Talk
BRO. BO SANCHEZ:
This Course that will happen for seven weeks will change your life and will save some of you — your family and your health.
I need to tell you this: There are some of you in this room whose current lifestyle is depleting little by little. You don’t know it but it’s siphoning your health and your family. In a way, it’s also taking away your love, inner peace and joy. It’s collapsing the infrastructure of your life.
I’m telling you: You need this 7-week Course. So, extend your hands towards the Word, Everybody, and just sing this with me, with faith:
Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path.
God rested. But here we are acting like supermen, superwomen, acting like little gods — not resting.
I want to preach this Word for you: “Let God be God.”
Put your hands on your chest and say:
“Jesus, speak to me. Change my life. Reconfigure my schedule. But most of all, my heart. Bless these seven weeks. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path.
Happy Fathers’ Day again. I don’t have a dad anymore. He has been in Heaven for years now.
But I really thank God for Community. I said last week no one can replace a mother’s hug. And I know that no one can replace a father’s’ hug, either. One day, in Heaven, my dad will embrace me. But while I am waiting for that day, I’m surrounded by family and people I love.
Before you sit down, can you just hug some people around you? If it’s too weird for you, then don’t do it. But if you’re comfortable, then give some people a hug.
Yes, we need each other. We’re more fragile than we think we are. We think we’re strong but we’re more vulnerable than that.
Tell somebody beside you: “God will speak to you today.”
Is This You?
Raise your hand if you agree that people are tired.
Whenever I go around and I ask people, “How are you?”
One of the most common answers I get is: “I’m tired but still beautiful.” I have yet to hear someone say,
“I’m rested and I’m gorgeous.”
We’re an exhausted bunch of people. I will describe to you in one sentence the human condition today:
We normally say, “You’re so OA or overacting.”
But now, I will say, “You’re so OU– overworking but underliving.” OU is the phenomenon that is happening right now. OU is a pandemic.
Millions of people are living this way.
If what I will describe will resonate with you, raise your hand and say, “That’s me.”
But if you think that the person beside you is doing what I am describing but his hand is down because he’s in denial, I want you to get that arm and raise it.
How many of you have no energy to engage with your family when you go home because of overtime work?
How many of you are so tired at night that you just flop on the couch?
Instead of talking or laughing with someone, you’re so exhausted that you just watch something mindlessly, or you scroll through Tiktok.
Even in the middle of exhaustion, you’re still checking your messenger to see if your officemate, your customer, or your boss is asking something. And then you just fall sleep — only to wake up the next morning…
And your phone is beside you. Then, the first thing you do is you check your phone. Why? Because there are important national emergencies that wait for your responseJ!
This is insane. What you do is you put priority on the agenda of others– by taking your phone first thing in the morning– before you exercise, pray, and meditate.
You attend to the agenda of others before your own survival!
Raise your hand if this is you. Raise the hand of the person next to you if he’s not raising his hand.
I can hear you saying, “Bro. Bo, that’s my life but I take vacations.
Let me describe some people’s vacations…
Your vacation is that you try to cram as many activities as you can into a 24-hour schedule so that you can visit 11 tourist sites in one day. But you do not experience anything of that place because you are so busy taking 258 pictures that later, you will not even look at– because when you go home, you are so busy.
Raise your hand.
Why is that so? I’ll describe our lifestyle.
Imagine you’re driving this brand-new car. You press on the gas pedal. The engine roars. You feel that
beneath you is the power of that engine. You feel good. You go faster. It is amazing. 100 kph… But suddenly, it’s getting too fast.
So, you remove your foot from the gas pedal. You press on the breaks. To your horror, nothing happens. The car continues to barrel through the road and speeds forward. You pump the break many times. Nothing happens. The speedometer goes faster and faster… 120kph…140 kph…150kph… You’re swerving right and left like a maniac. Overtaking cars… You miss the cars coming from the opposite direction by a hairline.
My Friend, that is exactly the picture of many people’s lives today– because we have lost our ability to slow down.
