Good Work and Good Rest (Exodus 31)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Exodus 31

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning my name is Chet I'm one of the pastors here we are working our way through the book of Exodus if you will turn to Exodus chapter 31. we looked at Exodus chapter 28 and 29 last week the week prior we looked at 26 and on up and we looked at some of the sections in chapter 31. in chapter 31 there is a section on a census that is to be taken and we won't spend time studying that together but we are moving to chapter 31.

Today and we're going to study through this entire chapter together I um a couple years ago was on vacation and I ran into a store to buy some milk I think that's pretty much all I needed I might have needed one other thing but mostly milk and if you had stopped me on my way into the store and said hey how much should milk cost I would have said I don't know and I don't have any opinions about milk I just need some and I would have been thinking I told you the truth I walked to the back of the store and I get to the gallons of milk and milk was six dollars in.

Something and I said to myself six dollars what on Earth like I'm just standing there staring at this like if his milk lost its mind did this come from a magical cow what what on and apparently I had a lot of opinions about milk that were very deep inside of me that I cared deeply about because I was enraged in this grocery store and I wouldn't have been able to tell you that um two minutes ago and the reason I tell you that story is that this morning we are going to.

Look at a passage that is going to I think shine some light on how we view work how we view work and how we View Rest and how we view our labor and I think it's possible that you might think I don't really have like a philosophy of work I don't have a Theology of work I don't have something that I've I haven't given this much thought I don't really have opinions on it and what I'd like to say is you do actually have some opinions on work maybe you have thought it through.

But if you haven't I'd like to offer that you actually do have some sort of a viewpoint on work you're like me with milk you might not realize it but you have some thought process and I want to tell you the two primary ones that our culture gives us these are the ones that you're handed as like hey pick an option these are the two ways to think about work and I would argue that you probably have you lean in one of these directions option number one work gives you your identity it helps you know who you are and it helps everybody else know who you are and by having good work you are better.

And by having worse work you are worse this is identity this is one of the reasons not the only reason but one of the reasons why we ask people pretty quickly what do you do what kind of work do you do it's not just a good topic of conversation when you first meet somebody it also helps you know what kind of person are you who are you but people don't know how to answer that question so you say what kind of work do you do and it helps us to find that.

So work as identity is one of the cultural options we're given the other one is that work is a necessary evil that is useful for providing the type of life that you want work is a necessary evil that is useful for providing the type of life that you want so if you want a lavish life you need work that will provide that if you want to live in the woods and eat Roots you don't have to work at all you did it.

But whatever lifestyle you want the amount of rest that you want the amount of pleasantness that you want the amount of stability that you want work is there to provide that and you need to work the exact amount that gives that to you and one of the reasons I think I can help you see that this is how we think about this is we ask little kids what do you want to be when you grow up and B is a is an identity word what do you want to be.

When you grow up and we're interested in this answer and I my wife showed me one where this little kid was like going first day of kindergarten and said how they were and it said What class they were going into and then it said I want to be when I grow up and they put chicken nugget and I guess they thought what's the most amazing thing ever I want to set up my sights High I'm going to be a chicken nugget.

But we don't want chicken nugget as an answer you want to hear Dr lawyer scientist astronaut Batman like we want something good to pour yourself into and usually if you're talking to a kid and you say they say they want to be a doctor and you say that's great you are saying that's great either because what a good identity what a good person to be what a good honorable thing to make yourself into or that's great Doctors live at the lake.

And if a kid says something and you say you don't want to do that usually it's because it won't provide the type of life I want for you or it's not the type of person I want you to be because those are our primary things that we're given culturally now as a Christian we add a third thing into this because I talk to people they'll say things like I'm really trying to follow Jesus I want my life to matter is it.

Okay for me to just repair HVAC units my entire life is that okay is it okay if all I ever do is teach kindergarten is that okay like am I okay to do that or have I missed something have I rejected the mission of God somehow and so this passage I think shines some light and gives us some clarity on all of that and will help us have a better approach to how we ought to view work and how we ought to view living lives of a lot of normal work under the leadership of.

God and in worship and glory to him so let's pray and we're going to read Exodus chapter 31 together God we ask for your grace we ask for your help we pray that you would give us clarity as we study your word today that we might be Spirit-filled laborers that we might love you and love our neighbors well through them in Jesus name amen now I do not think that this passage is primarily here to teach us the things that we're going to talk about this morning.

So we're going to read through it and I'm going to try to help you see it in context with Exodus before we're going to walk through and point out some of the things that help kind of say hey this this gives us some handles here on how we ought to think about work so Exodus chapter 31 the Lord said to Moses Moses up on the mountain God's been telling him over and over again all the things he's going to have to do the.

Lord said to Moses see I have called by name bezalel the son of Yuri son of her of the tribe of Judah and I have filled him with the spirit of God with ability and intelligence with knowledge and all craftsmanship to devise artistic designs to work in gold silver and bronze in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood to work in every craft and behold I have appointed with him a holy AB the son of ahissamak of the tribe of Dan and I have given to all able men ability that they may make all that I have commanded you and this is a recap of what we've been studying the past few weeks starting.

In verse 7. the tent of meeting and the Ark of the testimony and The Mercy Seat that is on it and all the Furnishings of the tent the table and its utensils and the pure lamp stand with all its utensils and the altar of incense and the altar of burnt offerings with all its utensils and the Basin and its stand and the finely worked garments the holy garments for Aaron the priests and the garments of his sons for their service as priests and the anointing oil and The Fragrant incense.

For the holy Place according to all that I have commanded you they shall do so God's been telling him you're going to do this you're going to build this you're going to build this this is how you're going to build it this is how long it's going to be this is how wide this is what a span is all those things and then he says and I've set aside specifically these men to help they're going to build it and then he says this in.

Verse 12. and the Lord said to Moses you are to speak to the people of Israel and say above all you shall keep my sabbaths the Sabbath is the day of rest that one day in seven they would work six days and then they would rest and worship in the rest of the Lord and do no work you shall keep my sabbaths for this is a sign between me and you throughout your Generations that you may know that I the Lord sanctify you.

So he says the Sabbath stands here to show you that I'm the one who sets you apart who makes you holy who makes you good I'm the one who rescues you I'm the one who gives you your worth that's what's built into that word sanctify and it's important because of what he's about to say verse 14 you shall keep the Sabbath because it is Holy for you everyone who profanes it shall be put to death whoever does any work on it that Soul shall be cut off from among his people.

Now as we study the Ten Commandments one of the things we talked about is that we don't have a good radar As Americans for the sanctity of God the Holiness of God and so when he says things like you're going to keep the Sabbath and if you don't you're going to be put to death we immediately think that's an overreaction but it's because we have an under reaction to the Holiness of God to the weight of obedience and do you see what a rejection of the Sabbath is it's a rejection of knowing.

God is the one who sets them apart God has invited them into this sanctifying relationship and a rejection of the Sabbath is a rejection of God being the one who makes them holy who does the work and so they're in this in some ways a rejection of Sabbath for them is like a rejection of salvation for us to say that we don't want Jesus I'll be the one who makes myself good I'll be the one who makes myself holy and it does what to us what it does to them which it cuts them off from the people.

Because he said they if if they're to remember consistently that he's the one who redeems and then to to work on that day is to reject that it's a problem and he will not put up with that being rampant in them in among his people and you will be put to death verse 15. six days shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest holy to the Lord whoever does any work on the Sabbath today shall be put to death.

Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath observing the Sabbath throughout all their Generations as a covenant forever it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed if you have more questions about the Sabbath we taught about it when we looked at the fourth Commandment in the Ten Commandments we won't spend as much time on it today Verse 18 and he gave to Moses.

When he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai the two tablets of the testimony tablets of stone written with the Finger of God so he's handing off to him all that they've talked about Moses is about to go down the mountain and get to work all we've read so far is stuff that he's supposed to do he's leaving with a to-do list in so many ways he's got a bunch of things he's got to do God's given it to him and sitting down the mountain.

Okay so one of the first things though that I think is helpful for us as we try to understand how we ought to approach work because what's happening in this moment is God is giving Moses all these instructions and he's telling him who's going to accomplish it and he's reminding him of the Sabbath and sending him down and that's kind of where this fits in the context of Exodus but I think for us it's helpful for us to notice a few things that clarify how we ought to view work the.

First one is this look at verse two see I have called by name bezalel and then in verse 3 it says and I have filled him with the spirit of God now Moses is hearing this what for he's calling this guy specifically and he's filled him with the spirit of God what for and when we think of being filled with the spirit of God we think prophecy he's gonna he's gonna be like in the Priestly service there's something going to be something something really spiritual is going to happen.

And then he says filled him with the spirit of God he's filled him with ability and intelligence with knowledge and all craftsmanship to devise artistic designs to work in gold silver and bronze in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood to make every craft I filled him with my spirit for work for craftsmanship for competency that he's poured in him ability and intelligence knowledge and all craftsmanship that this is a gift from God and this is really interesting to me it's really encouraging and I also think that.

If we're to consider bezalel I don't think that he was sitting in his tent and had spent his entire life being incompetent and God Zapped him and suddenly he was like I must make artistic designs I don't think that's what happened I think that what happened is what happens in all of life for us where God is at work in this man and he grows in competency I don't think when he made artistic designs for the Tabernacle it was the first time he had ever done it one of the things he had to do was filigree that they were going to do this I want to show you all filigree this is filigree he had.

To engrave precious stones wrap them in that and put them on the shoulders of the Priestly garments I don't think it was the first time he'd ever made filigree I think this was something that he had been good at been competent been growing in that God had poured this ability in him and then God says I've specifically designed him for this purpose so go back look what he gives him his ability and intelligence so and then knowledge and all craftsmanship and these are gifts from.

God which if you think about this if God's the one who gives these things then it glorifies God for bezalel to be good at them that if Moses comes down and he says I'm looking for bezalel a son of Yuri son of her tribe of Judah like he goes to the tribe of Judah y'all got a bezel yeah we got seven okay son of Yuri son of her oh okay we got two that are under her but only one under Yuri that's the one I'm looking.

For and when he says okay show me what you can do how does bezelo glorify God by being excellent and Moses would be watching him and go and then look at God like wow you poured intelligence and ability and knowledge and craftsmanship into him this is amazing to bezel would glorify God well by being good at this and have y'all ever in life seen someone who had ability and it just you kind of marveled at it physical ability they could dance or play a sport they they could play an instrument.

For a moment you just kind of swept up in the actual beauty of it the glory of it because there's God-given ability that's in the world that points us to him it doesn't terminate on itself but it rolls us up y'all ever seen intelligence and just been blown away by it like someone who figured something out came out with something new fixed the problem designed something you ever just your car's not working so you pop the hood and you're sad but impressed.

Because it's like this thing is magical I don't know how to work it but somebody made up something really good here there's intelligence that's done these things but it also says intelligence and knowledge and I love that that's separated because intelligence and knowledge are not exactly the same thing we put them together a lot but someone can have knowledge without being the most intelligent person there have been times where you've interacted with somebody and they just know they know what they're doing they know how to fix the problem they know how to sort a thing out there are people.

