Work and Rest

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Father, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandParquay.org.

Amen.

Father, we are free.

That is the song that the spirit makes our hearts sing.

We're like a bunch of prisoners who've been jailbroke by you.

Open our eyes to see it clearly.

This is our condition.

We're not trapped.

We're not.

World's not against us.

You have rescued us.

And you breathe life into us, and you promise the life you never imagined.

It's still coming.

Father, meet us in these next minutes through this text.

And let us enjoy your presence.

Enjoy you speaking to us.

Enjoy this freedom in you.

Amen.

Please be seated.

My name is Blake Hardcastle.

I'm the Spiritual Formation Pastor here at Graham Parkway.

It's my pleasure this morning to continue our series in By Design.

This is our little mini-series in Genesis.

Today we just got three verses, and they're about work and rest.

But my watch is talking to us.

Only one preacher here.

Work and rest.

It occupies, I'll say almost, because I think it might be all, of our conscious and unconscious existence.

Work and rest.

And it's not by accident, it's by design.

God has designed this world and designed you to be in this dance of work and rest.

And he let us know this from the very beginning in Genesis.

And now I want to tell you this morning, or this morning, this week, I did something I've never done before.

And so I'm preparing this sermon this week.

And Wednesday is a long day here.

We have midweeks.

We're here early, here late.

And so Wednesday, about 2, 2:30, uh, I'm getting one of those, like, have you ever been at a desk or somewhere and you think, I'm gonna pass out.

I'm just gonna fall over right now.

So I stand up.

Okay, I need to get some, and I don't want caffeine yet because I'm at five o'clock, I'll get the big midweek adrenaline dump.

And so I'm I'm just I'm so tired.

I'm kind of standing in my office, I'm looking at the carpet, thinking, is this at like beauty rest, memory foam, celiapostopedic carpet?

Because it it looks, I could so inviting, I could just lay on it and fall right asleep.

And so I'm thinking, I'm trying to cover all my Baptist guilt bases.

Okay, I'm gonna be here a long time.

I'm about to pass out, I'm preparing a sermon on rest and work.

Maybe I can take a nap.

So I close my door.

Got this little window cover thing.

Like, okay, there's the couch.

Watch, talk to me when I want you to.

And uh instead of 15 minutes, I lay down and instantly I get into that like slow, deep breathing.

I'm like, oh, I'm gone.

I'm about to fall right out.

And I wake up 15 minutes later, and I've I feel better.

I don't feel like I'm ready for the Olympics, but I feel better.

So I'm telling my son this, like, hey, guess what I did today?

So he's eating dinner and he goes, Does anybody know about this?

Well, they do now.

Uh he goes, Can you get in trouble for this?

Like, I don't know.

I thought I covered all my Baptist guilt.

I don't know.

His question betrays a kind of a warped view of work and rest.

That work is good, and rest is just something you tolerate until you can work again.

What God wants is work.

Okay, rest until you can get back to work.

And that is not what he said.

And when we live that way, we kind of live out of step with the dance God wants us to do.

And it feels awkward and clunky and looks terrible.

Let's go to the text.

Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.

Genesis 2:1–3

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from the work that he had done.

So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work he had done in creation.

I'm gonna read this again, and I want you to actually pay attention.

Listen for things that are repeated.

Okay, this isn't just like some little filler.

God is actually saying something really important that we are probably missing.

So listen what's reported.

He repeats, it's not for filling space.

This is you know, this isn't Charles Dickens, you're getting paid by the word.

What he repeats is important.

So listen for repeats.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, all the host of them.

And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done.

And he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

So God blessed the seventh day, made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

What did you hear repeated?

Should have heard seventh day, work, rest, finished or completed.

Really, this this section probably could have been put in chapter one.

And you know, the the guy who made the original chapter divisions, you know, wasn't Moses.

It's a monk pastor later on.

The legend goes he was making them while riding horseback.

So, you know, we'll give him a little benefit of the doubt.

But really, in the beginning, God created, and then he was done.

These could serve as two bookends for this thought.

Now, let's walk through the text.

Point number one: God is a worker.

This is how he reveals himself.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished.

All the host of them.

Finished just means completed.

And so let me just pause.

We're gonna ask questions of the text.

So, one question you should be asking or could ask is well, was this really work for God?

I mean, was this difficult at all?

