Rest

Work is good, but we're not to be defined by it. And if we believe either of these things will realize it'll lead us to exhaustion frustration and feeling depleted ring missing essential truths about work. If we believe it is all of life as a what God is going to declare for us this morning is incredibly important for everybody to grasp onto because they're going to be seasons in life where we slip in and out of these two views very rarely. Do we pick a lane of Works a drudge in for the next 50 years. I'm just going to see it always as a drudge or work is my identity for 50 years. It's always going to be my identity but we walk in and out of these two Realms drawing our personal wealth well being inside of ourselves and how we feel about ourselves from these two ideas and God says There's a different way and there's something I have for you.

What is that? Well this morning and next week, we're going to look at rhythmic rest we're going to see that this is spiritual mental that is physical. It's really holistic of what makes you open into the very fabric of creation. God designed the world in such a way to operate where there would be work and there would be rest but it was designed to where we could take a step back from our work and safe. You know what that doesn't Define me. That doesn't own me. That doesn't rule me any also take time to rest to enjoy creation to say. Yes like you got this is actually good and we can enjoy it there for when I am working. It's not just a drudge spins have done in our own flesh when we refused to take what God has laid out for us. So we said No better about human beings and The Human Condition than you God and in Rebellion, we will not break not rest not step back, but we'll always push on and push forward this morning. There's an s word in scripture and it's not the one that you don't you take the kids not to say, it's Sabbath Sabbath now. Who's heard about Sabbath? What is the first thing you think of when you think about Sabbath? I know what I think about Sunday school Pharisees looking at Jesus writes. How dare you do good on the Sabbath Jesus. How dare you what's happened? He'd Angelic ilysm is this idea of arresting has almost become so we don't really want to talk about because we're no longer defined by the covenants of Israel. We have the Covenant of the blood of Jesus, which is the New Covenant there for many of the things in the Old Testament as we look at Law at some point correctly do not apply to us. However, it doesn't eradicate the value of what God is showing us not only in creation. But as a sign of the Covenant he gave to Israel and an even what doctors and health experts tell us about the need for humans to rest Who said again the need for humans to rest the god that made you designed you created you knew and he did it in such a way. But even before the fall rest was a part of the process and with Jesus declares in the New Testament. Is that the Sabbath or let me say this way man was not made for the Sabbath as Jesus said but the Sabbath for man, it's kind of like a daily vitamin. I bought a thing of men's dailies like a year ago. I still have almost a full container of them. All right. My wife is harping on me. Correct. I don't have to take those to be functioning. However, if I was taking those I might be a little better off right so I would have to think about it in those terms. Keep the Sabbath in Jesus's day had lost its Humane Dimension what got it actually intended for it. It was turned into a stringent rules. A set of laws to follow in order to please God and they missed the purpose of it. today In our society, we don't rest and the most common thing is I'll sleep when I'm dead. False false you need rest now and not just sleep. You need holistic rest and we are beings of patterns. An arc as a stablished at set a pattern we're in today being known as a Workhorse. That's a good thing. Right? Somebody who gets it done 24/7 who's always available to the kinds of terms that we use to describe somebody that we think that is the way to be the best worker and God is saying something completely countercultural to our society today and he says y'all need to chill out. Breathe rest and remember me in all of this something in our culture and it hasn't even been that long has changed in the rhythms of society. How many of you lived in a day when businesses were shut down on Sundays? Yeah, I must have gray hair.

How about was there a day when they were shut down on Saturday and Sundays for any of you? All right. You just have no hair.

If you don't know, he's at one of our elders and has been my friend for 18 years, and I'm going to pay for it later. So he's supposed to preach in 2 weeks.