There are many reasons we are overworking and underliving but here are five common reasons:
1. You’re fixing a financial crisis. Your income is just not enough for the basic needs.
Possibly, there was also a catastrophe that happened in your life. Maybe someone got sick in the family, and you had to take a big loan. You’re paying off your debt, so you take two jobs right now. You even have a sideline. You do overtime work just so you can generate more income. Or there was a fire. Maybe, you also got scammed that your life savings went kaput. Maybe someone in the family fell into gambling addiction.
I just want to warn you that if there is anyone in this room that is doing online gambling, I beg you, on my two knees on the floor, to stop that.
I’m warning the Philippines and many countries around the world being eaten up by online gambling to stop it– if you love your family and future.
A Feaster’s Story
I met a lady and I was so inspired by her story.
She had to borrow P800,000.00 from friends, relatives, and employer, for the cancer treatment of her mom. She was a school teacher and you know how much school teachers earn, right? It was really hard for her.
Even if she was already getting a full teaching load, she asked her school to give her more overtime work so she could pay her debts.
On weekends, she would tutor kids.
In the end, she told me, “Bro. Bo, I paid my whole debt.”
Now, her husband told her, “Darling, you can resign from your job now because my income can pay for both of us.”
She was able to get out of that financial crisis. She’s a Feaster and she and her husband are Ministry servants.
If you are in a financial crisis right now and you have no choice but to overwork and underlive, I want you to know that better days are ahead. Hold on to your faith.
2. You stayed in your stretch season for too long.
I was a single missionary for 18 years. Then, I got married when I was 32. I knew I was going to be in a stretch season because I was going to start a family while doing ministry. I was also starting businesses so I could put food on the table.
That was my stretch season.
I told my wife that it would be difficult for a while because I was juggling a lot of things. But what saved me from burnout and from exhaustion– even I was in my stretch season– was I stayed committed to my non-negotiables. Such as spending time with my family, with my Community, and with my God.
Whenever I spent time with my family, I thought I was doing it for them. But later, I realized that I was doing it for myself. It was for my own sanity. It saved me. My stretch season passed.
I want to share this lesson to you from experience:
3. You escape through work.
Maybe you know that there’s something wrong inside you but you don’t know what it is and you don’t want to know what it is because you don’t want to face your inner demons. You just escape through work.
To avoid fixing people’s brokenness, they distract themselves with busyness.
If this is you, go before the Lord and face what needs to be faced.
4. You get praised for overwork.
Some people carry this low-grade exhaustion like a badge of honor.
If you go around saying, “I’m tired,” people will tell you, “Wow, you’re so productive!”
But if you go around and you’re not tired, then you must be lazy.
You’re depending on someone who’s overworking while you keep on leeching off the resources of that person.
The society now praises people who overwork.
5. You’re trapped in a lifestyle you cannot afford.
This might be you. If only you throttle back your expenses, you would not have to overwork.
Maybe because we got addicted to a certain lifestyle where we are spending so much –for gadgets, clothes, travels, and so on — we just have to overwork.
When you overwork, your exhaustion is through the roof. Stress affects your health, your relationships are empty already, there is no love in your marriage, your kids don’t even know you, and your home is like an Airbnb where strangers come and go.
And if all of those are happening, you know there’s something wrong.
But since your bills are too much and you want to maintain a certain lifestyle, you have to keep on overworking because you cannot stop overspending.
So, here I am sharing with you these reasons.
Friends, if OU is a pandemic, I have good news: God has already given the antidote. It has been there for the past 3,000 years and it is called Sabbath. In Hebrew, Shabbath which literally means stop.
Genesis 2:1-3 says:
By the way, for those of you who are new at The Feast– those who are old, you’re kind of so used to this– you might be wondering why we always refer to Genesis. Those who are new, I want you to know that Biblical authors, whenever they wrote their books, they used Genesis as a lens.
So, the way to read Scripture is to always use Genesis as a lens.
