a Sermon right between the eyes!

I am sure you have had the experience of hearing a message and feeling that the pastor was preaching it JUST for you and for no one else.  Oddly enough, this last Sunday was my last week at Hope Church in Ft. Worth and the regular pastor was called away due to a death in his family. So this was not the message that would normally have been preached last Sunday, but one the assistant pastor, Christian Williams, presumably decided to preach when he found out on Thursday he would be preaching.

Okay, so the sermon was on REST. It was no coincidence that this came up the week I was about to set out on the first major segment of my sabbatical. The teaching was a total resume of everything God has taught me so far and an extra kick to it.  It seems that God works things into our lives in a cyclical fashion - like a spiral getting more focused as we are able to take in the next bit.

One of the key verses Christian suggested we memorize was Psalm 127:1-2.
I said to myself, "Oh, I know this verse. Learned it last year. I even learned the second phrase that most people don't learn". But then I realized I had only learned verse 1:

1 Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is useless.
Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good.

and had focused on it more from the need to commit our plans to the Lord, especially with regards to contingency and crisis management, a very relevant topic to us in our work. 

I had missed verse 2 which was new for me. It totally recasts it:  

2 It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.

Suddenly it is not only about "trusting God and his sovereignty" but about not trying to do everything ourselves because we rest in his sovereignty. 

Christian went on to say that REST is good, the Sabbath rest God gave us at creation. And it is obtainable as it is promised several places.  Mark 2.27, Hebrews 4.7-11

So why do we not enter into the promised rest? 

Christian said we need to resist the enemies of rest which are Laziness (no big problem for me) and Self-reliance (zinger - right between the eyes). Then he quoted the verse at the top of my blog: Jeremiah 6:16, a verse that keeps coming up everywhere I look.

This is what the Lord says:
“Stop at the crossroads and look around.
Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it.
Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.
But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’

I left the last bit off of my blog header, for obvious reasons, but it really summarizes the problem: self-reliance.  When we don't trust God to take care of things, then the result is overwork.



We need to pursue a rest that restores rather than robs us. Zoning out in front of the TV or surfing the internet may appear like rest but it robs us of deeper forms of quality rest.
A lack of planning is often the problem. We need to plan so that I have time to rest. 


George Meuhler said, "The stops of a good man, as well as his steps are ordered by the Lord" (cf. Psa. 37:23). 
 
Hey, this is what I was learning in my coaching in Dallas just last week. you have to plan in the times of reflection and rest and delegation, in order to fully do all the things God wants you to be. 

Christian says that test that restores includes

• sleep - DUH! But we should organize our time to get the sleep we need and cut out things that prevent us from getting it.
• Sabbath  - a time to be with God and his people.
• celebration - this includes what others have called "delight"
• salvation in Jesus. Matt 11.28-30

There's lots here for me to chew on. and hopefully get better at.