Blessing of Rest

Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray.

We're going to get started. Every Sunday we read Scripture together, so we're going to go ahead and do that. Let's go ahead and stand. We're going to be reading out of Psalm 62. verses 5 through 8 together. And it begins, "For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. My fortress I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory. My mighty rock, my refuge is God." "Trust in Him at all times. O people, pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for all those that are gathered here today, and we thank you for those that are watching online and the encouragement that all of us can be to one another. We thank you for the opportunity to read your word together and to be able to see that you are

that our rock and our fortress and our salvation can only be found in you. We ask that you be with our service today and allow it to glorify you. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, our first Song we're going to start with is "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Maybe. An oldie but a goodie. Sorry, I'm just stalling for time because it's not working. There we go. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry. Everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often put with. Oh, what needless pain we bear. Oh, because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer.

For who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Cumbered with a load of care. Precious Savior, still our refuge. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise forsake thee. Take it to the Lord in prayer. In His arms He'll take and shield thee. Thou will find our solace there.

If you want to remain standing, you can. Or if you'd like to sit, you can do that too. We're going to be moving into our prayer and share time. So if you're watching online, there will be a phone number up for you to text. If you have any prayer requests or anything you'd like to just share with us here, do that and we'll be able to do that during that time. And then we're going to be muting the service during that time as well. So give us a few minutes and we'll be back after that and moving into the rest of our service today. So as we go into that part, we're going to be singing one of Neil's favorite songs, "Living Hope."

How great the chasm that lay between us. How high the mountain I could not climb. In desperation, I turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night. Then through the darkness, your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished. The end is written. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Who could imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless grace? The God of ages stepped down from glory to wear my sin and bear my shame. And bear my shame. The cross has spoken. I am forgiven. That calls me His own. Beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Jesus Christ, my living hope. Then came the morning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. The burning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. Jesus, your victory. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Oh God, you are my living hope. You may be seated. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray.

All right. We're going to be actually doing communion after the sermon today, so we're going to be singing, "All Who Are Thirsty," and then Brandon will come up and share.

Come to the fountain, dip your heart in the stream of life. Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away in the waves of His mercy as deep cries out to deep. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Come, Lord Jesus, come. All who are thirsty, all who are weak, come to the fountain of water. Come to the fountain. Dip your heart in the stream of life. Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away in the waves of His mercy as deep cries out to me. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come. "As Rachel mentioned, we are going to do communion. Let our time in the Word of God this morning lead us to the table. So if you would like to participate in that, and you haven't picked up communion elements yet, they're on the back table, and you're welcome to pick those up at any time.

So we've been kind of walking through in the month of August, talking about how God refreshes and God restores us. And so we began by looking at God's faithfulness and how He sees us in the deserts. We talked last week from the 19th Psalm about how the Word of God refreshes and restores us and leads us to where we are to go. And so this morning, we're going to talk about how God ultimately brings us rest. And so before we do that, we're going to go ahead and have a word of prayer, and then we'll dive right into it. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your church. We thank you so much for your people. We thank you so much for the grace and the mercy that you have shown us through your Son.

We thank you that you equip us with your Spirit. And I just ask this morning, as we spend some time considering where our hope lies and what it is we are desiring and what it is we are striving after, that you would help us to see that in you there is rest for our souls. So help us this morning. Give us strength and wisdom. May your Spirit be with us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So for us, Friday was kind of a busy day. We were getting ready for Luke's fourth birthday party. And then in addition to that, there was a whole bunch of kids running around the house. And so I was over here getting some things ready, and I hear the basement door open and realize that the church is about to be invaded by like the world's smallest biker gang.

And so we had our nephews, Solomon, Jonathan, and our honorary nephew Ezra, and they just come riding down the church hallway, and they've got all their bikes. And I said, "Can we ride our bikes in here?" Well, Johnny said that. So they're riding kind of up and down the hall, and I'm in and out of my office and in the kitchen trying to get something done. And at that point, I realized that I haven't seen or heard from those three little boys in a while. One of their moms is here, so I don't want to say how long that while was. So I went looking for the little boys, and I didn't see them downstairs. And so I went upstairs, and I began to hear noise coming from upstairs, and I got to the top of the stairs.

