Contending Against Idols: Round 4 Chris MacDowell VS. Leisure

Good afternoon. Before we begin, let's pray, shall we? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you.

We thank you for this time where we are able to gather together and again to hear your word and to hear your people speak your word.

Lord, may we learn. May we apply these truths to our lives. May we not fall prey to these idols that are surrounding us in our culture and calling to our own heart.

May we honor and glorify you in all that we say and do. We pray this in the name of our

Savior and King, Jesus Christ, and all his people said, Amen. I would ask you to turn to Proverbs chapter 24, and we're going to read verses 30 to 34.

I'll be mentioning a whole lot of scriptures, but this is where I'm anchoring this talk.

Hear the word of God. The theme of our conference has been contending for the faith against the cultural idols.

And my topic is the idol of leisure. And this was the passage that first sprang to mind as most fitting to anchor this discussion.

I think there's a greater depth here than most of us would realize and are aware of.

And so I'm using it, I'm going to get to it more later, but I'm hoping that this proverb will serve as a reminder to you of this little talk that we have and be a good future reference to the danger of the idol of leisure.

Before I really get started, let me say a word about leisure.

Leisure in and of itself is not evil. It's actually something quite good and necessary.

However, when we lose the proper perspective of leisure, when it becomes detached from its telos, that is, its purpose, that's when it becomes an idol.

And the worship of this idol, like the worship of any other idol, will lead to our destruction.

And so my outline for this talk has three main points. The telos of leisure.

Leisure as an idol. And then the telos made possible. So let's discuss the telos.

That's just a Greek word. It means the purpose, the end, the goal. What is leisure?

The simplest definition of leisure is free time. But free time from what? From work and necessity.

Necessity is like eating and sleeping. It's a time for rest and refreshment.

The very first example of leisure was given to us by God on the seventh day of creation.

In Genesis 2, it says, And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the 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.

In Exodus 31 .17, also talking about this topic, it says, Now of course you know the

Lord didn't need the rest. The Lord didn't even need to create the world in six days.

He could have done it in a moment. Yet he structured the world and the week in this way for our sake.

The Sabbath was given to mankind for the benefit of mankind. Jesus himself would say the

Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. But in addition to our need for a day each week of rest and refreshment, we have a daily need.

And again the Lord has ordered even creation to encourage a balance of work and rest. Genesis chapter 1, right there in the beginning it says,

God said let there be light and there was light. And he saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness.

He called the light day and the darkness night. And he made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.

So he sets this distinction between day and night, light and darkness. And of course

Jesus again, what does he say? We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work. Now of course this is a metaphor concerning his work, but the metaphor only works because it's corresponding to an understood reality, an understood truth.

We must work while it's day because at night we can't work. Now here in our modern age when we have the ability to make plentiful light, wherever we are, at any time of the day or night, we might forget that the normative experience for most of history, for most of humanity, was that they didn't work at night.

They couldn't see, right? But this was part of the created order.

God letting us know in his creation, made for mankind, that mankind was supposed to have dominion over.

It was fitting for them because man needs rest. We're not like the

Lord our God. He's infinite. He never gets tired. We are finite and we need to rest.

And God, in his created order, provides for that need. We want to make sure that we're learning these little lessons.

That might seem insignificant, might be something you just take for granted. But there's lessons being taught here by God in both what we call general revelation, the creation, and special revelation.

What God has said about that creation and what he's said about us. On the one hand, we recognize that we were created to work, right?

The Lord our God, in six days, was working to create. So we are called to work.

And work is indeed one way that we bear the image of God in creation.

We are created in his image and we're called to bear that image in what we do. But he doesn't create us to just work around the clock or merely to rotate between work and sleep.

He gives us time for leisure. He gives us free time. He actually commands it.

The fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20, says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, the sojourner who's 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. So to keep the

Sabbath holy, what does he tell us? Don't work. Don't do your normal labor, your normal toil.

