is potentially the one area where modern baptisms diverge from first-century practice. 

First, the early Christians didn’t have church buildings with baptismals. Most of the time the person being baptized was taken to a local watering hole, river, or lake. 

Second, this reality means that there were likely two groups of individuals witnessing the baptism that day. On one hand you had other believers who likely were already baptized, new converts waiting to be baptized, and — quite often — unbelievers who were curious about the gathering or who happened to be passing by.

But in many modern baptisms, the vast, vast majority of the witnesses are professing believers. This is due to the fact that the baptism happens in the church or is tucked away out of public site.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with testifying to your new life in Christ to a group of believers. In fact, I’m going to argue that — if it’s possible — a new believer should be baptized in front of the largest collection of local believers as they can. This is one reason that being baptized with the church body present is better than a handful of fellow Christians in your backyard.

But what about the unbelievers? Are their unbelievers in nearly every single church gathering in the world? Yes. But I strongly believe that the first century baptisms had a much larger number of unbelieving onlookers than most modern baptisms.

And I think this is an important piece of the puzzle. Since baptism is an ordinance and not a sacrament, and since baptism is the opportunity for a new convert to publicly testify to the fact that they are now a child and servant and follower of Christ, doesn’t it make sense that this testimony would have a significant — and potentially more potent — impact on the unbelievers who have not — themselves — chosen to follow Christ?

When my kids were baptized, the Christians rejoiced, but it was the unbelievers my son had invited before whom my children shone as salt and light.

I’m not saying a baptism that doesn’t happen in front of unbelievers is being done the wrong way or ineffective. But I am calling us to think deeply about the purpose of baptism and how we can potentially strengthen that one-time testimony to the world.

However, I will say that if a husband is trying to submerge his wife in their tub all by themselves — unless that is that absolute 100% best they will ever have — they’re potentially not worshipping God with baptism the way He requires.

At bare minimum, other Christians and/or unbelievers should be there.

Now, again there’s so much that could be said. I’m going to include a link in today’s description to a sermon preached by John MacArthur. He did a great job delving into more detail about this subject. Obviously, there are biblical commentaries and books written by trusted sources.

But, for now, it’s important that if you are a born again believer, you need to celebrate God by being baptized in a biblical way.

I made a profession of faith when I was five, and I was baptized. Actually, I just got dunked in water because I wasn’t truly born again. When I was actually saved for the first time at the age of nine, I was baptized for the first time. It didn’t matter what had happened to me when I was younger.

Baptism is an intentional act to physically identify with Christ in the same way that we have been spiritually united with Him in death and life.

We give Him the priority and preeminence in our lives when we obey God’s commands the way He commands them, and when we proclaim to the world that we are His follower.

If you have never been baptized, if you still have questions, please talk with your pastor or email us at Counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com. 

Also, please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets, and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing Celebrating God with the Lord’s Supper.

Welcome to a new month filled with brand new opportunities for celebrating our great God. I pray your participation in The Year Long Celebration of God is sharpening you and helping you to burn brighter for Him.

Before we jump into the various ways to worship God in May, I invite you to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram for daily encouragement. You can also check me out on the Wisdom App which is available for the iPhone and Android. 

And — as always — be sure to follow the link in today’s description for our free episode notes, transcript, and holiday resources.

And now let’s talk about pleasing God in May.

Alright, for starters, May is the final month in the Season of Life. So, we all get one more month to meditate on and revel in the biblical realities of physical and spiritual life.

Also, this is our final month to study justification together. I pray you have learned a lot about the beauty of justification, and I look forward to studying it more with you in the future.

But — though we may be coming to the end of the Season of Life — we’re not done yet.

Now, the first celebratory holiday on the list is actually still Easter. Yes . . . Easter.

Though it’s normal for most Protestants to dedicate only one day to Easter, there are actually 50 days of Eastertide that run from Resurrection Sunday through Pentecost.

Now, because Easter is as variable as it is, things change from year to year. But — generally speaking, May gets to continue the Easter festivities. In fact, if I did my math correctly, even when Easter falls on its earliest date, Pentecost will never happen in April. That means that whether it’s part of the month or the whole month, we can always celebrate Easter in May.

Now, for those of you uncertain about this whole Eastertide thing, we did an episode about it, so I’ll include a link for that in today’s description. However, the key thing to remember is that each of the Seven Sundays of Easter get to be celebrated with the same gusto and fervor that Resurrection Sunday was. 

Have friends over for lunch and continue your Easter celebration. Dig deeper into your Bible reading and prayer times. Keep the Resurrection Songs playing! Don’t miss out on the best celebration of the year, and definitely don’t cut it short!

And during your Eastertide observances, there are two to three other special holidays that beautifully fit into the Season of Life.

The first is Mother’s Day which always falls on the second Sunday in May. 

It should be quite apparent how beautifully Mother’s Day is couched in the Season of Life. And we have number of resources that will help you prepare for, celebrate, and disciple during Mother’s Day.

The key thing is to make sure that you give honor where honor is due. That means that you should take the opportunity to honor your the mothers in your life, but don’t miss the fact that God is the one who ultimately needs to be thanked for mothers.

And I provide some great ways of doing that in the additional resources.

And then comes Ascension . . . another sorely ignored holiday among Protestants. We have two episodes that introduce Ascension as well as equip you to celebrate it to God’s honor and glory. And those will be linked in the description as well.

But the beauty of the Ascension is that is officially ushered in the Kingdom of God on earth. In so doing, Christ sat down at the right hand of the Father and set in motion the events that would culminate in Pentecost.

It’s very exciting, and it’s an incredibly important act of God filled with purpose and significance.

And then, finally, depending on the year, often Pentecost itself will land in May.

Pentecost is the Christian celebration of the formation of the Church. And — that’s right, you guessed it — we have a bunch of resources for you at CelebrationOfGod.com to help you really worship God to the best or your ability on Pentecost.

But, as always, the High Days aren’t nearly as numerous as the Low Moments, and both are the perfect time to worship the Lord.

That means that whether you’re at church, at work, at school, on vacation, or in a funeral home, there are a multitude of ways you can and should give God the preeminence in your life, and we have a growing library of free resources that will help you do just that. 

Just check out CelebrationOfGod.com and click on the podcast series link. There you will discover so many important ways God wants us to glorify Him in our daily lives — not the least of which is our personal discipleship.

I hope you’re looking forward to celebrating God this May. 

If you ever have any questions about The Year Long Celebration of God, this podcast, or the other Evermind Ministries, don’t hesitate to email us at Team@CelebrationOfGod.com.

And remember that it’s such a blessing to us and your friends when you share these episodes on your favorite social media outlets.

And I hope you’ll join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing how we are to celebrate God with baptism.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Today’s show is going to be a little different from the norm because today we’re talking about how to retrain our emotions in light of Resurrection Sunday.

I’ve mentioned a number of times on this show that Resurrection Sunday (or Easter) is the greatest Christian holiday of the year, but . . . let’s be honest, many of us just don’t feel the same way about Easter as we do Christmas.

Why is that, and what can we do about it?

Well, I’m glad you asked. So, let’s talk about that right now, and then you can check out our free episode notes, transcript, and Resurrection resources at CelebrationOfGod.com.

If you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time, then you’ve probably heard me say that I did not used to celebrate the holidays in a Christ-honoring manner. And — due to that most unfortunate reality — I found it hard to really love Easter.

But all of that started changing a couple years ago as the Lord started teaching a bunch of powerful lessons about Him, me, and my relationship with Him.

I won’t recap all of those right now, but I will say that the entire Year Long Celebration of God was born out of this time of personal discipleship.

But I did struggle early on with an interesting problem. 

Growing up Christmas was always my favorite holiday. But — let’s be honest — it didn’t really have anything to do with God. Sure, the baby in the manger was part of it, but — for me — it was the snow and lights and presents and cookies and parties and movies and music and family and fun. And — sure — the fact that Jesus was incarnated was great too.

I’m not saying that I wasn’t born again or that I didn’t care about God, but I’m trying to be transparent enough to admit that I loved those others things more.

And, from my experiences, research, and conversations with others, I would have to say that many (if not most) American Christians struggle with the same issue. America has done an amazing job of transforming Christmas into the most wonderful time of the year.

But, as I continue my confession, I also have to admit that I really loved Thanksgiving more than Easter too. Other than the times when we had to sit around listening to everyone be thankful, Thanksgiving was all about food and family and friends and fun.

So, yes, for decades my heart would race just thinking about those holidays. But Resurrection Sunday . . . ? Not so much.

Again, yes, as a believer, the reality of Christ’s defeating death and hell were definitely significant for me. But the “feels” just weren’t really there. And it probably had a lot to do with the fact that my family didn’t regularly paint eggs, do easter baskets or egg hunts, or much else except celebrate Easter by going to church.

So, as a kid, it was pretty much like any other Sunday — which, if I’m still being honest — was either a nuisance, or it was a time to see my friends in-between teaching times.

Now, after all of that, you’re either thinking, “Wow, this Aaron guy was so superficial and carnal.” Or, you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, I really understand this Aaron guy.”

So, for those of you who — like I — recognize that Easter needs to be more important in your life, and you really think it would be cool to be as excited about Resurrection Sunday as you are for Christmas Day, then I hope what is to follow will help you.

But — fair warning — it is going to take work.

So, I want to answer two main questions: 

1. What are emotions?

And . . .

2. How do I get excited about Easter?

1. What are emotions?

First, let me say that emotions aren’t as important as many people make them out to be. In fact, biblically speaking, emotions aren’t something for which we should be living.

I encourage you to check out our Grow Your Worship Series. Part 2 talks about how to “Change What You Feel.” I’ll include a link in the description for your ease of access.

In that episode I lay out a biblical doctrine of emotions, which is something I can’t take the time to do today. But I do want to reiterate that as special as emotions are, and despite the fact that God designed them for important reasons, emotions are not nearly as important as our world says they are.

So, please understand, I am not suggesting that any of us need to feel a certain way about Easter. I’m not suggesting that we have to feel something. I’m not suggesting that if we don’t feel a certain way, we can’t glorify God on Resurrection Sunday.

I’m simply trying to encourage those of you who have a genuine desire to align your feelings with the reality of God’s Word.

If the Bible teaches us that the Resurrection was the most glorious event in history, then shouldn’t we be more excited about celebrating that day than a less significant day? Of course we should.

It’s not about the emotions, but our emotions should grow from our beliefs and desires just like our actions and words do.

Again, if you haven’t worked through our Grow Your Worship Series, you’re really missing out.

So, with that foundation laid. What are emotions?

Well, they’re a gift, a sacrifice, and an alarm.

Emotions are a gift to be enjoyed by the individual, the church, and spiritual authorities. I won’t explain all of that now; check out the link below to learn more.

But like everything else in our lives, God expects us to glorify Him with our emotions just like our words and deeds. We don’t have the right to consume our emotions for our own pleasure. That’s the world talking. The world says we exist simply to be happy and that we should follow our hearts and do what feels good.

But God says that our emotions need to be an act of worship to Him.

And, lastly, our emotions are an alarm. 

Have you ever been hooked up to a heart monitor? As annoying as those beeps can be after hours of monitoring, we’re all glad they’re there. But when the flat line draws across the screen, there’s trouble.

In the same way, the emotions are not the most important thing, they’re the thing that gives us very important information about the most important thing.

As we learned in our Grow Your Worship Series, everything we do, say, feel, want, and think reveals the most important thing about us . . . what we believe.

Therefore, if I’m happy about something God says should sadden me, my emotions are sending off an alarm — warning me that something is wrong.

If I’m depressed when God says I should be joyful, then — again — my emotions are warning me that there’s a real problem.

So, when it comes to Easter, if you’re annoyed, bothered, angry, depressed, or put-out about having to go to church and hear about Jesus . . . there is a huge problem, and it’s not your emotions. It’s the fact that no genuine child of God is going to consistently hate the things of God. We may have a bad attitude for a time, but the Holy Spirit will convict us, and we will confess that, apologize, and repent.

Therefore, if I believe that Easter is the most important and glorious celebration of the year, it must follow that my thoughts, desires, feelings, words, and actions are going to mirror my beliefs.

So, now let’s answer the next question.

2. How do I get excited about Easter?

In short, we change our emotions by changing our beliefs.

I didn’t love Easter because I didn’t really know, understand, and believe how important Easter is.

Now, I’m going to share 5 very practical and helpful ways to increase your excitement for and during Easter, but I want to start by looking at Psalm 16:8-11. This Psalm not only talks about the Resurrection, it also teaches our first point.

"I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. 10 For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

Yes, verse 10 is referenced in Acts 13:35 in regard to the Resurrection. But pay close attention to verses 9 and 11: “Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. . . . In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” 

And why are those things true? Because verse 8 said, “I have set the Lord continually before me.”

So, how can I train my emotions to be glad and rejoice and have joy and experience pleasure during Easter?  

1. You need to study the truth about the Resurrection, and you need to believe it.

According to Jesus, ignorance and unbelief are the defining characteristics of a hard heart. But when a true follower of Christ really knows, understands, and believes God’s Word, their heart is tuned to sing His praise. They truly begin rejoicing in the Lord.

You will never truly revel in Easter if you don’t really understand what it is.

You will never truly joy in Easter if your desires are more important than God’s defeat of sin and death and hell. 

You need to study the truth about the Resurrection, and you need to believe it. And that needs to be your first step, because it will fuel everything that comes next.

2. You need to ask God to help you love Him and His mighty deeds of love.

Psalm 69: 30 and 31 say, “I will praise the name of God with song And magnify Him with thanksgiving. 31 And it will please the Lord better than an ox Or a young bull with horns and hoofs.”

And verses 32-34 read, “The humble have seen it and are glad; You who seek God, let your heart revive. 33 For the Lord hears the needy And does not despise His who are prisoners. 34 Let heaven and earth praise Him, The seas and everything that moves in them.”

The Lord hears the needy, and He revives those who seek Him. Talk to God about your desire. Let Him know that you love Him, but that you want to love Him more. Ask Him to help you increase your faith. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you humbly acknowledge the majesty and awe of the Savior so that your heart is bursting with gladness.

And that leads to . . .

3. You need to make a big deal out of Easter.

If you want to genuinely anticipate and get excited about Easter, then — along with better understanding it and asking God to help you — you need to plan to really celebrate it!

We don’t get excited about things that aren’t exciting to us. Now, I’m not saying that we can’t get excited about Easter without candy and egg rolls. In fact, I’m going to argue the fact opposite.

I’m not encouraging you to hype up your carnal emotional responses by doing a bunch of fluffy stuff that will simply make your flesh feel good — you know, the egg painting and easter egg hunts and bunnies and baskets that really don’t have anything to do with Easter, but will excite our fleshly passions.

I’m encouraging you to focus on the most important parts of the holiday. You need to plan to assemble with God’s people, engage in corporate worship, praise Him, learn about Him, pray to Him, and participate in the one-anothers to the glory of God. 

Yes, by all means, have a feast to celebrate the day. Eat some sweets. But make sure that everything you do is motivated by the glory of God and not merely some selfish gratification.

I’ve been fasting for Lent this year, and — as many of you know — you fast from Monday through Saturday, but you don’t fast on Sunday. Well, there have been quite a few times that the eating that I should have been doing as an act of worship to God and foretaste of eternity, was merely a mindless, gluttonous feast for my senses with no thought to God at all.

Let’s not do that with Eater.

Instead, let’s prepare for Resurrection Sunday by reading the Easter Bible Reading at CelebrationOfGod.com. Let’s listen to music that truly exalts Christ. Let’s plan to get together with our brothers and sisters in Christ to celebrate the Resurrection. Let’s go to church.

And if you’re listening right now and have a very bad feeling about the idea of going to church, I encourage you to listen to our Celebrating God at Church Series.

Now, I’m not saying that Easer baskets are sin, but we definitely need to be super intentional when it comes to how we handle it and talk about it — otherwise the bunnies and baskets have the same effect as Santa and the presents . . . it becomes all about me.

But the bigger God-focused deal you make out of the Resurrection, the more excited you will be.

Now, again, I’m not saying that you have to observe Easter the way Christians in the West do. But I am saying that a born again believer is definitely going to praise God and exalt Him for His tremendous gift of salvation that was purchased on the cross and sealed in the Resurrection.

But we shouldn’t just make a big deal out of Easter in what we do. 

4. You need to talk about Easter the way you want feel about it.

In our Grow Your Worship Series, I make mention of the fact that emotions — in a similar way that they are fed by our desires — they also feed our desires. Even though we want what we think about, and we think about what we believe, when we want something, and we get it, and our emotions soar high, that influences our future desires.

But we must never forget that it’s our beliefs and desires that feed our emotional responses in the first place.

Therefore, when I say something like, “I want to really rejoice in the Resurrection this year,” that will help to tune my emotional response when the time comes.

When I say “I’m really looking forward to Easter this year,” that will actually cause me to start looking forward to it even more.

The first few times I said, “Easter is the best holiday of the year,” I can remember not fully feeling it. But since then, as I have grown in my faith, my desires have changed, and my emotions are reflecting the new reality in my heart.

And the more excited I get about what God has done, the more I look forward to decorating for Easter and going to church and celebrating and talking about it.

Easter really is the greatest celebration of the year, so there’s nothing wrong with saying that even if your emotions haven’t quite caught up yet.

And, talking about talking, we will get more excited about our Easter celebration when we do today’s final point.

1. You need to study the truth about the Resurrection, and you need to believe it.
2. You need to ask God to help you love Him and His mighty deeds of love.
3. You need to make a big deal out of Easter.
4. You need to talk about Easter the way you want feel about it.

And all of that will make this last point much easier.

5. You need to invite others to celebrate Resurrection Sunday with you.

On episode 51, we talked about the fact that Eastertide is a 50 day celebration which includes the Seven Sundays of Easter. And last year my family and I invited a different family from our church to celebrate each of the Seven Sundays. It was so much fun, it deepened our relationships, and we strove to glorify God with it.

So, invite other followers of Christ into the celebration. Invite them to study the Resurrection and believe the beauty of it. Pray with them about it. Make a big deal out of it with them. And talk with them about it.

When we truly fellowship with God’s people around God’s truth, it has a massive effect on how we feel.

I believe you all will start enjoying Easter more and more as you strive to worship God with your yearly Easter celebration.

Of course, it’s not about how we feel, it’s about how we worship. But wouldn’t it be great if our emotions deepened as our worship deepens?

Well, that’s how God created it to work. So, yeah, this is less about feeling a certain way, and more about worshipping God as we should.

And when we do that, we will start to feel a different way.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing Worshipping God in May.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Okay, so today’s episode is an interesting one. It’s a really important discussion, but — at the same time — I have to be honest and admit that we haven’t really laid the right groundwork for this discussion. And yet we really need to talk about it now because it’s a time sensitive thing.

So, yeah. It’ll be fun!

But before I do that, please allow me to invite you to rate and review The Celebration of God on Apple Podcasts. It’s a really easy thing to do, and it’s a significant blessing to us as well as the people who like to read reviews before they subscribe to a show.

You can even go ahead and pause today’s episode to leave the rating and review right now. It’s okay. We’ll wait.

And then after the show you can head over to CelebrationOfGod.com to access our free episode notes, transcripts, and other holiday resources

And — with that — let’s start a conversation about Sabbatical Years.

During our first year I made a couple off-hand comments about this thing called a Sabbatical Year and even mentioned that this year would be the first of them that The Year Long Celebration of God would observe.

However, we never really observed it because The Celebration of God Team and I realized that a much better foundation had to be laid so that our observation of the Sabbatical Year could be well informed.

We never just want to do things because someone said we should. We really need know whether God would be glorified by our celebration.

But the reality is that this year is actually a Sabbatical Year, and the next once won’t be here for another seven years.

Lord willing, The Celebration of God will still be posting new episodes in seven years, and that’s plenty of time to lay a really significant basis for whether or not you and your fellow disciples will choose to observe it. But I still believe it’s going to be helpful to at least introduce the concept today as part of that getting-ready process.