Oh my goodness. Our culture has changed housing it. We're not just going to break. We're not going to rest and we lost something when others meeting on Tuesday with all three of us guys put our smartphones on the table. I'm telling you every five minutes one of those was going off and that our there is a text or phone call between the three of us. There is as we talked about it's a phrase is known as the tyranny of the urgency and that cell phone is always calling and calling our names to interrupt whatever is going on in our lives and our families and in our friendships. Something in us has to change or we're going to break. Think about it always coming out to you. For those of you who have the wonderful Charm doing laundry in your household. Doesn't it feel like it just breeds in there that somehow like the socks hang out with the underwear and all the sudden you got something new and you're like what in the world where do these things come from? It's everywhere and we can feel the Instagram push to have everything clean nice and neat cuz we're constantly comparing our lives and we are tired. We are exhausted and we are burned out and I'll tell you what you suffer personally your relationships suffer your church family suffers your neighbors suffer. We don't take breaks to this morning when we look at Sabbath and we look at rest. I don't want you to think of it as a bad word nor as a law that were laying down because it's not the sign of the Covenant is for those who believe for fast confess Jesus Christ as Lord Jesus Christ. We never see Jesus condemn it. We never see him say we don't rest always work always be going always be pushing. So there's some things in here that are very very important for us and I want to start with the first instance of rest in Genesis 2 verses 1 through 3. Let me read this year to you this morning Genesis 2:1 through 3 verse the heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day God finished his work that he had on and rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God bless the seventh day and made it. Holy Sanctified set apart because on it God rested from all his work that he had done and creation. The author of Genesis is using a lot of repetitive words in there because he wants to get a point across to you that God created that God made and then God rested God took a break creation this idea that God worked and made all of these things is woven in then to who we are as image bearers of him. And what's being said here is there is More to life than work. There is more that is to Define you there's something greater outside of yourself to tell you who you actually are because we want to do a society is we want to say My Success is who I am. Here's my profile. Here's my LinkedIn. This is who I am all of my accomplishments and that's how you'll know me and what you'll know me by and got us a that is incorrect because there's more to life than work. The work is a part of life and work is a form a way that we can actually worship God in our town in our city and culture. We have to understand both those if you missed the last few weeks of missed a lot in there with that, but what does God do when he is done working? Cinema Sports guys you get Sports analogies. I'm sorry. If you're not you can watch the NBA with me this fall. Here's here's the deal the championship the next day. Those guys are not back in the gym shooting and they popped the bottle. They're celebrating their kicking their feet up. Project at home. I know what I like to do and I built something put my feet on it and relax go out to dinner cuz I don't want to make anything else at that point. Celebrate enjoy kickback is modeling that for us and what we get out of this is the idea that we need physical rest number 1C scene from labor to rejuvenate the physical body and the mind for personal health and deepening trust in God. We need physical rest. If you Google Reston all the rest and you believe everything Google pops up for you, you'll get this article from Psych From second. Psychologytoday.com. Rest is required for life. Why rest one reason to survive rest takes up more of your life and food and is very much as necessary. You need rest to grow regenerate to learn and experience the full of passion in other words to live but people don't get rest. They don't get it into senses. They don't get enough of it often leads to regenerate their bodies. They don't understand what rest is and what it does to fully enjoy life to Trulia vacation to truly remember and learn to think and become wise. You need to know how the rest that is not from the Bible, but I tell you what those concepts are deeply embedded in the wisdom literature. Of the scriptures rest is incredibly important for functioning and God establish this woven into the fabric of creation that we would cease from labor that we would take breaks from that. Or heads our hearts and our mind are constantly consistently. Just filled with the work that always needs to be done or consumed with the worry and projects worried if we did enough or we did a good enough job. Work can consume has not just physically but mentally too we need to have mind breaks. little felt that We're just constantly overwhelmed with all the stuff coming out you from the world and just thinking I need some way to take a step back even in my head. I'm not talking about I mean out whether it be through endless hours of Netflix and television or through alcohol and drug out, but I'm truly talking about a way for our minds to take a break from all the worry that consumes us and then fills our hearts and we act and live on that. God is saying I want you. Yes physically to rest but mentally to rest as well because you are a whole bean when we're talking about rest is facet of you. It's all of you.