Now this is the fourth commandment. And the ten commandments are known as the moral law. They compose the moral standard by which all mankind will be judged one day.

So this obligation was in effect long before the law was etched in stone on the top of Mount Sinai.

And it extends to all people, not just Old Covenant Israel. But why?

Why is there a law commanding a refrain from work instituted as part of the moral law?

Do you ever wonder why is it moral to refrain from work for a time?

Because this was not just meant to be a day of rest, but a day of worship as well.

God has created us to worship. As we speak on the topic of idols, right, we should realize that man's nature clearly demonstrates that design, that we are made to worship and we will worship.

It's simply a question of who or what are we worshiping?

But the chief end of man is what? I was just going to say it, but I want to make sure you're awake.

Leisure is good, but not right this second to sleep, right? The chief end of man is to glorify

God and enjoy Him forever. Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is

God. It is He who has made us. We are His. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

We were made to worship our God. And so in addition to the work that we do, which is meant to glorify

Him and bear His image, when we refrain from work, and not just for necessity's sake, but when we refrain from work, we're demonstrating a trust in the

Lord that He will provide for our needs. Think about the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus is preaching against anxiety, the sin of worry, and what does

He encourage the people to do? Consider the birds of the air. Consider the lilies of the field and how

God provides for them. In that moment, He's not only encouraging you to engage in leisure, take a time to stop and smell the roses, right?

Telling you to use leisure to glorify God. To remember that He's going to provide for your needs.

You don't have to work nonstop, 24 hours a day, to provide for your needs.

Ultimately, it all comes from God. We don't forget work because we know we have to provide for our needs.

But we often forget that in that work, we're meant to glorify Him. And even in our rest, we're meant to glorify

Him. So we're refraining from work as part of our obedience to Him.

And then we gather to worship, right? The Sabbath day is a day meant to be a holy convocation.

Not just a matter of obedience, but when we're worshiping, not just a matter of obedience to worship, it also serves to strengthen that most important of all relationships, our relationship with our

God. It helps us to stay in proper communion with Him.

And when we worship rightly, it also helps us to keep a proper view of God and ourselves.

We've heard all these wonderful talks that are so relevant to our need today, where relative truth causes us to forget who

God is and who we are. Yet it's all discombobulated, right? The sin of materialism, forgetting what we're about, what we're serving.

The sin of sexual morality, forgetting what we're designed for, what's ideal and what's perverse and filthy, right?

So when we worship, it helps us to remember who we are and who God is. And when the

Lord established a people for Himself, He didn't just give them the one day in seven, which is important, vital.

When He was establishing a people for Himself, He gave them a holy calendar with various feasts and festivals throughout the year.

Read about it in Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16. These times, like the

Sabbath, were meant to be not only a rest from regular labor, but yes, a rest from regular labor, but times of holy convocation, a gathering of the saints to worship

God, to remember and rejoice in all His benefits, and to enjoy fellowship with one another.

Now dedicated, formal worship is not the only thing that we're assigned in our free time.

It's not the only thing we're allowed to do. But it is meant to be instructive as to how we work and how we spend the rest of our time in leisure.

It's a regular reminder of who God is and who we are and how we ought to live. He's our

Creator, and He's not only provided many good things, including leisure, He's given us so much, right?

He's given us a beautiful creation to enjoy. There are so many things that we can do in creation to have rest, to have refreshment, and all while honoring

God. You can travel, you can camp, you can hike, you can sightsee, you can enjoy hospitality, you can enjoy socializing, you can come to conferences.

I think that's in here. You guys are sleeping on me. It wasn't that funny, but a polite little chuckle.

No, I'm just kidding. All right. Times of celebration, right? Weddings, parties, celebrating birthdays, celebrating homecomings, right?

Celebrating victories, music, dancing, feasting. We can pursue knowledge.

We can enjoy reading. We can enjoy storytelling. We can do so many things, play games, physical recreation.