So, let’s start with . . .

1. What is a Sabbatical Year? 

Well, in order to really appreciate this concept, we need to have a solid working understanding of what a biblical Sabbath is.

And that, my friends, is the incredibly large groundwork that must be laid.

And I intend to start laying that foundation in a three part episode at the beginning of June. 

For now, though, let’s put it this way — God built into the corporate worship of the Jewish people specific days of rest. There was at least one day of rest per week, but there were other special days of rest to observe various holidays. All in all, there were over 60 different Sabbaths in any given year.

This day of rest had a two-pronged purpose.

A. To rest from physical labor.
B. To rest in God.

With that very basic framework laid, in a similar way that God commands His people to rest once every seven days, God also commanded the Jews to observe a very unique rest once every seven years.

The reason we’re talking about this right now is that the current Jewish Sabbatical Year started in September of 2021 and will end in end in September of 2022.

But what kind of rest was supposed to happen in these years? Were the Jews not to labor at all?

Leviticus 25:3–5 tells us the following: “Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, 4 but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5 Your harvest’s aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year” (Exodus 23:10-11).

But Deuteronomy 15 adds the additional expectations that the Jews were to forgive all debts and release all Hebrew servants.

And — of course — the Lord promised blessing when the people obeyed Him.

So, let’s move to the second question.

2. What is the purpose of a Sabbatical Year?

The most basic purposes of this Sabbath Year were . . .

A. To steward the earth in a sustainable, healthy way in obedience to the Creation Mandate.

This was achieved by allowing the land to lie fallow, thereby replenishing the soil’s nutrients.

B. To provide for the needs of God’s people. 

Deuteronomy 15:4-5 reads, “However, there will be no poor among you, since the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, 5 if only you listen obediently to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all this commandment which I am commanding you today.”

Every seven years all of God’s people would be freed from their debt repayment, thereby giving a fresh start to their income. In addition, the added benefit of God’s blessing their obedience would guarantee prosperity for the Jewish people.

But most importantly, the Sabbatical Year was designed . . .

C. To increase trust in God.

Now, consider what may happen if the United States stopped growing food for a year. Might that cause some concerns to rise?

But Leviticus 25:6-7 says, “All of you shall have the sabbath products of the land for food; yourself, and your male and female slaves, and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as aliens with you. 7 Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall have all its crops to eat.”

But — if we’re not supposed to plant anything new — what’s this Sabbath product?

Anticipating this question, Leviticus 25:20-22 says, “But if you say, ‘What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?’ 21 then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years. 22 When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in.”

This means that on the 6th year, God would provide a bountiful harvest that would cover the 6th, 7th, and 8th years.

This was clearly a miraculous promise. There was nothing inherently agriculturally significant about every 6th year that would triple the usual harvest. In fact, from a human standpoint, there would never be any promise of good crops from year to year.

But God said that if the people obeyed Him, He would provide for them.

So, let’s consider our last question for the day.

3. What does any of this have to do with modern Christians?

Let me first start by reminding everyone that The Year Long Celebration of God does not believe that modern Christians must observe Old Testament Jewish holidays. We also don’t believe that modern Christians have to observe modern Christian holidays.

We do — however — believe three very important things.

A. We must obey God whatever God commands. 

There are no excuses for not being salt and light, being baptized, observing the Lord’s supper, assembling with God’s people, the one-anothers, the spiritual disciplines, and the like. 

But from a strictly “holiday” standpoint, God doesn’t command any of them.

However . . .

B. Christians will celebrate God’s character and deeds.

You cannot be a Christian and not worship, adore, exalt, praise, and glorify everything God is and does.

You are going to thank the Lord for salvation. You are going to praise Him for the incarnation. You’re going to exalt His grace and mercy. You’re going to tell others about the life He offers. You’re going to build one another up with thanksgiving. You’re going to join together to magnify God for His glorious crosswork.

You cannot know about and understand these things and not want to glorify God for them.

That’s why we root each of our yearly celebrations in the character and deeds of the Lord. They matter infinitely more than mere people and historical observances.

And that leads to . . .

C. The Celebratory Year provides the Universal Church an opportunity to corporately worship God.

It allows all Christians everywhere to join together in prayer. It unites all of God’s true children in corporate adoration of the key elements of our purpose here on earth. It allows genuine believers who have never met each other to engage in purposeful, unified worship of God.

Therefore, we believe that every day is a day to obey God. Every day is the perfect day to serve Him and celebrate Him.

And that means that every day is an important day to trust Him.

It’s also important to note that all of God’s people still have the requirement to steward the earth, rest in Him, and love His people. And though that doesn’t necessarily require any kind of Sabbatical Year observation, the same ideas are present nonetheless.

Therefore, the Celebration of God Team and I believe that there are some very practical, loving, and symbolic ways that modern Christians can worship God every seven years.

There are so many ways that we can dedicate intentional time to recognizing how God would have us steward creation.

There are significant implications in the Scriptures concerning debt and forgiveness and paying off our debt and loving our neighbors.

And there are earthshaking expectations from God when it comes to practical, real-life, empty-handed trust in God.

And that’s what The Year Long Celebration of God wants to facilitate for you and your fellow disciples — a seven year cycle of renewal and rest whereby we make certain our moorings are holding fast to God, His will for our lives, and His people.

Now, the next Sabbatical Year on the Jewish calendar starts on September of 2028 So, we have plenty of time to prepare for the next one.

And that preparation is going to start by discussing the biblical concept of rest as well as the ever-important weekly day of rest.

From there we will plan to talk about cycles of rest. 

And then we will set out some practical ways that modern Christians can glorify God every seven years — not because we have to, but because we can.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing Resurrection Sunday!

First, let me start by saying that we have a bunch of fantastic free resources for you today at CelebrationOfGod.com. 

We want you to really enjoy praising and adorning and exalting God this April, and there are so many High Days and Low Moments this month to do so. We pray you will worship God better this year than you did last year.

So, make sure you visit CelebrationOfGod.com for today’s free episode notes, transcript, and April Holiday resources, and also make sure to follow us on social media so you can access various worship prompts throughout the day.

Okay, so why is April such an amazing month?

Well, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the changing of the seasons. Yes, in the Northern Hemisphere Spring is already in full swing or just ramping up, and in the Southern Hemisphere you’re moving into Autumn, but regardless of the weather, it’s the holiday celebrations in the month of April that are so amazing.

And the main celebration of the month is Resurrection Sunday, which lands in April more often than it does in March, but we’ll talk about that in a few minutes.

Before we get into the specifics of the various observances, celebrations, and solemnities, let’s remind ourselves about the seasonal focus of April.

April is the second month in the Season of Life. That means that we are studying and meditating on and praising God for life — physical life and provision as well as spiritual life and provision.

I look forward to doing a future series on the biblical realities of life. The biblical truths about the life of God is so rich and encouraging and challenging.

But life is not the only thing we’re staying this season. We’re also taking these three months to learn more about and glory in justification. Justification is the moment that we are pronounced righteous before the Father and our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. 

You should also look forward to an extended Celebration of God series on Justification in the future. Understanding even the most superficial details of our salvation is such a necessary catalyst for how we relate to God and others.

And April is an especially wonderful time to celebrate both Life and Justification because April is the month in which we most often celebrate the act that purchased our justification and eternal life. And that act was the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So, now let’s talk about the various elements that are part of a robust Resurrection Celebration.

Most Christians are familiar with three main days during Eastertide. The first is Palm Sunday, and then there’s Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday — otherwise known as Easter.

Again, most Christians likely at least acknowledge these three days. But it’s our desire that you not merely acknowledge them, but that you revel in them to the glory of God — but not just these three days, but all six days of the Passion and Resurrection. But not just those 6 observances, but also the other two holidays in April. But not just those eight celebrations, we also want you to revel in God every day in April.

So, let’s start by looking at the April High Days, and then we’ll discuss a bunch of the other Low Moments. 

1. Palm Sunday

The first High Day of our Eatertide celebration is the first day of what is often called Holy Week or the Passion Week, and that day is colloquially called Palm Sunday because it was the day Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem with plan branches and shouts of Hosanna. This is also known as the Triumphal Entry.

This is an important day that can rightly be celebrated to God’s honor and glory because it lines up with the Jewish tradition of choosing the Paschal Lamb on Nisan 10. Nisan is a month in the Jewish calendar that holds a lot of significance. You can check out Exodus 12:3 to learn more. 

But for our purposes today, it’s important to know that Jesus was symbolically selected as the Passover Lamb and — over the course of the next 4 days — would live among the people and be tested just as a passover lamb would be.

This makes a celebration of Palm Sunday a special time to focus on a few key points. 

1. Unlike an actual lamb that couldn’t cover anyone’s sins, Jesus was the perfect lamb that could actually take away the sins of the whole world.
2. But also unlike an earthy lamb, Christ willingly offered Himself. It was an intentional and eternally-purposed act of love.

Now, generally speaking, not much attention is given to the Monday and Tuesday of Passion Week. 

However, these days have significance because the symbolism of Christ as the perfect sacrificial lamb continues through these two days. Traditionally, the sacrificial lamb would be chosen on the 10th and then be taken home for the next four days.

The lamb would often eat and sleep with the family. This was done in order for the family to bond with the animal so that they would appreciate its sacrifice that much more.

But it was also done so that they lamb could be thoroughly investigated to be certain that it matched the expectations for perfection. It wasn’t allowed to have any color or physical blemishes of any kind.

In much the same way, Jesus spent the next few days in Jerusalem being known by the people. A large portion of Jesus’ recorded teaching was given during this time. There were tender interactions as well as times of significant conflict. And through it all Jesus was identifying Himself as the sinless sacrifice of God. And for those who loved Him, He was continuing to endear Himself to them.

Now, what comes next in the Passion Week is disagreed upon by two major camps. However, I will not go into the disagreement here. We have a number of amazing resources that carefully walk through the disagreement and present the arguments for them. Please visit the link in the description of today’s episode to see our other Easter Resources that will give you tons of amazing information on how to worship God during this season.

Suffice it to say, the Year Long Celebration of God functions from the perspective that Jesus was crucified on Thursday (not Friday), which means that the next major event on the Eastertide calendar is . . .

2. Maundy Wednesday

The word “Maundy” refers to the new command that Jesus gave His disciples during His final teachings before the Crucifixion.

Maundy Wednesday is an observance of Christ’s anointing, the washing of the feet, the Lord’s Supper, and the subsequent teaching in the Upper Room, on the Mount of Olives, and in Gethsemane.

Therefore, observing the Lord’s Supper is another wonderful opportunity to exalt God because it gives a specific corporate opportunity to reflect on Christ’s New Commandment teaching.

I won’t go into all of it here, but this teaching encompasses both an explanation of Christ’s personal sacrifice, the life we should live having become beneficiaries of His sacrifice, and a command to remember Chris’s sacrifice.

And from there we have . . .

3. Good Thursday

Four days after the Paschal Lamb was chosen, it would be sacrificed as a figurative covering for the sins of the one offering it. This occurred on Nisan 14 — on the Passover.

Again, if you’ve always thought that the Passover and death of Christ occurred on a Friday, please check out our two part series called "The Confusion of the Crucifixion.” This will explain the biblical timelines so that it will all make sense.

Either way, we know that Jesus was literally and historically crucified, but He purposefully laid down His life for a substitutionary sacrifice.

Though the Crucifixion is one of only three Solemnities observed during our celebratory year, it’s so important to take note of them. The Crucifixion is both terrible and beautiful, discouraging and encouraging, sad and yet a most joyful occasion. It will definitely be a blessing to any child of God to carefully reflect on the Crucifixion as part of their Resurrection celebration.

And then the next two days are often under-appreciated.

4. Holy Friday & Holy Saturday (end of Lent)

Jesus was put into the tomb on the day we would reckon as Thursday evening. But regardless of how you count the days, Jesus was in the tomb for three days and three nights. That means that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening were the three evenings, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning were the three mornings.

This means that Jesus spent the full 48 hours of Friday and Saturday in the grave.

Now, there’s a lot of conjecture about why God ordained three days and three nights in the grave. Some believe Jesus was actually accomplishing things during this time, and some believe it was merely the time God decreed was necessary. 

However, though the Scriptures do not provide detailed clarity on what Jesus was “doing” on these days, Christians can benefit from reflecting on the fact that it was all part of God’s plan.

It’s also really valuable to consider the first century disciples. Their Messiah, their Teacher, their Friend, had just been brutally murdered for a crime He didn’t commit. The one they believed was going to overthrow the Roman government and physically rule as king in the first century was not dead. Consider the trial of faith, consider the questions, consider the heartbreak.

Again, we don’t often look on these days as a typical colors and lights type of holiday. It may seem hard to “celebrate” God on these days because they lack fanfare and exultation. But the reality is that God works through hard things. God is not a victim of suffering, He’s the author of suffering because He has decreed that it is a vital part of the Christian’s sanctification.

These dark moments spent in the Valley of the Shadow of Death are so important because they are designed to focus our attention on the One Who can cause us to fear no evil when everything around us seems saturated with nothing but evil.

We believe that the follower of Christ can greatly benefit from meditating on these — and many more — realities of Holy Friday and Saturday.

By the way, Holy Saturday also marks the official end of Lent. All that fasting is about to be broken by the most glorious celebration of all time.

Because the next event on the calendar is the day for which we’ve all been waiting . . .

6. Resurrection Sunday 

Resurrection Sunday always falls between March 22nd and April 25th. That means that sometimes March gets to be the month we experience this parabola of joy, sadness, and joy.

And I’m not going to take a lot of time telling you what you already know about the many ways to celebrate God on Easter. But I will encourage you to listen to our three part Celebrating God on Easter Series for more ideas.

And those are the 8 days of the Passion Week.

But there are still two other holidays in April as well as a ton of other opportunities to worship God.

The first of which is . . .

7. Stewardship Day

Stewardship Day is on April 22nd, and it’s also The Year Long Celebration of God’s redeemed take on Earth Day. Instead of celebrating the Earth, God’s people celebrate the God of the Earth by renewing their commitment to the Creation Mandate.

Check out the link in the description of today’s episode for more resources about how to celebrate Stewardship Day.

And then there’s . . .

8. The Historical Easter 

By the grace of God and modern science, researchers have been able to identify April 25th, AD 34 as the actual Sunday that Jesus rose from the dead.

Obviously, April 25th doesn’t always land on a Sunday, and I believe there’s value to observing the days of the Passion on the actual days of the week that Jesus experienced them. But I also see real value in being able to celebrate with certainty the actual day, so many years ago, that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Of course, none of this is about a day or an event, it’s just another opportunity for us to stop and praise God for unspeakable gift!

And those, my friends, are the holidays of April . . . at least many Aprils. But whether Resurrection Sunday falls in April or March this year, April is still packed with ripe opportunities to worship God.

So, lastly, let’s consider worshipping God with . . .

9. Daily Life

This year I have striven to expand our library of resources for celebrating God when it’s not an official holiday. 

Yes, we will always emphasize exalting God on each and every Christian holiday of the year. They are important and a wonderful part of a healthy preoccupation on God.

But followers of Christ must be equally dedicated to following Christ on the non-holidays of the year.

So, we have a number of podcast episodes about celebrating God in daily life which include Celebrating God at Church,  Celebrating God at Work and School, as well as Celebrating God with our Recreation and even with Death.

In addition, we have a number of series that deal specifically with the nature and expectations for our daily worship and discipleship.

We pray each of those resources will equip you to be a better follower of Christ this year than you were last year.

Well, I hope you’re looking forward to April as much as I am. So, please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other disciples of Christ can join us in the excitement, and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

​To that end, we’ll be discussing the current Sabbatical Year we’re in, but — more importantly — what that means for Christians for the next seven years.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Welcome back to our fourth installment of the Celebrating God at Work and School Series.

If you’re just joining us, please go back to episode 99 and start there. And I’ll see you back here when you’ve listened to the first three parts.

And for those of you returning with us — eagerly anticipating God’s fourth set of expectations for our education and employment — let me just remind you that you can access today’s free episode notes, transcript, and worship resources at CelebrationofGod.com. 

And with that shorter-than-usual-introduction, let’s begin.

So far we’ve studied the biblical responsibilities of Learning, Living, Following, Leading, Acting, and Speaking while we’re on the job and in the school.

Obviously, the theological realities underpinning those six words are far more important than the words themselves. I’ve chosen to use the eight words of this series merely as a simple mnemonic device. It would be very easy to put these eight words up in your cubical or write them inside your school binder as a constant reminder to you of God’s expectations for you. 

They won’t take up much space, and they’re easy to memorize.

And it’s also important for us to remember that each of these concepts flows from the prior ones. I will never Act and Speak in accordance with God’s Word and Lead others to do the same if I’m not Following God’s commands in Scripture. And that will — obviously — require that I Follow my earthly authorities in a way that pleases the Lord.

And I’m not going to do any of that if I’m not daily Living in accordance with the lesson that I’ve Learned about how God wants to use every interaction I have in school and at work in order to further conform me to the image of Christ and give Him all the glory.

And, so it should not surprise us that today’s double expectation would grow naturally from all that went before it.

When I understand God’s will for my work, I will live in it. That will mean that I am going to follow my earthly authorities as I follow Christ, and whether I’m in authority or not, I will be leading everyone who interacts with me by example. And the intentional salt and light of my actions and words will further glorify our Father Who is in Heaven. And if that’s how I approach work and school every day, then you’d better believe that I’m also going to spend a lot of time at work and school Praying and Praising.

So, let’s look together at I Thessalonians 5:16-18 as we strive to better understand what Praying and Praising looks like on the job.

“Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

These commands are God’s will for you in Christ Jesus regardless of where you are. So, yes, these are not merely required while you’re at church. They’re required of you at church, home, school, work, on the soccer field, in marital arts class, on a date, at the movies . . . everywhere.

So, let’s look at the three commands in these three verses, understand them, and then discuss how we can practically do these things when we’re also supposed to be 100% focused on the task before us.

1. We must rejoice always.

“Rejoicing” is not a term we often use in today’s culture. In fact, nearly all of the time Christians use it they only use it in a spiritual sense.

But to rejoice is actually a very normal idea. In fact, we do it all the time. You rejoice in your food. You rejoice in your favorite relationships. You rejoice in your video games. You rejoice in your free time. You rejoice in your music. You rejoice in lots and lots of things.

But here’s the expectation. God is commanding us to rejoice always. What does that look like, and how is it possible?

Well, first we must recognize that Paul is not telling us to merely enjoy everything we do. In fact, it’s humanly impossible to enjoy everything we do because we humans are incapable of enjoying things that we believe are bad. And there’s no sinful human being who has ever lived who was able to sustain perpetual joy in all events and difficulties of life. 

That would require divine intervention. 

And this reality — though it may not have been clearly stated in verse 16 — is taught throughout the rest of the book, and nearly every one of Paul’s letters. 

Let’s consider Philippians 4:4 as one such example, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” The only way we will ever be able to sustain a constant state of rejoicing in all things is if that rejoicing is first and foremost founded on God.

And this truth goes all the way back to what we learned in Part 1 of this series. When I Learn Who God is and what His will is for my life, I need to Live in that reality. And living in that reality is going to look like rejoicing always.

How can I not rejoice in all things — regardless of how comfortable or uncomfortable they may be — when I believe that the all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God of the universe is actively working all things in my life to His greatest glory and my greatest good . . . which will result in my becoming more and more like my awesome Savior?

It will be impossible to not rejoice when that reality is filling my gaze.

So, this first command to “rejoice always” encapsulates what we’ve already learned.

Therefore, we must ask, “What will naturally flow from a lifestyle that intentionally and consciously rejoices in the Lord always?”

Well . . .

2. We must pray without ceasing.

Now, this is a massively gigantic lesson we simply do not have the time today to fully unpack. Thankfully, I’m looking forward to a future series where we really dive into the biblical data concerning prayer. And we will definitely talk about this concept of praying without ceasing again at that time. 

