Today, we are talking about rest.

Now, I know what you are thinking, “I rest,” or “Rest isn't that important.” Maybe it’s the thought, “We are just in a busy time right now.” But you started saying that two years ago, and it has just kind of continued.

Rest is one of those things that we have concluded in American society: we only need two weeks of vacation for 12 months of work, and we will be good.

The problem is our lives are filled with so much activity that we have planned ourselves out of rest.

I remember last year around this time, Alexis and I were regretting our decisions. We were wrapping up soccer to head right into Basketball. We had early games, so we were gone from the house early on Saturday mornings and then coming home to take a nap to not have much of a Saturday left. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

We decided we were going to put more of an emphasis on family time than sports. So this year the only sport we are doing is softball.

We were feeling the chaos inside of ourselves and were tired of activities driving us instead of purpose driving us.

Rest isn't just about feeling relaxed, it's about looking at life and being pleased with where you are and what you're doing.

If you were to take a second, close your eyes and ask yourself, “Do I feel rested?” What would your answer be?
You might say, I am a little tired, or maybe you would say, “I am exhausted.”

Or you're dealing with the heaviness of life. You could've experienced
- Loss
- Trama
- Unexpected circumstances

I believe that rest can be broken up into two categories:

Physical Spiritual

It's important to make the distinction between the two because we can rest physically, but our spirit is still unrested. That's why you can go on a week-long vacation and come home and almost immediately shoot through the roof.

We have used physical remedies as an escape from a spiritual reality.

Do we need physical rest, yes, we do, but we also need spiritual rest as well. We need to find that rest that replenishes our soul.

Psalm 116:7
Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

The difficulty is that we have been so trained to focus on the problem and to try and fix it that we end up on the hamster wheel just going and going only to end up more exhausted than when we started.

Jesus even talks about the weariness we will feel:

Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In trying to find rest, Jesus gives us the road map. Seek Him, Allow Him to direct you, and you will find rest.

Jesus is the answer here. Coming to Him and trusting him to take care of us. If we want to feel the anxiety and chaos in our lives go away, we have to start by trusting God.

Trust is the foundation of every relationship. Why would we think it is any different with God? The difference is, with God, we will trust Him with our eternity, but we won’t trust him enough to take care of us today.

One of the things that I have heard before is that “I don't have time to rest.”This is the same as saying, “I just didn’t have the money to tithe.” It's not that you don't have the time or the money, you don't have the trust.

This is what is so difficult about rest. In order to really rest, we have to have Trust in Him. We have to trust that He has our best interest in mind.

Relationship
This is fundamental to our belief system, we have to have a relationship with God for any aspect of God’s promises to be true.

So, if you haven't made Jesus Lord, let's take a second and do that.

So, if you haven’t, all you have to do is confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. If you mean it, he means it.

“Lord, we believe that you died for our sins, and I confess you are Lord.”

God created us for relationship.
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God created us in His image. Why would He do that? He has already created all the other animals, He could’ve stopped and had a relationship with them, but he wanted to have a relationship with something that was built in Him, so he made us in His image.

That is what makes us different, He formed us, breathed His life into us, and gave us dominion over the land to watch over. He wanted us to be like Him, He wanted us to operate like Him. And in doing so He was able to take pleasure in relationship with man and Man with Him.

God walked in the cool of the day with them, and even when they messed up by eating the apple, the first thing God did was slaughter animals and cover them.

He took our weakness and covered it just like he does every time.

Romans 8:5
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

When we have a relationship with God, we become aware of His ways; we begin to have an awareness of what the spirit is doing. We begin to be drawn in by the spirit.

Romans 2:4Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

That’s why when we get into a relationship with God, things we used to be comfortable with, we aren’t comfortable with anymore because the spirit is leading us away from the desires of the flesh.

He will renew us as we are worn down by life! He will come in and give us strength, rest, and comfort but we have to know Him. When we know Him thats when we see Him doing these things:
Isaiah 40:31
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
This is what it is like to have a relationship with God, just a moment with Him, and everything changes. Having time with Him through prayer, the word, or just meditating on Him will change everything for you. It will help you quiet your soul.

Purpose
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

God had just created the heavens and the earth, formed the earth, created animals, and created man. And he saw that it was good. And then, on the 7th day, He finished His work and rested.

God took time to rest. But why?

I believe it because He wanted to take pleasure in the work he had done.

You can’t take pleasure in something that isn’t meaningful.

At the end of all of the work, He wanted to rest in the pleasure of what the work was for. Not only that, but we can see that He then “Blessed the seventh day and made it Holy.” Why? I believe it is because He wanted us to be able to see the importance of being able to find rest in the pleasure of our work.

So that begs the question, How do we find pleasure in our work?

Our work has to be purpose-driven.

Here is a question for you to chew on, Do I find purpose in my daily life?

