July 5, 2026

I'll be in Matthew chapter 11, and then Mark 6, and then in Timothy, and then in Philemon, and then back through a little bit of the New Testament for a few minutes this morning as we continue our series talking about how God both gives us refreshment and restoration and then ultimately makes us all new, and we do so by seeing His goodness. And so we're going to try to deal with that this morning. Before we do that, let's go ahead and go to God in prayer. Father in heaven, be with us as we open your word. And as we see this as not just texts throughout Scripture, but rather a picture and a thread of your both plan for us, your grace to us, and how you enable us to bring rest to one another because you have brought it to us.

But to be that breath of fresh air to our brothers and sisters in Christ, that we would help them to be the rest in the middle of the hard march of life, and that you would provide that rest to us as well. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, some people once gathered, and they didn't just say this, but I think if my history is correct, they declared it, that there were evidently certain truths that were self-evident, and that men were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. And one of the great things, and one of the things that I love about our country is that our independence, and not just freedom politically, but the fact that we look at things and we say, "This is not how it should be," and oftentimes we just go ahead and do it, right?

So you tax the tea, why don't we switch to coffee? And I actually ordered a shirt, did not get here in time, that said, I was going to wear this morning, that said, "I like my coffee black and the tea in the harbor." Because I was ready for it. And then as you look through American history, we just move westward. We just start moving into the frontier, and you see this great picture of a culture that has developed where it's like, "Let's do it. Let's figure it out. Let's make it work." But over time, what tends to happen is we forget sort of that original picture that these rights that were given, the independence that we have, ultimately comes down to the fact that they were endowed by our Creator. And so, instead of seeing our Creator as the source, what tends to happen is we begin to see ourselves as the source, and our shoulders are not big enough to carry that weight.

And we begin to struggle under the burden of trying to maintain these things through our own strength. And one of the great things about America is oftentimes that we have been self-reliant, and we've figured it out, but it also can lead us to the place where we struggle to rest. Because sometimes we see rest as weakness, or we see rest as laziness, or rest as something that must be earned rather than flowing from the goodness of God. And so because we struggle oftentimes to be independent on our own rather than seeing that as a gift, a gracious gift from God when it comes to the everyday moments of our life, we struggle to rest. And I think rest is one of those things that is very misunderstood by us in terms of what God has intended it for and how he has offered it to us.

Because like I said, sometimes we think rest is just simply being lazy, or I've got to work enough that I can sit down and rest, or that maybe rest is an escape from the responsibilities that I'm hiding from, or it only get to rest when the work is finally done. And part of the reason we're spending the summer talking about being refreshed and restored and renewed is because we want to actually understand God's plan and purpose for rest. So I want to begin this morning with the words of Jesus. And what's remarkable about that is we read during our confession and assurance time, Jesus' words echo back to Jeremiah, but they also echo forward through the life of the church and the life of the Apostle Paul. We'll take a look at a couple of those examples that are happening. And so the context

of this is after John has sent messengers, as John is in prison, about to die, and he has sought reassurance from Jesus. But then there's also judgment that Jesus declares on those who have rejected him. And then here is this glorious invitation. "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 his burden is light." And so the first thing we want to do is make sure that we get things in the proper order, right? Socks go on before shoes, and when it comes to rest, the proper order, you see outlined here in this text. Pay attention to the order of Jesus's words. And so he says this. First of all, there's the invitation.

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and here's the promise: I will give you rest." Once again, let's contrast with our ideas about rest. There are times when I'm in the middle of something, and I'm sitting here thinking, it happened to me yesterday afternoon, I was really, really warm. I don't know if everybody else was warm yesterday afternoon, but I was very, very warm in the middle of trying to get something done, and I'm just thinking, once I get this done, I can sit down and rest. Or sometimes we look at rest as something we deserve, right? I really deserved this moment. Or, one of the things we really like to do is try to manufacture rest. If I could have this situation, if I go to this place, if all of these things would work out, then I would be able to rest.

If I was able to find a place where my worries were either taken away or I could set them aside, I would be able to rest. And so, most of us try to manufacture rest. Which brings us to the second thing. Jesus, first of all, says, "I will give you rest." And then he says this, "And you will find rest for your souls." Right? Rest isn't found in our achievement or our deserving or in our manufactured ability to figure things out. It comes, first of all, notice the order, "I will give you rest." And we find that rest only in Christ, right? The right source, but also the right relationship to that source. I said this week one day when we were watering horses, I thought I was pretty clever at the time. I said, "You know what? You can lead a horse to water," because we were trying to keep them from drinking out of the green pond.