If you ever watch anybody who works in food service or fast food that loves their job and does a good job and knows what they're doing have you ever seen like I'll get stuck watching videos sometimes of people who just know what they're doing and some kind of building a craft or working on a thing or who can just flip Burgers real quick or the people who do that little ice cream thing where they take the ice cream from you and they give it back to you or whatever have you ever seen this like you can go to Marble Slab and be blessed by someone being really good at doing what they're doing and enjoying.

It they have the knowledge the competence to do this and craftsmanship He blesses them with these things and he specifically calls him to these things that it's a God-given ability and a God-given calling for this but then he says this verse 6. and behold I have appointed with him a holy AB the son of a hissim a hyssamek of the tribe of Dan and I have given to all able men ability that they may make all that I have commanded you I have given to all able men ability I want you to.

Look at that for a second ability is a blessing can you highlight that for us that ability is a blessing y'all work is not a curse it's cursed by sin so there's aspects of it that are more difficult but work was in the garden God designed us to be competent and to work and that we bring him glory in good work so if God's the one who gives ability if God's the one who gives skill and craftsmanship and knowledge then we can glorify.

God by doing that well therefore all good work can be worship if there's a way in work to glorify God through ability and skill and knowledge and craftsmanship which I would argue that all jobs take something of one of those four take ability or they take intelligence or they take knowledge or they take some craftsmanship that all work takes some sort of then if that's a way to glorify God by doing it well therefore work can be worshipful now there are some occupations that you're not allowed to do like.

If you said God's gifted me with the ability and one of the things that I'm great at is hurting people who owe the mafia money we would just say he's given you other abilities find one of those you might excel at this but this is not an okay thing for you to do but most occupations most work is going to be something that you get to do in a way that glorifies God that's worshipful so there's a way for bezalel to be tied up where he thinks that work is just about himself.

Therefore the only way he could be humble in work is to be bad at it because if he's good at it it terminates on himself it makes him prideful there's a way for him to try to steal the glory from God and make it about himself wrap his identity up and that wrap his worth up and make it about himself but if good work is meant to glorify God then the way to be humble in work is not to be bad at it.

But to worshipfully be very very good at it the way to be humble in work is not to be bad at it but to worshipfully be very very good at it and do y'all see how if work can be worshiped that that undermines our two primary cultural options given to us that in this option work is about you it's about your identity it's about your worth and so that all of your work ultimately just turns around and is about you you don't become a doctor.

Because you want to care for sick people and it's a blessing to the world you don't become a lawyer because we need Justice you become that because those are good things to be and ultimately your work is about you but if my work is worshipful and it rolls up and prays to God then that kills that approach it undermines it you think that work is just unnecessary evil so that you can enjoy the actual good stuff of life when you understand that God's blessed you to be worshipful in your work it can't be evil it's part of the good stuff of life it has purpose in it.

And so this approach this understanding undercuts our approaches to work but I want you to see something else it's not just that work can be worshipful but work the use of skills the exercise of these abilities that God has given us can be done in worship but it's also one of the primary ways that we love our neighbors look at verse six behold I have appointed with him a holy AB the son of a hissamak of the tribe of Dan and I have given to all able men ability that they may make all that I have commanded you Moses has been up on a mountain.

God has been repeatedly telling him he's been repeatedly telling him that he's going to have to do this he's going to have to make this you're going to make this you're going to make this you're going to make this you're going to make this you're going to make this you're going to make a table you're going to make a tent you're going to make a an effort you're going to make a breast piece you're going to have bells and pomegranates it's all going to be.

Finally done it's going to be done really well it's going to be engraved really well you're going to make filigree you're going to make all these things I don't think that Moses was thinking oh no I can't do that I'm a shepherd Moses was a Shepherd he's not about to walk down the mountain and weave a tent I think Moses was thinking what we would think which is we're going to make this because that's how it works and then God specifically says I've blessed all of them with ability to accomplish all these things and all that they're going to accomplish isn't just about worship it's not just about themselves.

But it also blesses everybody around them that it's a blessing to have this kind of ability that I want to I missed a quote that I want to read to y'all and we'll point out to y'all as we understand that work is an act of worship and then work as a way to love our neighbors this is a quote from Dorothy Sayers she's an author and she says this the Church's approach to an intelligent Carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him to not be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to Church on Sundays.

For the record It's a Good Counsel but then she says this what the Church should be telling him is this the very first demand that his religion makes upon his time is that he should make good tables and in doing that who worship and he'll love God and he'll love his neighbor there's a in his book Tim Keller wrote a book called every good Endeavor and in that book he quotes another book work the meaning of Life by Lester decoster and I want to read this quote to you it's a longer quote.

But I think it's a helpful thing to Think Through he says this work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others and which others make themselves useful to us we plant with our work and God gives the increase to unify the human race so he says that in work I make myself useful to others others make themselves useful to us and God blesses this this is the concept that Martin Luther has of The Masks of God that God works through work we're told in the Bible that.

God strengthens strengthens the bars of the city we're told that God watches over the city we're told that God feeds everybody we all he does but one of the ways he does that is that someone builds the walls in the bars of the city and someone watches there's night Watchmen that watch over the city and there's someone who milks the cow and someone who delivers the milk like God feeds me but one of the ways he does that is there's a Food Lion a mile from my house and every day someone goes over there and unlocks the doors.

For me and puts the lion back in the back where he's been doing night Watchman stuff at night so that he won't attack me like there's there's things that someone does so that I can enter in there and be able to get the food out and it's a blessing and so this is what Lester decoster says he says look at the chair you are lounging in could you have made it for yourself how would you get say the wood would you go and fell a tree I said sure.

But only after first making the tools for that and putting together some kind of vehicle to haul the wood and constructing a mill to do the lumber and making roads to drive on from place to place in short a lifetime or two to make one chair you're gonna go cut down a tree okay make the tools to cut the tree down all right you did it you got your tree down now what you're going to do and it's just a helpful thought process of being like.

Okay another take forever he says if we worked not 40 but 140 hours per week we couldn't make for ourselves from scratch even a fraction of all the goods and services that we call our own our paycheck turns out to buy us the use of far more than we could possibly make for ourselves in the time it takes for us to earn the check work yields far more in return upon our efforts than our particular jobs put in why because of everybody else that we could not in the amount of time have the things that we have live the lives that we live.

But we can together because of everybody else Tim Keller then says in response to this quote the guy ends this quote by saying the difference between a Wilderness and a culture is simply work without if everybody quit work we would just be in a wilderness and Tim Keller says there may be no better way to love your neighbor whether you are riding parking tickets software or books than to Simply do your work and he calls this the ministry of competency you get to work in the ministry of Competency which means being competent being good at the work that you've been given is a way to love your neighbor my granddad grew up in the Swansea.

Area and he said he he joined the Marines he went and signed up he said he walked out of the office got on the bus with a bunch of other guys and they rode to Paris Island he said they get off the bus when they get off this man comes out in a uniform and yells I'm your mama now boys my granddad said he thought I may have made a mistake one of the first things they did was they issued him a uniform and they issued him boots.

And so they went in and they all got measured for all of these things and they you know measure you can give you your stuff he said they measured somebody's foot gave him a boot gave him a pair of boots sent them out measure their gas foot and gave him a pair of boots send them out eventually they measured his foot and apparently he has more of like a Clydesdale hoof than a foot he said his foot is almost as wide as it is long it just is like.

And so they measured his foot and then when looked for boots and the guy who's in charge of this is just looking they're trying on boots looking trying on boots looking trying on boots it's like his first day in the Marines and he's just sitting there trying on chew after two after shoe he said his drill sergeant comes back in and starts yelling at him while the the guy was in the back looking for shoes and then he said one of the most magical things that's ever happened in the Marines happen.

For his his time in the Marines the guy who fits you for Boots outranked the guy who was yelling at him so he said he walked back in and said let me tell you something this Marine's gonna have shoes that fit his feet he's got to be on his feet all the time and he said he just chewed him out he said he just sat there after being chewed out watch this guy get chewed out and then got to sit there until he had boots and he looked at me and said that man found me boots that fit my feet and it was the.

First pair of comfortable shoes I've owned in my entire life that's the ministry of competence that man loved my granddad well do you know how easy it would have been to say I don't think we have the size put these on and how much more difficult life would have been for my granddad as a marine with shoes that didn't fit that's what had happened to him his entire life he had shoes that didn't fit but this man did his job well in this room we have people who work in construction we have people who work in the medical field we have teachers we have people who sell things people who prepare food people who prepare.

Taxes people who help with people's books and finances we have people who sell products fix products cut hair which of those are we willing to give up competency on I know you don't want an incompetent mechanic or an incompetent doctor you don't want them quickly Googling things while you're talking to them you'd like for them to kind of know what they're doing and if they're going to Google at least know where to go but I can WebMD at the house I want you to know what you're doing.

But y'all do we want an incompetent person to cut our hair no have you ever had a really good haircut I really good one and you just walk around like because you just know this person knew what they were doing and they figured out my my head shape and they were able to dodge all the bumps or whatever have you ever had a really bad haircut like a bad haircut that that messes your life up for a short period of time.

But everybody's got to get haircuts yeah you go into a place like when I go into the Verizon store I've gone in before and I felt like I know more about my phone than this person which is bad I've also gone in and after about five minutes of talking I've just relaxed I'm like this person's like my wizard they know what they're talking about the ministry of competence blesses your life and you work one of the primary ways that we love our neighbors is that we're good at our jobs there may be a way.

For you to get another certification there might be some YouTube videos that you can watch there might be some ways that you can grow in knowledge or craftsmanship there might be ways that you can get better at your job that you can learn how to use this type of equipment there's something that you can do that you can be competent that you can help and love and serve people well so that when you go to work you are worshiping the Lord and loving your neighbor and you get to do that day in and day out that completely changes that's counter-cultural to our cultural approaches to work that.

If work is worship and it's not about me and it's not about giving me the good life but it's about me honoring God with the abilities the skills the knowledge the intelligence the talents he's given me and if work is a way for me to love my neighbor then I get to go to work every day just knowing that if I competently prepare this food I've blessed people if I get their order right I've blessed them if I have a good attitude.

If I'm honest when they ask me questions I've blessed people the ministry of confidence is competence is a way to love your neighbor go to Lowe's when you have a problem your day will then be decided by how competent the help at Lowe's is and it makes a difference so what kind of work do you do and how can you get better at it so I believe that begins to answer our question the third question that we have which is is it.

Okay for me to just fix hvacs my whole life can I do pool repair is that okay I think one of the things we've done well as a Church if we told you that one of the ways you can have purpose in your work is by being a missionary that God has already placed you somewhere and that you have co-workers and you have an overseer and you have all these people that God intentionally puts you there that you might reach them with the Gospel and that nobody else is there you've already been commissioned and as a missionary and that's true and I don't want you to lose that.

But I think we've also failed to tell you that one of the ways that you can live a good life is to make really good tables one of the ways do you know how much of life is meant to be normal how much of your life is meant to be go to work eat some food go to sleep it's a continual thing and that one of the blessings we're told is for us to be able to find joy and enjoyment and purpose in our labor our toil that this is a blessing from.

