Sabbath and Technology
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Over the next few week we are going to have a short sermon series look at the issue of Why are we often so crazy busy, or why is it that we can feel so frantic, or overwhelmed, or why do we sometimes feel like we just can’t. This overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness is this the question and we will look to the Bible to see what God’s answers are to this problem.
Now this experience has been a round a long time, but this overwhelmed busyness and hurriedness is even more pronounced than it has been and one of the reasons is because we are nudged in this direction by our culture, particularly by the technological devices that are supposed to make things easier.
Behavioral economist and noble prize winner Richard Thaler wrote a book a few years called nudge. He describes a nudge as a small change in our environment that some choices easier. Like saving for retirement. We know we should save for later on in life, yet it requires planning and self control. So lawmakers used Thaler’s idea of a nudge to reform our 401k system, and make the choice of saving easier. How did they do it?
They did it with one key change: Instead of companies asking employees to sign up for a retirement savings plan, they encouraged employers to enroll workers automatically, but offer the right to opt out to anyone who didn’t want to participate.
What happend? Well it doubled 401k participation. More than 91% of workers enrolled up from 42%.
All it took was a nudge, it does not make the choice for people, but it made enrolling in the 401k easier than not.
But not all nudges are created equal, some nudges make poor choices easier. And our culture, with our easy everywhere technology, nudges us in a direction of being overwhelmed, feeling more busy, and more hurried.
I am going to be looking at the impact of newer technology has played in this experience of hurriedness and busyness
But there is one nudge that we face, that often makes our lives more fernective
broadly on the sabbath. The way we are going about it is as we were praying and thinking about what are some needs
Because God is our creator we should embrace a life of work and rest
I am going to be looking at the impact of newer technology has played in this experience of hurriedness and busyness
FCF: Now Technology bring many good and helpful things, but when we don’t keep technology in its proper place it disrupts the rhythms of work and rest that God created us for and we end up being used by them instead of using them and when that happens we experiences more anxiety, overwhelmednees, we feel more hurried.
Omnipotent: into the night and all the time
God’s created rhythms of work and rest
What I hope we can see from God’s word this morning is that
Omniscient: All knowing w/wisdom
We don’t go away from our work, we have the oppertunity to work when we are home, and we cannot be present with people
Over the next few week we are going to have a short sermon series around the question: Why are we often so crazy busy, or why is it that we can feel so frantic, or overwhelmed, or why do we sometimes feel like we just can’t. So this overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness is this the question and John and I will be looking to the Bible to see what God’s answers are to this problem.
Because God is our creator we should embrace his rhythm of work and rest
Proposition: Because God is our creator we should embrace a life of work and rest
So first let’s look at his rhythm of work and rest.
In our passage we read
For in six days the Lord made heaven and 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.
Now let’s look at the creation in account that this passage references in Genesis
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Genesis 1:
And that goes on for six days and then we see
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.
Genesis 2:
genesis 2:
God just freed his people from slavery, they were being used by Pharaoh and they needed to lean how to work and rest as free people and not as slaves. As slaves they were treated as less than human required to work all day every day, what they did with their time was dictated by Pharaoh.
But God in his “work” in the creation account gave his people analogy. He said: “look I worked all day and at the end of the each day when I finished creating light I “rested” from the evening time until the morning, then I got up and worked all day again, when finished that I finished the next thing I rested during the evening and morning.
Then on the last day of the week instead of working, I rested. God’s creation work week is an analogy to how we should pattern our work days and week. And God is saying: because I made you and made you in my image, I am the one who gets to say what work and rest look like, not the Pharaoh who just used you for what he could get from you.
With the creation account, set in opposition to the forced labor of Pharaoh, God’s gives people his rhythm of work.
Illustration:
Early this summer we had to have a tree taken down in our yard. So the tree cutters came and and took down a huge tree in our yard. And instead of having them haul away all these blocks wood left over I had him leave it so I could chop it up for fire wood. So after they were gone I got my ax and feeling very manly I went to chop firewood. And what I learned very quickly is that chopping wood is not about just swinging the ax, but requires some technique. After some exhausting trial and error it was clear that the most effective way to chop the wood is to chop with the gain of the wood. When you chop with the gain it splits much more easily, and is a whole lot less toilsome.
Application: When we embrace God’s rhythm of work it is like we we are chopping with the grain of creation. And when we are out of line with his rhythm of work and rest it is like we are chopping against the grain. And when we chop against the grain in this way what happens is we experience an overwhelmed busyness, a frenetic pace, and a hectic life.
God’s pattern is to work for part of the day and rest in the evening, and then one entire day we rest.
One of the reasons this is hard for us to do is because technology while offers so many benefits it also provides us with an ever present nudge to work, and to push against the grain of how God created us. Take a simple example: when evening comes, it does not have to be evening for us because we have this amazing technology where we can just flip a switch and voila it is day. And we can keep working. Before electricity you had to burn the midnight oil which was very costly thing to do.
We also have the nudge of the ever present smart phone and laptops, and the availability to be always on and connected. So there you are reading to your kid before bed and ding goes the email and you are nudged and your attention is taken away. You are nudged, who or what could that be? And of course the default setting on our phones apps is to notify us of every possible thing.
And of course the default setting on our phones apps is to notify us of every possible thing.
