Why You’re Still Exhausted|09.14.25|Beating Burnout pt.2

I have always been the type of person who finishes his plate of food. I’ve been married to Megan for over 11 years, and it still amazes me how she can leave a corner of toast on her plate at the end of breakfast, or a little dollop of rice and vegetables with a single bite of chicken…left on her plate, alone in the cold.

Meanwhile, my plate barely needs to be washed before being put away because I have hunted down every last grain of rice and licked the entire plate CLEAN as if I was a starved animal who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from.

It’s RARE for me to push back from a plate that still has food on it with contented peace, knowing I have had “enough” and can rest.

When was the last time you experienced that contented feeling? Where you could sit in contentment, truly resting because you are at peace?

For too many of us, the most common experience is one of endless DESIRE: always looking for the next thing, the next meal, the next purchase, the next project.

And that’s one of the core truths about desire: it’s never satisfied.

A thousand years before Jesus walked the earth, the writer of Ecclesiastes said, “The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing.”

A more recent philosopher put it this way: “I can’t get no satisfaction.”

No matter how much we get…it’s never enough.

And the culture around us just reinforces this endless pursuit and hunger.

There used to be a time when the television channel would stop for the night, but that’s been replaced with an endless supply of 24/7 media.

At work, we have endless emails and insatiable work quotas. You never “finish” your work…you just stop for the day, knowing there will be more when you come back tomorrow.

And in our personal lives, weeknights and weekends fill up because there’s always another kids’ sports schedule, always another load of laundry, always another repair project around the house.

And so our only escape is the endless scroll on our phones, constantly hungry for a new video, a new recipe, a new item on Amazon.

And marketing departments the world over know exactly how to design each of the 4,000 ads we see each day so that we are left unsatisfied. That way, we’re ensured to be constantly chasing…more money, more clothes, more things, more square feet, more experiences, more relationships…more, more, more. But it’s never enough.

As another modern philosopher sang, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

Rest, contentment, peace…is always JUST out of reach.

Is there a way off the hamster wheel? Is there an antidote to this endless craving that is leaving us sick?

According to the Bible, yes. God has given us Sabbath.

Today, we’re going to discuss the fact that Sabbath is how apprentices of Jesus wage war on the endless pursuit of more, the restlessness that leaves us forever unsatisfied.

[Four steps of Sabbath]

Previously, we talked about how the Hebrew word shabbat has four aspects, like the facets of a diamond: stop, rest, delight, and worship. Last week, we talked about making space to STOP. This week, we’re going to look at Rest.

Now, when most people hear “rest”, they think nap, vacation, couch time. And those can be good ways to get physical rest. But just like we mentioned last time, we don’t just need physical rest, and Biblical rest is about more than just physical tiredness.

[Genesis 2:2-3]

When God created the Sabbath, we see that his final act of creation, after creating all there is, was to CREATE a rhythm of work and rest, setting aside one day out of every seven as holy, special, for a specific sacred purpose.

God created REST, God created Sabbath, as an integral part of creation. Work is good, but work is incomplete without the rhythm of rest that God created.

[Matthew 11:28-30]

And we see Jesus reinforce this with his invitation in Matthew 11: “Come to me, all you who are weary and I will give you rest for your souls.”

Because resting from physical labor is not the only thing we need. We also need to rest from the Worry that comes as a result of our work.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel suggests that when the Sabbath command tells us to do “all our work” in six days, that means that we rest on the seventh day as if all our work is actually done, not letting the worries of future tasks burden us during the Sabbath. Therefore, he suggests that we rest from even thinking about work.

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Sabbath rest is an invitation to rest from Work, to rest from Worry, but it’s also an invitation to rest from Wanting: the consumer culture that we’ve already talked about that keeps us chasing, keeps us desiring, never satisfied…enslaved to the pursuit of more.

And it shouldn’t surprise us that God knew the type of deeper rest we would need, even in this modern world, all the way back when he established Sabbath as a part of the way of life in his kingdom.

