Intro to Christian Living

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Thank you for taking a few moments from your time gathering together to join us.
It is great to see everybody. What has been a Challenge that we have had victory over this past week? What has been a victory this week? How are your relationships and thoughts you have as you return to work? Is there a unique dynamic at work?
Announcements:-
The covid gopher saw his shadow last week in NC so we have three more weeks of Covid-19 Phase 2, so we will continue to meet in this format just a little while longer!
We are still inviting you to gather at All American Chapel 1100 on Sunday. -
This Tuesday men’s group will meet at the Hospitality House
Dave and Jean Bobbey - are still moving into a new home, this turned out to be a bigger deal than we expected they only have their daughters helping this weekend.
Review and Introduction
We closed out our journey looking at John 13:34-35 and looking through several of the one another passages. What I would like to do is look at a few practical lessons on Christian life and disciplines in the next few weeks. What I mean is that we look at the things of everyday christian life that we practice like reading the Bible, prayer, worship, sabbath, giving or tithing, but not just know that we are to practice them but to also understanding why we do them. When we read scripture there are very few passages that give a command without reason, in fact I cannot easily think of one, unless it is repeating a command from earlier in the word, and their is always a good reason behind it.
I think about many things in church we used to teach children or were taught as children, they are to obey, pray, memorize scripture or catechism. We were expected to carry these actions or regurgitate knowledge and then based upon our performance we were rewarded or punished. We then observed that these children were not keeping “their faith” as they transitioned into adulthood. So we changed the approach we made these tasks fun for the most part removing the punishment keeping the reward and made the time they learned “fun” only to join adult church to find it “boring”. Then as these children grew up, and according to current statistics we are looking at anywhere from 65-80 percent of teens will drift away from their faith after high school, many return again looking at the statistics not until they have children. I do not think this is a programming issue, but a completeness issue.1. our children and you single guys need to make a decision whom they will follow 2. I think if we have an understanding of not only what we believe and why I think that will go a long way. For some of us it may make sense and understand it, but for others we need to wrestle with things before we have a correlated knowledge of them. I liken this to flight school, we have knowledge crammed into our over taxed minds and then we are taught the skill of flying and we are expected to be military aviators who possess the knowledge in a wide variety of subjects from anatomy, physics, meteorology, psychology and then about a dozen other areas all within a span of 12-24 months. A unit with good trainers will know that it should take another several years to make well rounded pilots. Without knowing it these unit trainer are doing what we are supposed to do as believers making disciples.
My goal this evening is to introduce the next series that I would like to study with you guys one practical christian life and disciplines. As way of introduction the first area I want to look at is the sabbath, and the rest that we are given by God.
We are looking at the beginning of our school year in a little over a week for the boys. We are looking at how we will need to adjust our routine and schedules to best suit their educational requirements and any extra curricular things they pursue. Kim and I both have requirements for what we do for work and what we are trying to do personally. We are also aware of the dangers of burning out, I am not just talking about the mission fatigue that you feel in a deployment, I am talking about giving everything that you have until you do not have anything left to give. The military encourages this kind of committed sacrifice, our culture praises this industriousness. Far too often, our lives are so busy, not only do we suffer our families feel it and but less seen is your spiritual life seems next to impossible.
Central Idea
Open to Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

1. Physical and Mental
First Jesus recognized that we were weary and burdened both physically and mentally. Jesus was too, he was as every bit a man as we are. He knows the pull that we have in our lives, but here Jesus is not promising necessarily a respite from the demands and pains of a physical life.
This passage is not necessarily specifically the physical rest, although it is needed.
2. Spiritual
I think this passage was the rest we get when we give our lives to Christ and learn that we are not burdened deeply by the worry and toil of trying to keep every command of the law. We took a look several months back at the pentateuch “The books of the law” We see all the commands that the Israelites were given just to be in the presence of God to worship. Well by the time that Christ came we see that the Jewish people had added laws to prevent from getting close to the laws that instructed how not to sin. Think of adding a guard rail to keep from hitting a guard rail.
Today, we may not be bound by ritual sacrifice or mandated days of observance, by the word of God but we have become just as distracted from the focus of our worship. Our lives are busy, but so is our spiritual life as well. That is not what God intended. We are meant to slow down and rest to be with God.
Conclusion
Take up my yoke and learn from me.
This is where we get off track from go. When accept Christ we have an idea what it should look like, we think that it should be a mix between the monastic living of the reformers and to sacrificial life service of mother Theresa. While we are to study the word and as we have seen in the past few weeks we are to serve one another sacrificially. We then with this in mind take off frantically trying to please Jesus, meanwhile he is calmly walking through the storm. Jesus tells us here that We must learn from Him, we do that by looking at his example, his teaching, and the word of God!
Jesus never once said be busy and you will be successful, only then you can enter the kingdom. In the next couple of weeks I would like to dive in to look at Bible and what it teaches to help us all understand what this rest looks like and why it is important. What I would like for us all to do is look practically and honestly at our lives to see if it lines up with what the teaching says, and if it does great you can help disciple those of us who need it, but I ask that if it does not that we help be accountable to one another to submit to Jesus’ teaching.
Tonight I my questions are more to open dialogue and I would like to hear answers from the other campus. Theses will help me guide our lessons in the upcoming weeks.
Questions:
What are areas of your life that you wish you could live for Christ more clearly and/or intentionally? example (but not limited to): time, finances, worship, dating, parenting, prayer,
Do you take time for intentional rest, not just sleep for 8 hours, but rest with the intention to renew your spirit and mind? If yes, what does that look like?
What challenges do you face when it comes to taking intentional rest?
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