So you put you kid to bed and then go and read the email and it is a problem, so maybe you try to resolve it and then go to bed, or you don’t try to resolve it, but you just worry about it and can’t fall asleep.
In either case the evening that is meant for rest and time with family, friends and neighbors is spent working or preoccupied and real rest is as illusive as the early morning fog.
So what do we do about this? How do we have embrace God’s rhythm of work and rest?
Well, one way to do this is to disconnect from devices for at least one hour a day, one day a week. And if you are in a situation where you need to be available, put it in another part of the house and go and check it once or twice during the day.
Turn off the nudge from technology so that it is not the easy choice, set your self up to embrace God’s rhythm of work.
Technology which promises to make work easier often makes it more toilsom
Technology says, you don’t have to be done when the sun goes down. You don’t have to be done when you go home. You can always be on, always be available.
We should also embrace his rhythm of rest
Look with me at
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ”
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and 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.
Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ”
And then look
They were embrace God’s rhythm of word and rest by observing the Sabbath as a sign and the experience of resting on the Sabbath is refreshment. The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely. The sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness.
They were embrace God’s rhythm of word and rest by observing the Sabbath as a sign and the experience of resting on the Sabbath is refreshment. The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely. The sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness.
They were embrace God’s rhythm of rest by resting on the Sabbath and being refreshed. The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely. One way of thinking about Sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, hurriedness, and anxiety.
They were embrace God’s rhythm of word and rest by observing the Sabbath as a sign and the experience of resting on the Sabbath is refreshment. The Hebrew word for refreshed there means to recover or more literally it means breath freely. The sabbath alleviates our shortness of breath, or our overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness.
Now here is where this gets difficult for us, because not all rest is created equal. One reason for this is because as Andy Crouch shows we have all too often traded rest for leisure. What he called a fruitless escape from work. Leisure is a kind of rest that does not refresh our souls and does not deepen our relationship with God and neighbors. Leisure is a kind of rest that requires others to work on our behalf. We try to entertain ourselves.
And for us it is real easy to buy a kind of rest that is not soul refreshing.
resting or refreshed we don’t experience breathing freely, but experience a shortness of breath.
This year there will be over 500 new scripted TV shows. 10 years ago there was less than 200. You know when the CEO of Netflix was asked who their biggest competitor was he was asked: what is Amazon? or HBO? He said neither, Netflix biggest competitor he said, get this: sleep. Netflix competes against our sleep.
So overwhelmed busyness, or hurriedness
But we are not just nudged by TV, more so now it is our phones and social media. And the goal of social media is to keep you on as much as possible.
Because as it has been said: if it is free, you are the product and the more you are on, the more revenue Facebook and Google make from ads. So everything about social media designed to keep you on to keep you scrolling. As one person described social media, it is like a lobster trap with your friends as bait.
And there is a strong connection between social media use and anxiety the very opposite of what it means to be refreshed.
Our TV’s and smartphones are always present and always nudging us to exchange rest for leisure.
Application:
So what are you to do? Throw out your TV and go back to your old Nokia? Well I don’t know if that is the answer. But what you can do is change the nudges in your home, so that the easy options are the ones that move you into more refreshing relationship with God and your neighbors.
For you that may mean not having a TV in the most comfortable part of the house so that the room you want to be in, you are not nudged to flip it on.
But if you are watching TV every evening, maybe you do take time off. You will only feel crazy for about 1-2 weeks of no TV. Or maybe you move the TV to a room that is not as comfortable, so that you don’t feel the nudge to mindlessly flip it on.
Of if you are always connected to social media, maybe you leave your phone downstairs or in another room during the evening.
I don’t know what it will look like for you, God has given us a lot of freedom and room to be creative in how we go about resting.
But what I do know is that Netflix, cable, social media, are all vying for our attention, and promising a refreshment and enjoyment that they cannot deliver on. Entertainment can provide an escape, but it cannot refresh or souls. Entertainment in its proper place is good, but if we try to entertain our selves trying to get Sabbath rest, we will only end up board, and then feel more hurried or overwhelmed because we will not have had rest.
This is where it really gets us we don’t know how to rest
And God gave us his Sabbath rest to deepen our relationship with him and others.
Technology does not help us rest. Leisure is not real rest.
Conclusion:
The Sabbath is described as sign of his covenant love. It was a sign for God’s people that they do not belong to Pharaoh to be used by him. He is not the one who gets to dictate what they do with their time. It was God who led them out of slavery, they no longer belonged to Pharaoh, but to God, their creator.
You see when we embrace God’s Sabbath rhythm of work and rest, it is like we are putting out a big sign post that says we don’t belong to our jobs, I am worth more than what I produce. It is a sign that says our attention is worth far more than what the highest bidder is willing to pay Facebook. That your value is worth more than what you consume, your value is grounded in God himself.
And just like God rescued his people from the hand of Pharaoh through the Red Sea, so Christians have been rescued through the cross of Jesus. So the Christian does not belong to any Pharaohs out there, does not belong to any government, or corporation, or the highest bidder. A Christian belongs to Jesus body and soul. And Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath says you are free. Our technological culture nudges in the direction of being overwhelmed, and hurried, but Jesus out flanks our culture and invites us every day and every week into his Sabbath rest, to breath deeply and be refreshed.
The answer to our overwhelmed, hurried, anxious souls is found in the refreshing rest of Jesus, the lord of the Sabbath.
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