I realized that they had brought their modes of transportation, bikes and scooters, to the top of the stairs, which is probably a little bit terrifying. And they were in here, and one of them was playing drums, one of them was playing piano, and one of them was going for a guitar, starting probably the most adorable band that you have ever seen. And one of the things we find about life is that it's sometimes hard to balance everything right. And so trying to balance, chasing down three, little guys full of high energy with trying to get everything done I needed to do. And what happened was the balance got out of whack, and I forgot one and focused on the other, and then I focused on that one and forgot the other. And most of us can relate to the fact that sometimes life is hard to find a balance.

And as we move through Scripture, especially in those first two chapters of Genesis, we see this balance that God has given us in relation to how we work and to how we are to rest. So God creates man, and He puts him in the garden, and it says specifically in Genesis 2, to work it. And so work is a gift from God. Oftentimes we see work as a result of sin and a problem. Now work does get harder because of sin, but work is ultimately a gift of God to be done for the glory of God. But we also see in those first chapters that God calls us to rest. And many of us struggle to find that balance. Some of us come down on the side of we work and we work until we're physically exhausted, and then we keep working.

And then other times when we're seeking comfort, we end up resting and resting and resting and ignoring our work. But God calls us in His grace and to bless us with both vocation and work and with rest. And because I think, probably, most of us struggle maybe a little more with rest than we do with being busy, that's what I want to focus on this morning. And what we find is that God refreshes and restores His people through rest, right? It's a blessing. We'll see it commanded in Scripture. But it's also, and this is what I think is so very important, it's a spiritual act of depending upon the provision, the protection, and the peace that God ultimately provides. So I want to start by just kind of giving you an overview of just a few verses about rest, starting in Genesis and then moving through to the New Testament.

We're not going to look at every Scripture about rest. I just want to look at a few and kind of give you a picture of the Bible and rest. And the first mention we find of rest is in Genesis, the second chapter, where it says this in verses one through three: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, all the host of them; and on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done." So God blessed the seventh day, made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Now God is resting, but he's not resting here because he is tired. In fact, Isaiah will say this: "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,

the creator of the ends of the earth. He is not faint. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable." What you find is God is not resting because he's tired or because he's worn out, but he's essentially stopping with his work. In those first six days of creation, God has created all things, and the Hebrew word literally means to cease, and he stops. Now, he still sustains and he encourages and strengthens and is active in his creation, but God purposefully, and I think that's the point here, God purposefully stops his work. I think, as an example, what you find is Israel leaves Egypt. They're commanded to rest. Remember the Sabbath day, and to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all of your work, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath to the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, you or your son,

or your daughter, or your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner or traveler who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. And God, as He institutes this covenant with the people of Israel, commands them in the Ten Commandments to take a day to make it holy to the Lord and to rest. And He takes that pattern from creation. But notice this is both spiritual and practical, right? It's a day holy to God, a day focused on God, but it's also practical. Whether you're traveling through town, whether you're an Israelite or not, whether you're a servant or whether you're free, whether you're a parent or whether you're a child,

you're called to cease your work. What you find is God's people then wonder of that blessing of God and twist it and turn it into something legalistic and broken. So by the time you get to Jesus, there are so many rules and regulations about this day that it ceased to become a day of worship and a day of rest, but rather it's a day of making sure that you've got all the rules checked off on the box. And in this particular case, Jesus is hungry and he's walking through a grain field and he reaches down, probably like we do when we walk through the woods and we see some blackberries growing and we pick them and eat them. Jesus walks through the grain field and grabs a handful of grain and he sort of gets the chaff out and he begins to eat that

grain and the Pharisees that are following him immediately start blowing whistles and ringing bells and saying, "Look, Jesus is violating the Sabbath by harvesting a field." Now, by no stretch of the imagination is Jesus harvesting. He simply walks through, catches a few pieces of grain, and eats them as a snack. And so Jesus will respond to them this way: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." And so what has happened is he's speaking to them, and they've missed the concept of rest. And so Jesus does two things with this verse. The very first thing that he does, it says that you don't serve the Sabbath. The Sabbath was meant to serve you, right? This seventh day for God's people was not needed because that day needs you to stop working, but rather because you need a day to stop working. And

