The food our souls need is faith! (Let's look at our recipe)

Let’s look at our inner orchestra! (The internal band and external band)

Also I’m taking some of this straight from David Murray and building on it.

First, there’s the din of guilt, the shame and embarrassment of our dark moral secrets: thoughts of I should have or I shouldn’t have and these clang noisily in our deep recesses, shattering our peace.

Then the greed starts banging away in our hearts with its relentless drumstick: “I want it, I need it, I must have it, and so on…

And what’s that angry metal beat? It’s hate stirring up malice, ill will, resentment, and revenge: “How could she…? I’ll get him…she will pay for this.

Vanity also adds its proud and haughty thud, drowning out all who compete with our beauty, our talents, and our status: “me up, him down, Me up, her down, Me up, all down.

Anxiety goes in the background: rapidly surveying the past, the present, and the future for things to worry about: what if…what if…what if…and is that the little silver triangle of self pity I hear:why me? Why me? Why me?

The repetitive and unstoppable jangle of expectation comes from all direction—family member, friends, employers, church, and, especially, ourselves.

And smashing into our lives wherever we turn are the giant cymbals of the media and technology: local ad international, paper, and pixels, sound and image, audio and video, beep and tweet, notifications and reminders, and on and on it goes.

Not to mention the fast past techno of changes with the pandemic and everything around it. The sounds of frustration, being tired, and trying to constantly keep up and adapt to the changes and people opinions.

Then we have the screamo music blaring of learning how to home school children, learning how as an educator to educate online, all the while the kids demands never stop, and the demands of our employers and people don’t seem to slow down but increase.

Now we mix in fast past classical of the elections, the division in our world, the animosity around COVID, mask, vaccines, and not to mention a good chunk of Oregon burning up, and all the division around how to approach the subject of race and racial reconciliation.

You add the final notes of the constant demand to respond back to every email, phone call, and text message or else people will be upset and you can see why we might need some rest.

Faith in good news not good advice!

The world’s response is advice including taking stuff off the plate

The food we need is faith in news: the good news!

It will be evident what the church is feeding and feasting on!

The burden for advice fall on us and news is about a person, an event

“Imagine that a king goes into battle to defend his kingdom against an invading army. If he wins the battle, he’ll send messengers back to his people with the good news of his victory. These messengers would announce, “The enemy’s been defeated! The battle is won! Go enjoy the peace the king has obtained for you.”

But what if the invading breaks through the king’s defenses? Then the king wouldn’t send back messengers with good news. Instead, he’d send a message of advice, saying, “Arm yourselves. Reinforce the ramparts. Get ready to fight for your lives!”

Rest isn’t ultimately about an external action—it’s an internal state of the soul when everything is out of control (look at David in Psalm 23)

Faith in coming to Jesus!

He says come to me not go and get cleaned up

We tend to go to a lot of things for rest but not to Jesus (to the one who promises rest, to the creator, the all powerful, etc.) What do you go to?

Romans 8:1

Romans 8:1 ESV

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

No higher courtroom or judge and once he speaks it, it is a reality like creation

There is no charge that can be brought forth that Jesus hasn’t paid for

Either in Christ or out of Christ

The enemy can say “guilty” and we can say those are your words but here are God’s: no guilt! The enemy can say pitiful or guilty and we can say I know but in God’s eyes “guiltless” because there is not guilt found in me because it was placed on Christ

Come to Jesus anytime, anywhere under any condition because we are not like the boys with the fish!

When you come to him he gives you rest! You are reminded there is no guilt because he paid it!

What does coming to Jesus look like: tapping out, surrendering and saying I’m here, I’ve got nothing!

Faith in what Christ gives us to take!

“A yoke is the heavy crossbar laid on oxen to force them to drag farming equipment through the field. Jesus is using a kind of irony, saying that the yoke laid on his disciples is a nonyoke. For it is a yoke of kindness. Who could resist this? It’s like telling a drowning man that he must put on the burden of a life preserver only to hear him shout back, sputtering, “No way! Not me! This is hard enough, drowning here in these stormy waters. The last thing I need is the added burden of a life preserver around my body!” What helium does to a balloon, Jesus’s yoke does to his followers. We are buoyed along in life by his endless gentleness and supremely accessible lowliness.” —Dane Ortlund

Take a few things: take his identity, take his work, take his race, take Jesus’ love

We are taking a lot of things and attaching them as our identity

We are taking our grades, our efforts, and our race instead of taking Jesus’

Take Jesus love (trees, leaves, books, pages, and words can all be calculated)

The Father’s love for the Son cannot be (buzz light year)

John 15:9

Your soul to its depths needs to take the love of Christ that is yours for rest! Faith to know he loves you to infinity and beyond!

We see God’s heart in this text and who his heart was and is for. He is always moving toward the sinner, broken and outcast

Come and take my righteousness and love

Don’t make the mistake of thinking Jesus is like us

Psalm 46:10 is a call to have faith and trust outside of you just like the gospel

When we rest we train our souls to trust not in ourselves but to trust in Christ work. Sleep in essence can be a picture of the gospel. We lay there almost lifeless and God brings us to the morning.

The tradition of Sunday being the first day of the week

Faith in the goodness of Jesus being with you!

Jesus is not saying life is easy and light but what he offers is

In the midst of chaos and turbulence

You are not defined by your circumstance or situation but by Christ who is with you, what he gives is easy and light and it doesn’t change, he doesn’t and he is with us always and in control

Supplements

Sleep—it tells us what our theology truly believes

*Major physical and moral implications for those who don’t

leave your phone downstairs

Have a disciplined sleep schedule and bed time routine

Have a sheet or box next to your bed

Sabbath

turn off phones

Husbands send out your wives

do something restful

Diet and Exercise

everyone can do it

when your body goes down to rest and you’ve been doing it all day

the implications it can have on anxiety and depression

Play

I love watching my kids play how much more does God

something fun

something that you can see finished