By the way, if you’re listening to this in the future, check out CelebrationOfGod.com to see if that series has already been published. Who knows, it may already be done.

But for now I do want to try to make this practical for us so that we can start growing in this arena today.

But before I do that, I want us all to recognize the superlatives used in each of these commands.

Rejoice always.

Pray without ceasing.

In everything give thanks.

God doesn’t just say things He doesn’t mean. The expectation is real. It’s not merely figurative language. It’s not empty hyperbole to make a point. By the grace of God and through His strength, we can rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all things.

But we will definitely need to focus our efforts in growing in these areas. In fact, we will have to continue growing in these areas until the day we die.

But don’t let this discourage you. In Luke 2 we learn that even Jesus grew in wisdom . . . and He was without sin!

So, don’t necessarily expect to be able to start praying without ceasing as soon as this episode is over. But — on the other hand — don’t throw your hands up and quit trying just because you can’t be perfect. Just like Jesus did, we must consciously and intentionally strive to get better and better.

That’s the whole purpose of The Year Long Celebration of God. We want to worship Him better this year than we did the year before. It’s a process of being conformed to His image from one degree of glory to another.

So, how can we develop our prayer lives while at work and school?

Well, no doubt there’s a lot of prayer that happens in each of those arenas in times of great stress. It’s amazing how even atheists may be tempted to pray in a time of corporate lay-offs or right before an exam for which they did not adequately prepare.

And, yes, I do believe that praying without ceasing includes the times we ask for emergency help as well as the times we thank the Lord for our lunch and beg Him for strength to meet a challenge. But our prayer can encompass so much more than that. 

As I’ve been growing in my discipleship over the past ten years, I’ve really been striving to intentionally root my motivation for all I do in God’s glory. I went from praying before I preached and counseled, to remembering to pray before I played with my kids and celebrated major holidays. And I’ve also been growing toward praying before I shower and brush my teeth.

Should I not glorify God just as much while brushing my teeth as I should while preaching? Do I not need God’s grace and power to please Him in the shower as I do when I’m counseling? Of course I still need Him! 

But we’ll never think that way if A. We don’t learn the truth that we learned last time — that our motivation for our “good works” is more important than the actual work itself, and if B. I think I have the ability to shower and brush my teeth just fine without God.

In actuality, I need to recognize that I can’t ever please the Lord without Him. And my ability to celebrate God while choosing my clothes, shopping for food, going to the movies, and teaching my kids their colors are equally impossible for me to do in my own strength as celebrating God while preaching is.

So, I believe that praying without ceasing starts first with the humble realization that there is not a single thing you are going to do today that you do not need God in order to do in a way that pleases Him. We must not allow ourselves to arrogantly think that we can — in our own power and for our own glory — please God in even the smallest task.

This realization should constantly remind me how much I need to depend on the Lord at every moment of my day.

Therefore, if you are not in the habit of perpetual prayer, start praying for the humility needed to understand how important prayer is.

And then you should make sure that you have a healthy prayer life in the areas that average Christians may consider the “big ticket” items. Of course, they’re not inherently any more important than praying for anything else, but they are viewed as being culturally good times to pray.

These include:

1. Praying before meals.
2. Praying before you go to bed.
3. Praying before you get out of bed.
4. Praying before religious experiences like personal devotions, church services, and biblical counseling/discipleship.
5. Praying during times of intense pressure.

Those are the ones that most Christians do — if for no other reason — than it’s their habit. To be honest, a lot of unbelievers pray during these exact same times.

By the way, mindless habituated prayer doesn’t please God any more than not praying. We must be intentional and offer our prayers as an act of purposeful worship to God. Don’t turn your brains off.

But here are some additional prayer prompts that are less common.

6. Praying before you share the Gospel. 
7. Praying before traveling.
8. Praying before entering work or school.
9. Praying before a big event in which you’re participating.
10. And instead of just praying before any of the things we’ve mentioned, trying to pray during each of them as well.

Many of you likely do these things, and all of us should. But this next category starts to stretch the limits of our prayer lives and tends to be regularly practiced be an increasingly smaller group of people.

11. Praying during your commutes, workouts, and other less mentally distracting activities.
12. Praying during projects and homework.
13. Praying during individual classes and meetings.
14. Praying while you do your chores.
15. Praying while playing with your kids.

Now you’re probably wondering what this practically looks like, and we’re getting there, but let me give you five more increasingly unique times for most Christians to pray.

16. Praying during daily hygiene routines.
17. Praying while participating in entertainment like movies, concerts, and games.
18. Praying while you bathe your kids, explain the mundane things of life, answer the 80th question, and even discipline them. It’s sad that this category of life is so often neglected in our prayer.
19. Praying while scrolling through social media.
20. Praying while choosing your outfit or planning your meal.

Now, guess what, this list could get longer and longer and more and more specific. We can pray during and for every single action, word, feeling, thought, desire, belief, and event of our lives.

But the real question at this moment is not when to pray but what to pray.

Again, this is a massive topic we’ll investigate more in the future, but here are some prayer prompts I teach my students and counselees. And I’ll illustrate what each of these sounds like as we pray from something on the last list. Let’s say, choosing your clothes for work or school.

1. Celebrate God for Who He is and what He’s done.

And since God is infinite, I’m only going to give one simple example of what this looks like.

“Lord, your creativity and love for beauty is so amazing. Thank you for sharing that with me as I dress myself this morning.”

2. Thank God for the situation you’re in or will soon be in. 

“Father, I thank you that I get to go to school today. I thank you that You supply all of my needs, including these clothes.”

3. Advocate for the people around you.

As your family gets ready for the day, “Dear God, please use each tiny moment of this day to open my families eyes to your presence and will.”

As you put on that shirt your aunt gave to you, “Dear Lord, thank you for my Aunt, please comfort her today.”

As you consider the people with whom you will interact today, “Lord, may the clothes I wear not distract people from glorifying you as they interact with me today. May they reflect my love for you and others as everything else I do and say today. May they play a small part in my Gospel testimony.”

4. Ask for what you need.

Maybe money is tight, and your clothes need to be replaced. “Heavenly Father, I thank you that you always give us exactly what we need. Please help me find a Christ-honoring replacement for these pants. They’re so worn out I don’t believe they’re helping my testimony.”

Or perhaps you’re learning the importance of dressing appropriately for occasions. “Dear God, I want to learn to do things decently and orderly. Please help me give more thought to my responsibilities today than merely wearing what seems cool or comfortable to me.”

But there’s also an amazing category of prayer that focuses specifically on what we need to actually worship God with the activity before us. That may sound something like, “God, I’ve never given much thought to dressing as an act of worship. But it is, Lord, and as I put my clothes on this morning, I want to please you while I do it. I want to please you in my actions, but I realize I can’t do that unless I’m also pleasing you with my desires and intentions. Lord, I am worshipping you today by the apparel I’m choosing.”

And then 5. Tell God that you trust Him.

“Dear Lord, I trust the plan you have for me right now. I trust that where you have me in this life, in this house, with these clothes, with these people, they’re all exactly where I need to be. And I trust your plan for how I interact with all of it. I want to obey you today.”

Now, you may be thinking, “Aaron, there isn’t enough time to pray all of that in the time it takes me to pull out the same uniform I have to wear every day and put it on.

And that’s okay. I’m not saying you have to pray all of those words or any of those words. But can’t you see how if you pulled from those categories, you could easily find yourself in a perpetual spirit of prayer in any and all situations your life?

Well, to be honest, I’ve taken more time on that point than I originally planned. I hope it’s beneficial in opening your eyes to the real, achievable possibility of growing your ceaseless prayer.

And thankfully, our next point is actually going to be pretty short considering that we’ve already talked a lot about it today.

1. We must rejoice always.
2. We must pray without ceasing. And . . .
3. We must be thankful for everything.

This too is actually a large discussion we will have in more depth later, but — for now — let’s recap what we’ve learned.

A. We can always be thankful for the fact that God desires to use every comfortable and uncomfortable situation and experience in our lives to mature us and bring Him the glory He deserves.

B. We can always be thankful for Who God is and the specifics of what He he’s done and is doing.

C. We can always be thankful for the people in our lives.

D. We can always be thankful for His daily provision. Whatever we’re involved in whether it be work, school, parenting, entertainment, vacations, or discipline is something that God has provided specifically for you — yes, to mature you — but also, more basically, to provide for your needs.

E. We can always thank Him for His will for our lives.

Now, just imagine how your internal spiritual focus can thrive and abound as you keep up a conversation with God that includes thanksgiving for your time at work and school.

Not only will it mature your relationship with God, but it will be impossible to be mad, unthankful, depressed, or afraid as your eyes are perpetually on God and the truth about the situation you’re in. Complaining will cease, discontentment will melt away, laziness will vanish, shoddy work will disappear, and you will become a better employee and student than you ever were.

But, there’s likely one more question in your mind.

We’ve learned that we should be in a perpetual state of prayer and praise while at work and school. And we have a much better idea of how do practically achieve that.

“But, Aaron, couldn’t all of that prayer and praise actually distract us from what we’re supposed to be doing while we’re at work and school?”

And that is a fantastic question.

One of my biggest critiques of monastic living — aside from the doctrinal errors — is not that constant Bible study, prayer, and praising God in song is somehow bad, but that nuns and monks end up being  so detached from the world. Truly monastic living is literally cloistered. It’s secluded. It doesn’t allow them to be the salt and light in the world that God commands, to go into all nations preaching the gospel and discipling souls.

And, let’s be honest, you can’t read your Bible and your college textbook at the same time. You have to choose one over the other.

So, how do we pray and praise without ceasing and yet put our full attention into what we’re doing?

And that is a hugely important question.

1. Truly God-centered prayer and praise will never distract from what God wants us to do. 

That would be completely defeating the purpose. I cannot sincerely pray that my math homework be done all to the glory of God while my pen and paper sit motionless to the side or I don’t do my best to solve the problems. God won’t be glorified by that.

The purpose of these prayers is to consciously focus our minds on the motivation for our activity, but it should never distract from the actual performance of the activity.

So, yes, as I’ve been recording this episode, my mind has been carefully applied to keeping my lips moving in an understandable way. But, by God’s grace, and by prayer before I started, and prayer when I’ve stopped to correct mistakes, and a continued conscious realization that this is not being done for my glory and good but for God’s glory and your good, I am trying to maintain a spirit of God-focused purpose as I record.

And I need to do the same thing as I produce the episode, upload it, and then move on to whatever may come next in my day.

And my intentional purpose to glorify God while living my life needn’t distract from actually living my life.

Yes, sometimes I’ll commit myself to nothing but devoted prayer, but other times that ceaseless spirit of Christ-honoring motivation can overlay my attention as I fulfill my tasks.

And in the same way that God-centered prayer and praise will never distract me from God’s will for my life . . .

2. Truly God-centered prayer and praise will overlap God’s will for my life.

When I’m in math class, my prayers should be about how I can best please the Lord in math class.

“Father, please help me understand this concept,” or “Thank you that I’m finally getting this concept.”

“Lord, forgive me for being proud about my test score. Everything I have comes from you,” or “Thank you so much for the grace to get a good grade.”

“Dear God, as I work with this study group, may my testimony glorify you,” or “Thank you for allowing me to get paired with this student who doesn’t like me very much. I know you want to use this situation for my greatest good and your greatest glory.”

“Dear Holy Spirit, please help my atheistic teacher to see that math is the universal language of divine intelligence, not the product of chaos. May math declare your glory in her eyes,” or “Thank you Lord for giving me the opportunity to winsomely and wisely point out that math is something you created.”

In this way, my prayer and praise actually accentuates the task on which my mind should be focused.

And . . . 

3. Truly God-centered prayer and praise doesn’t have to always utilize words.

In Romans 8:26 we learn, “The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

I love this for so many reasons. One beautiful reality is that the Holy Spirit helps us pray. Another is that the Holy Spirit prays for us. And another is that the Holy Spirit sometimes prays for us without words.

Another way to translate that phrase would be to say that He prays for us with groanings inexpressible. No words can explain them.

Now, let me stave off some possible misunderstanding. I do believe that purposeful prayer that utilizes human language must be the bread and butter of our prayers lives. It’s how Jesus prayed, it’s how He taught us to pray, and it’s the prayer that is most illustrated throughout the Scriptures.

I do not believe that prayer is synonymous with transcendental meditation or mere emotional expressions of unintelligible sensations.

But I do believe that what I sometimes call a “spirit of prayer” is sustained by intentional purpose that threads its way through an experience in desires and affections that may or may not always have linguistic expression.

Sometimes the incoherent weeping of a young woman is all the prayer that can be mustered. Sometimes the intentional focus of a desire for God’s presence, protection, and provision is all we can express.

And that is often quite alright because not only is the Holy Spirt going to help us, and not only is He going to pray for us, some of His prayers for us are also too deep for words.

Again, it’s hard to quantify this, and so it can become subjective very quickly. We need to be very careful that we don’t develop an unbiblical doctrine of “feeling our prayers.” But we shouldn’t neglect the place of unspoken longing for God and His glory.

My friends, when you go to school, God wants you to Learn and Live, Follow and Lead, Act and Speak, and Pray and Praise. And if you are doing those things, it will be impossible for you to not be the best student you can be.

When you go to work, God wants you to Learn and Live, Follow and Lead, Act and Speak, and Pray and Praise. And if you are doing those things, it will be impossible for you to not be the best employee you can possibly be.

These things are not distractions from the more important tasks of the day, they actually give value to your education and employment, they make it possible for you to truly succeed in them, and by doing them you are submitting to the one authority Who is above all things and in all things and for Whom we should sacrifice our lives as a reasonable service of worship.

If this series has been a blessing for you, please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets, and check out the other amazing series at CelebrationOfGod.com.

And join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing ways to worship God in April.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Welcome back to our Celebrating God at Work and School series.

If you’re just joining us, I encourage you to start with episode 99 so that we can lay all the right foundation stones together. As a Biblical counselor, I constantly strive to present God’s Word in a theo-logical order that allows more difficult concepts to be built on the right foundational truths.

So, please work through this short series from the beginning in order to really appreciate the scope

And — if you’re new to The Celebration of God — I would also strongly encourage you to start with our introductory episodes. Once you work through those, you’ll have a much better understanding of what The Year Long Celebration of God is and how it works. 

And while you’re checking out CelebrationOfGod.com, look for today’s episode notes, transcript, and discipleship resources on our blog, and check out our other podcast series for more discipleship opportunities.

And — with that — let’s get into today’s content by way of a short review.

I started this series with our responsibility to Live and Learn because if we don’t recognize (and live in) the reality of what God is trying to do in our lives through our employment and education, we’ll never be able to honor God by obeying the other expectations He has for us.

We’d forever be wrapped up in our own little idolatrous desires and goals for our work and school, and we’d perpetually miss what God was doing.

But once we understand what God would have us Learn and then start Living in that reality, we are on the right path to Follow and Lead in a way that pleases Him. Since we’ll be working toward His ends, we’ll have no problem submitting to our authorities as to Christ, and we’ll also have no problem modeling for everyone around us how a child of God is to live at school and work.

And our last conversation teased today’s topic because — with that important foundation laid — we can now get even more specific as to what it looks like to submit to God on the job and in the school.

And today’s two marching orders are to Act and Speak.

So, let’s turn to Matthew 5:13-16 in order to better understand what God wants to accomplish through you today.

Matthew 5:13-16, “13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

As we learned more about our responsibility to Follow and Lead, we learned that we must obey our authorities as we would obey Christ, but there weren’t too many specifics in the actual tenor and content of that obedience. Today, we’re going to learn what our highest priorities should be as we submit to God’s will for our lives.

But in order to set the stage for today’s discussion, I want to revisit a topic we talked briefly about on our last episode.

Here’s the question: Why are you here? 

Why are you here on this earth?

I can promise you that when you were born again, God didn’t leave you on this earth simply to become the CEO of a company or to graduate from higher education. You are here primarily to be salt and light on this earth, and — the longer you are here — God expects you to become a brighter light and saltier salt.

We could put it this way . . . you were left on this earth — first and foremost — to participate in evangelism and discipleship. Your job and your education are the venues and tools you’re to use as you evangelize and disciple. 

And — for clarity sake — evangelism is the process whereby you introduce unbelievers to God and encourage them to trust in His saving work on the cross. And discipleship is the process whereby you grow in your sanctification — that is, your conformity to Christ — and help other believers do the same. Those believers may be individuals whom you have lead to Christ through your evangelistical efforts, or they may be any other believer God has placed into your life.

That, my friends, is why you are here. That’s why I’m here. There is no higher calling. 

In order to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must be engaged in actively sharing the truth about God with your community of unbelievers and engaging in the discipleship of your community of believers while you too are in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another.

And since that is the highest calling God has on your life, that means that He expects you to fulfill that calling while you’re at work and school. 

Now, we’re going to talk at the end of today’s show about a wise and ethical approach to evangelism and discipleship on the job. You know, if you get a job at a supermarket and only ever preach from an apple crate in the produce section, you’re going to lose your job and — consequently — your ability to be salt and light there.

But — first — let’s go back to Matthew 5 to make sure we understand what it is to engage in evangelism and discipleship. Of course, we’re only going to scratch the surface today, but it will get us started on the right foot.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” 

Many an individual has taken the time to carefully unpack all of the metaphors involved in being the salt of the world. Salt adds flavor, it preserves, and so on. But my goal for this series about worshipping God at work and school is slightly less uplifting.

Did you notice that the first recorded time Christ talked about being the salt of the earth, He did so from a negative context? Yes, He explains the positive expectation, but then He focuses on what happens when we fail to meet that expectation.

When we fail to be the salt of our school or the salt of our job, when we do not carry the taste of spiritual things into those arenas, how can we be made salty again? 

Jesus goes on to say that — at such a point — the salt (that is, our testimony) is worthless, and is good for nothing but to be thrown out.

Now, I’ve worked many a job, and I’m sad to say that I was worthless salt at most of them. I hadn’t Learned what God wanted to accomplish at my job, and I wasn’t Living in that reality. I wasn’t Following as I should, and I definitely wasn’t Leading as I should, which meant that I wasn’t Acting and Speaking as I should.

I was worthless salt. 

But from time to time I would experience conviction about my sinful behavior at work, and I would desire to be the salt and light I was supposed to be. But the question Christ asked in this passage weighed on me. How was I supposed to take my flavorless salt and make it valuable again?

And it was never easy.

Now, I’m not saying there is no hope, and I don’t think Christ is saying that either. If you truly are born again, but you’ve been living in sin, there is always hope for forgiveness and Christ-honoring living, but I will tell you this — the sinful choices you make on the job and in the classroom are going to follow you and likely tarnish your testimony as you try to live for Christ. Though we’re thankful when a convicted child molester submits to God, that doesn’t mean he will ever be fully welcomed teaching elementary Sunday school. 

I’m not saying he should or shouldn’t, I’m saying that it will be very hard to make the salt salty again in that arena.

Yes, people may recognize that you’re not the person you once were, but many unbelievers view Christians as being nothing more than hypocrites for this exact reason. They try to be salt and light by talking a good game, but their life choices don’t really add up.

My sin on the job made my righteousness on the job seem hypocritical at best.

On the other hand, I believe Jesus may also be intimating that if you think you’re the salt of the earth — if you truly believe you’re born again — but your life does not evidence the saltiness of true repentance, then you need to reconcile with the fact that you have potentially never been born again.

In the book of John, Jesus tells us of many people who will meet Christ in eternity believing that they had a relationship with Him and being able to point to a number of things in their life that they believed were a salty influence on the world, will watch Jesus send them away because He never knew them.

I believe Christ’s words here line up with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. No, definitely not, works do not save you, but genuine, Spirit-filled works are required once you’re saved.

What about you? Is your time at work and school a testimony to the fact that you are valuable, salty salt? Or would it be very difficult to say at all that you have ever been an intentional evangelist or disciple while on the clock?