The list goes on and on and on. It would be impossible to exhaust it. Just sharing all the different things that we can do during our times of leisure.

The point is that God's Word makes it clear that leisure is both a gift but also an obligation.

And we are instructed that when it comes to our time apart from work and necessity, there must be some time set apart for formal, dedicated worship to the

Lord our God. But even those times that aren't must still be used in a way that is honoring to the

Creator. 1 Corinthians 10 .31, right? So whatever you do, you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Colossians 3 .17, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the

Father through Him. 1 Peter 1 .15 -16, But as He who hath called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written,

You shall be holy, for I am holy. These are not quaint little pietistic sayings.

They're a call to action. They are a reminder to live consistently with our identity and our calling in every area of life.

Think of our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ. He too engaged in times of leisure.

How many dinners was He an invited guest, where He enjoyed feasting and socializing with the people around Him?

Going to a wedding, providing wine to keep the festivities going.

Jesus engaged in leisure. But He never stopped being Jesus. He never stopped being

Christ. He never stopped being the Holy One of God. And likewise, we too, when engaging in leisure, we don't stop being

Christians. We don't clock out our days done. The rest of the time is for me, right?

So, having given a biblical basis, looking at the Word of God to prove that the telos, the purpose of leisure is a

God -given gift to mankind, meant for our rest, meant for our refreshment, meant for our benefit to glory and enjoy

God and to enable us to work to His honor as well. It's a gift with some clear parameters of how it's to be utilized, enjoyed.

Even though there's a plethora of activities that fall under the umbrella of leisure, there's still those guidelines provided by God in pattern and preset.

So, let's consider the second point. Leisure as an idol. How does leisure become an idol?

As I said earlier, when we lose our perspective on leisure, when it's detached from its telos, its purpose, we lose all sense of balance and it quickly usurps the throne of our heart that only the

Lord our God should occupy. And you might think that seems a little extreme. But if we corrupt the gift that God has given us, isn't it obvious that our desire for this thing begins to make demands on us which we readily obey even in that moment?

We're dishonoring God. We're not obeying God. Now, this could be a fleeting, momentary sin.

But for others, it can be habitual behavior. Day after day, week after week, how many people demonstrate their preference for this idol over and above God who created them, over and above God who has purchased redemption with his own blood?

So, how does leisure become an idol? When we honor and serve it rather than God.

Pastor Anthony mentioned devotion. We show a devotion to our leisure, right?

And this can happen in different ways. The created order was given to us to instruct us to who we are and why we're here.

You and I have been made in the image of God. We're called to bear His image in all that we do, in the work and in the leisure. He created the world in six days and rested.

He assigned to mankind, before the fall, work. The work of exercising dominion in this world.

And so our purpose in this world is to work and to bear His image. To be holy as He is holy. To do all that we do to the glory of God.

I already covered it, just reminding us. This is what we're about. And when we rest, our rest and refreshment should be with gratitude in our heart towards God who has given us the gift of rest.

And it should be, our rest and refreshment should be conducted in a way that honors Him. But the fall.

The fall has caused humanity to deny our Creator. And so one way that leisure becomes an idol is that we take on a sinful view of work and or leisure.

Now, we don't work for the glory of God. We work for our own glory. And we generally fall into one of two ditches.

Either making an idol of work or an idol of leisure. When we have that idol of leisure, work is something that we have a growing disdain for.

A contempt for. We're going to a job we don't even like. And so this job, this work that we're forced to do is only a means to an end.

And a means to the end of being able to revel in our leisure time.

And there's anthems for this. There's songs written that you probably know, although some of these are older.

We'll see. Everybody's working for the weekend. You ever hear that one? Or work hard, play harder.

Another one. And the ever popular, it's five o 'clock somewhere. The idea is we can't wait to end the day.

We want to get to the playing, get to the drinking, get to the carousing. That's where our heart is.

