Rest for the weary!

Welcome & Announcements

Please feel free to plan a gathering of a small group of folks, here at the church. Use safe practices of hygiene social distancing and cleaning, but by all means, fellowship with one another. Plan a get together out doors somewhere, and encourage one another.

Prayer-

For our country, which is not only facing a medical situation, many parts of our nation, are experiencing a huge amount of conflict. For our leaders to find wisdom in Your Truth, and in Your Way. Heal our land, we cannot make that happen. It is work, that requires God’s hand to change the heart of man from a heart of stone, into a heart of flesh. To guide us on the narrow path of righteousness.

Call to Worship

Psalm 84:1–4 ESV

1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! 2 My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. 3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah

Worship in Song

Psalm 23

Oceans

Come As You Are

Kids’ Corner

Proverbs 18:24 ESV

24 A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 17:17 ESV

17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Proverbs 27:10 ESV

10 Do not forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.

Jeremiah 33:3 ESV

3 Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Sermon- Rest For the Weary

Esther 9:11–19 ESV

11 That very day the number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king. 12 And the king said to Queen Esther, “In Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the ten sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled.” 13 And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day’s edict. And let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.” 14 So the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged. 15 The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed 300 men in Susa, but they laid no hands on the plunder. 16 Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder. 17 This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness. 18 But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. 19 Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.

“Got Relief, Rested x 2” in verse 17-18.

Rest

Rest is a topic that is addressed in Scripture throughout the Old and New Testament. One resource defined rest as, “Freedom from work or activity.” God Himself is the source of the Christian doctrine of rest.

Genesis 2:2 ESV

2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

Rest was something that we are told God practiced, on the 7th day of Creation, after He created all things. Rest is addressed in the 4th out of 10 commandments that God gave to Moses, as He revealed the law to Him on Mt Sinai.

Exodus 20:8–10 ESV

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

This is where the Hebrew Sabbath originated

Types of Rest

There are different types of rest mentioned in Scripture. In the book of Esther, it is most certainly describing a physical rest, that the Jews were experiencing after their battle with their enemies.

Physical

Esther 9:16–18 ESV

16 Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder. 17 This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness. 18 But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness.

Is there a benefit in resting, physically?

John 4:6 ESV

6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

Mark 4:38 ESV

38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Jesus offered a warning to his potential followers, that following Him would not be physically comfortable task, and there would be times of difficulty, even in getting a good night sleep

Luke 9:58 ESV

58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Spiritual

Psalm 55:4–8 ESV

4 My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 5 Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. 6 And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; 7 yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah 8 I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.”

1 Timothy 2:2 ESV

2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Psalm 23:2–3 ESV

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Colossians 1:20 ESV

20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Eternal

Hebrews 4:8–10 ESV

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Deuteronomy 31:7 ESV

7 Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it.

Joshua 22:4 ESV

4 And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers, as he promised them. Therefore turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan.

Psalm 95:7–11 ESV

7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Philippians 1:23 ESV

23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Revelation 7:15–17 ESV

15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Isaiah 65:25 ESV

25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

There is an “already and not yet, aspect to our rest. We are commanded to rest, we receive rest, and we are promised to receive and eternal rest from this sin cursed world one day. Until then we take rest, when it is appropriate, and we receive the ability to rest from our Heavenly Father for our souls, as the Spirit works in our lives.

Reason for Rest

To Renew Strength (Biblical Pattern of Work and Rest)

Exodus 20:11 ESV

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Example:

A man named Frederick W. Taylor, may provide some answers. Taylor worked for a large steel mill during the Spanish-American War 1898.

He was an ambitious young executive and was one of the first to apply scientific methods—as then known—to study the productivity of manual labor. In those days there were no cranes to load steel bars onto railroad cars. It was backbreaking manual work and, after some experimentation, Taylor concluded that the men could do more work if they took rest pauses at definite intervals.

He induced some of the workers to try his new method. He offered a dollar a day more and flattered them by calling them his “high-priced men.” Under this system, a whistle was blown after the men had carried iron for twelve minutes. At this whistle they were to sit down and rest. After three minutes’ rest, the whistle was blown again as a signal for the men to resume work.

The result—the amount of iron carried increased from 12 and a half to 47 tons a day! This seeming miracle ushered in the era of rest pauses, the forerunner of today’s coffee breaks.

Isaiah 40:31 ESV

31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

To Know Peace.

Because, to know peace is to know Rest, and to know rest is to know that you have peace.

Psalm 4:8 ESV

8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Philippians 4:6–9 ESV

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Watch for the warning signs-

Example of the horse, that loved to run, but was being asked to walk, yet it was so worked up, it was in a lather, and worn out in a very short time of walking. Once it learned to rest, to trust and to be at peace, it was fine.

What are your warning signs, that you are not finding rest?

What are your physical needs, when it comes to getting enough rest?

What are your spiritual needs to be assured you are finding peace with God and with your fellow man?

Are you prepared to take your final rest? Are you at peace with God, and know for certain that you will enter into an eternal rest and not an eternal unrest?

Not an excuse to be lazy, slothful or a sluggard.

Proverbs 6:6 ESV

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.

Rest is a gift from God.

Mark 2:27 ESV

27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Standing on the promises of Christ my King, thru eternal ages let His praises ring; glory in the highest I will shout and sin, Standing on the Promises of God.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, by the living word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises, of Christ the Lord, bound to Him eternally, by love’s strong cord, overcoming daily with the Spirit’s Sword, standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I cannot fall, listening every moment to the Spirit’s call, resting in my savior as my all in all, standing on the promises of God.

Worship in Song

Blessed Assurance

Close In Prayer-