Hi, I am Tommy Colin with the Worship Factor Ministry, and welcome to God Today. Today, I want to talk to you about our Sunday worship, our Shabbat and what it really means to us. I started to think about that when I was in church on Sunday, and I saw that people were coming late to the service, or they were leaving early before the end of the service, or just at the end of the service, they would rush out because they were so busy and they had something to do, they had shopping to do or even work to do. So they really were on a schedule. And then I started to think, are we missing something here about the Sabbath? What is really Shabbat for us? Could it be that Shabbat is actually a gift to us, not something we need to do, but something we have, a gift that we need to receive, to accept, to unpack and to enjoy. And it’s really what it is, actually. Shabbat is a blessing to us, and I want to share a scripture, right from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1, where God is actually revealing something about His nature. And it says, verse 31, “And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning — the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”
So God made a work and it was very good. It was finished and He rested. And that’s why He made this day holy. And actually God is inviting us to imitate Him in the same way to really rest. And to really say, stop, we take time here. And it’s really a time to remember that has been given to us. And to remember what? To remember this: to remember that God is good, that His creation is very good, to remember that you have been made by God and you are very good. I am very good. We are all very, very good. And we need to remember that this is where it all started. And of course, we know that in the story of the Bible, there’s going to be some issues also, but at the origin, we are made in a very good way, and God is calling us to stop and to remember that. And it’s almost a revolutionary message today, because here I’m in the north of the world in Finland and really work is the value. You’re valuable because of your achievement, your social status and things like that. But actually God is calling us to stop and remember, hey, you are valuable because I made you and this is where your real value is lying. And, we need to remember that.
And also this world is always calling us to have more, to want more, to do more. And God is saying something else actually. He’s saying, “No, my work is finished, I’m enjoying it, I can rest now.” And He is really calling us to this idea that a God who knows when to say enough, actually, and we need to follow Him also in that this is enough. Things are enough. I have enough, I can stop here. So brothers and sisters, like we need to receive this Shabbat. And this was really a revelation for me, that Shabbat is really a gift, a blessing. And I need to protect the Shabbat, because this world is dragging us always in the other direction and saying, there is no time. There’s no time to rest. You need to be busy, busy, busy. But God is calling us to a place of rest, to a place of peace, to really celebrate and enjoy His creation, and we are part of it. That is very good, and we need to remember that.
So I want to pray for us to go in that direction. So Father, help us, my brothers and sisters and myself, like to really come on your holy day to really take time, to really put everything aside, to really have this place of rest. This place of peace, this place where we finally take time and remember how good you are, how good we are, because you have made us and how valuable we are, and very good, because you have made us. And to really remember that your creation is good. And to celebrate the successes you give in our lives, the blessings you give in our lives, and this relationship we have with you, and to really celebrate that relationship and celebrate our joy in Jesus Christ. And I pray everything in His Name, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.