Celebration Sabbath

Good morning. I don't know about you, but I've been here six and a half years. I think that's the best I've ever heard. The band and you all, I'm not gonna lie, that was the best singing I've heard ever here. So thank you.

Ben, Bill, thank you for your leadership. How we all doing today? Dry. You're dry. Oh, yeah.

What a week of rain. So we're doing things a little bit differently. If you're. Maybe this is your second or third time here or your first time coming here to this church. Twice a year we have small groups and we study.

I believe we study. Study relationships in the spring. I can't even remember the past six weeks. We have been studying one particular topic that is. Well, it's part of our name, Seventh Day Adventist.

What sets us apart as a congregation, as a church is we. We worship on Sabbath. At least the biblical Sabbath. We worship on Saturday. If we go to Genesis chapter 2:1 through 3, it says, Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

But the set. By the seventh day, though God had finished his work, he had been doing so. On the seventh day, he rested from all of his work. And then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. See?

Very. From the very beginning, God had only created and instituted the Sabbath as a gift, not only for us, but also as a memorial, a capstone for creation. Now I want to invite our adults up. So we had seven groups this past. Small group.

And so I think that's the most we've ever had, at least since I've been here. So come on, come on. And we're going to invite the group. So we've asked a couple of individuals from each group to share what they have learned and experienced. So we'll try not to go over too much, but I look forward to hearing.

So come on up. Who would like to go first? Ah, Young love.

Check, check. It's on. Ah, there you go. All right. So we had a pretty good group this time around.

A couple of us missed a few classes, but we always, you know, caught up the next week or, you know, someone did it at home. I'm guilty to say I was one of those. But we did our work. And I think for me, I like to share the passage that was the most meaningful. And I think it was week three, four.

It was Matthew 11, 20, 30, said, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and I am humble in heart, and you will find rest in your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I think the part that stuck with me was the fact that he said, come to me, all that you are weary. So everyone that's, you know, tired, overwhelmed, just full of anxiety and, honestly, sometimes fear, and he said, come, take my yoke.

And I'm pretty sure everyone went over this. But, you know, the yoke is that thing that the two ox put on to plow the field, and they do it together. So he's not telling us that we're going to rest by, like, doing nothing, but we're going to work together, and he's going to teach us to. To work, to live life with him every step, every day. And that's where you find true peace.

The peace and rest doesn't just come from doing nothing, but it comes from learning to live like Jesus through him. And that was actually a verse that got me through a really tough time last year. And the fact that we were able to go through it, this series really meant a lot. So. Yeah.

Thank you, Alex. I think the concept for me that really stuck out the most was from one of the sermons. You know, growing up sda, it's always kind of like, okay, well, what am I allowed to do? How far can I go without still, you know, being within the realms of keeping the Sabbath? You know?

So I myself, especially growing up, had always struggled with, okay, well, can I watch veggietales? Can I watch. Can I watch this? Can I go play this? Can I not play this?

But I think the concept that really helped was when Bill said, like, hey, if you had just one day with Jesus, what would you give up? What would you do? And that really helped transform my way of thinking of, like, okay, now I can. There's. There's a good litmus test I can apply to what maybe I should hold off on versus maybe what I should be doing, you know, and so I think that was the most profound thing that I got from.

From this series. And so it was a really great series. You know, after, you know, we're. We're kind of here building our lives, you know, working overtime to, you know, try and afford a house. So to be able to take one day out of the entire week to really just kind of let it all go and rejuvenate yourself in the spirit has been truly transforming.

And then, as Alex said, there were a good Number of us who's not up here, we have Alejandro and Tori. They couldn't make it today. We, we have Alex Almack in the back there working the sound. And so we want to open it up. If you are a young adult and you want to get together, break some bread.

We usually grab our own meals before joining or before starting a group. So we'll have our sign up sheet next time small groups come around. If you're a young adult, please sign up and we'd love to have you. Thank you, guys. Now, Ethan, hold on.

Before you get off the platform, we'd love to celebrate good news. Is there any good news you might want to share with the congregation? As your big spiritual brother, I feel it's incumbent upon me to make sure this is shared. She said yes. So we are now engaged.

Thank you guys for all your love and prayer and support for not just me, but for Natalie and our respective families here. Truly means a lot to each and every single one of us. So thank you. Thank you, guys. All right, All right, so next we're gonna have.

Let's see who's next. I think Bill's group is next. Start coming on, headed up. Second week that we were studying, we focused on Sabbath as sacred defiance. Sometimes we just have to be intentional and just say no.