secondly, Jesus says, "I'm Lord of the Sabbath, so I get to decide what the rules are about the Sabbath." So moving away from that, I want to point you to another picture in Mark chapter 6. Jesus' twelve disciples have gone out on sort of their first journey all by themselves, and they're probably excited, and they're probably nervous, and they come back to Jesus, and there's crowds surrounding them. All of these things begin to happen, and this is what Jesus will say. The apostles returned to Jesus and told Him all that they had done and taught, and He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat, and they went away in a boat to a desolate place by themselves.

So they've come back from their first sort of practice missionary journey, and they're back, and they're excitedly telling Jesus, "We went here, and we talked to people here, and we did this here, and we did this here," and there's crowds coming around them, and Jesus goes, "Guys, let's go somewhere less crowded so you can rest. You're tired?" And I love this picture that Jesus sees, and even in the excitement of His disciples, their need for rest. And what you find, if you want to look sort of biblically at rest, from the Sabbath to the commands of Jesus to the pictures of rest we have throughout the Psalms, is when we talk about rest, what we're talking about is an intentional sort of stepping away or setting down our work to find restoration and refreshment in the goodness of God. And not just physically, but

spiritually, right? And what we find, strangely enough, is that physical rest often depends upon spiritual rest. Now, when it comes to understanding physical rest, probably most of us understand that we at some point need rest. There's all kinds of statistics, right? If you go this long without sleep, your reaction time begins to slow, your decision-making becomes less clear, and all of these different things. Eventually, if you go long enough without sleep, you can actually end up hallucinating, and in some case, even dying. But what I want to focus us on this morning is the spiritual importance of rest. Because what we find is rest will humble us, rest will refresh us, and rest ultimately fixes our eyes on the one who truly cares for our soul. And one of my favorite pictures of this, and

I've shared it with some of you before, is when Elijah, he's been working as hard as he can for God. He's been speaking up for the one true God. He's been fighting against Jezebel and the prophets of Baal, and he comes down off this mountain after having this great victory for God, and they're still trying to kill him. And so he goes into the wilderness, falls down under a tree, and goes, "God, just kill me." And what God does, and I love this, is he brings him some food and tells him to take a nap, right? I mean, that's an important thing for us. So sometimes when we're in those moments where we feel like everything's falling apart, maybe the biblical solution in that moment is to eat a snack and take a nap. And he is rested and

restored, and God brings him further in the wilderness to teach him and encourage him. You see, you and I, the reality is I think we struggle to rest. In Psalm 127, there's this, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives his beloved sleep." And right, the problem in this Psalm is not labor, it's not what time you get up in the morning, what time you go to bed, but rather your focus. And it's a focus that I think you and I can relate to, right? That I've got to get this done. I've got to get this project finished. I've got to get this

belt. And the psalmist uses two pictures, right? The building of a house and the guarding of a city. And I've got to do it, and it's got to be on my shoulders. And when we have that attitude, the psalmist says that's the bread of anxious toil, rather than seeking God and understanding that we can build, and that we can work, and we can guard. But unless our hope and trust is in God, all of that is ultimately in vain, right? I've got to do this, I've got to do it now, or everything will come crashing down. And we struggle to rest. And we eat that bread of anxious toil because we struggle to trust God. God giving some clarification to his people about the Sabbath, he says this, "Six days you shall work, on the seventh day you shall rest,

in the plowing time and in the harvest time you shall rest." And one of the things that we say sometimes is, if I don't do it, nobody will, right? And I'm often times very, very guilty of this, right? I've got to get this done because if I don't do it, who else is going to do it? And so God is specific. Have you ever hear that and you wonder, why does he specify plowing and harvest? You have an agricultural society where if you don't have crops, you don't eat. And so if you don't plow at the right time, there's no crops. If you don't harvest at the right time, there's no crops. But here God looks at them and says, even if it's the middle of plowing season, you rest. Even if it's the middle of harvest season,