Then Jesus continues in verse 14: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

Again, much teaching has gone into working through the imagery that is “light,” but for today I want us to genuinely ask the question, “Do I really worship God when I’m at school?”

If my light is hidden under a bushel, then the answer is unequivocally, “No.”

Therefore, the only way to celebrate God as I should, would be for my light to be on a metaphorical lamp stand so that it can shine on everyone around me — whether that be in band class, as a short order cook, in a corporate office, or learning about science.

So, today’s first point is . . .

1. God expects us to Act and to Speak in such a way that we shine the truth of God’s salvation into this dark world. 

In Matthew 28, Jesus commands, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

That command contains the necessity of evangelism, but also discipleship.

That’s why our second point is . . .

2. God expects us to Act and to Speak in such a way that we shine the truth of God’s righteousness into this dark world.

The final verse from our passage today reads, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

The word translated “good” refers to that which is beautiful, better, commendable, excellent, fair, honest, healthy, and valuable.

The word translated “works” refers to all of our behavior and actions.

But in order for our works to actually be “good works,” they must be categorically different than the world’s good works.

As a biblical counselor this is something I encounter quite frequently. So many people think that superficial behaviors — things which any unbeliever can do — can fall under the category of good works. But they can’t, and they don’t.

Anyone can attend church. Anyone can read the Bible. Anyone can be a good student. Anyone can be a friendly cashier. Anyone can be a hard worker. Anyone can be a decent individual.

But when unbelievers do these things, God is not glorified. You can check out Romans 8:6-8 if you’re unsure about what I just proposed.

So, if God is not pleased when unbelievers do good works for godless reasons, why would He be glorified if we did the same things for the same reasons?

Well, let me tell you, if we do the same external behaviors for the same reasons the World does them, He won’t be glorified.

The difference will always be the spiritual realities that undergird and motivate the behavior.

Have you ever noticed that the Fruit of the Spirit are not external actions? Neither is putting on the armor of God. Neither is any fruit of repentance.

We Christians must throw off the mere externalism that has plagued religious zealots as long as people have been religious. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites because they did all the right stuff on the outside, but they didn’t do it as an act of worship to God. Had it been an act of worship to God, then they wouldn’t have dismissed the weightier things of the Law, they would have pleased God, and the people around them could not miss for a second that their words and actions had grown from a spiritual act of worship to their Lord.

Okay, so, when we’re at work and school, we must Act and Speak in such a way light-giving, salty way that our coworkers and peers will be able to identify them as the act of God in us.

Now, let’s transition to a brief discussion about workplace ethics and what some people call “Life Evangelism.”

3. God expects us to Act and to Speak in such a way that we shine the truth of God into every facet of this dark world.

Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

This doesn’t mean that people see your good works and pat you on the back. It does’t mean that they compliment you to your parents. It doesn’t mean that your good works result in promotions and recognition. 

Now, I’m not saying those things are inherently bad or should be avoided, I’m saying that Jesus wants our good works to be so evidently an intentional act of worship to Him that people observing our lives can’t help but recognize God in it.

In I Peter 2:12 we read, “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

This says that as unbelievers seek to slander us, they can’t help but realize — whether they like it or not — that we’re speaking the way we do and living the way we do because we value God above all else.

And I Corinthians 10:31 — a very familiar verse — says, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” This means that how I eat and drink should cause people to think more accurate thoughts about God.

My friends, the uncomfortable reality is that it’s not enough to simply be a decent person. We need to be a different person, a peculiar people.

A moment ago I referenced I Peter 2:12. Well, just three verses earlier, Peter quotes the Old Testament when He says, “But you are A chosen race, A royal priesthood, A holy nation, A people for God’s own possession.”

And Titus 2:14 says something similar. Speaking of Christ, it reads, “who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

The phrase “a people for His own possession” was translated all throughout the King James Version as “a peculiar people.”

And whether that was the best translation or not, the way these people-for-God’s-possession are described, they are definitely going to look peculiar to the World — not because they’ll dress funny and talk funny and look weird on the outside, but (as the passages explain) they will be people who do not participate in lawless deeds, people who are purified from the inside out, people who are zealous for good works, priests of God, and holy.

All of that goes far deeper than the freckle-level behavior modification. All of that is mind change. All of that is intentional living and acting and speaking in ways that people will not be surprised to learn that we’re Bible-believing Christians.

But how does all of this jive with workplace ethics? How do we reconcile this with the fallacious modern ideas that “We need to always preach the Gospel, and — when necessary — use your words”?

First, in regard to the question about workplace ethics, recognize that we should never not share the Gospel simply because there is a school or job rule against it. That would be obeying men rather than God. Even if the government itself were to forbid evangelism, we need to obey God.

However, that doesn’t mean that our every word should be God-related. I’ll discuss this more in a moment.

Second, in regard to the idea of lifestyle evangelism, my friends, nowhere in the Bible are we given the impression that being a decent person will lead people to Christ.

Yes, your life should be categorized by holy living that is so different from the World that it causes people to ask why you live the way you live, but in those moments, it will be your words that reveal to them to truth about God, their sin, and the only way they can have a living relationship with Him.

The Gospel is always preached with words.

The Gospel may be — yay, must be — exemplified with actions, but it cannot be taught, explained, preached, or shared without words.

We don’t know Christ’s will through feelings and changes in the weather. And no one will discern the integral realities of saving faith by watching us be decent humans while at work.

Romans 10:14-18 clearly says, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things! However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’ 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. 18 But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, And their words to the ends of the world.’”

That’s an awful lot of talking and reporting and preaching and hearing and voices. And lest you think that the final quote from Psalm 19 is referencing the fact that real human words need not be used, Paul is not suggesting that people can be saved by recognizing the glory of God in creation. He is saying that the actual voices of God’s people have gone throughout all the world to the same degree that God’s creation is unavoidable.

The point is, if our words don’t speak of God, then no one will ever glorify our God when they see our good works. They’ll glorify us. And that means that we are not being salt and light.

But what about that guy preaching from the apple crate in the produce aisle? Isn’t that still a problem? What about the well-documented reality that the most incendiary topics of conversation — which are generally banned from the workplace — are religion and politics.

How do we preach the Gospel while we’re supposed to be learning algebra? How do we preach the Gospel when we’re supposed to be digging ditches? 

Thankfully, the answer is easier than we like to admit.

A. As we discussed before, we should never submit to an earthly authority who won’t allow us to obey God by being salt and light. 

That demands that our coworkers and classmates won’t be able to help but recognize that our good works are a product of our relationship with God. 

So, now let’s talk about what this looks like practically.

B. Talk about your God in the same way you talk about anything else that’s important to you.

Every single one of us has found plenty time at work and school to talk about our loved ones, our hobbies, our political views, our entertainment choices, and everything and anything else that’s important to us.

None of us can — with a straight face — pretend that the opportunities to talk about God aren’t there. The real problem is not that we can’t find the time, and it’s not that we don’t know what to say. No one ever had to teach you to talk about anything that’s important to you. Quite often the problem is that God’s just not that important to us. At least, He’s not the most important thing.

That’s exactly what my issue was. I would talk about my favorite bands and my favorite movies, and though I did love God to one degree or another . . . I loved the topics of music and movies more than I loved the topic of God.

But Jesus said that we need to so love Him that we hate our families by comparison. No, He’s not telling us to actually, sinfully hate our families, He’s communicating that we love them less than we love Him. That means that given a one-time opportunity to only talk about God or only talk about my family, I would eagerly choose God.

Because if I truly love God and the person to whom I’m talking, I am definitely going to find times to talk directly about Him because it pleases Him and it’s loving toward them. My friends will definitely know I’m a Christian. They will know I pray and go to church and read my Bible. They’ll know that the things of God are important to me. 

But that doesn’t mean God has to be the only thing about which I talk. 

C. Exemplify the divine character of God in all you do.

Love is wanting and working toward God’s best interest for the person I love. That means that sometimes the most Christ-honoring thing I can do for my kids is to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, and sometimes it’s playing games with them. As long as the latter is being done in submission to God and is not the predominant descriptor of my life, then God can use that game playing to be the best thing for my kids. 

And during the game we can have silly fun, but I can also model what it is to win or lose graciously, and I can also instruct my kids about Christ-honoring game play and reprove them if they’re unkind or have a bad attitude.

And the same goes for work.

Sometimes the most Christ-honoring things you can do will be to share the Gospel with a co-worker on a lunch break, sometimes it will be quietly running your press or flipping your burgers in the joy of the Lord and to the best of your ability as an act of worship to your Creator, sometimes it will be explaining the biblical reasons you won’t be attending that after school party where alcohol will be present, and sometimes it will be praying with a friend or associate or peer who happens to share with you that they are going through a very difficult time.

And as we verbally share our faith in God, our consistent holy living will be interpreted in light of what we’ve said. And our peculiar righteousness in word and deed will be an evidence of God’s working in us instead of some kind of moral life choices we’ve made for ourselves and in our own power.

The key is that we don’t just do good things, we do them in the right way and for the right reasons. Our actions need to be filled and controlled by the character of God, the fruits of the Spirit, and the highest motivation a person can have.

Let me illustrate it this way, and I’ll be done.

I used to work at Panera Bread. I did everything you can do there, and I eventually became a regional training manager.

But let’s say that I’m working the sandwich line during a busy lunch rush. Are my coworkers going to think differently about my God simply because I follow instructions, do my work to the best of my ability, and do it with a good attitude?

No. Plenty of people do just that. In fact, that’s how Panera wants all of their employees to work. Nothing about that is inherently spiritual. Yes, it’s God’s common grace that keep unbelievers from being as bad as they could be and allows them to be decent people — so, in that sense, it is spiritual. But the world doesn’t inherently view it that way. 

Now, let’s say that the person working sandwich two right next to me knows that I’m a Christian because of previous conversations we’ve had. Will he inherently interpret my quality and timely sandwich craftsmanship as a result of my relationship with God?

Let’s be honest. Probably not.

But the more I talk about the importance of God to me, and the more I both explain and exhibit the reality that I am striving to live my life as a constant sacrifice of worship, then, yes, he will likely start interpreting my actions in that light.

But, what if my following instructions and doing my best and having a good attitude is actually motivated by a covetous desire to get a promotion that my sandwich two co-worker and I are both in line to get?

First, please know that God is no longer pleased by my work because it’s being offered on the altar to myself as a pleasing sacrifice to my own pleasure. My motivation for my behavior has tarnished the entire thing.

But, we’d be fools to think that our motivation isn’t going to be visible in our actions. Our actions are always a physical representation of our spiritual intentions. The quality of my sandwich making is definitely going to be soiled by my selfishness. It may happen right away, it may happen over time, but it will be visible to others. And God won’t be glorified by it.

The only “good works” that will result in my classmates thinking rightly about our God are the ones that are motivated by the character and worship of God. 

I need to intentionally and consciously do my best on the sandwich line because my God is worthy of my best. As we said last time, it’s not to impress people. It’s not to get a raise. It’s not to get extra hours, a promotion, or catch the eye of my employer. I need to do my absolute best simply because God commands it.

And that will always affect how my life will be interpreted by others.

Now, couple that intentional desire to live my life for the glory of God with consistent holy living and frequent, winsome verbal testimony to our great God and the love we have for Him . . . and that my friends will be salt and light that is experienced by the world in a God-focused and — Lord willing — transformative way that will allow us to lead our classmates and coworkers to Christ and help them be more and more conformed to the image of their Savior.

At the beginning of the school year I used to ask my junior high Bible students what some of their goals for the year were. Inevitably, at least one of them would say “To get good grades.”

I would quickly affirm such goals, but then I would explain that a goal like that is not inherently Christ-honoring. I would explain that a person could get good grades in many wicked ways. They could cheat. They could hack the online grade book. They could blackmail their teacher. And they could also work their hardest in their own power and for their own purposes without any thought to pleasing God. It could be be done solely to get the attention of their favorite teacher.

And — in any of those situations and more — God will categorically not be pleased, and few people would think differently about their God because of it.

But then I would posit this substitute goal for the school year. What if — instead of focusing on merely getting good grades — you purposed and worked toward worshipping God every moment you’re at school?

Are you going to pay attention in class? Are you going to work hard, ask good questions, complete your homework to the best of your ability, and study for assessments? And will you do it all clearly evidencing the Fruit of the Spirit? Of course you are, because that’s exactly what God expects of you when you’re at school.

Will God be glorified? Yes, if done for His sole glory, He will be pleased. Will other people see your good works and will it be evident to them that you are consumed with doing your best because your God is worth it? Definitely. The way they view and interpret your behavior will clearly turn their eyes to God.

And guess what, if that were your sole goal, and if that were the way you went about your schooling, how many of you think that you would get amazing grades?

And nearly all of the hands in a classroom of 90 students would go up.

They understood it. But the question today is, do we?

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets and join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing God’s expectation that we Pray and Praise while at work and school.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

I know that the number 100 isn’t really any more special than 99 or 101, but I’m excited that today is our 100th episode. 

Many podcasts never make it to 100, and I thank the Lord that we have

And — when you think about it — 100 twenty to thirty minute episodes is close to 50 hours of Bible-saturated, Christ-honoring, disciple-maturing content.

That’s over a year of Sunday morning services. That’s two and a half months of collegiate-level training.

And I don’t say any of this to brag, I say it so that we can revel in what the Lord has allowed us to do here. It’s very cool.

And The Year Long Celebration of God is just one of the many Evermind Ministries. Evermind was started in 2007 with its blog called “Taking Back the Bible,” and has since grown into a whole ministry family including AMBrewster Ministries, Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship, Truth.Love.Family., the Year Long Celebration of God, and a bunch more to be debuted in the future.

Evermind’s mission is to keep God’s truth at the center of the human experience. We want to teach people to learn, obey, and then teach that same truth to others. We want to shine the light of God’s Word as far as we can on as many people as we can to further God’s Kingdom.

So, I praise the Lord for these ministries. And if you’re thankful for them as well, I encourage you to email team@CelebrationOfGod.com to learn how you can support us in this endeavor.

And, speaking of CelebrationOfGod.com, I encourage you to visit the site so you can access the free episode notes, transcripts, and worship resources.

You’ll be glad you did.

Alright, last time we discovered that when it comes to our work and school, God has a very important lesson He wants us to Learn so that we can Live accordingly.

If you didn’t catch that episode, you should go back and listen to it before continuing today.

But if you’re back for Part 2, then today we’re going to learn about two other expectations God has for us when we go to work and attend school.

And — remember — these are non-negotiables. We don’t get to decide that we’re not going to do these things. If we are true disciples of Christ, we absolutely must submit to God in these areas.

And these two areas are the joint responsibilities of Following and Leading.

And our Scripture passage for today is Ephesians 6:5-9. I will start by reading the text, and then we’ll discuss how God desires us to Follow and Lead at work and school.

Ephesians 6:5-9 reads, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. 9 And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.”

Let’s start by talking about the elephants in the room.

1. Slaves

We don’t have the time to talk about God’s understanding of slavery. But we do have the time to mention that the ancient concept being described in this passage didn’t necessarily refer to a sinful thing.

Though the truth in this passage definitely applies to a person who is the unfortunate victim of sinful slavery, the average slave about which the Scriptures speak had more in common with a modern day employee than the average slave in Africa during ancient and modern times.

The Greek word could refer to people who were nothing more than a possession as well as people who worked for an employer. So it’s important to recognize that there is a biblical version of “slavery” that was actually a very beneficial and Christ-honoring relationship for all involved parties.

Therefore, it’s not inappropriate at all to apply the teaching in this passage to modern day employees and employers. And we’re definitely going to do that.

2. Authority

But what if you don’t have a job? What if you’re not an employee, you’re just a student? Well, the commands in this passage are just as applicable to students and their teachers as they are to employees and their bosses.

These truths are biblically consistent within all authority relationships.

So, with that groundwork laid, let’s consider . . .

1. Our Responsibility to Follow

Verses 5-8 lay out six responsibilities as we Follow the authorities in our lives:

A. We must follow our authority in obedience.

The very first command to those under authority is to “be obedient.” I look forward to studying with you the complexities of Christian obedience, but we don’t have the time to get into it right now.

Suffice it to say, if we’re not doing what we’re told, the way we’re told, when we’re told, then we’re not obeying. And it can also be argued that if we’re doing the right things in the right ways, but we’re doing it with the wrong attitude and/or motivation, we’re not obeying either.

When you are at work, you absolutely need to do what your employer tells you to do. The same is true if your teacher gives you a command. And — of course — the same is true for any legitimate authority.

There are two caveats.

First, we don’t have to obey illegitimate authorities who are telling us to do things that they don’t have the right to tell us to do. For example, my wife doesn’t have to submit to just any men. However, if my child (who is not my authority) respectfully reproves me using God’s authority, then I still need to submit to God’s will for my life.

Second, we don’t have to obey a legitimate authority if they are demanding that we sin. Acts 5:29 is very clear that we must obey God rather than men.

But, in the event that a legitimate authority is requiring you to do an otherwise Christ-honoring thing, then you must submit. And it doesn’t matter if the authority is a decent person or if they communicate the command in a nice way.

Our obedience is not contingent on liking the authority or liking how they lead.

But God doesn’t just expect us to obey our authorities . . .

B. We must follow our authority in reverence.

The passage says that we need to obey our earthly masters with fear and trembling. This phrase is only used five times in the New Testament. Once is here, one of the occasions refers to actual fear, and the other three refer specifically to our response to God, His men, and His salvation.

Yes, God is commanding here that we fear our authorities in the same way we are to fear God.

Now, I wish we had time to dig into what the fear of God is, but we don’t have to because we have a series called The Discipleship Spiral that goes into great detail all about it. I’ll include a link to that series in the description of today’s episode.

But until you have a chance to study that some more, please understand that I chose the word “reverence” because it encapsulates the various ideas inherent in what it means to righteously fear something.

To reverence is to honor and respect. To revere is to show devoted deferential honor, and to regard someone worthy of honor.

Again, this points us back to the fact that mere external “following the rules” is not enough to please the Lord. We need to give honor to people. We need to respect our authorities.

The problem is that we often argue that the authority hasn’t “earned” our respect. Again, this is a big concept that would require a thorough understanding of what the Bible teaches about respect. But let me say this, to respect someone is to love them. To love them is to want and work toward God’s best interest in their lives. And God commands that we love even our enemies.

You don’t have an excuse to disrespect someone who you don’t think it worthy of your respect. You don’t have to want to be like them, you don’t even necessarily have to enjoy being around them, but you do have to love them . . . and that is respecting and honoring them.

But our following shouldn’t just be obedient and reverent . . .

C. We must follow our authority with sincerity.

Paul tells that we must have sincerity of heart. The word “heart” is referring to the core of our being, our spirit. This tells us again that this must not be a superficial thing. 

And the word “sincerity” refers to simplicity and liberality. 

In II Corinthians 11:3 the word is used to refer to the simplicity of the Gospel. The Gospel is not complex.

But the word is more often translated “liberality” as in II Corinthians 8:1-2 where Paul says, “Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, 2 that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.”

So, how are we to understand this idea of sincerity? I believe the best answer is to understand both concepts tied into one. 

As we follow our authorities, we do so in a straightforward, uncomplicated, and generous way. We don’t get involved in the corporate politics, we don’t appear to have our authorities’ backs when we’re around them and then shun them when we’re not. Our obedience and reverence is sincere. It’s genuine. It’s uncomplicated, blameless, and real.

Now, if you’re anything like I used to be, or you’re anything like the vast majority of the billions of people on this planet, then you are really struggling right now.

It’s possible that very few of your authorities are actually easy to follow. Some of them are, no doubt, but many are not. Perhaps it’s because they require you to do things you don’t want to do, and perhaps they are just not likable people.

Well, in regard to the first objection, if they are requiring you to do things that are legitimate, then your not wanting to do them is your problem, not your authority’s.

On the other hand, I know how hard it is to obey a parent, teacher, or employer who is tyrannical or cowardly or otherwise ignoble.