This love of leisure has been encroaching more and more on the productivity at work that we're supposed to be pursuing to honor

God in whatever we do. It's encroaching on that productivity at work, that work that's meant to provide for our needs.

Not to mention pay for our leisure. Ask employers today how difficult it is to hire good help.

To get people who actually want to work. They hire people because they want paychecks.

Those people want paychecks. But many of them aren't interested in working. Show up on time, maybe.

Work hard. Above and beyond? No, I'll be paid for what I'm doing and nothing more.

Have a good attitude? I'm here, aren't I? Stay off my phone?

What is this, the dark ages? Only call in sick when I am sick? What kind of slavery is this?

And who suffers from this? We all do. And so one way it becomes an idol is that that's where our devotion is and we hate the work that we're supposed to be doing to honor

God. It can also become an idol when we pursue sinful activities. And we heard some of this in the previous conversations.

But the culture's pursuit of this favorite idol leads to idleness. It leads to drunkenness.

It leads to recreational drug use. It leads to all sorts of entertainment that grows more vile and more vulgar with each passing generation.

We were just having that talk about just how things have gotten worse over time. These are the things that the

Apostle Paul would refer to as the works of the flesh. We pursue all sorts of things now in our free time.

Pure selfishness. Purely driven for our own gratification with little to no concern about anyone else.

Especially God. But God or our neighbor. In our society, interestingly, with our discussion on sexual morality, dating has become a recreational activity.

It's no longer a thoughtful, dedicated pursuit for a spouse. For most people, it's about the fun and excitement of a new relationship or a new conquest.

Another notch on the belt. People are chasing the enjoyment of mutual attraction and the wooing and of course all the benefits of marriage with none of the responsibilities.

And what are the consequences when we pursue that sort of sinful activity?

But a society reeling from the consequences of fornication, adultery, divorce,

STDs, and of course abortion. Where little image bearers, as someone who's outside the abortion mill every

Friday, where little image bearers are being murdered by their parents simply because they're an undesired result of their pursuit of leisure.

This may be one of the most egregious examples, but it's not the only one. But the fact that it's so widespread and so accepted just shows how debauched our culture has become in pursuing the idol of leisure.

But you might say, well, yeah, but that's the world, right? But are these things just in the world?

How many Christians, how many of us, have a terrible attitude towards work?

Towards our job, our boss, our co -workers, our job. Yeah. How many of us, how many believers, engage in sinful activities as part of their leisure?

Would engage in things that if Jesus were sitting right next to them, he is, right? They wouldn't engage in those activities.

If we're to contend for the faith, we must examine ourselves to see if this idol is in our hearts as well.

As Pastor Anthony again shared, don't look out there. We'll get there eventually.

We have to look at our own hearts and see if this idol is there. Is the idol in the church in perhaps a less obvious way?

With all our technological advancements, all our prosperity, we have more free time than our ancestors did.

We have more free time than old covenant Israel did. How do we use that time?

How often do we think about our obligations in the use of our free time? And that is why

I open the talk with the passage in Proverbs. Like I said, there's a greater depth there than most of us are aware of.

So let us consider the field of the sluggard. The vineyard of the man lacking sense.

Overgrown with thorns and nettles. The stone wall broken down. Do you ever read through Proverbs and think about the spiritual application?

Do you think the Lord is only talking about earthly things? My friends, all of scripture is provided to speak to that which is both earthly and spiritual.

And as important as the earthly lessons are, the spiritual is of far greater importance, far greater.

It's eternal. That which is spiritual is eternal. And so just as adultery is constantly warned about in Proverbs as being dangerous, as being destructive, how much more so is the spiritual adultery of idolatry condemned by God?

An entire people condemned because their hearts were far from God, chasing after other idols.

The abuse of leisure in earthly matters, as we see here in Proverbs 24, has severe consequences.

How much more severe is the danger of the abuse of leisure when it comes to spiritual matters?