you rest. And you say, why does God do that? Because he wants you to trust him. To realize that ultimately the blessing and the provision comes from him and not from our struggles. Right? God says you have to rest when you're trying to plant the crops. You have to rest even when you're trying to get them in. It's a picture of putting your trust on God. And God says this, I think because the ultimate purpose of rest is that we would humble ourselves and trust in him. Right? God is the one who provides. In rest, we're humbled. The fact that we are told to rest and that we struggle to do it says that we put sort of a high importance on our time and our efforts and our skills. And God ultimately here is saying

you need to be humble and rest humbles you, but rest also encourages us because by commanding us to rest, God is saying, trust me, I'm your ultimate provider. And the ultimate picture of this Sabbath, and I think this is probably the most wonderful picture of rest, is found in the fact that this points to Jesus. Paul says this, "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These things are the shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." And Paul uses this illustration of a shadow that sort of goes before you. One of my favorite pictures I was camping with a buddy and we had these great hats and there's a picture where we're kind of standing there, and the way our shadows

spread out, we look like a western movie. If you look at the shadow where the guy gets out of the stagecoach or off the train, and you sort of see this shadow, long shadow with the big hat, and I was like, "Yeah, we look cool." Now, we didn't look cool. We looked the complete opposite of cool, right? But the shadow sort of tells you something is coming. And what Paul says is this picture of rest in the Jewish Sabbath was a picture of the fact that that Sabbath for us is found in Christ. That rest is found in Him and what He has done for us, right? He says, "Whether it's food or drink, regard to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath, these are a shadow of things to come, but the substance of all

of that is found in Christ." You see, rest is designed to direct ultimately our eyes to Jesus. And so the question is, for me at least, how can I rest? And I think partly we have to find ourselves in the right place. So, a few weeks ago I was going to the airport. Late at night I had to go to Reagan Airport in D.C. to pick up my sister, her three kids, and her husband. And so I get there, and I got there early. I thought things were going great. I haven't been to Reagan a lot. Mostly we're either in Baltimore or Dulles. So I get there, I find a parking spot, running to the terminal like, "Man, I got plenty of time. Maybe I'll even be able to find a cup of coffee for the ride home." And I get in there

and I start walking down the terminal, and I hit a dead end on this end. Go back the other way and there's a dead end. And I realize that they're in the other terminal and you got to go outside and walk down. But in the time that I had come in they had started doing repairs on the ceiling, so all of the exits are blocked off. So I finally found like one elevator, got up a floor, got out, ran back to my car, circled the airport again, went to a different parking garage, and walked out the door and realized I was back at the same terminal even though I was in a completely different parking garage. And so there was like this 20 minutes of panic where I'm trying to figure out how to get them, and finally she calls, says

we're next to this giant flagpole and everybody in the world was trying to get to the same spot, so we sat in traffic for like 20 minutes just trying to get to where I could pick them up. And if I had just gone to the right place first, it would have been so much easier. And when it comes to rest, the problem is that you and I are going in the wrong direction. We're trusting the wrong things. In Jeremiah chapter 6, there's a verse that I love so very much. It says, "Thus says the Lord: Stand by the roads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." And God says to the people, "Make sure you're in the right place, and when you're

on the right path, ultimately it will lead you to rest." But the last sentence of the verse is heartbreaking. But they have said, "We will not walk in it." How many times do we say, "I don't need that. I've got it taken care of. I can handle it myself." And even though God promises rest, we choose our own path. We'll never rest if we remain in our strength. Ultimately, true rest is only found in the provision, the protection and the peace that God provides. Jesus says this, "Come to me all you 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."

And Jesus says, "Come to me, because I'm the one who provides for you. Come to me, because I'm the one who protects you." And Jesus is the one who defeats the greatest enemy that we have ever faced. The enemy of death. And He has triumphed over Satan, and sin, and death, and hell, and in rising again, He is victorious. And He calls us to come to Him. And in Jesus, there is peace. Peace. A Quaker poet by the name of John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem, and it's called "The Brewing of Soma." And the first half of the poem is a picture of this ancient ritual where the priest would brew this psychedelic drink, and everybody who partook would devolve into sort of a frenzy. And what he says of our world answers. And the answers that we