God that's one of the things Ecclesiastes tells us and you actually get to go to work and worship and love your neighbors day in and day out doing whatever good work you find to do and so can you do HVAC repair your whole life yeah if you Worship in it and you love your neighbors well in it I'll tell you one thing when somebody when I need my HVAC repaired I want a competent honest person to show up at my house you ever just like I'm not a hugger.

But sometimes if somebody does something I think I want to hug you I'm not going to but like it's weird for me to hug the plumber but like I want to hug this plumber because they have just they've blessed me and there's a way for you to do that in whatever work you find yourself doing and for someone who says I just stare at a computer I don't have co-workers I don't have anybody that I get to to try to be a missionary with.

Okay well do you know that some people in our Church would die if they had to stay at a computer every day they would physically wither up and fall over dead they do not they have not been blessed with the ability or the skill or the craftsmanship to handle what you are handling and you get to bless people well by doing your job well and you get to love people and you get to Worship the Lord in the skill that he gave you that other people don't have.

So yes you can do that but one of the things that I think is very interesting In this passage that I don't want us to miss because it's a part of this whole thing for us it's part of this whole cultural thing for us is that good God glorifying Rest is an appropriate counterpart to good God glorifying work because go to verse 12. and the Lord said to Moses you are to speak to the people of Israel and say above all you shall keep my sabbaths.

For this is a sign between me and you throughout your Generations that you may know that I the Lord sanctify you why does he say this right here before he sends them down the mountain because he's about to put a tablet of a to-do list in his hands y'all Moses's to-do list is longer than yours do you know how many things he's got to go skillfully make do you know how many animals he's about to have to kill so that they can have priests like do you know this list is long and guess what not going to be done in six days.

And so there'd be a real Temptation for them to go we got work to do this is what we have to do to be the people of God but what's he say above all you're going to keep my Sabbath because I the Lord and the one who sanctifies you that's not what you have to do to be the people of God that's what you get to do because you're part of the people of God but it's not what you have to do to be the people of.

God because I'm the one who sets you apart good rest real rest do y'all realize that in either one of our cultural options you don't rest well this option you don't rest can't rest I'll rest when I'm dead okay because I my worth is here and if I stop working who am I I've got to achieve I've got to make a name for myself I got to get enough money I've got to do it I've got to prove I've got to show back up to my high school reunion and be like whatever and over here rest is the point of life Recreation and pleasure.

And so it gets over inflated here it Withers and dies and here it becomes some monstrosity that it was never meant to be and it's not enjoyable it doesn't work that way it's never enough but if we have worshipful work we get to have worshipful rest and they're a beautiful counterbalance to one another that the people who were worshiping in their work are also the people who can just stop because work isn't about them and it's not about providing the good life they just get to stop and say the Lord's good they get to rest genuinely rest be free I think I think we need to know that rest is a gift and it's a.

Necessary practice to remind us of the place of work rest isn't the goal and it isn't the achievement but it's also not a punishment or a hindrance to finding our significance but it's a blessing and I think that this information is good and helpful but I think it's insufficient I don't think this information will help you actually straighten out your problem not on its own I just don't think it can I think you can leave going I'm supposed to worship and work I'm supposed to.

But here's the problem all of this hinges on God being the one who sanctifies them and so for us all of this hinges on Jesus if Jesus isn't at work in this it doesn't work if Jesus doesn't come in and rescue you because I want you to see something if we say things like my job just isn't good enough usually what we mean if someone said why why why if you had if you were trying to you know if your counselor was like a four-year-old and you just said a statement.

And then they said why why why why you would eventually get to I think it doesn't make me into enough I don't feel like something with this job or it doesn't give me the good life do you have y'all know that wanting identity and value and worth and wanting pleasantness and rest and stability is a longing for Jesus that I want someone to show up and tell me I'm okay I want something that fixes me and lets me sleep at night I want delight and rest and satisfaction I want to be stable I want to know that I'm all right I want to know that I'm loved I want to know that I'm enough do.

You know that's a cry for Jesus so unless Jesus shows up we won't ever be free to approach these the way we're meant to approach them because it's Jesus who comes and rescues and forgives Sinners and gives them an identity it's Jesus who gives us a purpose who gives us a reality who sets us free it's Jesus who gives us freedom and stability and delight and if that's true for you if Jesus has shown up and you've surrendered to him trusted in him and he's at work in you through his Spirit.

Then guess what you can worship and work because you don't need it you don't need it to satisfy you don't need it to fix you you don't need it to make you into something you have that in Christ and therefore you get to just return it back to the Lord and you get to genuinely enjoy your work and if Jesus is the good life then you just you can rest if he's where your Delight comes from and your fulfillment comes from do y'all realize that it's never enough that.

If you're over here in this Camp you've had moments where you're like I did it how long did that last if you're lucky six months before you had to keep achieving you had to keep earning and you had to keep proving and you had to get more and it just you ever had that moment where you think finally and then a mosquito bites your neck I guess it's not enough there's never enough rest there's never enough relaxation there's never it never satisfies you always want more there was never a good enough party or a good enough celebration or a good enough stability It's never enough.

Because they were only meant to point us to our ultimate rest and our ultimate Worth to be found in Christ but if we have Jesus then we get to people who work who worship and work and love our neighbors well who work hard and rest well in the freedom that he's the one who sanctifies us that he's the one who's accomplished all of this for us so that we're free to operate in this way let's pray oh Lord so much of our life is going to be taken up with work and I think it's easy.

For us to to think it's meaningless I think it's easy for us to only care about what it provides for us I think it's easy for us to wrap our entire identity in it and so Lord we ask that by your spirit you would begin to untangle our hearts that you begin to see that we're Sanctified by you that our hope is in you our stability our freedom our rest our Delight is in you Lord for the person in the room who doesn't have you who hasn't trusted in your salvation.

Lord we pray that you would help them to see the emptiness the exhaustion found in placing their worth and value in their work we pray that you would help them to see The Emptiness found in thinking that life is just about what Pleasures they can hoard here we ask that by your spirit you withdraw them to yourself so that they might find what they're actually looking for and for all of us who have found you Lord may you continue to work in us to sanctify us to set us apart to draw Us near to you.

So that we might worship you in our work and we might love our neighbor as well in Jesus name amen Matt and Natalie are going to come back up and and then the minute the band will join them and we'll sing together and we're going to take communion and communion is a rather a regularly practiced reminder that we need Jesus that we needed his body broken for us and his blood shed for us that without him we have no hope and that with him he is the one who sanctifies us who sets us apart.

And so that when you come in to communion that you were proclaiming his death until he returns that we are blood-bought people of God rescued by his work and that our hope is that one day he sets everything right that in the midst of this labor and this desire this Pursuit what we're saying is we want salvation and we want heaven and we stand between those moments as Christians where we have been made right with God by Jesus and we look forward to the moment.

When he rescues and redeems us and that's what communion is if you are not a Christian do not partake in communion it is not for you if you have not yet placed your faith in Jesus we would invite you to do that and Christians in the room take a moment to consider yourselves to consider your approach to work to consider whatever the Holy Spirit's putting on your heart that you might need to repent of that you might need to change in your attitude before you come and celebrate that.

Jesus Christ died to save Sinners and that your hope is in him and that is he that sanctifies so take a moment when you're ready.

Good Works and Good Rest

Good Works and Good Rest

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We are continuing our series on Abide with the hope that we would grow in a church as abiding in Jesus through these ancient practices that we've walked through. We started out talking about the Bible and how the Bible is a means for us to further abide in Jesus. We talked about prayer, that prayer is a discipline that God has given us, that we might further abide in Him.

And then last week, we got to talk about fasting and feasting, that we might abstain from food to further abide in Jesus through fasting, that also we might celebrate with food, that it would help us abide in Jesus. And when we preach sermons, Chet and I, we typically have, you know, one of us is preaching, the other one's in the room. The other one kind of gives feedback. That's how we work as a team. And Chet wasn't here last week, so I asked Raz to fill in. I said, give some feedback.

And he said, well, he's like, those are two pretty opposite subjects. He's like, we talked about fasting, then we jumped into feasting. He said, it kind of felt like a rude transition. I said, first off, Raz, I was like, you should have been here for the intro. Because I felt like that might have eased the transition a little bit. But you are correct.

That's a hard switch. Let's talk about fasting and that side of it, and then also move to feasting. So I thought that we'd double down this week and we'd do it again with good works and good rest. That is how we're going to further learn how to abide in Jesus, is through walking through how God has called us to good works. And specifically by good works, I mean good works in Christ. This is not your 9 to 5.

This is not your career. We did a sermon series called The Hammer in the Hammock last year. We covered that, how you can use your career, your time in the workplace to glorify God, to grow closer to Him. This is eternally good works in Christ. This is evangelism. This is serving.

That God has called us to good works, but He's also called us to good rest. That we would rest in Sabbath, rest in Him. And that, talking about those two things and moving between the two, can feel a little bit like whiplash. As we work hard for the Lord, laboring, and also as we grow in resting. But we need both, because the reality is, is that God has prepared for us good works that we should walk in.

As we're going to see in a moment. And there is eternal weight, there's eternal significance in obeying that, and actually doing that as Christians. I was reminded of that this week. This is a week we had multiple people in our church family who lost family members, had family members who were dying. We had, even in our own group, there was someone that used to, that in the past has come and visited, is connected to one of the families in our group. And she passed away unexpectedly in her 40s.

It shocked all of us, and it reminded me of how brief this life is. Of how temporary this moment is in time. And the significance of us being as Christians, being obedient to the good works that Jesus has called us to. That we should walk in them. That we as Christians should, we should own the responsibility of burning the midnight oil on good works. Until we grow weary.

And at the same time, upholding rest. That we might rest in Jesus. Because at the end of the day, we are finite by design. And we are called to rest in the infinite. Resting in God. So we're going to walk through those two today.

We're going to try to tackle both. We will spend most of our time in good works. Because we did spend a whole sermon last year in the Hammer and Hammock series on rest. So most of our time is going to be spent in good works, which I think is a little bit like creation order. Six days of working, one day of rest. The majority of our time will be in work.

And we'll hit rest at the end. So let me pray, and then we will jump in. Father, thank you so much that you have given us good work. And you've given us good rest. And you've called us to both. God, I pray that you would help us listen this morning.

That we'd be able to be present. That you would speak to us. And that we'd leave here today and we would respond. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so.

Starting out, Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. For it is by grace that you've been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

If you've been around our church family long enough, this is going to sound a little bit familiar. We love grace. In our church, we talk about grace a lot. I feel like sometimes our church feels a little bit like the Cowbell SNL skit. Y'all remember that? More Cowbell?

He's got Will Ferrell and he's grabbing the Cowbell. And he's owning the Cowbell. He's owning his part in the song. And then Christopher Walken comes in. What does he say? You've got to give me more Cowbell.

And I feel like that's how we respond sometimes. Is that we'll do stuff, we'll preach sermons, and then people come up and say, Man, that was really good. Could I use a little more grace? Could I use a little more gospel? And I love it, because we've trained ourselves so well to want more grace, to want more of that aspect of the gospel. We should, because we live in a culture, a southern culture, that largely, church and understanding God, in this culture is doing a bunch of good works, that you might please God.