I it doesn't seem that hard.

He just, I mean, what he said is he spoke, stuff became, and the next day.

Doesn't seem that hard to talk and stuff happens.

Now, let me just say that what God reveals, what he defines, that's what it is.

So if God says this is work and that he's a worker, we need to take him at his word.

What God says truth is, what God says a person is, what God says the purpose of life is, what he says is it happens at the end, we need to take him at his definition of these things.

So he says it's work, he says he's a worker.

Here's an interesting thing.

He rests from his work, he stops this work, but he's actually doing other work.

So this one, and this is how work is work is actually layers upon layers upon layers.

We're not kind of like doing one thing, and sometimes it feels like I do this one thing, and I then I do the next thing.

There's actually several things happening at once.

And so he rests from creating, but he's doing other work.

Ephesians 2.10, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

If we looked at Psalm 104, we'd see he is meeting the needs of these many creatures.

So he's he's made creation and he filled it with creatures, and he's meeting their many needs.

Done creating, but he's still working.

Ephesians tells us he is fulfilling his purpose in history, he's he's accomplishing all his holy will.

He's working.

Hebrews 1 tells us that he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

He is this creation he's made and filled, he is sustaining this.

God has revealed himself as a worker.

He works.

You're a worker.

In your nature, in the image he's made you in, you're a worker.

Genesis 1.28.

We talked about this last week.

Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Ecclesiastes says something very similar.

Also, everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.

That's work.

This is God's gift to man.

Work as a present.

Hey, look what I got you.

Open it up.

What do you got?

It's work.

That's how God views it.

Thessalonians.

Paul writes, you aspire to live quietly and mind your own affairs and work with your hands as we instructed you.

See, people forget that there's designed for work.

We need to be commanded to work.

See, work is not a punishment for the fall.

It wasn't like um things are great.

It's like, whoo, vacation time.

We're on vacation.

And then anatomy sinned, and like, oh now we gotta work.

Oh, I love vacation.

I hate work.

God has designed you for work.

Next week, we'll look at Genesis 3.

This is the fall.

Now, the fall changes everything.

So here's a little foreshadowing.

It will change work.

Work is designed to be blessing, a blessing to you and a blessing to others from your work.

But because of the fall, it's blessing and it's also now mixed with curse.

You should experience work as both these things.

And so, for anyone in the room, this is just free advice.

If you're holding out for your dream job that's all blessing and no curse, you can just go ahead and settle now.

Just pick any job.

Because that one you're not gonna get.

That's in the new heavens and the new earth.

That's not now.

And if there's some in here that your job is, I think my job's all curse, and it's no blessing.

Just pick your head up and start looking and choose something else.

God has designed you to work.

We experience it as both blessing and curse.

But it is a gift.

It has intrinsic value because God does it and He designed it.

Work isn't curse.

It's not something that we get shoved in our face from the fall.

It has a value to it.

We're designed for work.

That's why when work is taken away, things are very kind of unsettled and dysregulating.

My dad had worked for a power company for four decades and he retired a couple years ago.

And I remember asking him a month or two later, hey, what's it like not working?

Huh?

Tell me about it.

I bet it's great.

I'm looking forward to it.

He said, actually, uh every night feels like Sunday night.

Like I should get up tomorrow and go to work, right?

It's very disorienting.

Years ago, I uh used to go to a barber, his name was Walter.

And um Walter was 73 years old.

And Walter would start cutting hair at 5:30, he'd be done cutting at 1.

5 30 a.m., 1 p.m.

He's done.

Owned his own shop.

And um, he was close to where I lived.

And so I asked him, uh, Walter, uh, I mean, other than just you're kind of a weird guy, why are you working?

Like, why?

Did you owe money?

He goes, No, no, I own this place outright, I don't own any money.

Uh he said, I I'm working because I'm scared to die.

Oh, I'm a pastor.

Here we go.

It's my chance to get one of the stories.

What do you mean, scared to die?

He goes, all my friends, when they retire, they don't find anything else to do.

And so they sit around and watch TV and their health plummets and they die early.

And I don't want to die.

So I get up and I cut hair and I leave when I want to.

So others, when when they stop working for regular pay and they kind of retire, they find a bunch of other things to do, unlike Walter's friends.

And for someone to say, I am so busy now, I don't know how I ever had time for a job.

I'm like, I'm more busy than I ever was before.