seek are devolving into a frenzy. But then he says there's something different. And he writes this, "Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways. Reclothe us in our rightful mind. In pure lives thy service find, in deepest reverence praise. In simple trust like those who heard beside the Syrian thee, the gracious calling of the Lord. Let us rise like them without a word. Rise up and follow thee." And so as we come to the Lord's Supper this morning, we remember the grace of Jesus. But more than that, we remember that this is a rest that's been provided by the cross. By Jesus giving God to forgive our sins. It's a rest brought to us by grace and sacrifice and mercy, and it's only through the Gospel that we have peace. And so we

come, like the poet says, with a prayer that God forgives our foolish ways, that He reclothes us in our rightful mind. And then he says, "O Sabbath rest by Galilee, O calm hills above, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love." And He calls us to this rest. God calls us to this rest found in the Gospel of Jesus. So we're going to pray and then we'll partake together this morning. Father in Heaven, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for grace. Thank you for peace and hope. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the good news of the Gospel. Thank you for the hope of eternal life. In these moments, help us to cease our striving and our worried souls. That we may humble ourselves and turn to you knowing that you

provide and you protect. You are the one who brings peace and all that is accomplished through the cross of Christ. Bless this bread and this cup. May we turn our hearts toward Jesus in this moment. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians the first chapter. "For what I received from the Lord I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed, broke bread. When He had given thanks He broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Would you partake? Amen.

And in the same way also, He took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." Partake together. "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." We're going to stand and sing about the hope that we have in Jesus. So let's stand and sing "In Christ Alone." In Christ alone In Christ alone My hope is found He is my light My strength My song This cornerstone This solid ground Firm through the fiercest drowning storm What heights of love What depths of peace When fears are still When striving seeks My comforter My all in all Here in the love of Christ I stand In Christ alone Who took on flesh

Fulness of God In helpless faith This gift of love And righteousness Scorned by the ones He came To save Till on that cross As Jesus died The wrath of God Was satisfied For every sin On Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live There In the ground His body laid Light of the world By darkness Slain Then bursting forth In glorious day Upon the grave He rose Again And as He stands In victory Sin's curse Hath lost Its grip on me For I am His And He is mine Brought with the precious blood Of Christ No guilt in life No fear in death This is the power of Christ In me From life's first cry To final breath Jesus commends my destiny No power of hell No scheme of man Can ever pluck me

From his hand Till he returns Or calls me home Here in the power of Christ I'll spend No power of hell No scheme of man Can ever pluck Me from his hand Till he returns Or calls me home Here in the power of Christ I'll stand We are very thankful that you are here with us. Those of you who are here in person, and those of you who joined us online, we are very thankful. Just a few announcements as we get ready to close. We'll be back here Wednesday night at 7pm. And those of you who joined us online, we are very thankful. Just a few announcements as we get ready to close. We'll be back here Wednesday night at 7pm. For our midweek Bible study. Just an announcement about what's coming up. The first Wednesday in September, we're going to begin a 12-week series of the Book of James.

So we'll have some more information about that over the coming weeks. Also, this Thursday, Ladies Bible Study here at the church at 1pm. Also, because we haven't mentioned it for a while, if you are wanting to keep up to date, we generally send out a weekly email. So you can either give me your email address, or you can go to our website, collegeparkcc.com. Put in your email address there, and unless your email address is like Stu's, which just doesn't work, because I think you thought he was a spammer. You can get signed up to our email list there, and we send out about one email a week with sort of an update about what's going on and what's happening. Also, next Sunday, we are doing kind of a church meal and baby shower for Christy and Derek and upcoming baby Theo, so we are excited to celebrate with them.

And so, if you need the details, you can ask some questions, either Rachel or myself, after church. Anything you want to say about that? Are we good? Bring some sides. All right. So, we are going to go ahead and have a word of prayer, then I will read a verse, and then we will sing the doxology. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your church and for your people. We thank you for the joy that you bring us through the encouragement of one another and through your word and through your spirit. Thank you for all the good that you have done in our life. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Paul writes this in 1 Thessalonians. He says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus. He who calls you is faithful. He will do it." We're going to sing the doxology and be dismissed. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.