And we stop and we say, No, that's not the gospel. That's not the gospel of grace that we see in the Bible. Because you'll hear things like, I just need to get back in church. I need to get my life back together. And we hear that. We say, No, no, no, that's not how it works.

You don't, people will say, I just, I need to be a better person. And we say, That's not the gospel. Or my personal favorite. And by my personal favorite, I mean, I hate it. It's people will say, I got to get my church on. And I'm like, There's so many problems with that.

Outside of the fact, church is not an accessory. Outside of the fact, the church is the people of God. It's not a building. The backdrop of that statement, is that I would get my church on, in this culture, where I just got to get right with God. And we stand and we say, No, that is not the gospel. So let me be very clear.

So I don't get any Christopher Walken feedback, at the end of this. Let me be very clear. Verse 8 and 9. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. It is not your own doing. It's a gift of God.

Not a result of works. So that no one can boast. You will never earn God's favor. There is not enough good in this world, that you could do to get right with God. If you had a scale, a cosmic scale, that had on one side, all of your rebellion and sin, on the other side, all of your good works, it never is going to balance out. There is not enough good you could do, to ever get right with God.

That is the point of the gospel, that Jesus steps into our timeline, performs the perfect record for us, so that we might actually trust in Him, and not ourselves. That's the hope of the gospel. And until you understand that, you will never understand this next verse. So we lean into the truth of the gospel. We understand what it means, so we don't earn God's favor through our good works. Once we understand that, you can understand the weight of verse 10.

Verse 10, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So once you've understood how we were purchased, what it cost, once you've understood the gospel, you read this next part, we were purchased so that we would walk in good works. He says we are His workmanship. The Greek word for workmanship there is poema. That's where we get the English word for poem. And our word poem pulls from the force of that.

Poetry is the highest writing art form. It's one of the highest arts of creativity. It has a ton of force in literature. Now, that word means workmanship. It doesn't mean poem. But we can see the connections there.

What we pull from. That that word is packed with meaning. That you are His workmanship. You are a work of art. That God is crafting and molding you so that you would be a force. So that you would do the good works that He has called us to.

And He takes workmanship and then He qualifies it. Workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus for good works. That we have good works for us. And then He says, Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Which means that God in eternity pass.

And His plan of redemption also has a plan for us. That He has given us good works that we might actually walk in them. I love this passage. Ephesians 2, 1-10 is one of the best passages in the Bible. He says, You were dead in sin. He says that you were following the prince of the power of the hell.

You were following Satan. That you were enslaved to the flesh. He says, But God in His mercy and His kindness saved you because of His grace. Now comes the worship. And part of our worship is that we are His workmanship. And we've got to feel the weight of that.

Which means as Christians, those of us that have understood the gospel, we have work to do. So if you are called in Christ, you are called to good works which He has prepared for us. So, there are two basic places that we see in the New Testament. Two basic understandings of where our good works are meant for. The first sphere of kind of where our good works are meant for is the church. That God has called us.

He has good works prepared for us in the church. Meaning in the body of Christ. The second place is in the world. The lost. Those are where our good works are meant for. And we should be laser focused on these two areas.

Y'all know why Chick-fil-A is the... Every year they rank the top restaurants. They poll people. And they rank them. And Chick-fil-A is always at the top. You know why Chick-fil-A is always at the top?

Because they are laser focused on two things. Making good fried chicken. And I said fried chicken. Because that grilled chicken... Y'all seen those grilled nuggets? Y'all try those?

They are hot garbage. They were like Steve Rogers before he came to Captain America. I mean they are just... No, fried chicken. They are focused on making good fried chicken. And they are focused on good customer service.

They are going to put a 16 year old out on the hot pavement. In 100 degree heat. With an iPad. Taking your orders with a smile. That's their lanes. They are laser focused on those two things.

And we are called as the church to be laser focused in these two areas. Our good works are for the church. Our good works are for the lost. So, let's tackle that first part. That our good works are for the building up of the body of Christ. Go to 1 Corinthians 12.

Verses 4 through 7. Now there are varieties of gifts. But the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service. But the same Lord.

And there are varieties of activities. But it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. That part of being God's work. His workmanship. Is that He has left His signature and His style on you.

And that is the Holy Spirit. That all of us as Christians have the Holy Spirit. Who empowers us for a variety of gifts. For a variety of services. For a variety of activities. For the common good.

And the context of that word common good. Is specifically referring to the church. Specifically referring to Christians. In fact, most of the lists of the gifts of the Spirit. Which we will get to a little bit in a moment. Most of those are not actually meant for those outside the church.

They are meant for the building up of the body. So let me put this in perspective for us. That God in eternity past. Had a plan to rescue you. If you have trusted in Christ. He had a plan to rescue you.

The Father sent the Son. To come and die the death on the cross that we deserve. To conquer death at the resurrection. And then when Jesus ascends into heaven. He sends the Holy Spirit. To dwell in His church.

So that partly we would use the gifts that He has given us. For the common good. And for us in this context. For us here. That means this church. That God had this grand eternal plan.

That you might use your giftings. That you might leverage your time and your energy. For this church specifically. That means the people in this room. That means the people upstairs. And the kids upstairs.

That even means the people that slept in the day. That are not here. All of us. Right now. This is where. If you are a part of this church.

God has done all this. Has given you the Spirit. For the common good of this church. And we should feel the weight of that. That one of the most important aspects of your life right now. Is leveraging your gifts.

Your time. Your energy. For the benefit of the common good of this church. For one another. Now. I want to start with some basics.

Specific to our church. That if we. Do the basics. The Mill City basics. Of following Jesus for the common good in this church. You do this.

You can level up. You'll start to realize that there are. Specific giftings. That God has gifted you in. Where you can serve for the common good of this church. But I just want to highlight some.

Basics for us. And our church. And what we call. All of us as members to do. First. Be present.

Be present. In a me culture. That is bent on living your best life. On your terms. With your schedule. We actively oppose that.

And say no. It is not about you. It is not about me individually. It is about the common good. So be present.

Which means showing up. It means being here. The two most common expressions. The two ways that we do this as a church family. Is we have gatherings for worship. And we have community groups.

That we should prioritize. Being there. That we should be present. We will prioritize. We will make so many different things sacred on our schedule. We will do sporting events.

We will do hobbies. We will do TV shows. And somehow we fail to do this. To prioritize actually being present. In one another's lives. We will never grow into the church.

That we are called to be. If we don't prioritize being present. Second. Serve one another. It is a big part of our identity. In this church.

That we might serve one another. That means formally. And informally. That we have formal needs in our church. That is why this summer. We have been talking a lot about Kid City.

There is a huge need there. We need people. We need volunteers. To help run that thing. We just do. I mean it is how we have chosen.

To partner with families. To help disciple kids. Also. It makes this 80-90 minutes. Depending on who is preaching. It makes this time actually helpful.

Do you all remember when we announced. A few weeks back. That we were talking to Casey First Baptist. We had all the kids in the room. It was cute for like two minutes. And I was like.

Oh man. This is why we have Kid City. Because we have preschoolers and toddlers. That would make this really difficult. We have formal needs. And we lay them out sometimes.

We say we need help here. We also have informal needs. And y'all. This is where I love to see our church family. At work. That informally man.

People just. We serve one another. People that need cars. We are loaning out cars. People that. I mean.

They need cars. They are giving cars away to one another. That we have situations where. I don't know if you know this. We have lots of kids. And lots of families.

And I see all the time. People just serving. I watch your kids go. Go out. Go out for the night. You guys have a good night.

I mean. Just serving one another. I see it in. People throwing parties for one another. I see all kinds of informal levels of service. That happen.

That we do as a church family. I love it. It's a big part of who we are as a church. Serving one another. Third. Another basic.

Is loving one another. And this shows up in a lot of different forms. It shows up in the stories I hear. Where. Confession and repentance have happened in group. And people who have been carrying weight for years.

Are able to. Finally confess it. Fear that there might be shame. And all they get is love. They get the response of the gospel. It's in the stories I hear of people.

Gospeling another. Gospeling one another. Inside and outside. Of group. It's in the really tough conversations that we have sometimes. One of the things we talk about.

Is we don't believe in relational weirdness. If you have an issue with somebody. You go and you talk to them about it. That's the most loving thing you can do. Even though it is difficult. It shows up in a variety of ways.

That we love one another. That is one of the chief markers of the spirit. That's one of his signatures. And we believe in this church. That we would love one another. The last one.

I give you more basic. To give generously. That means for members of our church. We want you to be regularly giving to the church. Because the reality is. This is basic.

No money. No ministry. That's it. I mean we. We ain't gonna be able to do a whole lot. I mean if we.

If it took a dip. There's only two of us that are on staff. Chet's full time. I'm part time. We can make it work. Chet could open up a few firework stands.

And a Pelican stand. I could sell some more houses. And you might think. Man that's really cool. Chet owning a Pelican stand. It'd be cool for like two minutes.

Because here's the deal. Y'all think our communication is bad now. Just imagine. These are some basics. I pulled these. These are from our membership commitment.

We have members with. That commits membership. This is what we. Some of the stuff that we outline. These are the basics. And we just.

Need to respond. With good works. For the common good. With the basics. And when you do this. When you do the basics.

Of loving one another. Of serving one another. For the common good of this church. You will start to realize. That God. Has individually gifted you.

With spiritual gifts. Like we'll give you something to do. Maybe it's graphics. Maybe it's spreadsheets. I don't know. And you start to do it.

Then you realize. I think I have a gifting and administration. Which is a spiritual gift. That we see in the New Testament. And we need that. Especially Chetanah.

We need. The gift of administration. In this church. So that. We can serve. Y'all well.

For the common good. That you might. You might be serving in an area. And then. I see this. We have certain people in our church.

That serve. And serve. And give. And give. And we're sometimes. We get a little concerned.

Sometimes. Because we don't want to burn out. But some people have such a high capacity. And they enjoy doing it. That's part of these giftings. You have high capacity.

You're good at it. And you enjoy doing it. It meets in the middle. Maybe you have the gift of serving. That we see. In the New Testament.

Maybe it's leading. Where you start to lead in some areas. We give you some weight. You start to lead some more. Maybe that results in you. Leading in a community group.

There's leading. There's giving. Maybe you're very gifted. At making money. And you also have a heart. That easily gives it away.

That is another spiritual gift. In the New Testament. Maybe it's mercy. We've been trying this out recently. We've been doing some different things. Some different projects.

Where we've been partnering. Just with people in the community. Where we've been. Coming and fixing houses. That's actually going to happen again today. Maybe you pitch in.

And some of this stuff. And you realize. I actually really enjoy doing this. I am good at it. And you might have the gift. Of mercy.

Maybe it's exhortation. Which is just. That means competitive encouragement. Like you'll see people here on a Sunday. And you'll go. And you'll shake hands.

And you'll hug. And then all of a sudden. You're texting the Bible verses. And then all of a sudden. You're writing letters. To encourage.

There's a whole list of these. We see it in 1 Corinthians 12. We see it in Romans 12. And a few other places. That when you start to do. The basics.

You start to see. That the Holy Spirit. Has given you specific giftings. That you can use. For the benefit of. The common good.