[Scripture Ref]

So turn with me to Deuteronomy ch5, (p126). Now, if you remember from last week, we looked at when God first gave the Ten Commandments, as told in Exodus 20.

That happened right after God’s people had been rescued from Egypt, and he was establishing what it meant to be his people. They had spent 400 years under Egyptian culture and religious practices. So Yahweh God needed to retrain his people how to be his people.

Deuteronomy picks up decades later, as the people stand on the edge of the Promised Land. The first generation that had escaped Egypt had all passed away, and this generation was their children.

So God again takes time to re-establish what it means for them to be his people, right before they go into the Promised Land and drive out the other peoples living there. Let’s read it together…

[Deuteronomy 5:12-15]

[Ten Commandments] side by side

There are two differences between the Sabbath command in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5. The first is a small difference: in Exodus, it starts with “remember the Sabbath,” but here in Deuteronomy, it says “Observe the Sabbath.”

In Hebrew, the word for “observe” is shamar, which means to keep watch over, to guard. We do this today whenever we observe a holiday, a holy-day, like Christmas or Easter. We guard it. We make it special and unique.

That’s the idea that God is getting at for Sabbath. It’s supposed to be kept like a weekly holiday. We’re supposed to guard it as special so that it doesn’t get glossed over like any other ordinary day.

That’s change one. The rest of the command is pretty much exactly the same, until you get to the end, where there is a MAJOR change.

In Exodus, the command ends with “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

But in Deuteronomy, it says, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm…”

Same command, but a totally different reason BEHIND the command.

In Exodus, the command is grounded in the story of creation. “This is how God created everything, so keep his rhythm.”

But here in Deuteronomy, Sabbath is grounded in the story of liberation, rescue: “You were (PAST TENSE) slaves in Egypt,” but you’re not slaves anymore!

Last week, we talked about rest as a rhythm, but this week, we’re looking at how rest is resistance. Give me a chance to explain it.

[Exodus 3 excerpts]

When we read the Exodus story of what conditions were like before God’s people were rescued from slavery, we see restlessness on display. Just look at how Pharaoh drove the slaves so hard:

“...why are you taking the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!”5v4

“Let heavier work be laid on them; then they will pay attention to it and not to deceptive words.” 5v9

“[Pharoah] said, “You are lazy, lazy; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord .’ Go now and work, for no straw shall be given you, but you shall still deliver the same number of bricks.” 5v17-18

Even if you haven’t read the whole story, you can see just from these excerpts that Pharaoh is a cruel tyrant. And the slaves are only valued for what they produced, which was never enough. No rest for them…just more, more, more.

Pharaoh got to rest. Pharaoh got to enjoy a lavish, opulent lifestyle. But that was only made possible by the abuse of cheap labor. So, no rest for the slaves. Slaves work all day, every day, until they die.

But when God set them free, he re-established rest for them. So the command is to REMEMBER, “You WERE slaves in Egypt, but you’re NOT anymore.” You’re in a new kingdom, under a new king. Your value is not in what you produce.

And while you experience this freedom of no more daily quota, no more slavedrivers over you…remember to never become a slavedriver yourself.

That’s why the Sabbath command lists out the male and female servants, the foreigners, even the animals. Under the Sabbath, all are equal and equally deserving of rest.

And I’m trying to convince you that we need this practice more than ever because we still live under the tyranny of modern-day Pharaohs.

I learned from Pastor John Mark Comer that Egypt has long been used as an archetype for empires down through history. And if you look on the back of an American dollar, what do you find? A pyramid, a symbol for empire. This pyramid has 13 levels for the 13 colonies, but it’s unfinished, showing that America isn’t done yet…there’s a desire for MORE.

Which is why the average American works more hours than any other nation in the world. It doesn’t matter that technology has given us things like dishwashers, and GPS, and microwaves…you know, these “time-saving” and “labor-saving” devices that were supposed to take over the menial tasks so that we could live like the Jetsons.

