RISE 4: Rest
Notes
Transcript
Rest in Conscience
Rest in Community
Rest in Christ
(HOPE Psalm 130 – 8 verses)
(LOOK Psalm 123 – 4 verses)
(HELP Psalm 121 – 8 verses)
Welcome/Announcements
Welcome/Announcements
Thank band and Wayne/Donna.
Welcome.
Introduce yourself.
Announcements
Announcements
Mission New Mexico
Thank you all for giving to Mission MNM.
Yes, we have reached our goal; however, we still have the opportunity to continue giving throughout the month of October. Let’s just see where this giving lands.
POM Marriage Retreat
Coming in February of 2022 is a weekend Marriage Retreat: Kerry and I are excited to lead the“Discipline of Love: Communication in the Seasons of Your Marriage” Marriage Retreat.
The retreat will be Feb 18-19 at the Drury Inn in Albuquerque. I’m sharing this now because we are offering an “Early Bird” special through Nov. 14. It’s only $150 per couple for the entire Weekend Retreat. After the 14th, it will increase to $225. Also, we are limited to 12 couples for this retreat, so if you are interested or know of a couple, then register as soon as possible. You can find the registration link on the What’s Happening page of our Eastern Hills Web Page. ehbc.org.
Great. Let’s get started this morning.
Message
Message
Pastor Bill began this series in Psalm 130. We started by looking at HOPE—we saw in Psalm 130 the hope that we have in the forgiveness that is offered to us in the Gospel of Christ, and the message of hope that we have the privilege of sharing with others. Then, three weeks ago, Pastor Trevor shared with us the message to LOOK from Psalm 123, connecting that ancient prayer with our prayer life today. Then last week Pastor Bill brought us the message of HELP from Psalm 121 and showed us that those who look to the Lord for their strength, their support, their shelter, and their salvation, in all places, all situations, and at all times, they will never lack His presence on the journey, even if we don’t always realize He’s there.
Now this morning, we will conclude our journey with the selected Psalms of Ascent with two written by David himself. Today we will conclude this series with REST.
Let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read Psalms 131 and 133 together:
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I do not get involved with things too great or too wondrous for me.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child.
3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever.
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony!
2 It is like fine oil on the head, running down on the beard, running down Aaron’s beard onto his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has appointed the blessing— life forevermore.
PRAYER
PRAYER
Please be seated
I need to come clean with you all. This morning’s message on REST really convicted me. Those that truly know me, know that my personality is one that does not seek rest nor is good at meaningful rest. I feel like my life is functioning best when I have ZERO margin to slow down…Guess what, that’s not good at all. In fact, that’s downright dangerous for my soul, my family and friends, and my relationship with Christ Himself.
This is something that I continually work at, to achieve REST.
Every day it is a choice I must make. And every day I choose.
I’ll explain in greater detail soon.
Friends, these six verses may seem short and to the point, in fact, each individual chapter of 131 and 133 contain just three verses each. The least we have studied yet; however, they are so full of personal application and these two chapters are appropriate for the conclusion of this series.
Let’s begin by really looking at the word REST. Look at it there. What comes to your mind as you look at that word?
Me personally, when I think of the word REST, I picture myself in my jammies, on the couch, watching football or maybe sitting on a porch on a cabin in the woods, listening to the wind blow through the trees.
What about you?
Are you alone?
With Family?
On a beach?
Reading a book?
Listening to music?
Binge watching a TV series on the couch.
Maybe it’s working out or doing your favorite hobby.
Here’s the 1828 Webster’s definition of rest:
Cessation of motion or action of any kind. Quiet; repose; a state free from motion or disturbance; a state of reconciliation to God.
Whatever REST may look like to you, many of us are guilty of choosing not to honestly REST our souls.
Let me share with you now what God taught me about REST: Emotional-Physical and Spiritual REST, and why I’m grateful for the way He did it.
It was back in the spring of 2019. I was at a breaking point in my life. Both physically and spiritually. I was an emotional mess. I neglected my time of intimacy with Christ. I neglected my rest.
Emotional fatigue had set in. My margins for rest and recharge were dwindling to non-existence.
I was short tempered. My “filter” for speech was absent. I was depressed and feeling hopeless.
Action had to be taken and action was taken. I spent a week in an intensive counseling session in Denver Colorado with Kerry by my side.
I learned through that week how to REST again. How to REST in my Conscience. How to REST in my Community and most of all…How to REST in Christ again.
So let’s start by reading how David shares in verses 1 & 2 in RESTing in our Conscience…our soul.
1 Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I do not get involved with things too great or too wondrous for me.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child.
He points us first to a moment of solitude.
This is my first application point:
REST in my Conscience
REST in my Conscience
Remember friends, we have been on a journey of ascent, leading up towards Jerusalem. We are climbing the mountain.
David now shares three areas that must be won in our Conscience, our Souls to experience REST.
First, it’s our heart and eyes.
“Lord, my heart is not proud. My eyes are not Haughty”
In our common vernacular, heart stands for our emotions. The heart is every facet of the hidden life of our personality…who we are, what we do, what we feel, what we think on the inside.