Not only do I need rest, but also the outside forces are trying to draw us away from God. And for some of us, hearing testimonies of people having to put their not only their faith, but their life, their income and everything else on the line was very, very real. So who would like to go first? Happy Sabbath, everyone.

Being a new Seventh Day Adventist, I became a Seventh Day Adventist in 2000, baptized in 2016.

You know, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you all had to say and what you thought about the Sabbath. But one thing that I know is the way I see it is that everybody does it differently. There is no, you know, piece of paper and say here, this is how you do the Sabbath and hand it out to every Adventist so we all can follow along the same guidelines. So I thought, you know, I wrestle with that. I wrestle with that a lot.

But I did, you know, Bill mentioned something in his sermon a couple of weeks ago where he said that he does this, whatever it was that he said. So I took that.

And so what I'm going to do the only way. For me, it's an inside job. It's an inside job for me. If I don't have the Sabbath in here, I'm not going to do it out here. So for me, what I'm going to do is I've decided from sunset to sunset, I'm not going to complain.

I'm not going to complain just for that time. That's the only way that I know that I can honor God. Amen. Instead of having to, you know, not go to the market or not cook or not this or not that, I'm not going to complain on the Sabbath. And that's it.

And I'm going to start there. But I have a starting point now. Thank you. Anybody else?

Scripture tells us that the Lord had the custom of attending the Sabbath, of attending the synagogue on the Sabbath. So I was very familiar with that and that's why I'm encouraged church on Saturday. But I loved learning during our last week, week six, that there's also what I, what I interpret as a mandate because it reads on Leviticus 23:3. But the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. And I thought, oh, you know, that had never resonated with me before.

So on the Sabbath day, we are to assemble and it's a sacred assembly. And so what makes it sacred? And I thought about it and I shared with the group and I know that when I come and I participate and I mingle, I'm encouraged and I learn and I'm emboldened and it feeds me. And it was just a great reminder of a to do on Saturday to have a sacred assembly.

I wish we'd have done a series like this when I was much, much younger. A lot of things to be learned here. But one thing that I want to pass on to those who are parents and have small ones at home or maybe some of our young adults who someday will be parents. It's behooven upon you to make the Sabbath special for your family. And I know that you come home from work and you're tired and you want to take a nap.

Okay, take a half hour nap and then get up and make Sabbath special. That was one thing that never happened to me in my life growing up, but something that Linda talked a lot about her dad did. He worked long hours, had a long commute in LA traffic, had 27 kids at home. I think something like that. She says it's only six.

It seemed like 27.

And he made Sabbath special for them by taking them places and doing things with them. And that's a good model for us all. Amen. All right, thank you. Tuesday, Tuesday, Bill's group.

All right, so our third week we focused on rejoicing and rest. Isaiah 58, 13, 14 says, if you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath. By the way, Tuesday men's group, start making your way up. If you keep from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight in the Lord's holy day, honorable and not doing as you please on your speaking your own words, then you will find joy in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride in triumphs on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob from the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

And so it's important to not just look at Sabbath as just a drudgery that maybe some of us experience, but to find true joy. And it sounds like in our groups we found that. Okay, go ahead.

I'm a little shorter. There we go. So I just want to say it was a delight. Just like the Sabbath should be. Huh?

The Bible tells us that the Sabbath should be a delight. And it was a delight just coming together as a group and being able to study about the Sabbath. And we also know that as brothers and sisters, this is the day that we come together. This is the family that we're going to be with when we go to heaven. So I always wait to come here every Sabbath to be with my family and my eternal family.

And that's how we should see it. We should be happy to come on Saturday to be with each other. And I just want to say that our group, your dad was here, Shane and Kaden were in our group, and we had a great time. We had really good discussions, very intellectual discussions. It was really nice.

I really loved it and I enjoyed it a lot. Okay, Anybody else?

Like Thomas said, we had really good discussions. And this topic, when I was growing up, it was. I felt the same way a lot of people did where it's like, what do I do? What do I not do? It wasn't until I studied on my own that this became clear.

Now what's interesting is that I wasn't studying the topic of the Sabbath. I was just studying other stuff. And then somehow it just. It all made sense. And then how can I express how vital this is for us?

And this was important at. This was made important in creation. And it's going to keep being important up until the end of times. Very important. It's so vital for the life of the believer that we make the Sabbath a priority.