Can you rest with your mind? I can tell you personally was actually sharing with some people of this week at the last 2 weeks. I'm preaching a sermon to myself today cuz I hailed in this deeply now there are certain seasons in life with work that consume you and Sir for the last 2 weeks. It's been a little busy down here. That's okay. That's really good. But what happened is I found myself waking up at 11 at night going did we do this? Do we do that and making checklists and then being up till 1 or 2 a.m. And then what would go on to my household is I became tired when I become tired. I become grumpy and when I become grumpy, it's not good for my family. You see how this is all really interconnected. God kind of knows what he's talking about. When he says you need to rest and you my thought process was if I just get up and make the list at 11 a.m. Or 11 p.m. Excuse me. It'll get me a head for the next day. But then I have to unravel all the hurts that I did the next. Because I was short with my spouse. I wasn't great to my kids. I really didn't fix the problems it created more. Your friends rest is important. Very important and we need to be able to break away even mentally. How do we do that? I found myself of the song we read this morning turn into that Psalm 61 Hear My Cry o god listen to my prayer from the end of the Earth I call to you when my heart is faint lead me to the rock that is higher than I lead me to the rock that is higher than I That to me is why I kept turning to when I felt overwhelmed when my heart-felt faint when I had things dropped on my play that I'm like I have no idea how to even begin to do this and you can feel that coming over you one of the way that it's possible to take a break is to then turn your heart to turn your mind and to worship the god that is bigger than all those things because the tendency is to look at the list of things that has to be done and to let It Crush you then it'll cause you to despise the work that is before you and then you'll grow grumpy. You'll lose relationship. It's a whole entire mess or your mind will be so mentally consumed with what's going on at work or the things that need to be done that you can't even enjoy the very friendships the children in the marriage or even the dog that you have. Because you are consumed and I have to bet in a room this size. I'm not just preaching to me. I have to bet there are multiple people in here whose kids have to stand right in front of their face in time to go. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. I'm pretty sure I heard you the first time but I can't remember cuz I'm thinking about something else. So let me respond to you now when we're feeling feeling despair. It's because we've lost with Nick rest, you know, it's so easy to start a bad habit. It's so easy to continue to give more to something that you shouldn't and it's so much harder than to break it this morning. I want to push us to this rhythmic rest the third things. You see physical rest mental rest. We need spiritual rest that is peace with God because of God. We're going to look at this in detail next week. Peace with God for our souls because of what God has done. This Pursuit. A spiritual rest is forming a spiritual habit stemming from love because of God and towards God which result in things like prayer and reading and as David said someone I will meditate on your word then like a tree firmly planted by the river. I will be established Paul picks up on this and Colossians chapter 1 that we are to be rooted and grounded established in him. Finding strength in drawing water from that. Well that will cause us to never thirst again. It results in community and communion with God. We need to break the habit of idolizing work and focus on spiritual rest that God has given to us. So important for our culture go around this and we try to go against the grain but God has woven into creation. We're going to hit massive massive speed bumps. Just a couple weeks ago. I was in the parking lot where there's the McDonald's and Starbucks and cibelli's yes or no your Logan parking lot. You're going over the speed bumps. You're laughing cuz you have 6 a.m. I'm going over the speed bumps and all the sudden. I hear this song. I looked in my rearview mirror. My spare tire had just fallen off back of my truck was like that's pretty pretty terrible for me falling apart cuz the bumps that we here's the deal when we don't rest and things aren't Sheard up in our lives Things Fall Apart when we hit bumps. Video problems are magnified when we're not rested and resting and trusting in God. However, even as the girl that shirt this morning when you love God you are connected to the body if you can literally go through a hellish situation and stand up here and say I don't get it and I don't know why but God is still faithful and good and our church family reminds us of that. Do you know what happens if you're not in a place where you're trusting believing and resting in God you like that spare tire? You just fall off left in the dust and wonder if anybody's going to pick you up. We need to rest and rest builds trust and dependency why are we resting creation is because of what God did and creation. We rest its creation celebrated the alotian Abraham showed her right writes this about the Sabbath it's a day on which we are called upon to show what is eternal and time to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation from the world of creation to the creation of the world. I like that. He says the time to step back from all of our labor into worship basically and to praise God for what he has done. In Colossians 2 16 through 17 Paul answers this question of is this a law for Christians? He says therefore do not let everyone anyone judge you by what you eat or drink with regard to religious Festival a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are shadows of things that were to come the reality. However is found in Christ. Again Romans. 14:5 Paul States one man. Considers One Day More sacred than another another man considered everyday like each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. No, we do not have the same signs of the Covenant that were given to Israel circumcision there to follow the Sabbath. We have the sign of the New Covenant Jesus death and resurrection and Ascension, which is what we cling to but in God's divine plan God establish that man would take breaks from work. This wouldn't be times to just come out and ignore the rest of the world, but Time to engage with one another the times to celebrate to sing to come together to be refreshed to be filled at what we do on Sundays as we gathered were remembering what Jesus has done. We're celebrating our souls should be being filled with joy as Christians come with all sorts of different problems and issues and Sorrows of rejoicing and for this moment, we can push out everything's in a sense going on and worship this great big God because he is good kind and generous to us. And hear your work is not defining you. Your lack of work is not defining you. We are the people of God because of his Covenant that he has made with us. This is so important for us to grass and to hold on to So many things I want to share with you. Just let me do a few more here at this morning.

What is this look like practically?