23 Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
Think about it…Everything starts there. Life springs out of who and what we are at that hidden center of each of us.
Also, Jesus reinforces the same truth, even with a stronger emphasis on the heart as the potent life-changer.
26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean.
To follow the instructions of guarding our hearts against a groundlessly high view of ourselves, we then need to be warned to avoid a groundlessly low view of everyone else.
Think of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, who was confident of his own righteousness and ‘looked down on everyone else.’
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’
13 “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’
14 I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
To find REST, to Choose REST, we must be intentional to allow Humility to reign in our hearts and our eyes.(repeat)
Next, to find REST in my Conscience, I need to address the Business of Life.
“I do not get involved with things too great or too wondrous for me.”
Let’s all be honest with ourselves right now. Majority of us see “Busyness” as a badge of honor. It shows the world that we are not lazy and that we git‘ir done.
Kerry and I owned a business back in the 90’s. I had a saying for my employees: “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.”
My attitude was that if you’re not busy doing something, then you are wasting my money and time.
This Joeism was rude and unbiblical in the sense that I did not see the need to ever rest. Instead, keep busy and prove your productiveness.
Isn’t that still true for most of us. We forgot what it meant to “Be Still.”
10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let the whole earth be silent in his presence.
16 “Now, therefore, present yourselves and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes.
Let’s try a quick experiment this morning. I’m going to ask each of us here this morning, as well as for those online watching to BE STILL for 60 seconds.
Just stop, close your eyes and listen to what God has for each of you. Focus on a recent blessing or maybe a prayer request or something that’s challenging you from God’s Word. Whatever it may be, let’s stop for 60 seconds and focus on Him.
Ready, go…(60 Seconds)
For some of you it felt like an eternity of time and for some, it went by in a blink. Regardless, we must each choose to Be Still before God.
Each of us needs to evaluate the Busyness of our lives.
I learned a great lesson from Kevin DeYoung’s book Crazy Busy. He said that “For every time you say, ‘Yes’ to something, you are also saying ‘No’ to something else.”
Too often friends, that “No” is time necessary to REST your soul, REST with Family, REST with Christ.
Again, it is a choice and when we are there and confident in that decision, we are like verse 2.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child.
This verse calls for us to accept that we must decide to rest in the Lord. Like a maturing child rests in their mother’s arms, we too must rest in Jesus Christ as we grow in Him.
Tremper Longman writes in his commentary, Psalms the following about this verse.
“In unpacking this simile, one must explore the nature of the relationship between a mother and a weaned child. A weaned child can rest comfortably in its mother’s arms, while a baby who is not yet weaned is fussy and restless. Here the psalmist provides a picture image of the kind of trustful confidence that he is now experiencing”
Friends…
Resting with God is not just found in RESTing in our Conscience, but also in RESTing in Community.
This brings us to my second point:
REST in Community
REST in Community
Our lives are fuller together than apart.
Part of resting in the Lord and enjoying His presence is learning to fully embrace the community of family and friends.
That’s right, how we choose to REST impacts those around us.(repeat)
You heard me at the beginning speak to how when I was hurting and without REST, I was moody, my words were sharp and caustic to those around me. My decisions were rash and led to overreaction.
When we are lacking REST, His REST, it spills out to those around us.
Let’s read 133 again.
1 How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony!
2 It is like fine oil on the head, running down on the beard, running down Aaron’s beard onto his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has appointed the blessing— life forevermore.
Harmony.
Think on that one word.
Harmony: a fitting together of parts so as to form a connected whole:
The “parts” are all different; however, when they are fitted or connected together, they form a whole, a harmony.
See, as we choose to REST, then we are but one part to combine together to create harmony with the community around us.
This Harmony is seen clearly in 133.
Let’s now look at a few of the points that David makes about Harmony.
1. This Harmony is a gift from God.
The first of the psalm’s two images is an anointing with oil—specifically the anointing of Aaron, the high priest. Anointing was done at God’s direction, in his way, with his authority, and any blessing it gave was from God.
In verse 2 the repetition “running down,” “running down,” and “onto”—the Hebrew uses the same verb each time—emphasizes that the blessing of Aaron’s anointing was from above himself, that is, from God.
All real Harmony—at least all lasting harmony—is from him.
2. This Harmony is for the small and great alike.
The second of the psalm’s two images is of the dew of Mount Hermon falling on Mount Zion. Hermon was the highest mountain in Israel, located several hundred miles north of Jerusalem. It was proverbial for the dew that fell on its lofty reaches. Here that dew is also said to fall on Zion, which is not very high. Like the preceding metaphor, dew comes from above and illustrates that harmony is from God, but the chief point of this image is that the dew is for little Zion as well as great Hermon.
J. J. Stewart Perowne says, “It is not the refreshing nature of the dew, nor its gentle, all-pervading influence, which is the prominent feature. That which renders it to the poet’s eye so striking an image of brotherly concord, is the fact that it falls alike on both mountains.”