And I had to go somewhere for a bunch of hours a week.

We're designed for work.

Here's five practical reasons.

Sherman and Douglas, they're Heminger, they tell us this.

Five practical reasons God gives this gift of work.

One is to serve people.

When you work, others are helped.

Whether you're paid for it or others are to be helped by your work.

It's a way of doing good to others.

Number reason is it meets your own needs.

Second is it meets the needs of your family.

And so you're helped and those of your immediate circle are helped.

Fourth thing is we earn money to help others.

Fifth reason is it's a way to love God.

God intends for work to be this kind of uh semi-mystical dance where I'm exhausted and exhilarated.

And here's how you know if you're landing in kind of an area of spiritual giftedness, it should wear you out and thrill you at the same time.

You should be exhausted from it.

It shouldn't feel like work, and you should say, I do it all again right now if I had a chance.

That's that's spiritual gifting.

It's it's thrilling and it's exhausting at the same time.

Work is to be done for the Lord, not just for a earthly boss alone.

Whether you work for a boss or your own boss, it's all Jesus says, it's for me.

I'm your boss.

Ephesians 6, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, as to the Lord.

And so I work here at this church, and I got a bunch of bosses, there's like an org chart tree, right?

But my main boss is Jesus.

That's my main boss.

And in fact, here's the great thing: He's the one who gets to say if I stay or go.

Ultimately, he's the one in charge of all this, and not just because I work in a church, he's the one in charge of your job, too.

He is your boss, this is the mind shape for everybody, he's our boss.

So, how are we to work in a way that pleases the Lord?

And here's how this is even more complicated.

Uh, we don't just work at a job, we work all over the place all the time.

Have you noticed?

Are you aware of this?

The relationships are work.

You are aware of this.

Because the ones that are like a lot of work, you're like, I don't want to put the work in.

That person is, you know, extra grace required.

That person is extra, extra work.

I don't want to work that hard.

You're gonna have this thought of uh for the most part, I want things to come easy and natural, but that's not the world you're live in.

If you want your relationships to move from kind of a low grade acceptable to flourishing, the gap here is not just prayer, the gap here is work.

It's worth it, but it's work.

So you don't just work, all your relationships are work.

Now we constantly depend on the work of others.

So right now, I'm I'm right now I'm at work.

Hey, I'm at work, everybody.

I'm working right now, and I'm depending on others' work.

I'm depending on whoever has electro grid up and going, I'm depending on all of them.

Whoever's got to mine stuff and make trucks and and uh whatever, I'm depending on all of them.

I'm depending on this media team right now for lights and video and sound.

And I'm actually, you know, you know I'm depending on you to work?

I'm depending on you to do the work of listening and thinking.

Did you not know that church was work?

This is a new thought.

Write this down.

When you come here, you work.

Maybe one of the reasons why sometimes I get something out of church, sometimes I don't get something out of church, is because I don't go get it.

Chef God is serving up plenty of things this morning.

From the songs to the readings to the sermon.

You just gotta go get a plate of it.

This should be work.

You should walk out of here a little taxed.

If it feels like work, you're doing it right.

If it feels like work, I'm doing it right.

Now, if if if you're kind of like, okay, I'm I'm really interested.

I'm ready, I think I'm ready for a deep dive into all the nuances.

Okay, I want to engage work to God's glory in this world.

Well, I got a thing for you.

Next week, all our Sunday Bible studies start new topics.

We do that every quarter.

One of them is called The Christian in the Workplace.

It's gonna meet up in this room at 9:30, this service.

So if you're not in this room next week, and you're normally here, maybe you're gonna be up in there.

It's gonna be a seminar style.

There'll be a short teaching time and then unpack and discussion.

What does it mean that what does it really look like to be salt and light at work?

What does it look like to balance work and family and responsibilities and self?

If you're ready for a deep dive into God, you're a worker and you've made me a worker, and I want to do this really well.

I'm ready to think about this.

I commend that class to you next week.

Point number three.

Now you're probably okay with God being a worker and you being a worker.

Here's what might be new God is a rester.

He rests.

On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done.

Now let me pause.

This is very different from the previous days.

Previous days, God said, It was the next day.

God said, It was the next day.

When we get to this one, God was done and he rested.

