Sabbath as Resistance | Garden City E6

John Mark Comer Teachings

Practicing the Way

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can we rest our way to freedom? John Mark explores how Sabbath is far more than a wellness practice—it's an act of defiance against the relentless pace of modern life. He shows how God built a rhythm of work and rest into creation itself, and how the command to Sabbath is actually a way to resist cultural forces of busyness, consumerism, and endless accumulation.

Key Scripture Passages: Genesis 2v1-3; Exodus 20v8-11; Deuteronomy 5v12-15

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the John Markoma Teachings podcast. My name is Yinker Darsin and I'm your host.
0:09.3	Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space and it's great to have you with us.
0:16.0	Today we're concluding our Garden City series on work and rest with a detailed teaching on the importance of rest and the practice of Sabbath.
0:25.6	Sabbath isn't just a wellness practice, but instead it is a defined no to the cultural forces of busyness, consumerism and digital distraction in our world.
0:36.6	So we can say a deeper, joyful yes to the life of God.
0:42.1	Here's John Mark. Tonight, let's start out in Genesis chapter 2. Thus, the heavens and the earth were
0:53.6	completed in all their vast array.
0:57.1	By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing,
1:01.2	so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work.
1:05.5	Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,
1:09.4	because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he
1:13.2	had done. God rested. Let that sink in for a minute. God rested.
1:35.0	Yeah, but you know me, I'm type A and I love my job and I really feel like God rested.
1:49.8	After six days of hard work, God himself said, okay, enough is enough. It's time to rest. The word rest in Hebrew is this word Shabbat. Can you say that? Yeah, it's where we get the word Sabbath. It can be translated to stop or to
1:57.6	cease or to be done. And it could also be translated to celebrate. The idea behind
2:03.2	the Sabbath is an entire day set aside to slow down to actually stop, take a step back,
2:12.3	and celebrate. Celebrate the world and your life in it and above all God himself. Now, the Sabbath is not the
2:25.2	same thing as a day off. Hopefully you know that by now. On a day off, you do all the work you don't get
2:30.5	paid for. You run errands. You pay the bills. You go by the bank. If you have an apartment
2:34.9	or a house, you work around that, you clean, whatever. You go shopping, you buy, you sell, you visit
2:40.1	that boutique or whatever. You play, you go out and do whatever it is you do. And that's all great.
2:45.7	But the Sabbath is something else. It is an entire day that is in the language here of Genesis 2, in the language of God,
	...

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