And this church family. And we desperately need that. As a church. That you would leverage. Your energy. Your time.

And your giftings. For the common good. And bless us immensely. So that is the one big sphere. Of where our common. Where our good works are needed.

Is for the common good of this church. The second. Is for the world. It is for the lost. Eternity. Is on the line.

Every time that you walk out the door. And go to work. It is present. That reality. Is present. Every time.

That you have small talk. With your neighbors. It shows up. Every time. That you go to your bowling league. Or whatever it is.

That you do. For fun. Eternity. Is on the line. We were created. As Christians.

To be salt. In light. In a world. That desperately needs it. We were called. To bear.

The good news. Of the gospel. And the Holy Spirit. To people. That desperately need it. Luther.

Martin Luther. The father of the reformation. Once said that. God doesn't need your good works. But your neighbor does.

And that's true. None of these good works. Aren't for God. We made that point clear. Paul makes that point clear. In 8 and 9.

Our neighbors. Need our good works. Your neighbors. Your co-workers. Your friends. Need your good works.

And it frustrates me. That it takes weeks like this. For me personally. Where I'm reminded. That life is so short. When I'm reminded.

That eternity. Is on the line. In the everyday moments of life. To where I gotta wake up and say. I know I got bills to pay. And I know I got house projects.

And I know I got all kinds to do. The logistics of life. But every day matters. Every moment that we have with one another. It matters. Every moment we have with the loss in our community.

It matters. Because he has called us to the ministry of reconciliation. That we once walked as enemies of the cross of Christ. But because of Jesus. He calls us into fellowship with him. So that we would participate.

In taking the gospel. To those who need it. How many times. Are we going to. Go to lunch with co-workers. And never actually share the hope that we have.

How many times are we going to be at cookouts. With neighbors. Where all we do is talk about sports. But we never actually get to the gospel. I really hate that phrase. That is attributed to Francis of Assisi.

That says share the gospel. If necessary use words. Firstly I can't stand it. Because it's a fake quote. Francis of Assisi never said it. Secondly for our culture.

It's a cop out. You should love people. You should serve people. You should leverage your time. Energy. Good works for people.

But at some point. The gospel is a message. And they need to hear it. Because if they don't hear it. They won't believe it. That's Romans 10.

God has called us into this ministry of reconciliation. That we might take the message of those. Who need it. And there are people in our lives that need it. Now. I know when I say that.

I know we got moms in the room. I know what y'all are thinking. I'm assuming what you were thinking. Because I ain't going to say I know definitively. The assumption is. I've got two little minions.

That are attached to my legs. I don't have people like. I'd love to go to lunch. But I don't have that. Firstly. Impress you just a little bit.

I've seen the mom community in Columbia. It's active. And lively. With lots of opinions online. But I've seen.

There's a whole lot of moms that connect. I know there are unbelieving moms that we can connect with. But let me make the more important point. I saw. A picture. It's a little gruesome.

I'm not going to lie. But I love this picture. I love what it illustrates. That you have a mom. That has her son. And she has the Bible out.

And she is teaching him the Bible. Proverbs 22. 22. That he would never depart from his word. That he would love Jesus. That he would have one of the most boring testimonies.

Six years old. I became a Christian. I've been following Jesus ever since. My mom shared the gospel with me. I placed my faith in him. She has given him the gospel.

And she's got the shield. And the symbolism of this is. It's the shield of faith that we see in Romans 6. Shielding him from darts of the evil one. Taking some hits herself. Shielding him with faith.

That is the eternal spiritual nature. The spiritual warfare that is involved. When you raise kids. And it matters. Those children. Those children up there.

Need the gospel. And you have an essential role. To take the gospel to them. That they might actually believe. They might never depart. From faith in Jesus.

That's your mission field. Go find some moms and mom groups. All over Columbia. But right there. That's it. That's what we're aiming for.

All of us have people. All of us have people. That need the gospel. In our lives. You can be a mom. You can be a dad.

You can be single. You can be married. We have people in our spheres. That need this hope. God has called us to good works. For the benefit of one another.

And for those outside the church. That need to hear the gospel. And when you walk in these good works. That God has prepared for us. Let me tell you the beauty of what happens. That when you serve.

That when you love one another in the church. When you find your spiritual gifting. That as you are sharing the gospel. You will further abide in Jesus. Jesus. You know that feeling.

That spiritual high sometimes. That you get when you are doing the work of God. We came back from Egypt. And we were feeling it. We were also physically sick. We were feeling that.

But spiritually. This is a third world country. It got to us. But spiritually. We were riding a high. Because we were doing the good works.

That God prepared for us beforehand. You know that feeling. When you leave a group meeting night. Where everyone is sharing the gospel with one another. People are unloading years of hurt. Years of pain.

Years of sin. There is tears. There is hugging. If you are new. That is not every community group. Don't be scared.

We have a lot of fun. We mix it up. We do some good stuff. But there are some nights. Where the Holy Spirit is actively at work. You know the feeling.

When you stand in the baptism waters. And someone who six months ago said. I don't know Jesus. I don't want him. But now they are saying.

In the middle of the waters. That Jesus is Lord. You know that feeling. That is nearness to Christ. That is nearness to him. And that is the result.

Of abiding in him. When we are obedient to the good works. That he has set up for us. So I know it is hard. I know we got crazy schedules. I know it is hard.

At the end of a long work day. To get in your car. To pick something up. And to go to a group. And to hang out with people. You are tired.

I get it. I know it is hard. To get here on a Sunday morning. And serve. I understand. That we have busy lives.

But the reality is. Is God has called us. To these good works. And there are eternal things. On the line. So we should labor.

With everything that we can. As if eternity is on the line. We should go hard after that. And then at the end of the week. We should shut it down. And we should rest.

That God has called us to good works. And he has called us to good rest. That once a week. That we would pause. And we would cease. And we would stop.

And that is a shift for us sometimes. That feels like whiplash. Work. Work. Work. Good works in Christ.

Good works in Christ. Now. Rest. Last year. As we went through that. We did.

We taught on the Sabbath. And the hammer and the hammock series. I said that. That. Sabbath rest. Argued for one.

Sabbath is one day a week. Where we cease from our work. And we confess with our rest. That we are not God. And that is still true. Sometimes after a year.

We look at our sermons. And I go. Maybe I should have adjusted that. I'm standing firm on that. That is one day a week. Where you should cease from all work.

And you should rest in God. That six days. You should go for it. But there is one day. That you should actually rest in God. So if you want more.

If you want more. Behind the argument. For why we believe in a one day Sabbath. For all of that. Go back and listen to that. I want to get real practical.

With the time that we have left. I want to give you three. Three practical principles. Of rest. Matthew 11 28. Says this.

Come to me. All who labor. And are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. Jesus says to us. Come.

Come. Come to me. All you who labor. All you are heavy laden. I will give you rest. Jesus calls us in.

Into resting with him. So how do we actually go about doing that? How do you actually come to Jesus. That you might rest in him. Part of your Sabbath rest. Should go back to the first couple weeks.

Of this abide series. You need. To incorporate. The rhythms. Of word and prayer. In your Sabbath.

That when you rest. You should have the Bible. And you should also have prayer. As the first practical. Your Sabbath day. Which you should intentionally choose.

And own. You can flex it. If it's different days. If you have a crazy schedule. Like mine. But you should choose a day.

It should be the one day. Where you reserve extra time. To be in God's word. And to pray. Because the hope is. Is that after a week.

Of going forward. That you would lift up your head. And you would gaze. And look at God. And that he would fill you up. That we wouldn't escape to other things.

But we would fill ourselves. With God. And his word. It is the time for us. To recharge. And to refocus.

And we need to do it. We need to actually make that a rhythm. That we do. So go on a bike ride. Go on a bike ride. If that's something that is restful for you.

But put the Bible. On. Put your headphones on. And listen to the Bible. If you like running. Which is not restful for me.

That is the worst. I would never run for rest. But if you do. And if you enjoy running. Make it a time where you can actually pray. When you are jogging.

Say when I get to this point. I am going to be praying. Praising God for who he is. When I get to this part of the jog. I am going to pray and confess him. When I get to this next part.

I am going to pray in thanksgiving. For what he has done for me. And when I make the final turn. I got stuff I got to pray for. I got people I got to pray for. I got things that I want to see God accomplish.

Your Sabbath should be filled with word and prayer. Go to the river. Grab a Bible. Grab a journal. Make space. So that you can look up at God.

And be filled up by him. We need this. Single. Married. It doesn't matter what your life circumstance is. You need this.

I want to make one more appeal. To moms. Because you are the hardest workers we've got. Moms. You. Need.

This. Let me throw that picture back up there. It's a little over the top. You think she's got a few more arrows to take? Let me tell you something. You keep taking shots like that.

You will die. You will. You won't make it. You will spiritually collapse. Anxiety. Depression.

All of it. You. Need. Rest. Which means. Do it.

Husbands. Do it. Like get them out. Say no. I'm. You.

I got the kids. Get out. Go rest. Go grab a Bible. Go spend some time with Jesus. Get out of here.

You won't make it. You need. Rest. All of us need time with Jesus. That we would look up at him. So that we can have a sharpened axe to go to work.

And do the good works that God has called us to do. We need rest. Get it on your schedule. Figure out a time to do it. And commit to it. Actually commit to resting.

All of us should do it. I would argue even our kids need this. That our kids need to learn this. Do we actually teach? Are we actually teaching our kids the importance of resting. And specifically resting with word and prayer.

Because y'all we will stack their schedules to the ceiling. Activities. School. Sports. Music. The works.

All good things. But do we actually ever teach them to stop. And to rest. And to be before your Lord. And to grab a Bible. And to pray.

Do we actually do that? Because here's the deal. A whole generation of kids. They know how to escape. Because they'll work. They'll do.

They'll do. They'll do. There's a reason why Fortnite and Instagram and all of that consumes them. It is a place for them to escape. And it is because we have a whole generation of people. That never actually learned how to rest.

Our kids need it. This whole. Everyone in our church. All of us Christians. We need to take time for word and prayer. In our Sabbath.

The second practical. Is that place matters. Where you rest. Matters. I want to look at Mark 6. Verses 30 through 32.

It says this. The apostles returned to Jesus. And told him all that they had done and taught. So they've been out there. Doing the work that Jesus sent them out to do. And he said to them.

Come away by yourselves to a desolate place. And rest a while. He sees the work. I mean he says. For many of them were coming and going. They had no leisure even to eat.

I mean that's how hard that they were working. They were skipping meals. And Jesus says stop. Come to a desolate place. Verse 32. It says.

And they went away in the boat. To a desolate place by themselves. Get in the boat. We're going. There's probably. There's crowds following them.

Get in the boat. We got to go. We got to go to a desolate place. Because place. Matters. Where you rest matters.

Jesus models this. You see throughout his ministry. Over and over again. That he breaks away from the disciples. He breaks away from the crowds. And he finds a desolate place.

And he rests. Before God. He has fellowship with the Father. There's a reason why I look at moms. And I say get out. Because you can't rest at home.

As soon as the kids see you. They're going to come after you. Just like. They get you. Sink their claws into you. So you got to get out.