But in the last 60 years of innovation, we actually have 37% LESS leisure time now than most Americans did back in the 60s and 70s. We work more than ever before.

And, we HAVE more than ever before. Lowball estimates say that we now spend 2-3 times more on goods and services than previous generations did in 1945, our homes are now three times larges and full of more than twice as many items.

Did you know that the average home in America has over 300k items in it? Not just rich people…the average home. And on top of that, we now have 2.3 BILLION square feet of self-storage space.

But in spite of that, we’re unhappier than ever before. According to sociologists, happiness levels peaked in the 1950s and have been in decline ever since. Pastor John Mark Comer points out that the timeline coincides with right around when Blue Laws were phased out, and the “Lord’s Day”, or the Sabbath, was secularized into just being the “weekend.”

We work more than ever before. We HAVE more than ever before. But we’re still less happy than ever before. It’s Egypt all over again.

But it’s too easy to get sucked into the culture, isn’t it? To be convinced that you HAVE to work those extra hours to get ahead. That you HAVE to reach that certain standard of living to be happy. That you HAVE to own that certain number of shoes, that certain type of truck, that certain amount of square footage.

We HAVE to find good deals online, even though we’re pretty sure it’s only that cheap because of labor practices that abuse people less fortunate that us around the world. “Oh well, that’s just how it is…”

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Because Sabbath rest is an act of resistance. It’s a rebellion against the forces of empire that oppress us and others.

Sabbath is a way of speaking with your body, with your schedule: enough.

Enough work. Work is a good thing, but it’s not THE thing.

Enough striving. Ambition without control becomes the controller.

Enough stuff. Stuff isn’t bad, but most of us have more than enough.

Enough screens. 40 years ago, a book came out about the desctructive nature of TV and show business called, Amusing Ourselves to Death. How much more true is it now?

[Sabbath is how]

No, Sabbath is how we wage war on the addiction to accomplishment and accumulation. Regularly practicing Sabbath breaks us FREE from the enslavement of accomplishment (what I do), and accumulation (what I have).

Later in the OT, there are guidelines about not buying or selling on the Sabbath, because it then becomes this practical rebellion against the forces of empire.

One pastor I know says that his family tries not to shop or even talk about what they WANT more of on the Sabbath. Instead, it’s a day to practice gratitude and enjoy that God has already provided for them.

A few weeks ago, when Megan and I were trying to reestablish our Sabbath practice, I had to put my phone away in the drawer for a bit because I kept thinking of all the things we “needed” and I got stuck scrolling through Amazon for things to add to our cart.

Now, is it a sin to add things to your amazon cart? No! But on the Sabbath day, when God was inviting me to rest in him and draw near to him and experience the contented peace that comes from receiving his love…I was in a scrolling frenzy, desiring things I didn’t have yet as if THEY had the answer for the hole in my heart.

[Rest to resist]

But Sabbath is a practical way to fight the frenzy. Sabbath helps us wage war on the cultural addictions that have enslaved us. Sabbath rest helps us RESIST the endless pursuit of satisfaction through “getting more.”

So how do we DO that? How are we supposed to learn the unforced rhythms of grace that Jesus offers, when what comes naturally is restlessness?

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Last week, I encouraged you to pick a Sabbath window, whether it was a day (like Sunday) or a 4-hour window of time, and simply practice STOPPING. Stopping work, and stopping screens.

How I try to think about it is that I want to rest from Work, Worry, and Wanting. Sabbath rest, for me, involves resting from work. And this is paid work and unpaid work. Because Sabbath isn’t just the day off where you get all your chores done at home that you didn’t have time for during the week.

So maybe that means I need to prepare the day before so that I can truly stop. So that I can truly rest (not to just selfishly lay around and ignore my responsibilities, but so that I can actually turn to God on my Sabbath and be open to him).