And you’re probably thinking one of two things: 

First, how on earth could God expect me to submit to these terrible people? “I understand that I need to do what’s right, but why do I also have to revere them in sincerity?”

And others of you may be thinking, I acknowledge that I must do these things, but I have no idea how.

Well, that’s why God provides the answer.

D. We must follow our earthly authority just as we are to follow Christ. 

Verse 5 reads, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ.”

Verse 6 tells us, “Not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.”

And verse 7 says, “With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men.”

Do you remember earlier when I suggested that when my children come to me and share God’s truth with me that I am bound to obey it — not because my children are my authority, but because God is?

That is exactly how we are to obey all of our earthy authorities.

I absolutely must sincerely obey and honor my boss because that’s what God expects me to do. To genuinely submit to and revere my teacher is an act of obedience to God.

Look at it this way. You need to look up at your awful, hateful teacher and recognize that as you obey her and submit to her and respect her — and even love her — you are submitting to and respecting and loving God. And when you refuse to obey and submit and love her, you’re actually refusing to obey and submit to and love God.

This is actually really helpful for me, because treating a terrible person well seems so unfair to our sinful flesh. But that’s exactly what God did. When we were yet sinners, incapable of loving Him, living as His sworn enemies, He sacrificed Himself to purchase our redemption and did all the work necessary to enter into a covenant relationship with us whereby He receives absolutely nothing He needs and we receive everything we don’t deserve.

So, when I recognize that one of the best ways to honor my great God is to show His love to others in my life, it makes it so much easier to love the unlovely.

Of course, there’s so much more that could be said, but I’ll sum up this point in this way. As we follow our earthly authorities, we are to do so not superficially, not merely to please men, but as a slave of Christ, as to the Lord, and not to men.

It doesn’t really matter what your authority thinks of you or how they treat you because your main goal is to glorify God and to receive the blessing of pleasing Him.

And that’s what verse 8 says: “Knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.”

But there are two other points I need to make quickly.

E. We are to follow our authorities with good will.

This is the only time in the New Testament that the word translated “good will” is used. But even though we don’t have a ton of other uses in the Bible, we know that the word refers to benevolence. And the interesting thing about this Greek word and our English word for benevolence is that both of them carry an underlying understanding that we owe people this good will. It’s not just something we do; it’s something we have to do.

And, I hope we’re really understanding how important this is to God. Again, this is a non-negotiable. 

And lastly . . .

F. Our following is to be characterized by goodness.

And this makes sense. Obviously, if we’re going to obey in a reverential, sincere way as an act of worship to God, our behavior will easily be categorized as Christ-honoring righteousness.

Now, in a way, we’re only half way through our content for today. We were going to talk about our responsibility to Follow and to Lead while at work and school. 

And that was all on the Follow point. But God also expects us to Lead while we’re at work and school.

And though this may seem confusing to some of us — especially the students in the audience, we can get through this material a lot faster.

2. Our Responsibility to Lead

After saying all of that to the servants, the responsibility to lead is summed up is one verse, “And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.”

There are three concepts we need to understand.

A. Those in authority are required to do all of the exact same things the employees and students are supposed to do.

They too must sincerely obey God, respect the people they lead, and show the righteousness that they owe to those they lead, and they must do all of this as an act of worship to God.

So, if you are in a position of authority at work or at school (or anywhere for that matter), you are not allowed to be a tyrant. You must submit to God and follow in Christ’s example of truthful, loving, righteous, servant-leadership.

But then Paul adds a unique requirement.

B. The authority is not allowed to threaten those they lead.

It’s very important that we understand what’s going on so that 1. We as leaders won’t sin against God, and 2. We as followers won’t accuse our authorities of doing something they’re not.

Leviticus 25:43 says, “You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.” The word translated “severity” referred to over-rigorous, unnecessarily harsh treatment

And that’s very similar to what is being communicated here. Not only are authorities not to be sinful by being harsh and unkind, they are also not to threaten harsh and unkind treatment.
We don’t lead by terror tactics, we lead by truth and love.

Now — on the other hand — it is our responsibility as Followers to submit regardless of whether or not our authorities are being harsh or threatening.

But we must also not wrongly assume that severe treatment or high expectations are inappropriate simply because we believe that they are. We must let the Bible be our guide.

Jesus said many things to people that they believed was harsh and inappropriate. Billions of people have walked this earth and believed that God’s expectations as communicated in the Scriptures are too high or too extreme. Those people are wrong regardless of how certain they feel about it.

Therefore, though leaders are not to be sinfully harsh, we followers must not foolishly judge our leaders when they are being Christ-honoringly severe. Again, our responsibility is to obey our bosses and our teachers and all our authorities as we obey God.

Now, let’s finish by clarifying a question that some of you still have.

Some of you may be thinking, “Aaron, you’ve said that while we’re at work or school God expects us to Follow and Lead. How does God expect me to Lead if I’m the low man on the totem pole? How am I supposed to lead if I’m the student and have no authority?”

Let me answer that with this last point . . .

C. Followers are supposed to be Leaders.

For this point we’re going to consider another biblical truth that is taught all throughout the Bible.

When we do what’s right, when we Follow as we should, when we submit to God, we are Leading by example.

Sure, we may not have the authority to demand that people do what we say, but we can set the example of how we’re all to live.

In fact, by Following the way God commands, we are Leading. We’re Following Christ and our example winsomely invites others to follow our Lead as we follow our Leader.

This is being salt and light. This is Matthew 5:6, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Again, this is the third time I’ve suggested that when my children come to me and share God’s truth, I am bound to obey it — not because my children are my authority, but because God is. Now, we’re going to dig a lot more into this idea next time, but — for now — we all need to recognize that God has left us on this earth for two main purposes: 1. To invite others to know God, and 2. To be ever conformed to His image while we’re here.

Now, some of you would have thought that being conformed to God’s image was the main reason Christians aren’t taken to heaven immediately when we’re saved. But that’s not true. In the future when we die or Christ comes back to claim us, He will instantly glorify us regardless of how long we’ve been saved or how spiritually mature we are. We don’t need to hang out here on earth and mature a little more before God can finish the job. We’re not a not-quite-done-roast that needs a little more time in the oven.

So, though it is desperately important that we use our time on this earth to grow in our sanctification as an act of worship to God, the main reason we’re still here is to be a salt and light. And, yes, as we’re sanctified from one degree or glory to another and grow in Christlikeness, our light will be brighter and salt will be saltier.

That is exactly how God expects you to Lead even when you’re not the boss. Both your bosses and fellow coworkers or students should see your good words — your obedient Following — and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven.

Wow. Work and school take on so much more meaning when we realize that learning stuff and making money should be some of the least of our concerns.

Our highest priorities are to Learn that God intends to use our work experiences to mature us, and then Live in that reality by submitting to the lessons He would have us learn so that we can obey Him better.

And what are just a few ways we can obey Him better? Well, when we’re at work and school, we need to Follow our earthly authorities the right way by following our heavenly Authority the right way, and we need to Lead everyone in our lives to a deeper understanding of Who God is.

Now, if you don’t mind, will you please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that more of God’s people can learn how to celebrate God at work and school?

And if all of this just seems way too hard. Please reach out to us at Counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com so that we can help you achieve success as you Follow and Lead.

And — of course — join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing what it means to Act and Speak when we’re at work and school.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

If you are new to The Celebration of God, I want to warmly and strongly encourage you to listen to our introductory episodes. They are incredibly important in explaining exactly what it means to celebrate God and how this experience is designed to help you become a more mature follower of Christ.

And I also want to invite you to listen to our What is Worship Series. It is painful how much misinformation is out there concerning the nature of worship. It’s not something about which disciples of Christ can afford to be confused.

And I mention all of this because we’re starting a new series today called “Celebrating God at Work and School,” and we won’t have the time to re-lay the necessary groundwork of what it means to celebrate God.

So, make sure you check out those resources.

And also make sure you seriously pray about inviting me to your church or camp or conference in order to discuss discipleship, worship, and Christian holidays.

I would be honored to preach and teach and sharpen you and your fellow believers as we open the Bible to better understand these desperately important facets of our relationship with God.

And — until then — be sure to subscribe to this show so that you can benefit from all of this free content. In addition to our nearly 100 episodes, we also have free episode notes, transcripts, and a growing library of worship resources at CelebrationOfGod.com.

And I am honored to be discussing this material with you.

So, as we near our 100th episode, let’s start a conversation about how God’s people can actively and consciously worship Him when they’re at work or school.

I thought carefully about doing two different series — one about work and one about school — but as I looked at the biblical data concerning how we are to approach these seemingly different activities, I realized that the same truth applies to both.

And — honestly — school is to children what employment is to adults. They both last as long and require equal amounts of comparative labor. 

So, regardless of your age, regardless of whether you’re in grade school or doing post-graduate work, and regardless of the kind of job you have, the truths we’re going to study can help us all glorify God better.

And right now my plan is for this to be a four-part series, each of which will investigate two responsibilities we have in light of our work and school.

Today we will look at the double-responsibility of Living and Learning.

Next week we’ll look at Following and Leading.

Then we’ll look at Acting and Speaking.

And then we’ll talk about Praying and Praising.

Of course, I’m using those terms in very niche kind of ways. I wanted them to be simple and yet packed with meaning so that we can be more intentional while at work and school.

Lastly, it’s not my intention to say “work and school” every time I refer to them. I may just say “work,” and I may just say “school,” but regardless of which I say, I’m referring to both.

Alright, let’s talk about our dual responsibilities of Living and Learning as it relates to work and school.

And for that, I want us to consider James 1:2-8.

Let’s start by reading the passage. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

And now let’s work through the details of this passage by considering what it means to Learn and Live at work and school.

1. Learn

Whether you’re a CEO or a 1st grader, God expects you to be learning every day of your life. You don’t know everything — you never will — and we always have more growing to do in our relationship with God.

In our Discipleship Spiral Series we discussed the fact that God created us to learn, He commands us to learn, and He capacitates us to learn. It’s an absolute necessity.

And — of course — we could talk into eternity about all of the unique specifics that we could learn in our various classes and employment opportunities.

But — instead — I want to discuss one exceptionally important lesson that we all need to learn regardless of our age or current experiences.

And that lesson is going to come from James 1:2-4.

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Listen very carefully. It doesn’t matter how easy or hard your job it is. It doesn’t matter how nice or mean your teacher is. It doesn’t matter who your coworkers or fellow students are. Absolutely everything you encounter in this life — comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or sad, pretty or ugly — has been sovereignly ordained by God for two glorious purposes.

A. Every experience in your life is designed to give God glory.

I Corinthians 10:31 tells us “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” And in Matthew 5:16 Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

To glorify something is to speak of it or represent it in such a way that others think more highly of it. When you boast about your favorite team, you’re glorifying it. When you tell your friends about your new car or game system, you’re glorifying it. You’re causing the other person to think more highly about the object you’re discussing.

And that is what God wants for every moment of our day — it should give Him glory. Everything you say and do should cause others to think more highly of Him.

Now, the implications of that are are infinite. How on earth are you supposed to eat in the lunch room so that people will think better of your God? The answer is both deep and wide.

But that’s not the focus of today’s discussion. The point is that we must learn that God has a job for us when we’re on the job. We are to work in such a way that God is glorified by our choices.

But there’s something else we need to learn from this passage.

B. Every experience in your life is designed to enable you to mature in Christ.

The word translated “trials” in verse 2 can refer to temptations as well as testings. It can describe the temptations to sin that come at us from our Flesh, the World, and Satan. Later in this same chapter God explains the nature of temptation, and even though God never tempts anyone, He is sovereignly capable of using that temptation to sin to produce godliness in us.

But this same Greek word can also refer to the testing that God brings into our lives to purify us. In Job 23:10 Job proclaims, “He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Both of these realities teach us that God has a plan for absolutely everything you’re going to encounter at work and school. Every assessment, every project, every interpersonal interaction, every moment of discipline, every instance of fun, absolutely every moment of your day is designed by God to give Him glory and to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ.

This is where Romans 8:28 and 29 come in, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.”

We have the promise of God that absolutely everything we will encounter at school today is sovereignly ordained by Him to be able to conform you to the image of His Son. However, there’s a condition. All things do not work together for good to those who don’t love God and who aren’t working according to His purposes. 

And that makes all the sense in the world, because we will not be more like Christ, we will not grow in our faith, and we will not become complete if we’re sinning.

However, as we recognize what God wants us to learn when we’re at work, then when we encounter various trials, we will recognize them for what they are. We will see that they are an opportunity for us to glorify God by loving Him, trusting Him, and — thereby — becoming more like Him as our faith is increased and as we grow in our endurance. 

This means that we need to stop whining about work. We need to stop complaining about our teachers and our tests. Instead, we need to recognize that God has a plan in all of it, and that plan is that we become more mature disciples of Christ.

If we do not start with this lesson, we will never be able to celebrate God at work and school. 

If life is all about us, then we will enjoy the parts of work and school that makes us happy, and we’ll hate the parts that make us uncomfortable. But God calls us to something far greater. We are to submit to Him as our Savior and Lord and recognize that our highest calling is to please Him in all things by taking every opportunity to consider how Christ would respond if He were in our position, and then respond in the same way.

Do you have an assignment due? How can you glorify God in it?

Are there people at work who are awful to you? How can you become more like Christ because of it?

Are you exhausted by the end of the day? How can your love for God and trust in Him increase in light of that exhaustion?

Now, the main point today is that you can do these things. However, how each of you react in your unique circumstances will vary from person to person. So, if you need some assistance in learning specifically how you can glorify God in Mrs. Funderburg’s senior high English class when you have to give your “To Kill a Mockingbird” essay in front of the class and you’re 100% certain that Jessie is going to make fun of everything you say and do and tell the entire basketball team how awful you were . . . then I encourage you to reach out to us at counselor@CelebrationofGod.com so that we can provide the unique assistance you require.

However, for now, this — my friends — is the first step to being able to truly celebrate God whether you’re working as a cash register at Walmart, filing taxes for your non-profit, playing at recess, taking a test, or interviewing for a new position. 

You can know for certain that God wants to use those situations to test your faith. And if you choose to trust that God wants to work out that situation for His greatest glory and your greatest good by conforming you to the image of Christ so that you grow in your spiritual endurance and continue to be perfected . . .  you can trust that it will happen. It will result in your greatest good.

There will be no reason for worry, doubt, fear, discontentment, anxiety, or anger. Learning this one truth, I can be joyful and peaceful and content and optimistic in every work and school endeavor.

And that leads to . . .

2. Live

It’s one thing to know and understand something, but it’s something completely different to actually live in the reality of what you know and understand. That’s what we call true learning. That’s called being wise.

It’s not enough to “learn” this lesson if we’re not going to actually live it.

That’s why James 1:5-8 says, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

In order to live wisely, we must seek God. We need His truth, we need His power, we cannot be wise on our own. And God will generously give us what we need without reproach. That means that He won’t insult us. He won’t say, “Well, okay, I suppose since you’re such a failure, I’ll go ahead and help you.”

No, He gladly and generously and graciously gives us more than we could ask or think.

However, again, we see that something is required of us. We mustn’t ask God for wisdom if we’re not actively planning to live wisely. We must believe that God will do exactly what He says, we need to believe what He teaches us, we need to lean on His strength, and we need to live accordingly.

We have another series called “Grow Your Worship” — you can find a link in the description of today’s episode — and that series teaches us that to believe is not to know, to believe is to live according to what we know. To believe God’s truth is to live wisely.

Therefore, to not truly trust that God is going to give us everything we need for life and godliness is to be like a wave of the sea and a leaf blown around by the wind. We’ll be unstable in everything because we’ll be what the Bible calls a double-minded man.

James 4:8 tells the double-minded individual that they need to purify their hearts. They need to remove the unbelief and surrender to God’s plan for their lives.

So, what does this look like?

This looks like praying on the way to work or school and having a conversation with God about the day. It may involve telling God that you trust that whatever you face today is a gift from His sovereign hand to help you mature and grow. 

You can tell Him that you trust His plan for your life. You can tell Him how you want to depend on His Word to guide you today. You can ask the Holy Spirit for strength to live wisely. You can recite the passages that you know apply to your unique situation. You can ask God to keep your eyes fixed on Him regardless of what you encounter.

There are so many ways that conversation can go, but each of them should recognize the truth we learned today that God desires to mature you through your work and education and that you plan to submit to that reality today.

And then you need to put one foot in front of the other and actually live in the truth.

Colossians 3:1-3 says, “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

In Ephesians 4:22-24 we learn, “in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

These passages and many more are calling us to recognize that we no longer need to live as we did. We can see life for what it is and choose to respond differently.

I know that nothing I said today actually changes your circumstances. It doesn’t make your teacher or boss or co-workers or classmates nicer. It doesn’t give you more time for your project. It doesn’t make math or engineering any more fun. It doesn’t speed up the clock. And it doesn’t make you smell less like food when you leave work.

But it can revolutionize how you look at God’s design for your work and school. Yes, God wants you to learn new things. Yes, He wants you to be able to provide for you and your family. Yes, He wants you to be salt and light in this world. But He also wants to use every single one of the trials and temptations that you’re going to face to mature you, increase your faith, and conform you to the glorious image of Christ.

And simply learning that one lesson can so completely change the way you view your work that what once scared you can not excite you, what once depressed you can make you glad, and what once caused you great concern can be approached with confidence because you serve a great God Who wants to do great things in your life today.

Of course, there is so much more that could be said, but my desire is for these discussions to be concise and memorable. I want you to easily remember that 1. God wants you to Learn the important lesson that your work and school is for His glory and your good. And 2. You need to live in that reality today.

Again, if you need assistance with the specifics, please write us at Counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com.

And please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other students and employees and bosses and teachers can learn and live this eternally vital lesson.

And join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God . . . and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing how God expects us to Follow and Lead when we’re at work and school.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

And I want you to know that I really enjoy my job. I love studying the Bible and then pouring His Word into your lives.

If this show has been a blessing to you in any way, I’d love to hear about it. Recently, I met a lady who told me that our episode on Celebrating God with Death was such a blessing to her. And that thrilled my heart to no end.

I love what I do, and I truly do this for an audience of One, but if you’re interested in being an encouragement, I’d love to hear how The Celebration of God is helping you become a better disciple of Christ.

And — of course — we’d love to hear what we can do better. You can connect with us on social media, or you can send an email to team@CelebrationOfGod.com.

And — speaking of serving people — if you are a parent, or you work with children in any capacity, I want to encourage you to check out Truth.Love.Family. 

We started that ministry back in 2016, and since then we’ve ministered to tens of thousands of families via our podcast, Truth.Love.Parent. And that has enabled us to further minister to hundreds more through our speaking and biblical counseling ministries.

Check out TruthLoveParent.com to learn more about this Evermind Ministry.

And while you’re flying the online jet-stream, don’t forget about our free episode notes, transcripts, and Lenten resources at CelebrationOfGod.com.

And now I want to have an important conversation with you about 5 truths I learned that persuaded me to celebrate God during Lent.

I totally understand if the idea of Lent sounds strange or even a little wrong. 

It’s very easy to see it as a Catholic holiday that focuses on all of the wrong things. But I’ve come to learn that that is simply not the case.

I’m not saying that people don’t misunderstand the holiday, and I’m not saying that God is pleased simply because people observe it. But I am saying that in the past few years I’ve learned some very important lessons that have lead me to believe that God definitely can be worshipped correctly during Lent.

So, what did I learn?

1. I learned that God deserves my worship all of the time.

If you listened to our introductory episodes, then you heard how I created The Celebration of God. It was the result of a lot of important spiritual introspection on my part. It grew out of the fact that I realized that my understanding of what worship is was wrong. It grew out of the fact that I learned that I need to be worshipping God every waking moment of my day. And it grew out of the fact that I realized I needed to teach these truths to God’s people — starting first with my family, and then to the boys I served at Victory Academy, and then to you.

