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Prayer
Introduction
We are going to take a short break this week from our study of Philippians this morning.
We will resume it next week picking up where we left off.
I have to admit, I am tired.
Exhausted really.
Not so much physically.
I’m not about to fall asleep or anything like that, but I am totally drained.
Spiritually, emotionally, and even mentally, I feel like I’m walking through a desert and that there is no oasis anywhere in sight.
I may be the only one this morning that feels that way or ever has felt that way, and if so, I’m sorry, but this sermon is pointed more towards me.
I need to preach the Gospel to myself this morning.
But the reality is that many here this morning probably do feel the same way I do.
Many of you likely feel beat down by various things and need some rest and rejuvenation.
Maybe you’ve felt that way before, or you know that there will likely be a season in the future that is difficult to walk through.
Fortunately, we are not the first people to feel drained and empty.
Fortunately Scripture tells us where we can find rest.
Scripture
Our passage this morning is .
If you are able, please stand for the reading of God’s Word.
We do this to show appreciation to God for His Word and in recognition that these are among the most important Words we could possibly hear this morning.
says,
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Thank you, you may be seated.
Weariness and tiredness are part of life.
Everyone needs sleep.
Everyone needs spiritual refreshment.
These things are part of the normal ebb and flow of living.
That is to say, rest is not a bad thing.
God instituted rest into the created order by Himself resting on the seventh day.
Resting and recovering is actually a good thing.
It proclaims that we are dependent creatures.
It causes us to rely on He who does not grow weary or faint.
That is what our passage ultimately tells us, that if we come to Christ, we will find rest for our souls.
Certainly, there are ways to misuse rest.
When resting and recovery become slothfulness and laziness, we have taken the good gift of rest and misused and abused it.
On the opposite end of that spectrum is the person who refuses to rest.
Who is proud and acts as if they don’t need times of recovery.
When a person does this, they are rejecting idea that they need God.
That they are dependent creatures.
They reject that every breath they take is not really their own, but is from God.
Resting and recovering in Christ is a good thing and is necessary.
In fact, refusing to rest rightly is condemned in Scripture.
Even in our passage, Christ says to come to Him all who labor and are heavy laden.
Not doing so is disobedience.
Scripture actually condemns those who will not rest in God. says this,
“For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people, to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.”
Or consider which says,
“Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”
It is the rebellious heart that refuses to rest.
And to be clear, I am not talking primarily about physical rest.
Physical rest is included in this.
It is necessary.
The person who does not rest like they should physically is probably not resting like they should spiritually.
These things are connected, but ultimately what we need is rest in Christ.
But how do we find rest in Christ?
I mean, it is easy to say, “Rest in Christ!”
But how?
What do I do to rest in Christ?
There are some who would say that you have to just let go and stop striving.
To become nothing and just be filled up.
I don’t think that is accurate though.
It sounds more like eastern meditation than what Christ says in our passage.
Jesus speaks about taking on a yoke – His yoke.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” Christ equates taking His yoke with learning from Him. Being discipled by Him.
Think about the concept of yoking animals together.
You take two animals and you basically connect them.
You cause them to walk step in step.
To act as one creature.
Where one animal turns, the other goes as well.
Resting in Christ – finding rest for your weary soul doesn’t come from trying to passively become one with Christ.
Instead it comes by actively yoking with Christ.
Becoming His disciple and walking step by step with Him.
As the passage in says, walking in the good, ancient path.
Maybe a different analogy will help.
Think of your spiritual life like a sponge.
Life wrings your sponge out.
Doing ministry wrings your sponge out.
Trials and temptations wring your sponge out.
Sometimes it feels like you have been wrung out and left in the sun and you’ve become shrunken and dry and hard.
A sponge in that state is useless as a sponge.
But a sponge isn’t meant to be wrung out over and over again without being dunked into a bucket and filled with fresh water.
Life is like that.
We are constantly being wrung out, so what bucket do we need to be dunked into?
We need to be saturated with Christ.
We need to dive deeply and regularly into His Word.
We need fall on our knees in prayer.
We need to hear the proclamation of the Word of God.
We need to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
We need what they called in the olden days, the “ordinary means of grace”.
We need to walk in lockstep with Christ – yoked to Him.
Walking in the good, ancient path.
What Christ is calling us to is to be disciples of Him.
To learn from Him by walking with Him.
There are many causes to spiritual weariness.
Most of the causes are just part of life like I mentioned earlier.
Life, ministry (and when I talk about ministry, I don’t mean only what the pastor does), temptations and trials.
All those things and more can and do tire us.
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