We as Christians are called to live our lives in service to our king. And he's not just king because he's bigger and stronger.

He's a king that purchased us with his own blood. We were created in Christ Jesus for good works, we're told in Ephesians, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We should be walking in holiness.

We should be living in fellowship with the body of Christ. And yet, how often do we fill our hours, our free time apart from work and necessity, with all sorts of activities that we elevate to the level of necessity?

With the end result that we don't have time to spend with the

Lord. We don't have time to spend with his people. This is another way that leisure becomes an idol.

When we take activities that are good, that aren't sinful, but then prioritize them to the point that it leads to the sinful neglect of our actual responsibilities.

Consider the Old Testament people and the obligation of the covenant people of God.

We talked about formal worship as being one of their obligations, right? The Sabbath and those various feasts and festivals.

But what does Deuteronomy 6 say? Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

As a reflection of their love for God, the law of God was to be on their minds and in their hearts and passed on to their children to reflect their love for God.

And at what time? During times of leisure, when you're sitting in your house, when you're resting from your work, when you're walking by the way, when you're lying down, when you rise up.

All those times of leisure are times to be meditating on the Word of God and teaching them to your family.

And how could they accomplish this? Psalm 1, the first one, says what?

Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

In a day when they didn't have a written copy of God's Word in their homes, they were expected to memorize and meditate on God's law.

When they had those times of holy convocation, when they're sitting under the teaching of the priest, they were to learn, they were to retain, and they were to teach it to their children.

Remember, survival in their day required far more laborious work than it does for us in our modern age.

Again, we have all this modern advancements to reap and sow, tractors, combines, all the work can be done.

You can cook in a microwave. Far more work for them to survive than it is for us.

But what do we say? I don't have the time. I don't have the energy.

The sluggard with the vineyard, and more than likely he didn't plant that vineyard. He's a sluggard. Planting a vineyard is a lot of work.

He probably inherited it. Yet he had an obligation to maintain it.

To protect it from danger. To keep those thorns and weeds out. To keep that wall up.

To keep animals and thieves out. To prevent erosion because they were often on hills and mountains.

So to keep the soil safe and the nutrition there, and to have the vineyard thrive, he had to take care of all these different things.

These things were given to him. All he had to do was maintain it. Look at the gift.

Look at the inheritance that our Heavenly Father has given us. How many of us have families?

And this is for the fathers especially. Psalm 128 .3 says, Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house.

Your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

Our children are referred to as little olive plants. A picture of fruitfulness.

A picture of God's blessing. How many of our children are rotting on the vine because of our neglect?

Because we don't lead them. We don't protect them spiritually in the ways that we're called to.

In our homes, there's a stone wall broken down. Our thorns and weeds filtering in and overtaking through education, through entertainment, through relationships.

And we stand idly by like Adam in the garden. When are we in a state of spiritual slumber?

What about the gift, the inheritance of the body of Christ, the church? What about our mutual obligation to one another?

Hebrews 10 .24 -25 is well known. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. We're told to not neglect to meet together so that we have the opportunity to stir one another up to love and good works.

And by the way, just like seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, stirring people up to love and good works is not done in a vacuum.

It's not done uninformed. There are so many people claiming Christ and offering nothing more than their opinions about what a good work is.

Dangerous in our day and age of relative truth. Dangerous in a day and age where the world is constantly trying to tell us what love should look like, what justice should look like, what tolerance should look like.

What does the Word of God say? What does the prophet Isaiah say by the

Lord? To the law and the testimony. If they don't speak according to this, it's because they have no dawn.

If we're not reflecting on the Word of God to inform us how we ought to live, we're in darkness even while we profess to be in the light.

So how are we doing? Are we able to build one another up? Are we building one another up?

Or are we slumbering? We have tremendous obligations to those around us that are meant to be attended to during our times of leisure.

We must delight in God's Word and meditate on it if we're to know how to raise our families and how to build one another up.