When I was in college, my society’s theme verse was Colossians 1:18, “He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”

Since Jesus is the head of the church, since He’s the beginning of everything, since He’s the firstborn from the dead, He absolutely deserves first place in every area of my life.

But what does it look like for God to get first place in everything in my life?

Well, it means that His desire for my life trumps all of my desires. Whether I’m podcasting or gardening or vacationing or celebrating a holiday, God should hold the preeminent position. His will for how I function during all of those activities must have first place in my life.

This means that I must no longer consume Christmas and Easter and Halloween for my own pleasure. I need to approach them differently. And it means that every day during Lent, He still deserves my continual worship.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the only way to worship God during Lent is to participate in the unique elements of Lent, but it does lay a foundational understanding which would set the stage for my choosing to worship God via Lent.

How about you? Have you learned that God deserves first place in every facet of your life? He deserves it in your schooling, your marriage, your church, your recreation, your parenting, your entertainment, your friendships, your work, your everything.

How would your life be different if God were to have the first place in everything?

2. I learned that I needed to be more intentional about my discipleship if I really wanted to grow as God designed me to grow.

There’s nothing quite like working in a boy’s home for at-risk teens to open your eyes to the need for discipleship. 

Every moment of every day must be carefully constructed to give God the glory and teach the boys to do the same . . . and still it’s amazing how much trouble can be caused.

But here’s the thing, my kids are no different. Let’s be honest. I’m no different.

Growing in my discipleship is an intentional and consistent practice in my life, and yet I still fail so often.

That means that instead of decreasing the amount of time and energy I pour into it, I need to increase it. I need more help and more dependance on God and more investment and more tools.

And the same is true for you.

And as I was learning this truth, I started to see my relationships and my resources and my religious holidays very differently.

I came face to face with the fact that I wasn’t using my relationships in redemptive ways. Sure, I was pouring into people, but was I taking advantage of how others could disciple me?

And what about my holidays? I started to see how intentionally and premeditatedly approaching my holidays with a spirit of worship would greatly benefit my growth in Christ.

What about you? Do you need to be more intentional in your discipleship? Well, I can tell you this, as you strive to give God the honor and glory that’s due Him every moment of the day, you will definitely see all the areas where you fail to worship Him as you should.

And that should help you identify certain tools that will assist you as you strive to become a better disciple of Christ.

Now, again, that was not Lent specific. But this next lesson I learned is.

3. I learned that Lent is not an empty Catholic holiday. 

As most of you know, I celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas. But I do not observe most of the things Catholics are observing on those days.

I don’t celebrate the Feast of Stephen or recognize Pope Sylvester or even the Feast of John the Apostle.

I want my celebration of God to mostly focus on the character and deeds of God, and other than being thankful to God for how He used and uses the testimony of John, I see no specific biblical value in having a day that commemorates Him.

And I used to think that Lent was the same thing. 

Growing up outside of Detroit, there was a huge Polish population, and most of them were Catholic. In fact, my mom’s family was part of that Catholic Population for a time. 

Anyway, I would see Catholic school girls with ash crosses on their heads, and because it wasn’t something we Protestants did, I dismissed it as empty Catholic tradition. And I did the same with the whole Lenten season because — again — it wasn’t spoken about in my church, and I was completely ignorant of what the holiday was.

Yes, honestly, it was a decision based out of ignorant prejudice.

Now, I don’t advocate for the ash crosses, but I do have a much better understanding and appreciation for where the tradition started.

But though I don’t see anything in Scripture about worshipping God by smudging ash on my head (though, again, I must admit that the symbolism can be very instructive), I do see a lot in Scripture about fasting, mourning over our sin, and the other specifics of the Lenten season.

And, as I mentioned last time, the men and women who participated in the early church tradition of Lent did so for very biblical and noble reasons.

Yes, Lent, like any other holiday can be used to worship self, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are some very real spiritual benefits of the observance.

And this transitions well into another important lesson I learned.

4. I learned that Lent is an amazing opportunity to spiritually reset myself.

First, Lent itself is an extended Preparation where God’s people are to ready themselves for a Christ-honoring celebration of Easter.

If you know my story, then you know that I didn’t used to appreciate Easter for what it is — the single greatest holiday on the Christian calendar. 

When I learned how Lent can be used to tune my mind to a purposeful and Christ-centered celebration of Easter, I was all in.

But Lent is not merely about getting ready for Easter.

Second, Lent is historically a time of growing in our spiritual disciplines including Scripture reading, prayer, helping the poor, and righteous living.

So, we come out of Christmas into the New Year, we’ve made our holiday-inspired resolutions and we’re excited about the New Year, and then a month or so later we’re right back where we started.

Lent is a wonderful way to keep the momentum. 

Every year Lent provides a purposeful and church-wide focus on renewing the spiritual disciplines of Bible study, prayer, church attendance, service, and holy living.

I don’t know about you, but I need to grow in all of those areas, and I greatly appreciate the help of having over a month dedicated to passionate followers of Christ all training together.

Imagine how helpful it would be for you as you work to mature in your relationship with God to have all of your church services, all of your small groups, all of your discipleship conversations with friends to be instructing and encouraging you along the same lines!

The spiritual reset that Lent offers should be more than a mere personal enterprise. Lent sets aside a deliberate and consistent time every year to reevaluate and make changes as necessary.

Can we do this any time? Sure, but when we never approach these discussions as the body of Christ, it’s easy to emphasize the Maverick Christian approach. You’re working on you in June, I’m working on me in September, she’s working on her in February, and we’re not doing it together. It’s easy to not talk about it, it’s easy for our friends to not even know how the Lord is working on us.

And though I wholeheartedly endorse growing in your sanctification every day of the year and actively and intentionally maturing every time you find areas that need to better conform to the image of Christ, it’s also amazingly advantageous to set aside a time every year when the entire fellowship of God’s people is intentionally working on the same things — training together in the spiritual disciplines of the believer.

And Lent provides us just that.

But here is the final lesson that convinced me to observe Lent. And this one is huge.

5. I learned that fasting should be an important part of a Christian’s life. 

This is a big part of the spiritual reset.

Now, I didn’t really plan to say much about this today, and here’s why. Even though it’s a hugely important topic, I recognize that you — like I used to be — are probably only superficially acquainted with the idea of fasting.

I was telling a friend recently that the idea of fasting in the Bible is rarely explained in any detail because it seemed that everyone back then was familiar with the process. But it appears that modern Christians have forgotten something that was once an integral part of the church’s memory.

And I believe that we need to relearn this very biblical and spiritually beneficial discipline of fasting.

To that end, I want to study the Scriptures in more detail as well as comb church history in order to present a short series on the topic. I want God’s people to be able to remember — or learn for the first time — the value and place of fasting.

But, I also want to be able to provide an experiential explanation of the process.

I know that in Matthew 6:17-18, Jesus said, “when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

And the idea of a secret fast is very important and will be something about which we speak. However, this particular passage was dedicated to helping people reset their motivation for their spiritual disciplines. That motivation should never be personal pleasure and definitely not the praise of men. It should be the glory of God and God alone, but that does not mean that it’s a sin to talk about a fast or to let people know that you’re planning to have one.

In fact, there’s a lot of value to friends and families fasting at the same time. But — of course — I’ll talk more about that later.

For now, I mention all of this because I want you to know that I’m planning to fast this Lent. I’m doing this for a number of reasons:

1. I believe it will glorify God for me — Aaron Brewster — to utilize a fast as part of my spiritual reset and continuing discipleship.

And 2. I believe I will be able to use this experience to help other followers of Christ — including you — learn about the spiritual and physical benefits of a biblical fast.

So, I do plan to publish my research, both professional and personal, so that more of God’s people can rightly discern whether or not the Lord would have them worship Him via a fast — whether it happens during Lent, Advent, or any other time of the year.

In closing, I will say that I do already have experience with fasting. This will not be my first. But also, it’s going to be a little while before I complete my research and share it with you.

My hope is to have much of it available by this Advent, which — as you know — is considered a second Lent.

And I hope that the bulk of the information is available by this time next year so that you can go into Lent with a far more robust understanding of how valuable this Holiday observance can be for your personal relationship with God.

And with that, I will ask once again that you please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other Christians can be encouraged by the lessons that I learned.

And I hope you’ll join me on the Wisdom app on Wednesday, March 2nd (the first day of Lent) to talk more about this holiday.

I’ll be live from 11:30am to 12:30pm Eastern Standard Time. You can come onto the show to ask questions, share your personal experiences with Lent, and even — if you must — engage in a little debate about the pros and cons of the season.

But — of course — I hope that you will join us next week as we once again seek to better know, love, and worship God . . . and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, as we enter the Season of Life, we’ll be starting a short series about how you can celebrate God when you’re at work and school.

Why on earth would I post our March Preparation in the middle of February?

Well, this year nearly the entire month of March is dedicated to a very unique holiday, and we want to make sure we’re have enough time to sufficiently prepare.

But before we jump into today’s overview, I want to encourage you to check out CelebrationOfGod.com. We’re in the process of creating a website just for The Year Long Celebration of God. As the ministry is growing, we want our online presence to beneficially represent what God can do through us for anyone who wants to worship Him better this year.

And, of course, you can find today’s transcript and holiday resources on our blog.

And now, let’s talk about worshipping God in March.

March is the beginning of a brand new three month Season where we get to focus on a new attribute of God and another facet of salvation.

So, let’s start with that.

1. Prepare for the Season of Life.

The Season of Life is when we devote ourselves to meditating on the new life God offers. This new life has a temporal aspect as well as an eternal aspect. It has physical ramifications as well as spiritual ramifications. 

And it flows so well from our previous Seasons. We started with the Season of Mercy that taught us that God doesn’t give us what we deserve, which transitioned perfectly into a study of Grace that teaches us that God abundantly gives us infinitely more than we deserve.

And a huge chunk of that grace is experienced in our justification. 

So, we also need to . . .

2. Prepare for the celebration of Justification.

Justification is the moment that someone dead in their trespasses and sins is pronounced innocent before the Father. 

And whether you believe that regeneration happens significantly before justification or in synchronicity with Justification, either way, Justification is an expected result of regeneration.

This Season we should take the time to meditate on and glory in the justifying work of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, based off the fact that we’re entering a new celebratory Season, we should give attention to preparing our hearts, our disciples, and our spaces.

Last year I failed to do anything with my Celebration Wall during the Season of Life. This year, I’m going to do better, and I invite you to join me.

I plan to put a garland of spring foliage around our Celebration Wall and post verses and reminders of the great things God has done for us.

But there are other things for which we should be preparing.

3. Prepare for the March holidays.

On Friday the 4th will be the World Day of Prayer, and that’s a wonderful happenstance as this year Lent starts on March 2nd and continues all the way through April 14th. That means that during a holiday season dedicated entirely to increased spiritual disciplines, the World Day of Prayer kicks it off.

Now, before you log off today because you don’t believe that Protestants should observe Lent, stick with me so I can share a couple things.

First of all, if you know who we are and what we’re trying to do here, then you know that we are a Protestant organization that seeks to glorify God by helping His disciples worship Him better this year than they did last year.

If you haven’t yet listened to our Introductory Episodes that explain — in great detail — who we are, what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it, then I strongly encourage you to do so. I wouldn’t want you to come to the wrong conclusions.

Second of all, Lent is not a really a Catholic holiday. Don’t give that to them. It’s not theirs.

Here’s why I say that. The first reason is that no one can be 100% sure when it was officially instituted in the church. Most scholars believe that it may have been a common practice among Christians in preparation for Easter.

Second, the doctrine of fasting is taught all throughout the Scriptures, and some of the most famous biblical fasts just so happened to be have been 40 days long.

And third, if we can take a day like Halloween and give God the preeminence that He deserves on that day, we can definitely observe a holiday that was — in fact — created to give God the preeminence that He’s due.

I strongly encourage you to navigate to the holidays page at CelebrationOfGod.com and click on Lent. From there you should see an episode called “Lent | Preparing, Celebrating, Discipling.” Listen to that episode for a helpful overview of the holiday.

Also, plan to join us next Friday for an important conversation about Lent. I want to address what I believe may be some really big misunderstandings when it comes to observing this holiday.

However, for today allow me to share a couple interesting observations about Lenten.

The word “Lent” is derived form an Old English word which referred to the spring season. The word communicated the lengthening of the days as Spring approached. And there are various derivatives in various European languages.

Traditionally, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and ends about six weeks later, right before Easter. That’s a total of 46 days. That also means that the last week of Lent is the Passion Week, which starts on Palm Sunday. 

Lent is only supposed to be 40 days long, however. Most traditions, though, do not observe Lent on the Sundays because Sunday is supposed to be a mini-celebration of the resurrection. Therefore, when you remove the six Sundays, you end up with 40 days of Lenten.

As I mentioned before, historically, no one can perfectly nail down the genesis of Lent. Some loosely tie it to the Apostle’s mourning over the loss of the Lord after the crucifixion. Other’s quote ancient sources that claim that something similar to Lent was already being practiced by the church. And others point to the Council of Nicea in which it mentions “the 40 days of Lent.” Either way, until recent generations, fasting was always an expected practice of God-worshippers.

Regardless of how it started, though, the purpose of the observation has universal agreement. Lent is a time of spiritual Preparation for Eastertide.

And — listen — spiritual preparation is so incredibly important.

I read recently that Satan’s biggest weapons are crowds, busyness, and noise. I don’t if that’s 100% true, but He definitely uses them a lot — that’s for sure. 

And one of the repercussions of such tactics is that we are in a constant state of an overstimulated sense of urgency. We never really think about what we need to do; we simply complete one task to jump immediately into the next, and the moment before we wrap up that line item, we’re already into the next.

And this is often the detrimental case in our worship of God. We don’t take careful time to prepare our minds to read His Word. We don’t give attention to upcoming holidays to make sure that we’re being intentional. And we don’t plan out our parenting, schooling, work, vacations, and entertainment to make certain that we’re worshipping God with them instead of merely pleasing ourselves.

But Preparation is the process of intentionally readying our mind to worship God as we should.

And that’s what Lent is. Lent is a 46 day Preparation for the most amazing holiday of the year — Easter. 

Lent is a time of allowing God to reveal if there are any wicked ways in us. It’s a time of prayer. It’s a time of fasting. It’s a time of increased devotion as we intentionally meet with God more often than usual. It’s a time to carefully think through the best way to worship God during Passion Week and Easter all the way through Ascension and Pentecost. 

Basically, it’s a time to reset our spiritual lives in lieu of the fact that we’re about to observe the day where God purchased us eternal life — the greatest reset in all history.

Listen, I did not start observing Lent until 2021. That’s right, you heard me. My first 40 years of life I thought nothing of Lent, or I looked down my nose at the people walking around with ash on their forehead, Fish Fridays, and the idea of fasting.

And that’s why I want to have an important conversation about Lent this coming Friday. I want to share with you the five biggest truths God taught me two years ago that resulted in me choosing to celebrate God via Lent.

But, if you’re going to observe Lent well, which is a preparation for Easter, then you’re going to need to adequately prepare for this special Preparation.

Now, I’m not saying you need to do a 40 Day water fast, but I am saying that regardless of how you choose to observe Lent, since it’s a 46 day event, you will need to give careful thought to what you’re going to do. 

If you don’t prepare well, you likely may not celebrate God well. And the whole point of The Year Long Celebration of God is that we celebrate God as well as we can and get better at it every year.

You can check out our Lenten Holiday page for various resources to help you prepare well. One of those resources is a 40 Day Lenten Bible Reading. It’s an intentionally curated Bible Reading that works you through the biblical ideas of fasting, prayer, repentance, and righteous living. You can download that free PDF at CelebrationOfGod.com.

You can also find Lenten Anticipations there. Anticipations are fun because they help us remember that we do not serve an ancient dead deity. But even though our God has existed from eternity past and also interacts with us now, there is infinitely more God is going to do in the future than what He has done or is doing. 

Anticipations help us to look past the noise and crowds and busyness of this life to see the majestic plans God has for the future.

And since the entire Year Long Celebration of God is an interconnected series of High Days and Low Moments, it’s very helpful to see how our current celebrations should inform our future celebrations.

So, by way of review, we should take the next couple weeks to carefully prepare for the new Season of Life, the new meditation on justification, the World Day of Prayer, and Lent.

And — to finish off for today — as I’ve already mentioned, worshipping God in March can really be about preparing to worship Him during Easter. 

It’s amazing how easy it is to prepare for Halloween and Christmas a month early, but then if it weren’t for Palm Sunday, Easter would totally sneak up on us.

Don’t let your Easter Preparation be dictated by Walmart decorations. Make plans during March for how you and your fellow disciples can worship God on the greatest holiday of the year.

And, as always, we do lots of other things during March too. We go to school, work, recreate, spend time with friends, disciple, sleep, eat, go to church, and a milieu of other activities. Let’s make sure that we’re giving God the preeminence during those as well.

Every second of our lives should be lived as a sacrifice to our great God. It’s the most exciting way to live, and it’s the reasonable act of worship that He deserves.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other followers of Christ can prepare well for worshipping God in March.

And never hesitate to reach out to Counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com with any questions or struggles you may have.

And definitely join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and then help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be having An Important Conversation about Lent.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

I’m so glad that you are joining me for this conversation. It’s super important because the inescapable reality we’re studying today is going to have dramatic and eternal consequences on our lives and others’ lives.

It’s a hugely necessary discussion, so allow me to quickly remind you that I’d love to interact with you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the Wisdom App. In fact, I was just tweeting with someone this morning, and we were having a great time. So, look up AMBrewster, and I’ll see you there.

And definitely plan to join me this coming Monday at 11:30am ET to take today’s study to a new level. Download the free Wisdom app, follow me @AMBrewster, and join me for a live conversation this coming Monday about how we can better apply this truth.

And — as always — today’s free episode notes, transcript, and discipleship resources are available for you at CelebrationOfGod.com, and I have a link in the description for you for that.

And now let’s talk about the inescapable reality and consequences of discipleship.

First of all, I never want to assume that we’re all using the same definitions. We’ve talked a lot about discipleship on this show — especially recently — it’s the entire thrust of what we’re doing here, but it’s very possible that this is your first time with us.

So, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page by defining our terms.

1. The Definition of Discipleship

In its broadest sense, discipleship refers simply to being a student. It’s the process of acquiring information, systematizing it, and then using it. We could say it’s gaining knowledge, understanding that knowledge, and then living wisely.

And, of course, all students have teachers, so, to be a disciple of Christ — in particular — is to be someone who acquires information from God, systematizes it, and then uses it for His glory.

But there’s a secondary facet of discipleship that is educationally uncommon though it’s experientially intuitive.

2. The Demand of Discipleship

Let me start by explaining what I mean by this truth is not “educationally common.”

Very few elementary, junior high, or high schoolers are planning to be teachers when they grow up. And really none of their teachers require them to be able teach the content they’re learning to other students. Just as long as they do their assignments, all the teachers are happy.

In fact, most college and graduate students aren’t planning to be teachers either. And, again, few of their teachers require that they be able to teach the information they’re learning in the class.

The only students who are actively being required to teach the information they’re receiving are the ones who are in school for the purpose of becoming teachers.

That means that a good algebra student is wanting to know and understand algebra so they can use the algebra in life. But most good algebra students aren’t imagining they’re ever going to need to teach algebra to anyone else.

So, from an educational standpoint, the vast majority of students are not being expected to teach what they’re learning.

However, experientially, teaching what you’ve learned actually makes sense. We all do it all the time. Every time you’ve learned something that genuinely revolutionized your life, you’ve told someone else about it. 

In fact, with the exception of corresponders, comedians, and complainers, most of the remaining social media users are trying to teach people something. They may be teaching a practical skill, it might be about a product, it might be a spiritual discipline, it might be a weight loss secret . . . but most of them are passing on to you something that they have learned. And they believe that once you learn it, you’re going to want to tell people about it too.

And that — my friends — is the often neglected demand of discipleship. Disciples of Christ are required to make disciples of Christ.