So we had clean water and a couple hundred gallons set out on the side. And they come up, and I was like, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them put on a swimsuit." I know that's not how it normally goes, but you're trying to force this to happen. It's not just Jesus saying, "Hey, here's the rest. I've led you to it." Right? There is a response. It's not just found in the right source, but it's the right relationship to this source. Jesus' words, "You will find rest for your souls." That is the echo in Jesus' quoting from Jeremiah chapter 6. Stand by the roads and look. Ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, "We will not walk in it."

The words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, not just describing the source, but the right relationship to the source. This is not a new message for God's people. The problem isn't that we need rest, although often I think we think rest is for those who are weak or who have failed in some way. And it's not that we're looking for rest. The problem is we are standing, and we're looking in the wrong direction. Jeremiah chapter 6 is a pretty terrible picture because it's standing and looking for this rest, seeing it, and then going the opposite direction. And it's easy for us to be just like those in Jeremiah who see the rest and go in the opposite way. The third struggle with rest is often we sort of think of it as a cessation from anything that might tire us in any way.

Have you seen the movie The Princess Bride, right? There's a quote. You keep using that word, and I do not think it means what you think it means. And so for us, rest is often defined as stopping work, taking time off. But there's something remarkable and surprising in Jesus' words about rest. Look at what he says. "You will find rest for your souls." And then what does he say next? "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." So rest is not the absence of work, and it's not lazy to rest, but once again, look. Jesus says, "There is a deep and there is an abiding rest that goes down to the depths of your soul. Its source is found in me." But it's in the context of service to our King Jesus. The picture of easy here is well-fitted, right?

One that fits properly, that doesn't chafe. Have you ever had shoes that didn't fit right? At the end of the day, you took it off and your feet hurt from wearing them. Or maybe it was bad enough you had blisters on your toes because your shoes didn't fit right. Jesus says, "The rest that I am bringing to you is a deep rest that goes to the depths of your soul. It's found in me alone, but it's also in context of the mission that I have for you. But it does not chafe. It does not cause blisters." Rest is not simply found in the avoidance of work. It's found in truly knowing Jesus and our connection to Him. Now, here's the question for us. Here's the source of rest. The invitation that moves through Scripture, not just here, but in Jeremiah.

The connection of work and rest and being on mission. And one of the questions is why are we always so tired? Let's take a look at an example of this rest that Jesus promises. Mark chapter 6 is an exceptionally busy chapter. So Jesus has sent the disciples out, and they have gone out, and they've gone out preaching. They've gone out in spiritual warfare, casting out demons. They've gone out in missions of mercy and healing. They have come back, and they are very excited about what has just happened. But also the crowds are very excited about what has just happened. And He, this is Jesus, said, "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 so Jesus looks at these guys who have just worked, right?

They have traveled. They have preached. They have engaged in spiritual warfare. They have healed people. And now Jesus, in the midst of the fever pitch of the crowd, says, "Let's go away and find some rest." And one of the things that Jesus does in these words is he corrects a lot of our misconceptions about rest. That first of all, rest is not recovery from failure always. These guys have been successful. Rest is not only for when the work is done, but then we find this, that rest sometimes is at odds with our situation. The crowds follow, and Jesus feeds them. It's the feeding of the 5,000 that occurs next. And I don't know that I've ever considered this before, but as Jesus takes them away and says, "Come with me, and we're going to go into the wilderness, and we are going to rest."

All the crowds follow. And part of rest is restoring by eating. And Jesus begins to teach the crowds. He looks out, they're all hungry. And He goes to the disciples and He says to them, "What can you give them to eat?" And here's the thing I've never considered before. The disciples don't have any food either. They're likely just as hungry as the crowds, right? They have just a few loaves and a few fish. We learn from other accounts, just a small boy's lunch. And I think they're hungry. I don't think these guys got a chance to hit the subway on the way to the wilderness. And Jesus feeding the 5,000 doesn't just allow the crowds to be nourished and rest, but He does it to the disciples. And part of this rest that Jesus does at the end of Mark chapter 6 is this: seeing His provision when they don't have anything.