That's why I say. Go to a coffee shop. Find a desolate place. For you. And rest. That for all of us.

That's different. Maybe you can rest at home. Maybe you can carve out a place. Maybe you need to go to the river. Maybe you need to go to. Wherever it is.

That's where we need to study. And figure out ourselves. Is there a desolate place for you. That you could regularly. Break away from. That you could actually.

Look at Jesus. And his word and prayer. Without distraction. Which means. When you get there. Put away your phone.

Our phones distract us. From the vertical gaze. That we should have in God. Find a desolate place. Third. Incorporate some restful activities.

Into your Sabbath. We talked about this. Last year. That if you. If you work with your hands. Maybe you're a blue collar worker.

If you work with your hands. Rest with your mind. So if you are. If you work with your hands. Maybe you need to. Read some books.

Some Christian books. Maybe. You need to read some fiction. But you need to rest with your mind. Incorporate some activities. If you work with your mind.

If you do analytics. If you work on a computer. If you work with your mind. Maybe you need to build a thing. Maybe you need to do some pottery. Maybe you need to actually engage.

In some activities. That help you. Rest. But you got to. You got to study yourself. You got to figure out.

And incorporate some restful activities. And one of the activities. That we absolutely should do. All of us. Is that we should. At some level.

Just stop. We should cease. When is the last time. That you took 30 minutes. That just. Nothing.

Like you sat in a chair. You didn't even have a. You didn't have a phone. You didn't even have a Bible. You just sat. And you listened.

To what God had to say. When is the last time. You took 15 minutes. To just sit. And be. All of us.

Should at some level. In different parts of our Sabbath. Should cease. And just be. And give some space. For the Holy Spirit.

To speak. That we might listen. And some of you. Are like. Man. I sit and do nothing.

All the time. It's like. Cool. Go grab a kayak. Like you. You might need to do some things.

I don't know. You need to figure that out. For yourself. But we need to be people. That use our Sabbath. To gaze at God.

Through word and prayer. We need to find. Desolate places. In our lives. And we need to incorporate. Some restful activities.

Because here's the reality. I want you to hear this. We are a busy people. That is drunk. Off of our own busyness. It's like a martyr mentality.

It's like. Who can be. I'm busy. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. It's like how we show.

It's like a red badge of courage. We are drunk. Off of our own busyness. And God is saying. Stop. Look.

Look. Stop. Be. Rest. I get it. This balance is difficult.

I understand. That being someone. Who labors. And labors. For the kingdom. Labors.

And labors. For people in the church. Labors. And labors. For those lost. And then stops.

And just bees. Just bees. Just be. There we go. And ceases. And looks at God.

I understand. That both of those. That's a difficult balance. I get it. But God calls us.

To consistently uphold. Both. We need. Both. And if you start to grow in this. It's going to feel like whiplash.

I'm doing. I'm doing. I'm doing. Oh no. I need to rest. It'll take some time.

I mean. The ideal. I'll think of this from my own life. There's an ideal balance. That. And I just.

I look at older. Wiser believers. That have done this. That for six days. They got a hand on the plow. And they are laboring.

And they are laboring. And they're working. And they're laboring. And they drop the plow. And they stop. And they cease.

And they rest. And I see that. I'm like. I want that. I want my life. To be that.

That is. That is the perfect ideal. But I also know the reality. That is the perfect ideal. I'm never actually going to achieve that. I'm never actually going to model that perfectly.

And that brings us back. To what all this is built on. It's the whole point of the gospel. The reality is. Is that we will never do this. You will never be a perfect workmanship.

You will never. Never model. Perfect works. You are never going to model. Perfect rest. The good news of the gospel.

Is that somebody came. And he did it. That he modeled perfect work. That he modeled perfect rest. So that we wouldn't have to earn God's favor.

So that we could trust in the work that he did for us. Trust in the rest that he did for us. So that we could trust. We could trust in the hope of Christ. And rest in his grace. And out of that.

Look at the model that we have. And say. No. I want to continue to grow in this. I want to continue to strive. To be a man.

To be a woman. That seeks to be a workmanship. That is a force in our church. That is a force in this world. And to be someone who rests. That is a balance worth striving for.

Let us strive to have a life. Where we are a workmanship. That glorifies God with our good works. Let us strive to be Christians. That strive to enter good rest. Let's do this.

Let's model this. Let's walk this out for the rest of our lives. Knowing that one day. A time is going to come. Where because of our faith in Jesus. He will call us into eternal rest.

And in that eternal rest. There will be no striving. There will be no more work. We will simply just dwell. And enjoy him. Matt is going to come up.

He is going to lead us in a song.

Psalm 23 - Sabbath Rest

Psalm 23

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

You remember when you were in school and you had a summer vacation, like a summer break, so that you could kind of feel the school year drawing to an end and it was getting warmer, and then you had like some of those half days, and then you had summer, and there was just nothing that had to happen. Do you remember that? Can you just think back for a second and remember that? And some of you are still in that. You're in school. You are in summer right now.

Isn't it nice? Doesn't it just feel good? You at some point kind of grow out of that. But do you remember any of those times where you would just say, I'm bored. Oh, I'm so bored. There's nothing to do here.

And some of you, you know, you grew up in this area, and some of you grew up in like podunk nowhere. And so whenever you would hear someone from around here say, there's nothing to do. It's like, you don't even know what nothing to do looks like. You hadn't even come close to smelling nothing to do. Like, I can tell you what nothing to do. Like, but you know, like there was those moments where you just were like, oh, everything is stupid.

I have nothing to do. I'm bored. Do you remember that? Some of you have maybe maybe you have kids that are in that age, and maybe they've been saying this to you consistently throughout this whole summer. And you're sick of that phrase. But I can tell you that at some point in some point in life, most of us traded in bored for busy.

At some point, we began to make the shift from I'm bored to I'm busy. I'm just busy. I just have I have too much going on. Like, I don't even think we use the phrase bored anymore. Like you might say a movie was boring, but that's like that's it. You don't you might say sermon was really boring.

You might say phrases like that. If you ever visited another church, you might say something like that. But but you you don't we don't use that phrase anymore. Like I don't I don't use the phrase bored anymore. Like if I have a moment to be bored, it's delightful. Like I just sit there times where it's like it's it's like there's there's like a it's kind of like a lunar eclipse.

There's like three minutes after the kid goes to sleep before I'm too tired to stay awake that I just sit and it's like, oh, this is nice. I have nothing to do for most of us, though. We've traded in bored for busy and we don't really know how to get out of that. We're we're we're beyond busy. We've become restless. We actually don't know how to rest.

We don't know how to stop even in our downtime and the few amounts of time during the day that we could have had downtime. We pull our phones out. Some of us, that's our alarm clock. So we wake up with a screen in our face and we go straight from alarm clock mode to checking news feeds and Facebook and Twitter and random videos online. And like that's the beginning of our day and it does not stop. We move straight from that into a hectic, frantic.

Rest of our day until in the evening, sometime we crash. Usually after staring at a screen again for some amount of time and go back to sleep. And then we we live this life on this cycle of exhaustion and restlessness. And we feel as if we're always behind and there's something we got to catch up to and something we got to fix and something we got to work on. And so as we kind of look together at the Psalms this summer, what we've said is this is Psalms, a life of worship. And what we're trying to to do is figure out how to allow the Psalms to train us and how to follow God in a in a joy filled way.

How to how to know what it looks like to follow him in the normal parts of life. And so today we're going to spend some time talking about rest. And before we go to the place where we'll we'll spend the majority of our day, I want to show you a few other quotes from the Psalms that I think help us see some of the issue that we face. This is Psalm 127 verses one and two. It says, unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, those who build it, labor in vain, unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain.

Vain means useless. It's a waste of time. It is vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil for he that's God gives to his beloved sleep. Keep that up for just a minute. Anxious toil. I think for far too many of us is an action is a good description of what life feels like.

Too much of the time. That it's anxious toil that we have stress and anxiety and all of life feels like toil. It's not work. It's not creation. It's not making things better. It's not ever getting to a place where you go high and you get to sit back and be satisfied with your work.

No, it's anxious toil. It's every day is a grind. And then we go to sleep and then we get to do it again. The next day is going to be a grind and we're going to be tired. But but we'll tell ourselves it's just for a season.

It's just for this amount of time. Like eventually it's going to go away. Eventually this weekend I'll rest. Well, next weekend I'll rest. Well, you know, the summer's coming. Well, after summer's over, because there's so many things to do in the summer in the fall, I'm going to wrestle.

It's football season and there's just too much. And then eventually God graciously lets us die. But that's what life feels like sometimes. It's like I keep postponing rest. I keep saying it's a season, but it actually hasn't stopped being this season. And life feels like anxious toil.

And what the psalmist is saying here is unless God is at work with you, unless he's helping you watch the city, unless he's helping you build the house, all of your work is going to feel like that. And the assumption in the text that he's making here, the point he's making here is that if God is with you, then building the house, all of your labor won't be a waste of time. And if God is helping you watch the city, then watching the city will not be a waste of time. And that God will remove anxious toil and let you actually rest. I want to show you Psalm 46 verse 10 says, be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth. So the God at this in this Psalm, it says, just sit still. Just sit for a second and know who I am. Just sit for a minute and know that I'm God. Rest in the fact that I am big and capable. And so what we're going to look at today, go ahead and grab your Bibles and go to Psalm 23.

It's going to be on page 261. If your Bible looks like this. That page number is wrong. That is not helpful. It's going to be 261 if your page looks like this. If your Bible looks like this.

And if you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. You can take this with you. What I did was I put the number of the Bible I was using, which is not this Bible. So just so you know, I'm pretty smart. Here's what we're looking at. We're going to read this Psalm.

It's a Psalm of David who was a king in Israel. And he's writing to tell us what God is like. What relating to God is like. What life with God is like. And here's here's our goal for the day. We're going to listen to David.

We're going to study what he says. And we're going to try to see what it looks like for us to have a life of rest, a life of peace as we follow God. Now, what I don't mean is laziness. What I don't mean is if you follow God, you don't have to have a job. If you've been around our church for a while, you probably know that we wouldn't say that we push for work and work is good. And we want you to be to be in a healthy way.

Busy, not busy, frantic, busy, but but creating and a part of God's good system. But so and honestly, not having a job does not remove the anxiety and the toil. So we've met, you know, people who are lazy and still restless. Still seem to be that the ability to rest is is gone from them. You know, people who work really hard and have enough money to go on two week vacations. But when they come back, it's not like they actually rested.

Their soul doesn't know how to. Maybe some of you have been on a week long vacation and you come back more exhausted. And it's because we don't know how to rest. But we also know people who have who are busy, who are at work, who are diligent and are at peace. And that's that's the picture we're going to get from David here is that there is a way to walk with God so that we actually are restful and at peace because of how big and how good he is. That we know how to be still and know that he is God.

That's what we're going to. That's our goal today. And our goal in some ways is fairly simple. We're trying to grow our faith this morning. We're trying to look at what the Bible says about God and actually have greater faith when we leave. Believe it a little more.