Throughout the history of Israel, they were constantly told, keep the Sabbath holy. Consistently when they got out of Egypt when they got into the Promised land, while they were in the desert, consistently, God kept telling them, keep the Sabbath holy. Now, one thing that has helped me is that I figured, how can I do that? How can I move like that in this world when there's so much distractions, there's so many things going on? Well, Isaiah 58 helps us.

It says, honor it by not going your own way, by not doing what pleases you and not speaking idle words. So what you do, where you go, and what you speak of should be. God should be a priority in those three areas. Now, one way that helped me understand is that we should be like a sunflower. Now, you're like, if you're asking yourself, what does he mean?

I'm glad you asked. So the sunflower, while it's growing, actually tracks the sun. As the sun moves across the sky, the sunflower actually moves. When it's mature, it just stays facing east, waiting for the sun to come up. Now, I believe that all of us here now, including our elders and pastors, are still growing in Christ.

I hope so. And we're still maturing. We're not mature yet. We can't sit still facing one direction. We got to follow the sun the way the sunflower follows the sun.

So our aim on the Sabbath, it should be to face the sun at all times. So what are we doing? Where we're going and what we're speaking of should in some way shape or form honor God. It should be positive. It should be uplifting.

It should be helpful. Now, if you got something on your mind and you have to get something off your chest, that's fine. We can talk about. Doesn't matter what it is, we can talk about it. But I'm just not going to use up that time to talk about things that please me.

It's going to be more of useful. Helpful. I want to honor God. Most of us have the intentions to honor God. We really do.

And I've seen that throughout my whole life. I've been at Venice like, 90% of my life. And we try and we fail. But Christ came because we fail, and he didn't fail. So we can rest on Christ winning for us.

And our job is to obey. Christ said, if we love him, we obey. So one of the ways we obey is by keeping the Sabbath holy.

Okay. You don't have to. It's okay. No, he says a lot in the group. Yeah, I love this guy.

He's all right. So, Virginia, if you want to, come on up, I met with Virginia. Virginia here oh, there she is. Okay, come on up. Our fourth week, I believe we talked about restoring joy to the Sabbath.

And we studied a story where Jesus healed a man with a shriveled hand. And Alex kind of also alluded to the fact of. In Matthew 11:28 through 28:30, it says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

All right, Virginia, do you want to share anything?

Yes. I got to meet more intimately with Pastor. We got to share a lot of things. Most of all, I believe we talked about what is Sabbath and rest, and we. Well, I came up with.

And I'm not sure if we came up with that together, but we did talk about community. We talked about family, family in the church, how important it is, and most of all, taking the time to spend that time with family and people here in the church and maybe having lunch. I was very honored last weekend to have lunch with Annette. I've also had lunch with Evelyn, and I think we stopped doing that. I'm so glad that today we are going to spend time together as a family in this church.

Thank you. No, I definitely agree that small groups, as important as a lesson is. I'm not discounting that, though. But having interaction and getting to know one another as a group is also just as important. And frankly, why this church is, dare I say, so successful.

Because. Because we're here not just to learn, but we're also here to look out for, to cheer, to be with you in good times and challenging times, and just to be able to get to know each other. Okay. Thank you, Virginia. Thank you.

All right, I'd like to.

Let's have our women's prayer group. Come on up. For the fifth week, we talked about practicing Sabbath rhythms and. And some of you have already alluded to the fact. What does that mean?

I mean, how do we honor God and Bill again? I know I'll highlight again. He made a point of how are you going to spend Sabbath if Jesus was with you? And ultimately, is what I'm doing honoring and am I drawing closer to the Lord? Okay, ladies, who would like to go first?

I'll go first. Okay. We'll let Jenny be the.

Oh, my gosh. Happy Sabbath, everyone. Happy Sabbath. What I got out of this was it's not what you have to do on Sabbath. It's what you get to do on Sabbath, you get to hang out with your church family.

You get to do good for people. You get to just enjoy God's day. And the thing that I really, really took from this was all week we're on Hustle and Bustle and it's crazy. And sometimes we ask for peace during the week, and yeah, we get that. But on Sabbath, when you just focus only on God and you ask for the peace that only he can give you.

I mean, deep down into your soul, that's what you do on Sabbath, besides hanging out with all y', all, that's what I got. Thank you, Kenny. So two main things popped out at me. One of the main things that popped out at me in the study is that the Sabbath was so. It is so important to God that he wrote it on stone with his finger.