And this is going to be different for each of us. For some people, working in their garden is actually quite restful. Getting your hands in the dirt is a great way for you to connect with God’s gifts and be open to God.

For me, working in the garden is a chore. I hate it. I’m bad at it, it’s frustrating, and it makes me say things that pastors aren’t proud of saying.

But mowing the lawn? That’s totally restful for me. So it’s different for each person.

I rest from Work, but also from Worry. I try not to think about work. I try not to look at our finances and whether or not we’re doing good on our budget. I try not to think about all the stuff that still needs to get done.

Because Sabbath is a line in the sand that we are choosing to trust God, and not try to anxiously control our own lives under our own power all the time. So resisting Worry on the Sabbath is part of the practice that helps us become transformed by Jesus and trust him more.

But also, as we’ve said, one of the things in our culture that enslaves us is the desire for more, more, more. So Sabbath is also about resting from Wanting. So I’d suggest you resist the urge to browse, to scroll, to shop.

Instead, Sabbath is about practicing gratitude for what God has already provided for us.

Pastor John Mark Comer makes the point that accomplishment and accumulation aren’t evil. They can even be good. But they need a LIMIT. Sabbath is the opportunity to draw a line in the sand and say:

I do not NEED to work more hours

I do not NEED to make more money

I do not NEED a new car, a nicer curb appeal, or anyone else’s approval

I already have my heavenly Father’s approval. And he is a good Father who gives good gifts and takes care of me

And this isn’t an immediate change in your life. Just like with every spiritual habit, transformation takes time. And for anyone who has experience recovery from addiction, you know that addiction takes time to reverse.

So whether you’re a work-aholic, or a shop-aholic, or a scroll-aholic, or a success-aholic…we all know the pull. We’re addicted to more. But Sabbath is God’s weekly gift to break the cycle.

[Yes-aholic]

So this week, I’d like you to write down one Yes-aholic tendency you will resist with the Sabbath this week. What is the thing that God is inviting you to put down for your Sabbath so that you can better connect with him?

I can’t tell you what it is for you. And I can’t force you to do it. I just make suggestions…you make decisions. But I think Jesus is inviting you to decide to obey him with this this week.

[Sabbath is how]

Because Sabbath is how we wage WAR on these addictions and slavedrivers. But just like the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians, our war isn’t against flesh and blood, it’s against “principalities and powers, the spiritual forces of darkness.”

And it’s going to be a fight. Because everything around us is opposed to the type of Sabbath rhythm of rest that trains us to trust God.

Everything around us is designed to keep us sabbathless, rhythmless. It’s designed to keep us going and going, wanting and wanting, more and more until our soul is hollowed out and numb.

There are forces that are at work around us to keep us enslaved and keep us from sabbath rest: racial injustice, sexism, inequality, greed, corruption on every level of politics. All of that is ABSOLUTELY animated by dark spiritual powers that are all anti-sabbath, because they are anti-God’s way of life.

So when we practice Sabbath, we are waging war, we are defying these systems and powers to align ourselves with a new kingdom, the true king, the God of Sabbath.

But in the words of Pastor John Mark Comer, Egypt isn’t just around us, it’s IN us.

In order to Sabbath, to rest, we have to resist not only the external forces, but the internal pull of restlessness that we find in our heart marred by sin. We have to resist our own greed, envy, discontentment, anxiety, addiction…

It’s a tug of war inside our own chest. We long for Jesus, but we resist full surrender.

But Sabbath helps us remember: we’re not slaves anymore. It helps us remember that Pharaoh’s armies are drowned at the bottom of the sea. It helps us remember that God is King, and he’s nothing like the tyrant Pharaoh.

The question is: will we follow him? Will we obey him? Will we resist the pull of the world and say yes to God’s invitation?

Jesus, who calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath gives us this invitation: “Come to me…and I will give you rest…for your souls.”

Isn’t that good news?