Next, they'll find themselves in the middle of a storm, and Jesus comes walking across the water. And part of rest is seeing Him calm the storm, to exercise His power when they are powerless. And part of this rest is seeing the example of Jesus who rests in prayer in the mountain before saving them from the storm. So there's a promise of rest, but Jesus shows up and He calls them to rest. And He doesn't just by doing it by calling them away. And it says they haven't even had a chance to eat, but He feeds them. He rescues them. He gives them an example to follow. And part of the problem, as we have mentioned, is we have a tendency to distort rest. I don't have time to walk through every part of this, but oftentimes you and I refuse rest when we need it the most.

There's a great example in 1 Samuel 14 where Saul is going up against the Philistines. And Jonathan is going out to battle with his servant, and eventually the battle is going, and there comes a point in the battle where Jonathan is hungry, and he sees some honey on the ground. He dips his staff into the honey. He eats it, and his eyes were lightened. That life flew back into him. That moment of rest and nourishment restored him in such a way that he's able to go out and fight all of the Philistines. The problem is, unbeknownst to Jonathan, Saul has made a promise for his army that says, "Nobody eats till we kill all the Philistines." Right? I've always heard that an army marches on its stomach, and Saul goes, "Nobody gets to eat." Right?

He intentionally refuses nourishment to his fighting men when they need it most. And oftentimes that's a picture of how we work. We say, "You know what? I don't have time to rest. I don't have time to be restored." Sometimes we try to find rest in our own self-sufficiency, the rich fool in Luke chapter 12. And the picture of that parable is not a problem with the guy storing or planning for the future. The problem is his focus. In verses 17 and 19 of that chapter in Luke, I count 10 times where this guy references himself in three verses, right? He talks about himself. He talks to himself. He says, "I, I, I." And then he says to my soul, "Soul, listen to me." And the problem is he finds his rest in himself. And we could go to so many different places to see this,

but there is a tendency to take the good thing that God has given us in rest that is part of what he established in creation, and then we simply distort it and break it. So what I want to do, just for a few moments, is give you two pictures of rest. But I don't just want to give you the pictures of rest. What I want you to see is how God brings that rest to us. And that it comes from the community of people in which he has put us. So, by the time you get to 2 Timothy chapter 1, the Apostle Paul, there is a lot of things happening in his life. Right? He's in prison in Rome. He's cold. He's alone. People have abandoned him. He's asking Timothy to bring his cloak. And in fact, he will say this.

In 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 16, "May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains." And it's in this rest that it doesn't end the trials of Paul, but it happens in the midst of them. And this word that's used here for refresh goes deeper than just sort of mentally refreshing. The picture here is something that maybe sticks with us, especially after the heat of this week. It's when you come inside, out of the heat, and you feel that cold air. I was out one morning working with the horses and watering them in terms of watering them with the water trough, but then also spraying them with the hose. And they were so happy to get sprayed with that cold water that cooled them down.

And the picture here is that moment where you're standing in the heat, and that cool air comes from a breeze. You're not taken out of the heat, but something comes into the midst of it, and for a moment lifts and changes the atmosphere of where you are at. In terms of the Roman army, this picture of refresh was used of Roman soldiers when they're on a march, and they stop long enough to eat something, to get some rest, and they continue marching. It's not a rest where you sit down and you are done, but a rest that happens in the midst of the difficulty, and it keeps you going. And notice this gift of refreshment is a gift of God brought by Onesiphorus. He often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. By associating with Paul, he was putting himself in the same class or as a supporter of Paul.

What Paul is saying is that through the ministry of this brother in Christ, while everybody else abandoned me, just me and Luke here, he made it easier to breathe. And while Onesiphorus couldn't unlock Paul's door, he certainly made it easier, an easier atmosphere. And it's intentional, this rest. In fact, verse 17 says this about Onesiphorus, "But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly, and he found me, and his presence was a breath of fresh air." A couple of implications for us here. First of all, we have to be able to admit our need. And we also have to be willing to seek and find those whose life we need to step into as a breath of fresh air. And Paul's circumstances didn't improve, but he was not alone. Sometimes rest, as we saw with Elijah, comes in extraordinary ways with the ministry of angels.