See, we're faith people. So we we take what's true about God and we believe it. And we're told that that goes to work on us. That goes to work in us. That that's the gospel is that we believe what Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. And that that belief changes us that through faith God gives us grace.

And that's our goal this morning is to study what Psalm 23 says about God. And grow our faith. Actually, just for a little while this morning, begin to believe this a little more. And in some ways, it's like you ever you ever had a friend who started dating someone and you hadn't met who they were dating yet. Or maybe you had a sibling and they had had someone they were dating and you you got they described to you the person before you met them. And so they kind of told you what to look for.

They said, oh, they're so funny. They have a laugh that's infectious. And like, I don't know if you're like me, I'm like, I will see if I get infected. Like, it's just like they're telling you kind of here's what you need to expect. Or they'll say maybe if they're bringing you to meet their parents or something, they'll say, hey, before we go in, just so you know, this is something I had to always do with my friends. Just so you know, my dad's going to say intense, awkward things to you that he finds very funny.

OK, let's go in. Like I just that was about all I'd give you is like, just so you know, he probably doesn't mean it, but he might. Who knows? Let's go. He may make a joke that makes you uncomfortable. Just deal with it.

That's kind of what we're going to get to do today. We're going to get to see what David says. This is what the relationship's like. This is what he does, and we're going to start looking for it in our own lives. We're going to begin to, as we leave here today, going, OK, David said this is what you're like. Infect me.

Let me see it. Let me enjoy it. Let me partake in it. Psalm 23. We're going to read the whole Psalm, and then we're going to walk back through it. Our goal is to grow in our faith.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Look back at verse 1. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Okay, so the immediate picture that David gives us is that of a shepherd with sheep. And David is a king at this point, but he used to be a shepherd who had sheep. And so David's relating this to something he's very familiar with.

And what he's saying is, I'm a sheep. He's the shepherd. He's going to take care of everything. That's his first sentence. That's his proposition. That's kind of his thesis statement that everything else is going to flow out of.

He says he's the shepherd. I'm the sheep. And he'll take care of everything. That's what he means when he says, I shall not want. We use the word want to mean I desire, I would like. So I want a cookie.

He's using it here to mean lack. So if I looked at you and said, I am want for a cookie, it does not mean I lack a cookie. That's not what I would be communicating. I would be saying I want a cookie. But he's saying lack.

What he's saying is, because the Lord is my shepherd, I'm not going to lack anything. He doesn't mean because the Lord is my shepherd, all of my desires will be met. It's not the way he's using the term want there. And here's why this is actually very freeing. David's point for the rest of this Psalm is that if the Lord is your shepherd, and we're told as Christians that Jesus is the chief shepherd, he's the good shepherd, who's laid his life down for the sheep, that we belong to him like sheep belong to a shepherd. So we get to come with David and say the same thing if we're Christians, is that the Lord is my shepherd.

And what David is saying is if he's your shepherd, you'll have everything you need. He will be in charge of what you get and he will give you what you need. You won't actually lack any of the good things that you need. Now, that may be hurtful to hear because at times it seems so evident that we are lacking. But it's actually encouraging to know that the shepherd is good and will provide.

He will give you what you need. He will not have you lack any good thing. That's what David is saying here. He's saying that I will get exactly what the shepherd wants me to have. That's the point he's making throughout the rest of the Psalm is that since he's my shepherd, I'll have what I need. Now, that means at times that we'll feel a desire for something.

David can't mean we'll always have our desires met, but he does mean that that God, our shepherd or for us, Christ, our shepherd will give us everything that we need. We will not be lacking because he's good. And that's that's our hope. That's our faith that we would believe that that we would trust him enough to know that whatever I have, whatever he's given me, whatever he's blessed me with, whatever he's withheld from me is because he's good and I can trust him. So let's keep reading.

He says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want or I won't have any lack. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.

So he starts off. He says he makes me lie down in green pastures and he leads me beside still waters. And I just want to say this encouragement to some of you who feel like I have to work. I have to be busy. I have to be diligent. That's what God wants from me.

I have to be active or he'll be disappointed in me. The first thing David says is he's my shepherd. He makes me lie down. Some of you need to picture Jesus pushing you down and saying, just stay, just stay for a second. You're like, but I've got so much to do for you. And he's like, lay down and stay like me with my two-year-old.

If you get out of that bed again, like that, because I want him to sleep, it's good for him. So maybe Jesus has a better attitude than I do. But he makes us lie down. He gives us rest. That if you come to this morning, if you think God wants cheap labor out of you, and he's some sort of a cattle driver, that's not what David starts off with. David says, no, he makes me lie down.

He gives me rest. My grandmother is one of these people that she can't sit still. She's busy all the time. And she's a godly lady. She was a missionary in Nigeria. And there's a, in the New Testament, Jesus arguing with some Pharisees about the Sabbath, which was their day off when they weren't supposed to do any work.

And he says, if your ox falls in a ditch, don't you get it out? And so my grandmother, whenever she was doing work on the Sabbath, on her Sunday, when she was supposed to not be doing work, would say, the ox is in the ditch. Which meant the ox is in the ditch. I got to get to work. And at some point, as I got to know her, I started thinking, I think you're pushing the ox in the ditch. So you have something to do.

Like, I think you, your ox is always in the ditch. Like, drive your ox better. Build a fence. And some of us, that's the case. It's like, we always feel like we have to be active. We have to be working.

And I just want you to see this. Jesus, the good shepherd, makes us lie down. Makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. I want you to see something else here. That David is saying that, like, he will provide.

I won't lack anything. He's going to give me green pastures. He's going to give me still waters. He's going to provide for my soul. He's going to provide for me. And I just want you to know that some of you who are feeling like, no, I'm lacking.

I am lacking right now. Trust. Trust that he is providing in ways maybe unseen, in ways maybe unlooked for. But that he will provide and that he does. And that you can continue to follow him. Verse 3, he restores my soul.

That is so encouraging to me. For two reasons. One, David's soul needed to be restored. I think we can fall in the trap of believing that if I follow Jesus, I'll never need soul restoration. I'll always be fine. That's not what David says.

David says, no, no, no. He's good. So he goes to work on me when I'm not fine at all. When my soul needs work, he restores it. That there are times in life when our soul needs restoration. It needs love.

It needs health. He needs to be mending us. And secondly, that we get to run to him. That he's the only one who can restore it. And we get to trust him that he will do this. It's like when my wife and I, at times our marriage has not been the funnest marriage to be in.

We weren't just laughing the whole time and skipping along rainbows. And it's like that where I knew in those moments when our marriage is really hard and we don't really like each other. And our house is not a joyous place filled with potpourri and giggling. Like it just wasn't nice. I knew the only way to fix it was not to draw away from her, but to draw close to her. The only way to mend our marriage was for us to continue to be in each other's face and each other's space and grinding against each other.

So that, so that, so that, hopefully we can edit that before it makes it to the internet. It's not bad advice, you guys. I'm just saying it's not what I meant. All right. So that we were knocking off all the rough places in each other's souls so that we would grow.

I'm going to repeat that last sentence as we regain our focus collectively. So that we were knocking off all the rough places in our souls so that we would grow together. That when, when we were hurting to draw near to each other was the best way for this to, to be mended. And that's the same thing he's saying here, that, that when his soul needs restoration, he doesn't run from God. He runs to him. He rests with him, that he draws near him.

He knows the only way for this to get fixed is to be next to God. Lord help us. All right. So I think the question for us as we come out of this section is what do you think you're missing out on? What is it that you consistently feel you are lacking? And do you believe that he's actually good enough that he knows that?

And he doesn't believe you're lacking and that he will provide what you need. He keeps going. He says he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. And I just want to say that he ultimately fulfills that for us who are Christians in the cross. That he leads us through paths of righteousness for his namesake, which means that he, he gets the glory from us being good, from us walking in righteousness.

And what we're told in the new Testament is that he was righteous for us, that he took our sin on himself, that he died for our sin and gave us his righteousness. And so that we are made right with God for his name. That it's actually Jesus that gets all the glory from the church being made righteous. Every once in a while, people will say things like, I don't like the church. Everybody in the church is messed up. I'm like, yes.

Isn't Jesus good? That he invites messed up people like that's, that's our church. We're the first people to raise our hands and say, I am a hot mess and I need Jesus. That's it. He makes us righteous for his glory. That is actually how messed up we are and how broken we are and how sinful we are and how far away from if all of us got together because of how good we were.

Who gets the glory? Whose name is lifted up? Ours. Because of how good we are. But when we gather together as people who can barely get along with each other.

Who have sin at work in our lives that we're fighting against, but we're trusting that Jesus is good and that he saves sinners. You know who gets the glory in whose name? Jesus is. That's what he's saying. He ultimately fulfills that for us that he brings us into righteousness for his name, for his glory, that Jesus gets all the glory as he works righteousness out in our lives. Verse four.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Then he goes on in verse five. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

It's interesting. In verses one through three, he says he. He does this. He does this. He does this. He hits verse four and he says you.

He says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you. And I think here's why. When life is good. When we're in the pasture by the still water, having our souls restored, we can talk about God. We can praise him. We can lift him up.

We can say, here's what he's like. And we actually get to enjoy all the good gifts he's given us in a way that that points us to him. We get to look at the green pastures. We get to look at the the the goodness of life. And we get to point to and say, this is how good he is. This is how glorious he is.

But when we're in the valley of the shadow of death, we start talking to God. We start praying. It's less of a place of praise and more of a place of prayer. That we begin to call out to him. And I want to show you something that I think is that I'm very encouraged by, because what we're looking at is David is showing us this is what life with God is like. That it's better off with him in charge that we're more free.

That's one of the things I think David's really trying to show us here is that true freedom and true rest and true hope comes not from our own autonomy, our own sovereignty, our being our own boss. But it actually comes from being utterly dependent on a good shepherd. Because that's what sheep are. They're dependent on a shepherd. And if the shepherd's good, then life is good. And if the shepherd's bad, life is bad.

And what David's saying is that real freedom and real joy comes from being dependent, not not autonomous, not sovereign over ourselves. To be under the king and not our own king. That's where real freedom comes. So David says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me and your rod and your staff, they comfort me. So David just got done in verse three says he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, it seems as if he's really tying those together in a way that is saying there are times where God leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. The good shepherd is actually walking with us through that. And I heard John Piper talking about this. And he said he spent some time thinking, why would God do that? What is the point of a shepherd taking sheep through the valley of the shadow of death? And he said the only answer he could come up with is there was something better on the other side of that valley.

That he had a place he had to get to that the only way to really get there was through the valley. And I'm inclined to agree with him. So he's saying that God does lead us and there are times where it seems dark and scary and painful. But here's what David says. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even though fear would be all around me, even though hope would be lost, even though I would have no way to get myself through this, he says, I will fear no evil for you are with me. See, in verses one through three, David is talking about the comfort is the pasture.

The comfort is the water. And Jesus led him there. But the good stuff was the pasture. The good stuff was the water. Like he's enjoying this and he's just saying, you're great because you brought me here. It's like when somebody cooks a meal and you compliment the meal and you're kind of rolling that up and compliment to them, like in praise to them.

So my wife cooks something. I go, girl, this chicken. Like she knows I'm saying good Job with the chicken. And she takes it as a compliment to her. She's not like, why are you complimenting the chicken? Say something about me.