And that popped out at me. That's how important it is to not, you know, overlook the importance of the Sabbath. And I was teasing Juno. I'm going to take the sunflower analogy because in this I also learned, like Denise was saying, when we keep doing and facing the sun, facing what God has for us, what God wants of us, we can't go wrong. We're too focused on the do.

Do be together, do hang, you know, with one another, do read the word, do. Oh, that you need. God even made this particular day for us. We have no excuse. I don't have time for God.

The Lord made this day, set it aside and put it holy so that we can have that one on one time with Him. And there's so much to do instead of concerning with, oh, should I not? Should I not? There's so much to do. Are we in the community?

Are we helping one another? Are we calling each other to see how, you know, one another is feeling, doing this time together, to fellowship with one another. And number one is building that relationship with God. So if anything that we need to do out of anything is building that relationship with God is what's most important. And I know that the Lord wanted us to do that.

And that is one thing that we need to make sure, no matter what, we don't. For sake spending that time with him, as we still do time with each other. But it's. That is what I really found that super important. So important that the Lord wrote it in stone with his finger.

Spend time with Him. Don't forget about God. No matter how busy we are, spend that time with the Lord and we have no excuse. God even got a day and set it aside just for. For Our relationship with him.

And that stuck out to me. Okay. All right. We have a prayer group on Wednesday night, Women's prayer group, every second and fourth Wednesday of the month. So anyone who would like to come, any ladies, you're invited.

I forgot one more thing.

Sorry, guys, but the last time that we met for our group, we were talking about community and having to help the people out there on Sabbath. You know, don't just go home and do your own little thing. And us women, we have goals that we set. We're not going to tell you what they are. You guys are going to just watch and see.

And you're all going to be invited to participate. So just so you know, we have goals. Be ready.

Thank you.

All right. I'd like to invite Friday's group up. Susanna led this group this time, so come on up. The last week or the sixth lesson that we talked about was building a Sabbath culture. And Sabbath, as I think we're realizing, is not just, but also with others.

So come on up. And I just love being with my church family. Amen. So awesome. So let's see.

Okay, Susanna.

No worries, bro.

You good? No, I got it. You got it? You want to go first? Yeah, I am.

Right. Okay. All right. Happy Sabbath, everybody. Sabbath.

I wrote down what I wanted to say. Sorry.

Took me a forever to get here. All right, so go off of. Pilar was saying about feeding, feeding herself, Feeding. Right. When I was young, the Sabbath day was about eating with my father.

He would tell us, if you don't get up and go to church, you're not eating. So look at me. That's it. That's what it was all about. No lie.

All this other stuff was out the window. It was just about eating pure food. So the importance of the Sabbath day. Because back in the day, the Sabbath day meant I wanted to eat. Okay.

We needed to go to church. God created everything in six days. And on the seventh day, he rested and blessed the Sabbath day. God knew what was best for us. It's a special day to experience his love through worship, fellowship, and serving others.

That shows how much God cares and loves us. See, back in the day, that didn't exist to me at all. No lie. But now that I'm older and I accepted Christ and I see things in a different perspective now. And it's really nice.

And like everybody says, this is a. This family here, this. This church here is family. And it's really, really nice. And I enjoy these small groups because we get to know people and.

Thank you.

I was nine Years old when my parents started attending a Seventh Day Adventist. And I remember as a child, my mom made every Sabbath special. She got up extra early and made us pancakes because we didn't get to have pancakes when we were going to school because mom was working, dad was working, and that was always a treat. And being a Latina as well, there was always a lot of food at home, and people always came with us from Sabbath, from church. So just as Sergio, Sabbath somehow was related to food and family and sharing meals.

And these small groups have opened up, even though we're all in our homes, because we do this through zoom. Open up another family. Family. It extended it. So we don't share a meal, but maybe we should share a meal together.

We do share God's word. And what stood out to me is that God repeatedly says, remember the Sabbath. So as we take this small group and conclude it, I will invite all of us to make the Sabbath what it should be. Stop taking little morsels from it, and let's take the full course meal. Ooh, I love that.

All right, last thought. Happy Sabbath. So I was raised Seventh Day Adventist, and I feel like the Sabbath was very rigid when I was growing up. It was all about, you can't do this, can't do that, can't do this, can't do that, you know? And so as an adult, I kind of felt convicted because I didn't observe the Sabbath like my mom did, you know.