Two Great Blessings That Sabbath Gives Us
1. A Rhythm of Rest
But some people may not know that rest is holy too. Work is holy because you’re building the Kingdom of God. You’re a partner in God’s work. But when you rest, God smiles. Some people need to hear that. Some people feel guilty when they rest.
In Exodus 20:8:11, we read the Ten Commandments. And in the Ten Commandments is the command to have a Sabbath:
God has installed into your schedule a specific time where you rest.
God rested! Why did He rest? Was He tired? I don’t think so. I think what He did was He was giving us a template for life.
Today, as modern Christians, we don’t think of Sabbath too much. For us, Sabbath is passé. It’s antiquated. It’s old-fashion.
That’s why Christians live a six-day Christianity.
We don’t know what to do with the seventh day. But through this Course, we’ll learn in seven weeks how to express Sabbath.
2. A Rhythm of Relationship
I’m going to answer a very existential question: Why did God create the universe? Why is there such thing as existence? Let me solve this philosophical question.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He said, “Love God. Love others.”
Just those two. That’s the purpose of Creation. The purpose of your life is Creation. God created the Sabbath to give you space, and time, and energy to build those two relationships.
Let me do a little Bible study.
In Exodus, the Ten Commandments is there.
The Ten Commandments appear in another section of the Bible: Deuteronomy.
In Exodus, the Hebrew word used for the word
Sabbath was Shabbath. But there is a line in
Deuteronomy where another Hebrew word was used– which was Nuakh.
The second meaning of Sabbath is not only to stop, to rest. But Sabbath is also for relationship. When God rested on the seventh day, He did not hibernate. He did not go to bed and sleep. What God did was live with man in the Garden.
God prepared that Garden so that He and the man could walk together. God gave Sabbath so He could hang out with you. At the end of the day, all relationships are about trust. Sabbath was given to you so you can really learn to trust in God. At the end of the day this is about trust.
Think about this: If you’re paid P1,000.00 a day to work and you don’t take a day off, you will earn P365,000.00 in a year.
But the guy who took a day off once a week would earn only P313,000.00 at the end of the year. He was at a disadvantage, right?
3 Messages of Sabbath
So, why take a Sabbath?
Let me pause for a while, take one step backward, and say, “Isn’t what’s essential in life is like that?”
If I have a date with my wife, am I making more money? I’m not. I’m actually losing moneyJ If I play with my child, do I gain more money in my bank account? No.
If I have a weekly family dinner, am I getting richer? The answer is no.
My Friends, Sabbath may not put money in your pocket. But without Sabbath, or without dates with wife, or playing with child, or family dinners, no matter how much money you make in the world, you will be very poor.
God does not want that. God gave you Sabbath for you to have a personal relationship with Him and to become closer with one another, with the people around you.
I want to close my talk with these three messages of Sabbath:
- Your work is not the center of the universe. There are more things important than your work — God, family, relationships, health, peace, joy, and kindness, and the coming Kingdom.
- Not everything depends on you. You are not the only one keeping yourself God is your provider. He is the source of all your blessings. That’s why you can rest, relax, rejuvenate, and recharge.
- Many things are not in your control. You cannot control others. You cannot control the You cannot control your future.
That’s why you must let God be God. Stop playing God.
Stop getting all your burdens there and take all the responsibilities.
God is telling you: Rest.
Surrender
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said:
Jesus came and carried the Cross. He died for you and for me so that He can give us rest.
Will you receive that rest today?
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Put your hand over your chest and say this with me:
Jesus, I need you. I need that rest.
My dear Friends, there is no rest unless you trust. You cannot find real rest unless you trust Him. Do you trust Him? Do you entrust your life to Him?
Make that decision now.
Give your heart, your mind, your soul to the Lord. Lift your hands in surrender.
And Everybody say:
Lord, I surrender. Help me, Lord, to follow You through all the days of my life. And that means trusting You. I trust You, Lord, with my past, with my present, and with my future. I trust You with my working and I trust You with my resting. I trust You with my schedules. I trust You with my lifestyle. I entrust my whole life to You. You will provide. You will bless me.
I trust You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