I think we can all agree that if I am a follower of Christ, I actually have to obey God. And we believe that because in John 8:31 Jesus specifically states that if I continue in His Word, then I am truly a disciple of His.

So, we have to also agree that if Jesus commands that I make disciples — which He does — I can’t consider myself His disciple if I’m not obeying Him by making more disciples.

However, this demand of discipleship — the fact that all disciples have to be making disciples — is actually not the inescapable reality we’re going to discuss today.

That was all introductory information so that we’re all on the same page.

Alright, so — by way of quick review — to be a disciple is to be a student. To be a disciple of Christ is to be someone who acquires information from God, systematizes it, and then uses it for His glory. 

And a significant part of that information from God that we’re supposed to understand and use in life is that He requires us to make disciples for Him. 

So, here’s the focus of today’s study. I’m calling this . . .

3. The Inescapable Reality of Discipleship

Over the years I’ve spoken with a lot of people about the topic of discipleship, and many of them think what I used to think. They think that they’re either making disciples, or they’re not. It’s one or the other.

Now, as I was growing, I was not actively engaging in discipleship for Christ most of the time. In fact, I was very much a double-minded man and unstable in all my ways throughout my high school and college years.

So, if you had asked me back then about this whole discipleship thing, I would have said what a lot of people believe. I would have said that though I was a disciple of Christ by virtue of being born again, I wasn’t a very good disciple of Christ. And I definitely would have been quick to say that I wasn’t — in any really measurable way — making disciples.

And when people say things like what I would have said back then, they’re revealing that there’s a significant truth about discipleship that they don’t yet know and understand.

And the truth about which I’m speaking — this inescapable reality of discipleship — is the title of today’s episode, You Are Always Making Disciples.

My friend, it’s impossible not to make disciples. You can’t help but always be making disciples.

That means that when I was a double-minded man in college, I was still making disciples. When I was taking algebra in high school, I was making disciples. When I was in elementary school, I was making disciples.

In fact, the only way a person can stop making disciples is if they were to become a hermit with absolutely no interaction with people . . . ever. 

But if that hermit were to stroll into town, the moment he comes within visual range of another human being — even if he never speaks a word — he’s making disciples.

Now, you may be wondering how I can make that claim.

A. We’re always making disciples because that’s how God created it to work.

In episode 90, at the beginning of our Discipleship Spiral Series we learned that God created us to learn, commands us to learn, and capacitates us to learn. That means that He created, commands, and capacitates us to be disciples.

Therefore, it’s impossible for the average human being to stop learning because God created it that way. Yes, we don’t necessarily learn when we’re asleep or in a comma or when we’ve suffered the severest of brain trauma. I’m not talking about those obviously extreme examples.

I’m simply referring to the fact that we’re always taking in information, systematizing it, and applying it to our lives. That means that we’re always learning.

Now, it’s possible that we’re learning all the wrong lessons. It’s possible that we’re being taught lies, or we’re not interpreting the information correctly during the understanding phase, and we also have to acknowledge that we rarely apply our learning perfectly.

And since we’re constantly acquiring knowledge, systematizing it, and making choices accordingly, we have to ask, “From where is this teaching coming?”

Well, it comes from all around us. 

Infants are a perfect example of this. Even though they’re just barely starting to understand human speech, they’re already learning from their experiences. Infants eventually understand that they can’t get out of their playpens by themselves. So, they lift their arms to you because they recognize that they need your help. 

All the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic experiences we have teach us things. In fact, we even teaching ourselves as we grapple with existential questions and come to conclusions about them.

That means that if I spend all of my time with someone who absolutely loves a certain sports team, I am going to learn a lot about that team — whether I initially want to or not, and whether the individual is intending to teach me or not.

I use sports as my example, because — for me — it illustrates this point well. 

I’ve never been a fan of professional sports. I just don’t have time for football and basketball and baseball and hockey. But — despite that fact — I know a pretty good amount about each of those sports, the men and women currently playing them, the rules, the teams, their odds of winning, and the like. 

How do I know these things? I can tell you it has nothing to do with my own intentional pursuit of that knowledge. To be honest, a ton of it comes simply from scrolling through social media.

But then there’re all the people in my life who unintentionally disciple me in their love of sports. My sister and her husband love the Tarheels. I’ve lived in Green Bay, Detroit, St. Louis, and Chicago — you can only imagine the education I received living in each of those places.

And I’ve interacted with many, many people who have influenced me and taught me and discipled me in their favorite sports and teams. Some of them did it on purpose, and some didn’t.

And unless I absolutely refuse to engage with any sports-related content, of course I’m going to pick it up along the way, regardless of how apathetic I may be.

So, on one side, God created you to learn from all of your life experiences, so that means you can’t help but learn from others as you have experiences with them.

On the other side, you can’t help but influence the people in your life as they interact with you.

Everything you do and say is either teaching them to be like you or teaching them not to be like you. 

So, A. We’re always making disciples because that’s how God created it to work, but . . .

B. We’re always making disciples because that’s how people want it to work.

Listen, there is absolutely nothing new under the sun. We are not the original, special snowflakes we like to think we are.

Let’s take fashion as an example. All fashion is a reaction. Fashion is not an action. Whether it’s a reaction to nakedness or environmental factors like precipitation or temperature, fashion is a reaction. 

But even fashion designers are either reacting to things that they like by implementing it into their creations, or they’re reacting to things they don’t like by trying to move in the opposite direction.

And the same goes for the people wearing the clothes. Not everyone — but many people — try very hard not to be mainstream in their clothing choices. But their choices are not truly unique. Whether they choose to be naked or deliberately layer a bunch of ill-suited clothing pieces, it’s all been done before.

I think the same is true for people who design monsters. You know, the people who create monsters for movies and storybooks. Whether the monsters are aliens or fantasy creatures, they all look like something else. For example, there was a time in movies that all aliens looked like bugs.

The reason for this is that humans can’t create things that are 100% novel. Only God can do that. He can take nothing and create an infinite number of somethings never before conceived.

But God’s creation is only able to do variations on a theme. Yes, we are creative like God is, but infinitely less creative than He is, and one of the biggest differences is that we are never truly original.

But what does this have to do with discipleship? Well, humanity wasn’t just created to learn, we desire to learn. 

In order to exercise the image of God in us, we must learn. We can’t be creative without first observing and learning. We can’t appreciate what is good or bad, cool or uncool without being taught.

Some of us consciously run toward people we admire so that we can learn how to be like them. And even those who run away from the popular and mainstream are doing two things. 1. They’re still basing what they do on what someone else is teaching them. For example, if the sporty people are wearing UnderArmor, the artsy kids are going to wear anything but. But they’re not just learning what not to be, 2. They’re running toward the other people who are living life the way they want to live life. They’re drawn to the other people who don’t want to be mainstream.

So, whether you realize it or not, you actually want to be discipled. You have your favored musicians and actors and speakers and personalities and teachers and subjects. Sometimes those subjects are academic and sometimes they’re cultural.

And the same is true for the other people in your life. 

Most likely, your disciplees are people who all have one thing in common . . . for whatever reason, they like to spend time with you. Now, I’m not saying they idolize you, but there is something about you and your life choices that attracts them. 

Again, I’m not saying that you hang out with the people you do because you all want to be like each other, but I am saying that the people with whom you associate by choice are people who you believe are either going to benefit you, or you will benefit them, or you will be a mutual benefit to each other.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, then you should have realized a while ago that — so far — this particular episode is starkly devoid of Scripture references.

Let me tell you why. First, very little of what I’m saying is commanded or didactically taught in the Bible. However, it is exemplified in the Bible from the beginning to the end.

Everything from Cain’s antithetical feelings about Able to the Corinthian’s church’s hero-worship to the disciple of Christ’s passionate desire to be conformed to His image . . . we see that God created us to learn, and we all desire to do it to one degree or another.

But there was one passage in particular that really motivated today’s topic, and so I’m going to share today’s final point and spend a little time unpacking Matthew 23:15.

C. We disciple the same way we worship.

You can’t stop worshipping. You’re either worshipping God by pleasing Him or worshipping self by pleasing yourself.

That means that you’re either intentionally or unintentionally teaching the people in your life to worship the exact same way you do.

It doesn’t matter if you sit your kids down and tell them to follow their hearts, or they always see you stress-eating . . . the same message is being sent.

It doesn’t matter if you espouse some heretical belief from the pulpit, or the congregation watches you live heretically, you’re teaching them something.

So, since we must all acknowledge that we are constantly discipling, and since it’s only possible to disciple for God or to disciple for self, we must diligently and intentionally discover which one we’re doing and then make the appropriate changes.

Therefore, let’s look at Matthew 23. 

Starting in verse 13, Jesus works through a list of Eight Woes. These Woes are targeted at the Pharisees and are a stunningly powerful list of sharp condemnations.

But listen carefully to the third woe from verse 15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

If nothing else, this verse clearly teaches that we can actively make the wrong kinds of disciples . . . even when we are convinced that we’re doing everything necessary to make the right kind of disciples.

Verse 13 says that they actually “shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”

Now, the Pharisees were a group of religious zealots who added rules to the Old Testament Law in order to make it harder on themselves to break God’s commands. Then, because they believed they genuinely loved Yahweh, these guys went into all the world to make disciples. They were evangelizing and training people to be just like them. And they were convinced that they were the spiritual cream of the crop.

But Jesus said that their proselytes — their disciples — were ending up being disciples of hell.

So, I hope that you’re now wondering how you can avoid making disciples of hell.

The first observation I want to make from chapter 23 is that Jesus — in Eight short Woes — uses the word “blind” 5 different times. 

The first use is in verse 16, which immediately follows the verse we just read. After just condemning the Pharisee’ discipleship tactics, Jesus call them “blind guides.”

So these guys were definitely guiding people. And they weren’t doing it unintentionally. They were convinced that they were purposefully discipling for Yahweh, but Jesus says that their main problem was that they were blind.

In Matthew 15:14 Jesus said, “They are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

Again, He uses the word “blind” 4 other times in the Matthew 23 passage.

What does this teach us?

1. In order to disciple for Christ and not for Hell, you must open your eyes to the truth of God.

Now, I must admit that this is — first and foremost — an act of God. It is God Who opens blind eyes.

In Acts 26, Jesus has just confronted Paul on the road to Damascus, and He is about to give Paul his new marching orders. In verse 17 Christ says, “I am sending you, 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”

God does the spiritual work, He provides the faith, and He sends His people to preach the truth so that the unbelievers can have their eyes opened to the Gospel.

That is the first step. We must be born again disciples of Christ, or we will never be able to help another be a disciple of Christ.

The second step is that we must continue with our eyes open. In Revelation 3 Jesus confronts the believers in Laodicea who had become lukewarm in their worship of God. And — starting in verse 18 — Jesus said, “I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.”

These people, sometimes warmly worshipping God and sometimes coldly worshipping self, had become a double-minded, unstable, lukewarm mess.

And God’s answer was to turn to Him. They were to submit to Him and thereby receive three things — gold which represents truth, white garments which represent the pure life lived in the truth of God, and eye salve which represents the ability to discern between sin and righteousness.

So, that is the first step. We must stop being blind.

2. In order to disciple for Christ and not for Hell, you must understand God’s truth as He would have you understand it.

Another major problem in the world today is bad advice, poor counsel, and even false-teaching.

Now, I’m not talking about unregenerate false-teachers, I’m talking about well-meaning Christians who due to their own ignorance or hard hearts misunderstand the Scriptures and share that misunderstanding with others.

Some write New York Time’s Bestselling books and others repeatedly share their misunderstanding in small group.

Consider Peter’s words in II Peter 3:15-16, “just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand.” Okay, so even God through the inspired Word admits that the truth of God is sometimes hard to understand.

But listen to what comes next, “which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

“Untaught” refers to being ignorant of the truth. ‘Unstable” refers to a person who doesn’t have a good foundation. Since this second word is only twice in the Scriptures, it’s harder to appreciate the nuance, but I would say that the unstable are different than the untaught because they have the information, but they don’t understand it as they should.

And both of these people are in danger of twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction. 

My friends, there are not many ways to understand the Bible. There is only one way . . . God’s way. And it should not be my intention to discover what God’s Word means to me, I need to discover what it means to Him.

Yes, there may be legitimate applications that differ from one person to another, but not understanding.

This is illustrated in Matthew 23 as Jesus has to train the Pharisees on the correct biblical understanding of oath making.

Since you’re always making disciples, if you want to make them for Christ, make sure your eyes are open to the truth of God through regeneration, and make sure that you are constantly learning and accurately understanding the Scriptures.

3. In order to disciple for Christ and not for Hell, you must make God’s priorities your priorities.

In Matthew 23:23 Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for tithing their spices, but not emphasizing what Jesus says are the weightier parts of the Law.

They agonized over measuring out a 10th of their mint, dill, and cumin, but they didn’t dedicated themselves to knowing, understanding, and living justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Jesus used an interesting metaphor when He illustrated their poor priorities this way, they “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”

As you learn and understand the truth of God, your priorities should naturally line up with His. This will exemplify for everyone in your life how they too should approach God’s Word.

4. In order to disciple for Christ and not for Hell, you must make the internalization of truth your first goal.

Verse 25 through 28 describe the Pharisees as being cups that are clean on the outside and filthy on the inside and as tombs that are beautifully whitewashed on the outside even though they’re filled with dead mens’ bones.

This admonishment goes beyond merely knowing and understanding and externally living the law. This speaks to the importance that we actually be renewed from the inside out.

In Ephesians we learn the importance of putting off sin and putting on righteousness, but a necessary part of the process includes renewing our minds.

Philippians calls us to have the mind of Christ.

But Pharisaism is what it is because it’s hypocritical. It’s not consistent from the inside to the outside. It appears to be something that it isn’t.

Is it true that a hypocrite may do all the right things and — because others don’t know them well enough to know their motivation — they may have a positive impact on people? Yeah. But that doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t always work that way either. 

But when it comes to true, Christ-honoring discipleship that happens because of us — not in spite of us — our life choices need to be governed by who we are in Christ.

And — lastly — 

5. In order to disciple for Christ and not for Hell, you must submit to those who speak God’s truth.

In the final Woe, Jesus proclaims, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? 34 Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.”

Though Jesus didn’t say “instead of killing the prophets, submit to the word they give you,” we need to recognize that that is exactly how we are to respond to the truth of God.

If you listened to our Discipleship Spiral Series then you know how important it is for you to love and interact with the discipline process. As you accept teaching, reproof, correction, and training, you will gain knowledge and understanding and live wisely. 

So, as you participate in your own discipleship, you will be growing and therefore able to better disciple those whom God brings into your life.

My friend, it’s impossible for you to not be discipling. That means that if you aren’t intentionally discipling for Christ, you’re discipling for yourself. You’re encouraging people in their own self-worship.

And the only ways to avoid that is to have your eyes opened to the truth of God’s Word, then you need to learn it, understand it, and live it. Then you will have the priorities of God and the mind of Christ and willing participate in sanctification.

Then and only then can you know that you are discipling people for God.

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so God’s people can learn the desperately important truth that they are always making disciples, and — if you would like some more assistance in your own discipleship journey — please contact us at Counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com.

And — of course — join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God and help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing how to worship God in March.

I’m so glad you’ve joined me today. 

If this is your first visit to The Celebration of God Podcast, I’m so glad you’ve decided to give us a listen. We are dedicated to elevating the glory of God in all of our minds so that we will become better disciples of His, and . . . so that we can help others do the same.

So, if you want to know how The Year Long Celebration of God works, I encourage you to visit CelebrationOfGod.com and listen to our introductory episodes that are linked on the front page. They will teach you nearly everything you need to know about The Year Long Celebration of God and how you can benefit from it.

And today is a short episode that helps us approach the new month with intentionality and direction. 

Even though I’m the guy who created The Celebration of God, it’s really easy for me to get distracted and sidetracked. I forget to update my Celebration Wall, I get bogged down in the ridiculous details of my trivial day to such a degree that I take my eyes off Christ and forget that He should be the center of my very existence.

So, if I can forget the Celebration of God . . . we all can.

And, yeah, I understand how arrogant that could have sounded. My point is, I created the discipleship program that is The Year Long Celebration of God, I host the podcast, so you’d think I might be the last person to forget about it’s place in my life. But I do.

I was not trying to say that since I worship God better than everyone else does, if I don’t worship Him properly, then you better believe everyone else fails too.

Yeah, you get my point.

Well, before we jump into our material today, I just want to introduce all of you to Evermind Ministries.

I started Evermind Ministries back in 2007, and the first of those ministries was a blog called Taking Back the Bible. Then in 2016 Truth.Love.Family. was added, and The Year Long Celebration of God joined the family in 2020. And just this year we’ve added Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship.

Each of these ministries is designed to keep God’s truth at the center of our daily experience. Each strives to help us learn about God, obey His Word, and repeat that every day.

This year we’re highlighting the Evermind family of ministries more and more, building its web presence, and trying to connect more people to God’s absolute truth.

Very soon, you’ll be able to check out EvermindMinistries.com and access our growing collection of biblical resources.

And, for The Celebration of God, that includes free episode notes, transcripts, and tons of worship resources.

And you can find a link to all of that in the description of today’s episode.

And now let’s talk about God’s place in February.

First, I want to talk about February holidays. Then I want to discuss how we can approach this month given that it’s the end of the Season of Grace. And then I want to share some other practical encouragements for worshipping God in February.

Alright, let’s start with the holidays.

As most of you know, Valentine’s Day is on the 14th. In preparation for giving God the preeminence of Valentines, I encourage you to consume our free Valentine’s resources at CelebrationOfGod.com. Just click on the holidays and select Valentines.

You’ll find podcast episodes, checklists, Bible Readings, and more.

God’s love is a wondrous facet of His grace to us, and I find that my yearly February meditation on God’s love is always a necessary reminder. 

One of the resources you’ll find at CelebraitonOfGod.com is a PDF called “How Do We Know If We Love God?” It’s such an amazing resource.

But if you live in Canada, you not only have Valentine’s Day, you also have Family Day on the 17th. You too can check out our Family Day resources. Just go to CelebrationOfGod.com, and you will find it listed with the other holidays in the Season of Power.

So, there, you go, you already have two wonderful ways to adore God and celebrate His grace in February.

And, speaking of His grace, as I already mentioned, this is the last month of the Season of Grace. Lord willing, you have been deepening your knowledge and understanding of God’s ceaseless grace and you are living in those realities as we speak.

Well, make sure you consciously and intentionally continue your study and daily application of His grace.

And that will include our seasonal focus on glorification. Yes, glorification is the fourth phase of our salvation where God will remove our sin natures so that we can celebrate Him perfectly for all eternity.

Talk about giving us something we don’t deserve! How awesome is that?!

If you — like I — look back over December and January and you realize that you neglected to immerse yourself in a study of glorification like you originally planned, we still have all of February to learn more about it, praise God for it, and live in the reality of it.

One of the key aspects of our future glorification is to be maturing toward it here and now. Though we won’t be able to achieve perfection this side of eternity, we please the Lord when we make that our goal to His glory and in His power.

Now, in just two weeks, I’m going to be talking about Celebrating God in March. I’m starting so early because it’s not just a new month, it’s a new celebratory season, and the first holiday is lent which starts on March 2nd. So, there will be a lot to do to prepare for all of that, and I want to make sure you have time.

So, in a very real way, preparing for March is another way that we can give God the preeminence in the month of February.

And, now, let me bring this episode to a close by talking about how we can worship God on the non-holy days of February.

First, I want to invite you to check out our podcast series page at CelebrationOfGod.com. There is so much biblical treasure being unpacked in each of those episodes, and every one of them are designed to equip you to become a better disciple of Christ every day of the year.

For example, we just finished up our Discipleship Spiral Series which traces the lifelong journey of a Disciple of Christ. And one of the best things about the series is how it dissects four of God’s key expectations for all disciples.