But as we were sharing about different things that we could do about the Sabbath, that one day I was, like, not saying anything. And so Susanna says, vaughn, I'm going to call you out. Do you have anything to say? And I was like, no. But then I said it was like I was really feeling bad about it, you know, that, man, I'm not really observing the Sabbath, you know, good enough or right, you know, or whatever.

But then I thought, wait a minute, no. We've gone to sing at convalescent homes. We've gone to people's houses. We've gone to see people in the hospital. And, you know, different things like that help people that needed, you know, furniture or needed to move.

And it may not be a consistent thing, you know, but I was there when, I guess when it mattered. So I was like, okay, I'm not so bad then.

Okay, last call. All right, thank you, Friday. Thank you. Let's go ahead and have our last group, our Sabbath afternoon group to come on up.

So as they're making their way, a couple of weeks ago, I was actually a month ago A convalescent home actually reached out to me and they would like to have some of us go and visit and worship with some of the individuals who are residing at the convalescent home. So if you are interested in doing that, please contact me or Bill. And we're setting up a time to go. So we just need to know. We can't bring everybody.

We just would not fit in there. But if you have a desire to go and worship, to sing and to maybe share a word or just to be present, let me know. Okay? All right, who would like to go?

All right. Well, good morning and happy Sabbath. Good morning. So I did write it down. I have a couple of items here.

So wait, it's about time. Praise the Lord that the Sabbath has given us this time. On that very first Sabbath that we got together, Mario, being a teacher that he is, gave everyone a post it. And he says, okay, I want you to think about the Sabbath and write the first word that comes to your mind. For me, it was time.

And I want to remember back eight years ago, it was time for me to be part of the family. So this was the time when Bill, at the time, baptized me. And so I became part of this family. Before that, I was growing up as a Catholic. And yes, it was rigid.

I keep hearing the rigidity in the Sabbath, but it was also rigid for me as a Sunday keeper. You know, there was also some do's and don'ts, maybe not at the same level. But the sad thing is I did not really come to develop a relationship with the Lord because it was more about, we have to go to church, dress this way. And there was five of us, five siblings sit there and be quiet, and no talking and no toys and no nothing. And we just had to sit there, and mom just had to give us the look.

If we didn't sit quietly, we were in trouble. When we got home, when we left the church, it was about, yes, where are we gonna go? Where are we gonna go eat? What are we gonna do? But nothing about the Word.

There was no conversation about what had just been preached. And today, here in this part of family, I do have conversations with others about the Word. I have my partner over there, Pilar, who every Monday we try to get together and we go for walks and what are our conversations? They're not worldly conversations. We continue carrying on what we learned from what we studied.

And it's been a huge blessing. And so I know there's a lot that has been said. So I'm just going to cut it short think about who Pastor always said talks about the five W's. So I didn't use them all five, but I used a few. Who.

Who is the Sabbath for? The Sabbath is about God. It's about Jesus. It's about me. And it's also about you.

How. How do I remember the Sabbath? God created the Sabbath and he said to look for it and to seek it. That's all I have to do is seek God. Why?

Why is the Sabbath important? And you've said much of it. It's a time to fellowship as a family. It's a time to fellowship with the Lord. It's a time to grow.

What do I need to do? Well, you might be saying nothing. And that is true to some level. But you know what? The other day I received an invitation and I opened up my invitation and it said, sabbath, a day made for man.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It said, lilia, you are invited to join me, God, Jesus, for a 24 hour time of Sabbath rest. Come to me and I will give you peace date Friday weekly. It's not just one day time. Sundown Friday to sunset Friday location.

Your heart and Downey sda faith and obedience will help you transform. Do you accept this invitation?

So I thought about it and I said, you know, I accept it, of course. Joyfully, I accept his invitation. I did eight years ago. And I will continue to accept his invitation today. And I am so proud to be part of your family.

And I hope that we will all be celebrating someday later on in heaven where it will be all awesome and great. So thank you and God bless you. Thank you, Dalia. Who else?

I'm looking at the sign for our study, rest without rigidity. And I see this hard bench there.

Maybe we should have chosen a hammock.

With all due respect, supposed to be rest and rigidity. So we do need rigidity. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Okay, so.

1930s Cuba and Havana.

My grandmother is introduced to the Sabbath day. She was a nominal Christian and also practice things that many Cubans do or people from the Caribbean do. Superstition, Santeria. I'm not saying she was into that, but there was some of that around. But she accepted the Sabbath day and became a Seventh Day Adventist Christian.