If I had you take 30 seconds to write down what your purpose is, would you be able to answer?

Having that purpose is going to help give us a target to aim for, a goal for each day. If we aren’t living life with purpose, we will continue to be filled with chaos.

I can give a quick one to you: if you are a parent, your purpose is to lead your family to Christ and walk in his ways.

That is a purpose you can find rest in every day. Everything around you can be hectic and maddening but that simple purpose will allow you to be content every day.

We overcomplicate purpose. Purpose is not position or title, its responsibility. What if the chaos you are feeling underneath it all is because you feel a longing for more but you don't know what more looks like? That is an unidentified purpose.

You can continue to walk in the turmoil and chaos or identify some purpose in your life to find the rest in God that you need. There is the old saying that what you don't confront only grows, so your avoidance of purpose has caused you more trouble than your embrace of it would have.

We had a sermon series last year where the phrase “pick your pain” was used a lot. The concept of it is that you can have a little pain now or a lot of pain later, which one do you want?

So, how do we find our purpose? Well, we talked about this a few weeks ago. That we all have the same purpose, and that is to continue the work that Christ started on the Earth.

2 Corinthians 5:17-22
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[b] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling[c] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So there we have it, our purpose, but as we talked about a few weeks ago, that purpose becomes specialized based on where we go. That's why the trust that we talked about is so important. We have to trust that God has our best interest in mind so He can lead us in the day-to-day, and we end up where he wants us to be, so we can have the impact he wants us to have.

Growing up in church, the emphasis was always on the biggest impact you can make. I would argue that it is really about the most faithful impact you can make. When you realize that your purpose is what should drive you, then you will begin to find more fulfillment in the day-to-day.

We see this with Jesus and the Pharisees. The Jews took the Sabbath as a day where no work was to be performed. So they wouldn't do anything. They could only walk so far from their house, they would cook food the day before, and all sorts of other things because they couldn’t work. Now Jesus rolls up on the scene and we have this happen:

Matthew 12:9-13
9 He went on from there and entered their synagogue. 10 And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.

This wasn't the only time Jesus did this. There are actually seven different instances recorded where Jesus healed on the Sabbath. On this particular occasion, though, We see Jesus’ response to the Pharisees.

Jesus was operating in His purpose; He was doing the will of the Father. That's what gave Him rest.

Here are a few questions to help you with determining your purpose:

If you were guaranteed success and you had limitless money, what would you do? What are you most passionate about? Based upon your current life, what brings you the most joy right now? What is missing from your life? From the world? What makes you lose track of time?

Purpose is the responsibility you are built to carry. It's not for anyone else, just you. It's not about what you are doing versus someone else. Once again God doesn't look at how much you are managing to determine your value. Your value to Him is apparent in the fact that He designed you, He sent his son to die for you, and he has a plan and purpose for you.

My purpose: To give God glory and to help other people develop in their purpose.

This is my goal every day. This is what brings me rest.

Godliness
Hebrew 4:9-13
9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

In this chapter, they are talking about Joshua leading people to the promised land. They talk about the generation that had to die off before they could find rest because they operated in disobedience. God told them to take the land, and only two of the twelve spies wanted to do what God said because they believed but the others were scared.

Their fear was seen as disobedience to God because in that moment their fear was a more powerful God than God.

Have you allowed fear to be the God that dictates your purpose?

It was the fear of failure that led the people to believe that they weren't going to be able to defeat Jericho. And because of that, the good news of salvation by God through defeating Jericho was lost on them. They received the news but didn't believe it.

This is why the author says “Strive to enter that rest that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”

The fastest way to bring our souls into the rest of God is to submit them to Him. Through that submission, we will find pleasure in the works of our hands. When we do this we will find that our works reflect God's works the way that Adams reflected God’s in the garden.

1st Peter 1:15-16

15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

What is Holy?
Pure, morally blameless, or religious, ceremonially, consecrated

Peter is saying God is Pure, morally blameless, or religious, ceremonially, consecrated, we need to be Pure, morally blameless, or religious, ceremonially, consecrated.

The only way to do that is through having a relationship with God. To know Him, to know His ways. What is His character?
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control

To be Holy like God is holy we operate in Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

All of these fruit give you an opportunity to be like God. You get to choose to be obedient.

Lets take self control.

Raise your hand if:
- You have ever eaten out of emotion
- If you have ever said a bad word when you were upset
- If you have ever gone too far with your your temper.

Rest isn’t simply about feeling better, it’s about being made whole. And the only way to be made who is through a relationship with God, finding pleasure in your purpose, and walking in Godliness.

If everyone could please stand.

Maybe you are here today and you find your soul is in chaos or you are just weary. I want to invite you down this morning and we are going to pray. This time at the altar is important because its the first step of trust that we show God that we believe that he can do it.

Lets pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?