But we also have individual episodes that can be a blessing for you. No doubt, at some point in the month of February you are going to enjoy some down time, some recreation, or even vacation. Well, we did an episode called Celebrating God with Recreation, and it will equip you to view your down time through the lens of Scripture so that you can elevate the Lord — even in your entertainment.

We also have a growing library of resource about how to disciple the individuals God brings into your life. Think about how many opportunities February affords for you to invest in the spiritual life and maturity of others.

It would be a great month to start some new discipleship relationships and share the Gospel with unbelievers so that they too can become followers of Christ.

Then there’s church. Listen, it took me way too long to truly understand that church really wasn’t so much about me as it was about God and what He wanted to accomplish in me.

We have a series called Celebrating God at Church that should help you better appreciate when God commands us to assemble with other believers.

And there is so much more.

For some of you, God wants you to parent your children for life and godliness. The Truth.Love.Parent. podcast exists to help you grow in that discipline.

Perhaps you are a biblical counselor or teacher or pastor who regularly counsels and one-anothers and trains people. You too can benefit from the various resources we’ve created to help you be able to sharpen others with greater spiritual success.

Maybe you’re a cashier or a steam-fitter or contractor who struggles knowing how to pray without ceasing while at work or how to keep your eyes on Christ when you’re so easily distracted by the task in front of you or how to be a light for God in the workplace.

Well, we want to assist you in any and every way possible. So, please feel free to send an email to counselor@CelebrationOfGod.com so we can talk about how we can equip you to be a more mature disciple of Christ.

And — with that — I will ask you to please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets so that other disciples of Christ can prepare to have a wonderful, Christ-centered February, and please plan to join us next time as we seek to better know, love, and worship God as well as help the people in our lives do the same.

To that end, we’ll be discussing the fact that — whether you like it or not — You’re Always Making Disciples. However, that fact will either be Christ-honoring or completely disastrous.

Click the link below to download the PDF.

Welcome to our final episode in our Discipleship Spiral Series. If you’ve just discovered The Celebration of God, I’m so glad you’re here, but I’m going to encourage you to go back to episode 90 and start there.

After that, be sure to listen to our introductory episodes so you can learn what The Year Long Celebration of God is all about.

In short, God deserves our worship every day of the year, and we should be worshipping Him more and better this year than we did the year before. And that’s what The Celebration of God podcast is trying to help God’s people do.

But before we conclude this series, I’d like to ask that if you have been blessed at all by this study, if you’re learned anything, understood anything, and been able to live more wisely because of this series, please take a minute to rate and review the show. The two best places to do it are on Apple Podcasts and Facebook.

Thank you in advance for telling people how valuable The Celebration of God podcast is.

And don’t forget that CelebrationOfGod.com has all the free episode notes, transcripts, and worship resources you need to be a better follower of Christ this year.

Now, let’s talk about the most important part of the Discipleship Spiral.

A few episodes ago I talked about the fact that the image of the Discipleship Spiral is made up of two key parts — the mountain and the path that winds its way around the mountain. 

Over the past three episodes we’ve been studying the three parts of the path. Every disciple of God is going to acquire knowledge, deepen their understanding of that knowledge, and apply that knowledge and understanding to their lives. That — in turn — will lead them to acquiring more knowledge about God, understanding it, and working it out in their lives . . . and so on. 

And slowly but surely the disciple will become more and more conformed to the image of Christ as they ascend the mountain.

Now, before we talk about the mountain, I want to make a few more observations about the path.

First, we will never reach the top of the mountain in this life. We will always be sinners, and we will never be perfectly like Christ until we’re glorified in eternity. Of course, that reality should never dissuade us from climbing.

Second, as we mature in our conformity to Christ, the Spiral becomes tighter and tighter. The means that the frequency with which we move from knowledge to wisdom and onward to more knowledge should increase. Disciples are students, therefore a better disciple should be a better student.

Third, as the Spiral tightens, the incline of every part of the Spiral increases. Early on in our discipleship journey we were introduced to the milk of the Word. And that was right and good and necessary. But like the author of Hebrews says in chapter 5, verses 12-14, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

The mysteries of God are fathomless and profound. We must not shy away from the difficult questions and heavy truths of the Bible. Yes, the sprawling journey at the bottom of the mountain where we learned the elementary principles of God was comparatively easier than the solid food of the Scriptures. But we must never shy away from the fact that a disciple is an eternal student. We can’t stop dead in our discipleship journey just because the going gets tough.

So, that’s the Spiral, now let’s talk about the mountain.

No doubt — since the beginning of this study — you have pictured the top of the mountain leading to conformity to God. And that is an accurate picture for the disciple of Christ.

But, if you took a moment to look at the cover art for this series, then you noticed that there were two mountains shown. One was a tall and stately mountain with a golden castle on a sunny peak.

The other was a dark and sinister volcano with nothing more than a torrent of lava at the top.

But both of these mountains have a spiral around it. And that’s because the Discipleship Spiral is not limited to the things of God. The Spiral works regardless of which mountain it scales.

Last time we talked about Didactic Wisdom. A disciple of math needs to learn, understand, and then apply that learning. And — as a disciple of math — they will grow in their use of math as they continually learn, understand, and use the more advanced facts about math.

But — in this case — the mountain is not the things of God. The mountain was math.

Now, I don’t want to overcomplicate this imagery, but I do want to point out the fact that all of us are good at some things and not as good at others. Some of you are very good disciples of cars. I am not. However, I have been a disciple of the martial arts for over 25 years. I’m pretty good at it.

So, in a way, we could imagine an innumerable number of discipleship spirals on an equal number of mountains to illustrate the reality that the spiral is the same regardless of which mountain we’re trying to scale, or — we could say — which discipline we’re trying to learn and use in our lives.

But I want to simplify the image for our purposes here.

In the What Is Worship? Series we recognized that worship is everything we do, say, feel, want, and think. But we’re not really worshipping cars, money, or chocolate when we indulge in them . . . we’re worshipping ourselves with those things.

As Ken Collier famously says, “Just two choices on the shelf — pleasing God or pleasing self.”

We either lay our possessions and experiences — and even our very selves — on the altar to God for His glory, or we lay those things on the altar to self for our own satisfaction.

Therefore, my friends, there are really only two mountains. There’s the mountain of God and the mountain of self.

Ascending the mountain of God will result in us becoming more like God. Ascending the mountain to self will result in us becoming knowledgeable, discerning, and Delusionally Wise, but for our own purposes and in our own power. We’ll be nothing more than disciples of self.

The mountain of God results in us receiving the blessings of being a faithful follower of Christ, and the mountain of self leads to the volcanic destruction of leaning on our own understanding and doing what’s right in our own eyes.

Therefore, it’s extremely important that we climb the right mountain. It’s eternally vital that we follow Christ instead of our own desires.

It’s also very important for us to recognize that just because we or our children or counselees or church members are learning and understanding and applying that truth to our lives does not necessarily mean that they’re glorifying God. 

History is replete with stories of people who did the right things in the right way for their own glory. Those people were idolaters and they did not please the Lord.

Therefore, we need to believe that being a disciple of Christ is infinitely better than living this life for our own temporal comfort. We need to do the right things in the right way for the right reasons and in the right power to know that we are truly on God’s mountain, not our own.

Now, as you all know, I made up this metaphor of the Discipleship Spiral and the mountain. But these images are based in biblical commands and principles. So, today I want to look at how the Bible discusses what we’re calling “the mountain of God.”

Today we’re going to talk about the fear of the Lord.

So, let’s jump right in by looking at . . .

1. The Nature of the Fear of the Lord

The Hebrew word most often translated “fear” in the “fear of God/the Lord” has two main ideas wrapped up in it.

On one hand the word refers simply to dread and extreme fear. In Psalm 55:4-5 we read, “My heart is in anguish within me, And the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 5 Fear and trembling come upon me, And horror has overwhelmed me.”

That’s our word, “fear.”

On the other hand, the word was also used to refer to reverence and awe.

In Psalm 5:7 David says, “But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house, At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.”

And both of these ideas are wrapped up in the concept of what it means to fear the Lord.

Without taking too much time, allow me to step us through the process.

A. As an unbeliever, there should be nothing scarier to us than the Living God. If we live in defiance to Him in our own Delusional Wisdom, we will receive the consequences of that choice both now and for all eternity.

Of course, God is also loving and gracious — I don’t want to downplay that — but the reality of Hell and judgement and the wrath of God is a legitimately fearful thing, and until I no longer have any reason to fear it, it will eclipse the other attributes of God.

So, then the Holy Spirit works in us and B. As a disciple of Christ we learn the revere God in holy awe.

As a child of God, you do not need to fear God’s eternal wrath. I’m not afraid of His judgement, but I am in absolute awe of His grace and mercy and long-suffering and kindness and the immeasurable riches He daily pours on me as a child of God.

However, it doesn’t stop there. Disciples of Christ don’t just substitute dread for reverence. There is still an element of dread within the fear of the Lord.

Allow me to illustrate it this way. I would hate to forget my wife’s or my children’s birthdays. I absolutely do not want to fail my family in that way. I love them so much and value them so much that I would hate to let them down.

Do I fear failing them because of how they’re going to respond? If I fail them, am I afraid they’ll torture me? No. I actually fear failing them because I value them so much.

My response to God is far greater.

As a follower of Christ, I’m not afraid of God per se; I’m afraid of displeasing God.

In I Corinthians 9:27 Paul puts it this way, “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

He did not want to fail his God.

So, to fear the Lord is to respect and admire Him because He’s so amazing and simultaneously fear displeasing Him. 

But the fear of God is not an optional thing.

2. God Expects us to Fear Him

Proverbs 3:7, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.”

There are three commands here. 1. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. AKA: don’t be delusional, and don’t have mere Didactic Wisdom. 2. Fear the Lord, and 3. Turn away from evil.

What’s interesting is that you can’t do any one of those without doing the others. If you’re wise in your own eyes, you’re not doing the other two. If you’re biblically turning away from evil, that can only be a result of fearing the Lord and not leaning on your own understanding.

Proverbs 23:17 says, “Do not let your heart envy sinners, But live in the fear of the Lord always.” Not only does God expect that we fear Him, He expects that we do it all the time.

But the Old Testament isn’t the only place that demands that we fear God.

I Peter 2:17 tells us, “Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.”

And Revelation 14:7 reads, “And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; 7 and he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.’”

From the first book of the Bible ever written to the book that details the beginning of eternity, God commands everyone everywhere to fear Him.

Allow this to really shine a light on your own priorities. Nowhere does the Bible say that we absolutely need to become successful doctors or play forward on our high school soccer team or get that scholarship or work that job or have that family. 

Yes, we’re to do our best and all of that, but God doesn’t command those specifics. However, He does expressly command us to fear Him, to love Him, to obey Him, to submit to Him, and to sacrifice our very lives to Him. He demands that we be Zealous Students, Discerning Researchers, Unashamed Workman, and Faithful Followers of His.

So, let me ask you, are those your highest goals for yourself?

I pray that it is for you, but I also beg you to see them as God’s highest goal for everyone in your life.

We talk a lot about personal discipleship on this show. But to be a disciple of Christ is to participate in the discipleship of others. That’s called corporate discipleship, and we talk a lot about that too.

We can’t call ourselves followers of Christ if we won’t follow Him in making disciples. He commands it; if we don’t obey that command, we’re no disciple of His.

And — guess what — even the world understands this reality.

I had someone forward me a clip of a comedian named Mekki Leeper. Now, listen, you do not want to follow this guy or listen to his comedy. He’s very crass and discusses a ton of vile things.

This particular clip was sent to me though because of the unique perspective he had on parenting, and I want you to listen to it because I want you to see that even this unregenerate comedian understands how important it is to engage in evangelism and corporate discipleship.

Don’t worry, there’s nothing obscene in this short clip.

Listen carefully.

Mekki Leeper: “It was weird growing up in a house with two religions. You know, my mom was muslim, and my dad was Christian. And instead of forcing one on me like you’re supposed to with your child, they’re like, ‘Nah, it’ll be fine. We’ll just let him pick. C’mon Mek. It’s about time. After all, you are eight. Sure, you can’t choose what you wear or what you eat, but ‘creator of the known universe?’ That’s all you, baby. Roll the dice. No pressure, one of us has to be wrong, so, why don’t you come home after little league and denounce one of your parent’s beliefs. That will be character building, I think.’ I left all that behind, though, moved out here — big atheist now. Praise, Space X or whatever we’re doing.”

And now I want you to couple that with this view from a very famous atheist known as Penn Jillette. In a 5 minute video which I’ll link in the description of today’s show, Penn talks about a Christian man who gave him a Bible. Penn was very respectful of this particular man for many reasons espoused in the video, but then he says something really amazing about the practice of proselytizing. 

If that’s a new word to you, to proselytize is to share your beliefs with another person in such a way that you’re trying to persuade them to believe the same as you. It can be used of evangelism as well as discipleship.

Penn said, “I’ve always said I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell and that people could be goin to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that ‘It’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward’ — atheists that think that people shouldn’t proselytize, ‘Just leave me alone — keep your religion to yourself’ — how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe it — that truck was bearing down on you — there’s a certain point where I tackle you. And [eternal life] is more important than that.”

So, let me ask you, pastor, counselor, teacher, parent, friend . . . how much do you have to hate the people in your life to believe that the most important thing in the whole world is to fear the Lord, and yet not proselytize them?

In the words of an atheist, “How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?”

The very core of biblical discipleship is a disciple of Christ who follows Christ and does his very best to convince the other people in his life to genuinely follow Christ too.

Now, of course, I’m not talking about manipulation, I’m not talking about behavior management, I’m talking about evangelism and discipleship.

But the problem is that we too often take all of our talk time with the people in our lives discussing sports and grades and chores and friends and entertainment, but we rarely discuss how the fear of the Lord must not only be the most important aspect of all of that, it must be the very root of all of it.

And we do this primarily because we do not fear the Lord as we should. 

II Corinthians 5:11 says, “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.”

For those of you who heard the What Is Worship? Series, you should recognize this as a reality of Unified Worship. Split Worship only partially glorifies God because it results in me obeying God in every way except my responsibility to disciple others.

However, Unified Worship pleases the Lord entirely because we’re growing as Faithful Followers of Christ as we help those around us to do the same.

So, part of the reason we will persuade others to fear the Lord is that God is worth it, and the other reason we do it is we believe . . .

3. There are Consequences for Not Fearing the Lord

Romans 3:10-18, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving, The poison of asps is under their lips; 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16 Destruction and misery are in their paths, 17 And the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

And never forget the words of Romans 1:18-32. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them . . . . For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

These passages show the results of people who know and understand certain divine truths, but they don’t wisely live in the reality of them because they have chosen not to fear the Lord. Instead of ascending the mountain of God, they’re using the Discipleship Spiral to glorify self.

And the consequences are so sad.

So we need to fear God, and we need to convince others to fear God because He’s worth it and because of the consequences if we don’t, but also because . . .

4. The Blessings of Fearing the Lord

These following verses are powerful in that they contrast the blessings of the fear of the Lord with even more consequences of despising Him.

Proverbs 10:27, “The fear of the Lord prolongs life, But the years of the wicked will be shortened.”

Proverbs 14:26-27, “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, And his children will have refuge. 27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death.”

Proverbs 15:16, “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord Than great treasure and turmoil with it.”

Proverbs 16:6, “By lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, And by the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.”

Proverbs 19:23, “The fear of the Lord leads to life, So that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil.”

Proverbs 22:4, “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord Are riches, honor and life.”

Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.”

And consider Acts 9:31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.”

We will never experience any lasting, genuine, and worthwhile spiritual success in this life if we do not fear God.

This is so amazing that I want to take a minute to pull out some sub-points of the blessings of fearing God.

A. The Fear of the Lord Helps Us Learn Better

Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Proverbs 1:29, “Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the Lord.”

When we start with the fear of the Lord, we will approach learning very differently. This is why so many people who don’t fear the Lord hate learning. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

But also . . .

B. The Fear of the Lord Helps Us Understand Better

Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

And Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.”

And this is why . . .

C. The Fear of the Lord Helps Us Live Better

Proverbs 9:10 again, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Proverbs 15:33, “The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, And before honor comes humility.”

We and our disciplees may be able to achieve Didactic Wisdom without fearing God. We may put a man on mars or transplant a heart, but we will lose our souls if we don’t fear God. We need Divine Wisdom, and that only comes from the fear of the Lord.

But — in all of this — we’re also going to have to believe that . . .

5. The Fear of the Lord Requires Work

The mountain of God is much higher and requires more of us than the mountain of self. When we choose to ascend the high biblical expectations of God, we will immediately realize that we can’t do it in our own power. And the same is true for our fellow disciples.

It’s one thing to share the facts, the benefits, and the consequences with them. It’s another to actually teach them how to fear the Lord.

We’ve read Proverbs 2:2-5 many times now: “My son, if you will receive my words And treasure my commandments within you, 2 Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; 3 For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; 4 If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will discern the fear of the Lord And discover the knowledge of God.”

We need to teach others how to search for the knowledge and understanding of God that will result in the wise application of the fear of the Lord.

The Hebrew word for “seek” refers to searching, investigating, begging, and even demanding.

We need to teach our students and friends and coworkers and family how to be so passionate for the will of God that they demand to know more so they can understand better so they can live more holy lives.

But — I’ll tell you this — they won’t even think to live that way if they’re not seeing it demonstrated in us.

If we don’t need it, why do they?

But if they see our passion and our spiritual maturity and our spiritual successes in Christ, that will be a much more persuasive argument for the fear of the Lord.

Therefore, we must model for them and teach them the hard work of fearing God. And that includes . . .

A. To fear the Lord we must turn away from evil. 

We must not tolerate evil anywhere in our lives. Any and all sin — the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, the Pride of Life, sins of omission, sins of commission, highhanded sins of rebellion, naive sins of ignorance — we must turn from it all. No sin is okay. We don’t excuse it, we don’t lie about it, we don’t tolerate it, we mortify it. That means that we put it to death.

Proverbs 3:7 says, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.”

The fear of the Lord is not only going to cause me to turn away from the evil outside of me, it will cause me to turn away from the evil inside of me. This includes our natural fleshly beliefs, thoughts, desires, feelings, actions, and words.

Proverbs 8:13 is really powerful: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.”

Do we hate pride and arrogance, perverted mouths, and evil ways?

And — in case you’re unsure — godly hatred is not unloving. It’s not hateful. Hating evil does not excuse rudeness and wickedness and being a jerk and arrogance and the like. 

But not only are we to turn away from evil in the form of behavior, we must also turn away from the people who are evil.

Proverbs 24:21, “My son, fear the Lord and the king; Do not associate with those who are given to change.”

The idea of being given to change refers to inconsistency — people who don’t act faithfully and persevere in righteousness.

And this admonishment has to start with Proverbs 23:17, “Do not let your heart envy sinners, But live in the fear of the Lord always.” 

If I fear God, I’m not going to envy people who don’t fear God.

And unfortunately we don’t have the time to talk about how we are to be in the world and not of the world, how we are to separate from those who claim to be children of God but who live like children of Satan, but we’re supposed to reach out to the lost. We just don’t have time to talk about the different between fellowship and being a friend, the difference between influencing and being influenced.

So, let me say that the idea of not associating with people given to change has mostly to do with not being in a relationship where they are influencing me to sin as they are.

But turning from evil will always be incomplete if we do not also go the opposite direction.

B. To fear the Lord we must turn to righteousness. 

Turning from sin to the Savior — turning from evil to righteousness — is known as repentance.

But so often we’re so focused on what we and others are not supposed do that we don’t discuss the right things to do. 

I look forward to another series I plan to do in the future which is about the 5 Jobs of a Discipler. In that study we’ll see the importance of telling people to stop doing wrong and the necessity of teaching them to do right.

Consider II Corinthians 7:1, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

That is the grand and glorious end of what it is to fear God — perfecting holiness.

If we’re fearing God, we’ll be growing in our holiness. If we’re not growing in holiness, we’re not fearing God.