My mom became a Seventh Day Adventist Christian and so I became a Seventh Day Adventist Christian. That's what I grew up into, I was born into.

If I hadn't had that experience, I don't know if I would have known the seventh day Sabbath. But here we are talking about it. And here I am in analyzing and reflecting on what was shared, I think about the leaders of this congregation.

I asked Brother Edwin, Brother Edwin, how do I know that I'm not being a Pharisee? How do I know that I'm not being antinomanistic, that big word that Bill introduced? How do I know I'm not being legalistic?

Right away, Brother Edwin goes to, as we would know, to the word of God. And he says, mario, what was the example that Jesus gives you?

He attended the synagogue on the Sabbath day.

He went out and healed on the Sabbath day, which means he served the community. He read the word, he prayed, he congregated. Thank you, Brother Edwin. Brother Bill, as he introduced a week before we started this series, in a sermon about, I guess, grace, he addressed the idea of balance, antinomanistic, legalistic. We need to be somewhere in the middle.

Now, we could all discuss what that is, but that's something to look for, to look at parameters. Balance.

Pastor Chris, who just because he has a group doesn't mean he doesn't attend the other groups, attended our group. And I posed this question to the group. I asked, if you are challenged with a religious liberty issue on the matter of the Sabbath, liberty of conscience, what do you think you would do? Pastor Chris quickly kindly answered. He says, mario, that's a hard question.

It could be almost arrogant to answer that we don't know what we would do in that situation. And he shifted into the idea of being humble, being open to God's leading. Thank you, Brother Bill. Thank you, Pastor Chris. And then I thought back to Jesus.

Jesus was approached, and I talked about this a few weeks back or a week back on the Sabbath, or talking about the idea of what is the greatest commandment. And Jesus was asked by A lawyer, Matthew 22 this question, and what did Jesus respond with? Shema Uziel, adonai, eloheino adonai ekhat. And that is, hear, O Israel, the Lord is one. And then he gave the Shema, which is to what?

Love God with everything. The Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. Now, I also appreciate, because that time we had Pastor Federico with us and I focus on the idea that this is the greatest commandment. Jesus did say that, but Pastor Federico clearly said, and of course, to love our neighbor as ourself is. Is right there.

Why am I saying this? I. I don't want to use. Jesus said the commandments hang on this idea of loving God. Correct. I want to shift the word from commandment to willpoints.

It is God's will that we do not have any other gods before him. It is God's will that we do not use or that we do not make images. It is God's will that we do not use his name in vain. It is God's will that we honor the Sabbath day and set it apart, because he is our Savior. He is the One that delivers us.

He is the One that created us. And then Jesus said, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And ultimately he said, in my focus in this point, he said, if you love me, keep my willpoints. I'll use that term. So those are my takeaways.

Foundation, thank you for the leadership. We have leaders, sub leaders and participants, and we all can be placed in a leadership position. So next time we have small groups sign up to be a facilitator. Suggestion. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mario.

Got one or more.

One of the things I noticed with, I mean, why a law for a period of time? So much so it was a very beginning that was made.

A part of me also notices how closely it intertwines with our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. It's a time that we are to spend, of course, with God first with one another and to build a relationship with him first and of course, with each other.

So much so that, you know, the Lord shows himself as the Lord of the Sabbath, you know, identifying Himself as our perfect example of what we're to be doing during the Sabbath.

I mean, he gave up his time, he gave up his life, he gave up a lot of himself to the point to where he had to take time to rest apart, set Himself apart, and be in God's, in the Father's presence.

And to me, it highlights too, is that God uses the Sabbath to restore, to set a time, to, you know, turn back time, in a sense, to try and restore yourself from those previous six days. So much so that even the Lord Himself died for us to restore us. So I. I find it very interesting to the point to where I honestly feel there's something there that's more that I'm not catching. But at the same time, it's what I've noticed is also a sacrifice. He's asking for you to sacrifice your time, your wants, your desires during that one period of time to focus on the relationship that's more important.

That's, in a sense, really preparing you for what's to come. That's all I have to share. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Linda almack.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sorry.

Well, my friends, rest without rigidity is a wrap. I know some of you are wondering, well, what's next? We're going to keep you in suspense. We do have spring ball group set, but we're going to. We'll unveil that later spring.

So with that, we'll continue. I'll have a brief prayer and then we'll finish up the rest of the service. Please be sure if you were hungry, we got. Thank you.