This is where the rubber hits the road. We know that Jesus talked about the Sabbath and he says the Sabbath is about me and I am basically the Fulfillment of it and in me, you'll find Sabbath rest. You'll find Joy you'll find help. But but what does this look like practically for each and every person here today was a few things that I can challenge first and foremost that younger generation on. And maybe some of the older generation this tacky. Unplug it. You want rest you want mental rest? You better not be a slave to the ding turn off the phone. It's something I'm trying to do is something that robs my kids of my time because everything else is more urgent and important than than the second it comes in on my phone and I feel the need and the necessity to respond immediately regardless of what's going on around me. I want to challenge you. And I know for some of you might think man that sounds really unrealistic and you just don't work in the same world that I work in. I work in a world where I get phone calls 24/7 trust me. I get it. I work in a world or one day. I'm at a hospital the next day. I'm doing a wedding. I literally celebrated the biggest highs and lows of everybody's lives this last week all in one week. Trust me I get it and that's why I'm telling you we need to rest. We need to rest why so we can be at our best in those moments so we can give our all in those moments. Practically. God knows what he's speaking about what we need in our lives and I really want to push back on some of this and some of you have jobs where you are on call you have to be on call for that but figuring out rhythms when you're not to break away from it before you break and fall apart.

Getaway for you break apart. We need rest and healthy rhythms. It's going to destroy this next culture and what were modeling for them. If we do not other people be gracious with us. Were slaves to it a little bit right now, and we feel it and we're trying to figure out what this really looks like for our lives. Do you have a day where you can unplug? You can break away from it. You can be renewed energized. Everybody don't waste your day. Don't waste your day.

Only have days of rest. You pray you read scripture. You have somebody over for a meal you talk about what God is doing you need a very thing that would bring joy in your heart and life. Everything's even the world around us is doing which of a god-centered focus to it. When you have somebody into your house. It's intentional with a purpose to deepen relationship and just strengthen one another and for it not to be all about yourselves been a way that you can minister to the person across from U Street. Do we understand? This is not a drudge. This is not a boring day to this is not just shutting the blinds and sleeping the next 24 hours. This should be exciting going for a walk making breakfast together doing something with a friend getting out in the kayak. How do you rest?

You need to do some homework today and answer that question. How do I rest? I don't know what smart all dead guy said it, but he said work with your hands rest with your mind work with your mind rest with your hands. Is he he's talking about people who have a job for you working in that mind area and you're sharing knowledge. Some of the best things you can do is go outside and dig a hole Sometimes. The best thing you can do is Hammer something yet. If that's your day in and day out. The best thing you can do is just take a break from that and to use your mind to be renewed in your mind by the things of God historically and more liturgical Traditions. It was inhaling incense and doing the Lord's Supper was we're going to practice today. It's reading the word is doing this liturgy, but I want to give you something that's far more simple when it comes to this idea of resting slow down and be present. Slow down and be present and we have to train ourselves in this. And I think one of the best ways we're going to find that we rest is only rest with others around us. And really the last thing you're going to want to do is when you call somebody out and invite him over for dinner is about 20 minutes before you're going to want to cancel. That's what we do in this culture and Society. But the best thing we do is we meet and then we're refreshed by one another to way in which God has created for us to be encouraged in the things of God. So today we're talking about rhythms. I want to leave you with something to practice here. the self-evaluate so look at your life and say where is has been unhealthy for me where my consumed by this? Where is work and identity? I want you to realize that God has given you an identity and you don't hold the world together. You don't even hold your little world together. You don't even know what tomorrow is going to bring you can't control every situation and every circumstance to at some point. You have to learn to trust a God that can we trust him and lean into him will be able to find soul rest in our hearts will to find physical rest because we know and just because I don't get out there and do that tomorrow doesn't mean I'm failing does it mean everything is going to fall apart? But I'm going to trust you God if you're a follower of Jesus in here and you trust God with your salvation, you can trust God with the day of rest. I promise you that. You can say Lord. I know you're going to be able to handle whatever comes my way. Are you mentally drained today will be renewed in your mind. Look at scripture to renewed and rejuvenated by scripture. Are you physically tired? Why because you're working working working to get an identity. God is already giving you an identity in Jesus Christ, you're not working for a name is already named and called you his own adopted are child of God, spiritually. He says drink from my well take on my yoke. It's what all our hearts long for next week. We're going to see Redemptive rest how this is actually all possible who is tired who is weary. You need rest come to him. Let's pray Jesus. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your life that you gave to us so we can ultimately have rest. But maybe not be caught up in rules and regulating what rest and Tails and looks like when they we rejoice in the fact that you said take a break enjoy the friendships in the food that I have given you enjoy the very relationships in this room. Enjoy the relationship with me pursue me, and that you desire to fill us up. And for those who are tired today burned out exhausted depleted feeling it at their work and in their relationships, I pray that this morning with the eye opening and this would bring about conviction and change and if they would see the need to rest ultimately in the things of Jesus Christ to place their hope in you then also trust that you can and you have provided physical rest for them and that we are to Asian Matt and enjoy that go before us today in Jesus name. Amen.