Think of it this way, when an individual, a family, or even a church is at peace because of the rest each chooses, it benefits not only the most prominent or most important persons but also everyone. All are blessed, especially the small, the unimportant, and the weak. Likewise, disharmony hurts everyone.
3. This Harmony is a foretaste of heaven.
The final verse of the psalm speaks of “life forevermore.” Some things are good for us but not pleasant. Other things are pleasant but not good. But the Harmony we have as God’s people is both good and pleasant. It is even a bit of heaven now.
Paul writes to this picture of Harmony we are to display when we choose to REST in Community in
1 If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy,
2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.
4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
Let’s also look back at the end of Psalm 131.
3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever.
We must remember that this Psalm is a personal psalm of David’s. He is writing about himself and his own experiences of learning to trust and love God.
Notice how he left this Psalm, not at verse 2, displaying his trust and love towards God, but instead looks to those around him and challenges them to also “put their hope in God.”
We must choose to Rest in our Conscience
We must choose then to Rest in our Community
And this then leads to the most important REST of all.
We much each choose to
REST in Christ
REST in Christ
Rest seems to escape many of us. I’ve spoken about RESTing in our Conscience and RESTing in our Community.
Friends, to truly achieve a rest for your soul and those around you by your reflection of rest…it begins and ends with Jesus Christ.
28 “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.”
“I will give you REST.”
Friends, God’s Salvation to each of us through His Son Jesus Christ is REST!
Look closely at those verses spoken by Jesus Himself.
He personally invites the weary and burdened to come to Him and find REST for their souls.
Where are you right now?
For some in this room and online, you have not stopped and even contemplated what it looks like to turn over your weariness and burdens to this person called Jesus. You have not seen the need to surrender your life to anyone. You have heard the Good News. You have even possibly “prayed the prayer” but never fully surrendered your life to Him. You still walk with the burdens and weariness from a life of focusing on yourself and your personal attempt at REST: Emotionally, Physically and Spiritually.
Stop, and turn to the One who gives Life Abundantly.
10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
We are all so “tired and running on fumes” in our lives right now. We need to stop going it alone and lean into the One that will give us the REST we need.
Friends, I’m also speaking to those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We know Him and He knows us; however, we have allowed the busyness of life to derail the REST we so very much need.
I speak from personal experience. After that week, I came running back into His arms and I began a new journey, a renewed relationship with my Lord and Savior.
I spend time every morning in His Word, just me and God, reading the Bible as the love letter to each of us as it was intended to be.
I focus on my morning workout after that. Simple workout, but a time to make sure my physical needs are being met.
I make margin for my hobbies and what I would call “fun chores” those activities around the house that I truly enjoy doing, during the week.
I make margin every evening with Kerry. My phone is turned off and put away by 8pm. No emails, no texts, no scrolling through that screen. Just time with Kerry.
I stopped leaning into my agenda, my way of doing things and instead focused on the Intimacy I crave with Jesus Christ Himself.
I kinda created a new Joeism, “If I have time to LEAN, then it’s time to REST.”
What Paul wrote to the church at Galatia became the healing to my tired, worn out soul.
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Friends, stop and truly evaluate your REST.
Where are you right now? I think it is a safe statement to say that each and every one of us needs REST. Needs a time to stop and connect with Christ again.
What’s stopping you?
(Invite Bill, Trevor, Kerry down)
This morning I encourage each of us to stop and pray for that REST in Christ.
For those of you who do not have a relationship with Christ, this is the time to surrender your life to Him, to ask for forgiveness of your sins, and turn your life over to Jesus today. If you are here in the sanctuary this morning, and that’s you I’m speaking of, please come down and pray with one of us. We want to pray with you and journey with you personally.
And for those who are followers of Jesus Christ. Many of you are weary and burdened. We also want to pray with you as do your Brothers and Sisters in Christ. We are here and so are the steps to pray and ask God to remove that yolk of burden and fatigue and in turn take back on His Yolk of comfort and REST. Friends, if you see a brother or sister on the steps, come join them in prayer. We must begin this morning to stand alongside and encourage each other to REST in Christ.
We have journeyed the Psalms of Ascent these past weeks. We began with our HOPE with have in Christ. We LOOKed at our communication, our prayer with Christ. We realized the HELP that Christ gives to us, even when we aren’t looking for it. We are now at the “top” of this mountain where we cry out for REST.
REST for our Conscience
REST for our Community
All done by our choice to REST in Christ.
Let’s Pray
Let’s Pray
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading:
Bible reading:
Isaiah 53 today. A new October Calendar is now available at our web page to download.
Instructions:
Instructions:
Visitors come and meet me, as well as our senior Pastor Bill Connors, down front following service, I have a gift for you and we would like to have a moment to meet you and thank you for being here.
Benediction:
Benediction:
I’d like to close this service with the last Psalm of Ascent. A call to worship as we end the day. May it be our hearts call as well.
A song of ascents.
1 Now bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand in the Lord’s house at night!
2 Lift up your hands in the holy place and bless the Lord!
3 May the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.