Could we live up to Paul's confident assertion that he makes about the Romans? In Romans 15 -14 he says,

I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

If we cannot build up the body of Christ because we don't have the knowledge or the inclination, because we prefer to squander our time of leisure pursuing frivolous things, then we are unprofitable servants indeed.

This is not about legalism. This is an issue of the heart, a matter of the heart.

Is the Lord God on the throne of your heart? Or is there a corrupt appetite for leisure sitting in His chair?

There are those who might be, like the people of old, working day and night just to provide the basic necessities.

This is not meant to put an undue burden on anyone. The Bible says that the slave is the

Lord's free man. He recognizes your burden and obligations and is gracious and merciful. But the free man,

Paul says, is the Lord's slave. The freedom and the time that we have is meant to be used in service to our

King and His calling on our lives. Only you can know how much time you have for sure, how much freedom you have, and how much is being spent well or not.

But as we look at our families, our churches, and then our society, we're called to be discipling the nations.

We're called to be salt and light. We're called to advance the kingdom of God. Again, the prophet said we would rebuild the ruins.

We would be called the repairers of the breach. Our society is crumbling, thorns and weed everywhere.

Are we contending for the faith? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man.

How severe will the consequences be for a nation filled with Christians who aren't evangelizing, who aren't proclaiming

King Jesus, and who aren't living in a way that's consistent with that proclamation? Look at our society.

We're on the precipice of collapse, and there could be real poverty, real want.

But how about the want of justice and righteousness in our land? How about the want of a common grace where we are living in community with one another, showing love and compassion for one another as God has called us to?

If leisure is the idol, those who worship it will be destroyed by it. If you're a believer and have corrupted the purpose of leisure in your life, you may be saved, of course, but only as through fire.

But what will you say to the Lord, your God, on that last day about how you cared for your family, about how you participated in your church, about how you sought to reach your community?

There'll be tears of joy that day, but I have to wonder, how many tears of regret will we have?

Let us be like the author of this proverb. Let us see the field, the vineyard, and receive instruction.

Now, we've talked about the telos of leisure. We've shown how easily leisure can become an idol, displacing

God as master, displacing the one we ought to be honoring and serving, even during our time of leisure.

And so recognizing just how easily and how quickly this leisure can become an idol, not only in the world, but sadly in the church as well, let us move on to better things.

Speaking of better things, let us conclude by speaking how the telos is made possible.

And of course, the answer is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, the fall has plunged mankind into ongoing rebellion and darkness.

We have lost our purpose, and though God made us upright, we have sought out many schemes.

We live for our own glory, our own selfish appetites. Leisure is just one of the many idols we serve, and each one stands condemned before a holy

God, but Christ. Christ has come to make all things new.

He has come to redeem the rebels, to purchase us with his own blood, taking on the penalty for our sin and giving us his righteousness, that we might be reconciled to the

Father, that we might have the image of God restored in us.

Sin has corrupted, tarnished, shattered that image. It's still there, but now it's rightly restored.

Now we can be what we're supposed to be. Now we can have purpose in our lives. Not pursuing vain things for the sake of vain things that are essentially nothing more than castles in the sand, doomed to collapse and come to nothing.

No, he has called us to live in blessed communion with him, to serve as citizens in a kingdom that cannot be shaken, that will never pass away.

A kingdom that we have the privilege and the power to contend for.

This is a blessed reality when we consider the mire that we're in left to ourselves.

The gospel, the good news is that if you repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ, your sins are washed away.

When we acknowledge him as Lord, as we believe God raised him from the dead, what does the Bible say?

You will be saved. Your old self, your idolatrous self, your leisurely self, crucified with Christ.

You're no longer a slave to your sin, to your selfish appetites.

You have been set free, and free indeed, to live life as you ought to.

To live life in such a way that you bring honor and glory to your

Savior, the one who died and rose again on your behalf.