It's like, no, she gets it. That's what David is doing in verses one through three. He's saying the green grass, the pastures are good. He doesn't have anything to say is good. In verses four and five. What he has to say is in the middle of everything else being terrible, you're still good.

You comfort me. I won't fear anything because you're here. What he says is I can't see anything good. I don't see anything that I can look at and say thank you for right now. I can't. I'm sure there's stuff, but I can't see it.

Sometimes it bothers me. And I may be wrong about this when people are really hurting and it's like, well, you should find something to be thankful for. It's like just maybe not. What? That's really hard right now. I can't see anything to be thankful for.

But David says, you don't have to. He's good. Let him comfort you. Let the fact that he's still there be good. And I love what he says. He says, you.

I will fear no evil for you are with me. So he says, what's good is here is you. That's it. I got nothing else. You're good. And he says, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

So a rod and a staff were shepherd's tools. A rod could be this long or as long as a staff. At the end of it, it had a knot. Some of them have little spikes. Some of them are just a knot. The rod was for hitting things.

Not the sheep. Bears, wolves. The rod was for outsiders. The staff was for the sheep. And that's the one you're used to that has a little crook. It looks like a candy cane.

Your nativity scene has it. That was for the sheep. And this is beautiful because you know what's terrifying about being in the valley of the shadow of death? There's two things absolutely terrifying about those moments in our lives. Specifically for Christians. For the sheep that belong to Jesus.

One is that what's in the valley is going to get you. That you're going to be attacked. You're going to be harmed. That you're not going to make it out because this assailed you. And secondly, that because you're in the valley of shadow, you're going to bolt and leave the shepherd. That's actually the thing I'm most afraid of.

Is that when I get in the valley, I'm going to cease to see that he's good and I'm just going to run. I'm just going to run away. And what he says is both your rod and your staff comfort me. One is to hook around my neck and keep me close to you. And one of them is for everything that comes in this valley and tries to get me. And here's what's so encouraging about this.

So this is David writing this. David was a shepherd. He used to write songs. Tend sheep. So he was kind of arty.

He wrote poems and songs. And he was a shepherd. And he comes to one of the main stories about him that you maybe have heard about is David and Goliath. This is the same David we're talking about. Goliath was a giant. He was defying the armies of Israel.

And David comes and he goes and talks to the king Saul. And he basically says, hey, I'll go kill Goliath for you. And the king's like, because he's just kind of a young guy and he's not in the army. Like he tends sheep. The king's like, this is probably not the best plan. But this is the first guy who said, I'll kill Goliath for you.

So Saul's going to hear him out. Because all the other guys were like, I think Goliath was going to kill all of us. And this was the first kid who was like, I'll kill him for you. And so Saul was like, well, let's talk. Tell me your plan. So Saul's talking to him and he says, you're just a boy.

Like he's been trained in military things his whole life. This is 1 Samuel 17, by the way, that I'm paraphrasing. David says, I've tended sheep. And when a bear came or a lion came and took one of the lambs, I would follow it. I would strike it and get the lamb out of its mouth. And then he says, and if it came at me, I would grab it by its beard and kill it.

I've killed bears and lions and I'm going to do the same thing to Goliath. He'll be like one of them. Isn't that, I could just imagine Saul being like, all right, let's go. And he's following him out and people are like, you're actually going to let him fight. He said, he said he's going to grab Goliath by his beard and hit him in the head with a stick. I'm going to watch this.

He said, that's what he's going to do. I want to see it. That's what David's saying is he had a rod. He would go to a bear. He would hit it and he would give that bear a chance to back up. David was being nice to the bear.

He's like, you give me the lamb. You can go. But he's like, if that bear bowed up to me, I killed it. Did the same thing with bears and lions. Next time I go to the zoo, I'm looking at him and I'm picturing David jumping on him, grabbing him by their beard and hitting them with a stick. What David says in this Psalm is when I'm in the valley and it's dark and death looms over us, I'm going to remember that you're the scariest thing in the valley and that if a lion comes or a bear comes, they need to be afraid.

David's like, I'm going to do my best to get their attention and go, you're going to want to go home. That's what David's saying is that in the valley, when it is dark, when it is dismal, I'm going to trust that you're going to keep me close to you. Your staff is a comfort to me and I'm going to trust that in your other hand is a rod and this whatever is in the valley will not win. That you are the biggest, most fearful thing in the valley. That's our hope as we trust Jesus. Not that we'll never enter the valley of the shadow of death.

Not that it will never loom over us. Not that there will never be a time in our life when we cannot name a good thing. We don't know where grass is. We can't remember the last time we sat by still water. We're not promised that. We're promised that when we go in there, there will be the most fearful being in all of creation that rules over creation.

He will be with us and be a comfort to us to both keep us and to guard us. That's the hope that David says he has as he walks with God. Verse 5. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. That is a crazy sentence.

Because when you actually get to sit at a table and enjoy a nice meal, that's when life's going pretty well. Like you don't even get to do that in the morning. And you're grabbing like a drink and a Nutri-Grain bar and hitting the door. Like you don't even have enemies there. You just, the alarm clock, like you lost to it that morning. Like what David is saying is, in the presence of my enemies, I'll be surrounded, but I'm going to still get to sit down and enjoy a meal that you've prepared for me.

That in the middle of all the things that should rob us of all joy and all comfort and all peace, God sets a table and says, have a seat. That his supply lines aren't cut off and that he can continue to fill us up. That's what David's saying. The way I see this so clearly in my own life is with my sin. So that at times I feel like I'm surrounded by my enemies and that's what my sin is.

That it's actively at work to destroy my soul, to rob me of joy, to keep me from having a good relationship with God and good relationship with others around me. That my sin and at times I feel so accused by it. Look at who you are. Look at what you do. Look at what you're thinking. Look at what you're, like it's overwhelming and it feels like it's hemming me in.

And all I can see is my sin. And then in the cross Jesus sets a table, says have a seat. I'm actually going to show my power and my glory and my magnificence and my rule over sin as you sit and enjoy life, surrounded by what should destroy you but that I've set you free from. The thing that should rob you of all joy, I'm going to stand next to you as a guard and you're going to actually get to enjoy. Because he forgives us in the middle of our sin and it does not destroy us. He says you anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows. I think there's potential for two pictures here when he says you anoint my head with oil. That was something they would do as kind of a custom when they would share meals together and when they would come in, it was a way that you could smell nicer and it was a way to honor guests. And so he may just be simply saying you honor me as a guest. Like you prepare a table for me, you honor me as a guest and my cup overflows, meaning I'm more than provided for. But specifically because this is David writing this Psalm, we're told of the time that David was anointed with oil to be the king of Israel.

And so David may be trying to draw everybody's mind to, you set me aside for a purpose. I think so often one of the things that robs us of the ability to rest, that makes life anxious toil is this feeling like I have to find my purpose and I have to achieve my purpose in order to have value. David says, no, that's in the shepherd's hands too. That he has a purpose for you, that the shepherd decides what the sheep get to do, that he anoints your head with oil and he sets you aside for his purposes and his glory and his name. And you can trust him in that too. So that the amount of anxiety we wrap around, is my life going to be worth it?

He says, no, I've pushed that onto Jesus. Trust the shepherd to give you value and purpose. He says, my cup overflows. That God provides more than enough. So I think our question here that we ought to ask as we try to walk in this.

See, at first in verses 1 through 3, we need to ask, what is it that we think we're lacking? In verse 3, maybe we need to ask what it is we believe would restore our soul. What is it that we run to in those moments when we should tie ourselves to the shepherd? In verse 3, where he says, he leads me in paths of righteousness, maybe we ought to ask, what is it we believe actually makes us good? And is it Jesus? Are we resting in him?

Verse 4, he says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and he goes through there, what is it that we're afraid of? And what are we trusting to save us? All these things rob us of peace and of joy. Where he says, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

Maybe we ought to ask, what is it that we think gives us purpose and value? And do we have to consistently keep that up in order to be okay? Are we robbed of rest and robbed of joy because we can't let any relationship begin to seem even like it started to fall apart because we need people to love us to be okay? Is that where our value and our purpose comes from? Do we have to work unending hours in order to make enough money to have value and purpose? And we rob ourselves of joy because we won't trust that ultimately he holds all of that.

Verse 6, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David begins in verse 1, with the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He says, this is kind of how it's going to work. He's the shepherd, I'll be okay. And then he ends with this like proclamation of faith over the rest of his life. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

If you met a person and they looked at you and with genuine sincerity said, I will be happy my entire life. You'd be like, that's bold. I'm like, I'm proud of you. I hope that works out. But you don't know.

Maybe you wouldn't tell them. I'd probably tell them. I'd be like, well, we'll see. I don't know why I'd be rooting against their happiness, but I'd just be my natural reaction. They looked at you and said, all good things will come to me forever. He'd be like, boy, you sound like a fortune cookie.

David says this. And he got to write it down and it got to stay in the Bible. How does he get to say that? He gets to say that because of what he said in verse 1, which is the Lord is my shepherd, I won't lack anything. David gets to end with this bold statement of faith over the rest of his life that goodness and mercy will follow me and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And the reason he gets to say that is not because of what he's going to do, but because of who he belongs to.

That as Christians in Christ, we get to say the same thing. I want to read from John. This is Jesus speaking, so I just want you to sit and listen. This is what Jesus says about himself. I think this is helpful. John 10.

I'm the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And I come that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. But I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay my life down for the sheep.

You see, we get to stand next to David and without blinking, without hesitating, say, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. If we belong to Jesus, he's laid his life down for us. He knows his sheep. He loves his sheep. He doesn't flee from our sin. He doesn't flee from our wickedness.

But he dies in order to redeem us. And we belong to him. That's who we have as a shepherd. And that we get to read Psalm 23 and believe it. That we won't lack anything. That he will provide.

That he will restore our souls, even though there will be times where it needs to be restored. There will be times when we can't see anything good but him, but he's still good. And that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life. You can rest. You can stop. You can trust.

He is good. He does love you. He does care for you. That you belong to him and he knows you and you know his voice. For all of us who've placed faith in Christ, that is true for us. And maybe, maybe we all need to read Psalm 23 every day for the next month until it seeps into us that this is real and this is who he is and this is what he's like.

That he begins to restore our souls even from these pages. When we read Psalms and pray them. That he begins to work in us that we would remember that this is who he is and this is what he's done and this is the hope that we have. But you can rest and you can trust because he is good and he does love you. He's not going to lose you. He holds a rod and a staff.

Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life and you will if you belong to Jesus, dwell in his house forever. The band is going to come back up as we finish out this morning. We're going to spend in our community groups this week, we're actually going to talk about how. Practically, how do we make time? How do we rest? But today I just wanted us to try as we could to grow our faith that we could believe that we actually can.

That we believe why we can make time. Why we can rest because of how good he is. You see, freedom and rest come from dependence, not autonomy. That we get to trust that he handles this, that he will provide, that he is good, that we don't have to labor and toil in order to make things okay for ourselves. So as a church, we're about to take communion.

Communion. And communion is simply, we have bread, we use grape juice.