Sometimes it comes when Jesus calls you into the wilderness and feeds you with 5,000 people and calms your storm. And sometimes it comes with the faithful encouragement of God's people. One more picture of rest. The book of Philemon, Paul writes to a man by the name of Philemon, he says this of him, "Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus and for Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker." A letter to a specific person, but likely to the church as a whole, read in the church as a whole, about a specific person, or specific situation, a runaway slave by the name of Onesimus. And this short little letter of Paul is filled with some remarkable wordplay. There's going to be two uses of the word "refreshed" and "restored" that you find in Matthew chapter 11,

but it's important that you see ahead of time that Onesimus, this runaway slave, his name means "useful." So what evidently had happened, Onesimus had run away from Philemon, evidently had stolen some things, had come to Rome, and somehow by the grace of God he found Paul and became a Christian. And Paul sends him back to Philemon. Paul says this, "I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he's indeed useful to you and me." And so his name means Onesimus, and Paul says, "Well, he wasn't living up to his name, he was useless, but now he is Onesimus because of what God has done in his life." He's been transformed by the gospel, he's a child in the faith. That's the first part of his argument, and he ends his argument like this, "For I have derived much joy and comfort,

speaking to Philemon, from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints, have been refreshed by you." He says, "Philemon, you have a reputation for refreshing the saints in the same way that Jesus brings this rest." And then he'll use that word "rest" again. "Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ." And it's interesting, that word "benefit." It's the root word of Onesimus' name. And Paul will say to Philemon, "I want you to Onesimus and refresh me." To be useful in my refreshing. It's a call to forgive Onesimus, to refresh Paul, and it comes by the grace being poured out by a brother of Christ. We see some echoes of this, and echoes of our words in 2 Timothy. Paul admits a need to be refreshed. He seeks that rest, both in the closeness and the

forgiveness among brothers in Christ, and grace being poured out. He asks for help, and the picture of his help being provided is by God's people. The rest that Paul both praises and requests is regularly found in God's people. For example, "Therefore we are comforted, and besides our own comfort, we rejoice still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all." The same word from Matthew 11, "Come to me and I will give you rest." And again, "I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunus and Achaeus, because they made up for your absence, for they have refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to such people." The presence of God's people refreshes and restores and brings us to rest. All right, the rest that Jesus gives, I think he

delights to give through ordinary hands, through our brothers and sisters in Christ. And it's likely that you have been like Philemon, refreshed brothers and sisters in Christ, without maybe even knowing that you have done it. Let's take a look at one more picture. In Romans chapter 15, Paul will say this, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from unbelievers in Judea, that my service to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, and so that by God's will I may be come to you with joy and be refreshed by your company." Right, so Paul's writing to a church he hadn't met and he didn't plant, and he says, "I want you to pray with me, and

there's three things I want you to pray for me. First, that you would deliver me from the trouble in Judea. Secondly, I would be able to encourage the church in Jerusalem. And third is to come to you and be refreshed. And at the end of the book of Acts, Paul is coming to the church of Rome. And his prayer that he had asked them to pray, that he has been praying, is that God's will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company." Do you know how Paul comes to Rome? It starts with a riot in Jerusalem, two years in prison, constantly being dragged before officials seeking a bribe, a shipwreck, and now he is arriving in Rome in chains. And in Acts chapter 28 verse 15, "Brothers from the Roman church walk out to

the forum of Apius and three taverns to meet him on the road, and on seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage." Right? The refreshment that he desired from the Romans came, but not in the way that he would have expected it, not as a free man, but a man on the highway in custody. Sometimes God sends people out to you in the middle of your march to refresh you and to walk the last mile into Rome with you, or in this case, like the last 30 miles into Rome with you. And I want you to see as we hear these words of Jesus, "Come to me, all you who weary and are heavy laden, I will give you rest." It's a promise met in the person and the work of Jesus. But for those of us in Christ, there's also a picture of

that rest that flows from Jesus into our brothers and sisters. And when we're in the middle of that march, we're in the middle of the heat wave, he uses our brothers and sisters in Christ to bring that breath of fresh air. To refresh us and to restore us in the midst of it. And I think there's two things for us as Christians. One is that we need to admit in those moments that we need that, and that requires humility. To say that, "I'm not independent. I can't do it by myself. I need someone with me." But also for us to look for opportunities to refresh God's people through the gospel. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus and for grace. May we be a refreshing people. In the midst of a world where the atmosphere often feels smothering, filled with anxiety and difficulty and conflict often leads.

In all of our news and headlines, may we be a people who refresh, who are a breath of fresh air to those who are around us. May you help us to be encouragers, but also in humility to allow ourselves to be encouraged. Thank you for Jesus and for grace. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen. We're going to sing 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? Could fathom such boundless grace? The God of ages stepped down from glory to wear my sin and bear my shame. The cross has spoken, I am forgiven. The King of kings calls me his own. Beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living home. 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 home.

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. 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. Jesus, yours is the 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 your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Oh God, you are my living hope. Thank you.