Now we bear the image of the Son. Now all our work is done is unto the Lord. And even our times of leisure, of rest and refreshment are spent in a way that honors him.

Because as I said, we don't clock out from being Christians. We recognize that Jesus is

Lord over every aspect of our lives. And because those who are in Christ have been born again, and that's why they're in Christ, because they've been regenerated by the power of the

Spirit, we don't just acknowledge the truth that Jesus is Lord. We actually have the ability to live as Jesus is

Lord. To walk in those good works that we were created for. But again, it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

God has revealed to us how we ought to live. There's too many Christians just thinking, I love

God, I go to church, I'm covered. No, God has given us how we ought to live.

And we need to know that we might be like the men of Ishaqar, who understood the times and understood what they must do.

So he's given us his word. He's given us his Spirit. In Romans, we're told not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

And how is the mind renewed? Again, by delighting in the word of God and meditating on it day and night.

Are you sensing a pattern here? Taking what we learn and applying it to our lives, teaching it to our children, and sharing it with the body of Christ and sharing it with the world.

We need to be more like the early church, who delighted in gathering together with the body, breaking bread, enjoying fellowship, all the while devoting themselves to apostolic teaching and prayer.

As we look to Christ, our Savior, our example, we should be asking

God, praying to God, and asking him to change our appetites, to change our affections to be like his, like our

Savior. To pray to the Creator and ask him to change our appetites, that we would hunger and thirst for what?

For righteousness. And that we would be filled. That we would recognize that leisure is indeed a gift from God, meant to give us rest and refreshment, but meant to be time well spent.

Not time used to forget our God and our obligation to him. But this is why, again, the parameters that he's given us.

He's given us the Sabbath. It's a reason why we need to honor it and to keep it holy, because we're a forgetful people.

And the Sabbath is a weekly reminder to ourselves and our brethren, week after week, of who we are and why we're here.

But again, one day of remembrance is not enough. We ought to be like our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

Wherever they went, they would build an altar. They would build an altar. And why? Because they understood the importance of private and family worship.

They would not only worship their God wherever they went, they would teach their children to do likewise.

Think about Isaac, the promised one, the long -awaited son who came, and how

God promised to continue that line. And waiting for a wife.

And by God's providence, a wife was coming to him by the hand of his servant. And where do we find

Isaac? He was going out to the field to meditate. Not just when we gather together, but in our times of leisure where we have time to ourselves.

We should be spending time in prayer and meditation with our God. And so there was

Isaac going down to do just that, recognizing that God had provided everything for him and would provide everything for him.

And so God has given us his word, he's given us his spirit to illuminate that word, that we might recognize a pattern in precepts, that that stuff in the

Old Testament is not just there to gather dust, but to learn from just as much as the

New Testament is. He's given us each other. He's given us the body of Christ.

To live in union together. To encourage one another. To benefit and edify one another.

All of this is how the telos of leisure is made possible.

It's how the telos of everything is made possible. And so you've heard it all.

Maybe not all. You've heard a lot. The choice is before us. Will we serve the many idols of the day that surround us?

Will we serve the idols that our culture serves? The idols of relative truth, materialism, sexual morality, and leisure, or any of the host of others?

Or will we serve the Lord our God? Choose wisely. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, Lord, again we thank you.

We really don't deserve you. We are rebels and sinners. We are our hearts, as a famous theologian once said.

It's an idol -making factory. Lord, we thank you for the mercy you've shown us in Jesus Christ.

We thank you for the blood that was shed to cleanse us from our sins. The righteousness that was earned, that was given to us to wear, that we might be justified in your sight and reconciled to you.

Lord, help us to serve the one true God. Help us to serve our

Savior with our whole hearts. That we might not worship these idols.

That we might not put anything else on the throne that belongs to you. To our Savior. Father, may we honor and glorify you.

May we contend for the faith that has been delivered to us. For our good and for your glory.