We tend to view creation as kind of a like a like a mountain, kind of like a triangle, where okay, God, God's beginning it, and it gets more and more detailed, more and more complex, more and more, and we get to the sixth day, and God's making man now.

And man is the pinnacle of creation.

Yeah, I'm part of that.

You're part of that.

Yeah, yay for us.

Forget all you wild animals, we're better than you.

And then he rested.

What if really what this text is saying is that the grand finale of creation is the resting.

What if that's the top of the pinnacle?

It's not you, it's God saying, and I'm done.

What if resting is the climax of creation?

He rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done.

And what's God doing in this rest?

Is he recharging his batteries?

Is he getting something cold to drink?

All powerful does not need a recharge.

No matter how much power has gone out, because it's all powerful.

So he's not recharging.

This word rest, it means to cease from.

So what he's doing is he's stopped creating.

John 15, 5, he stops creating, he's doing other stuff.

He said, My father is working into now, and I am working.

So God is He's sustaining the world, He's governing it, He's He's mobilizing to accomplish all his holy will, but He's ceased creating.

So, what is this rest of God?

What is this like?

We can say it this way God's rest is his deep pleasure, it's his deep satisfaction in what he's made.

Okay?

God's rest.

Rest is just taking deep pleasure and satisfaction in what he's made.

It's like this, it's like cooking a meal.

And then when you rest from cooking, you cease cooking, the cooking's done, and now you get to the eating, and you take that first bite.

That's resting.

That's what the Bible's talking about.

It's when you um get some Legos and you build something, right?

And then when you're done building, what do you do?

Take it and fly it around and show everybody.

Hey, look what I made.

Show everybody else.

Come find pleasure and satisfaction in my completed work.

That's resting.

When someone aces a paper or chest and you slap it up on the fridge to enjoy the work that's finished.

That's resting.

It's when moms stop chasing kids.

They cease from this work.

And they go somewhere where no one can say to them, I need help.

And they rest by just taking deep pleasure in the quiet.

That's when we rest like God.

So God's a rester.

He's designed you to be a rester.

Some be like, I knew it.

I knew I was a wester.

Yes.

Verse 3.

So God blessed the seventh day.

Let's pause and ask the question.

What's the nature of this blessing?

Two times previously, he blesses the animals, living creatures, and he blesses Adam and Eve.

And these are for, well, life-bearing.

They would reproduce themselves.

The seventh day, when he blesses this, this rest day, this seems to still be life-giving, but not life-giving and making more of yourself.

It's life-giving spiritually.

Somehow in rest, our soul flourishes.

It's one of God's ordained means to stimulate you spiritually.

An organization that understands this and practices it is a group called Young Life.

It's primarily an evangelistic parachurch ministry to high school kids.

And what they're excellent at is methodically communicating the gospel.

And they're kind of their cornerstone of this is the camp experience.

So in the camp experience, uh, they uh have super tons of fun all day long.

And at nighttime, there's a message, and part of the message is a portion of the gospel.

They kind of give it out in portion slowly.

And one night they'll get to you've sinned against the holy God, and and you should be burning in hell.

And in fact, shouldn't you're gonna burn in hell?

And they don't give them the remedy.

That's the next night.

They don't give them, and Jesus can help you next night.

They say, okay, now we want you to go off and find someplace on this camp and be alone.

Just for 15 minutes.

I want you to be alone and be still.

Be at rest and see if God speaks to you.

So they understand that when we rest, we're inviting the Spirit to work.

And sometimes, maybe your diminished experience of God is that you're just so much other noise going on.

You need to cease a few things and quiet them so that God becomes hearable to you.

It's not that he's not speaking, it's that you're just super distracted.

He made it holy.

Back to the text, verse three.

The seventh thing, the seventh thing, the seventh day, this is the first thing that God calls holy.

That surprised me looking at this.

Doesn't call anything else holy.

And he made the seventh day and blessed it and said it was holy.

The set apart, sacred, sanctified to him.

Now, what's God doing here?

Let's look at Exodus 20, 10 Commandments.

It's commandment four.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, because you're workers.

They're designed that way.

But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it you shall do no work, because you're also a rester.

You or your son or daughter, your male servant, female servant, your livestock.

Yeah.

No one's supposed to work in your place.

You're a rester who lets others rest.

Because rest has intrinsic value because God does it and he's designed you for it.

For in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that's in them, and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

So these rest, Sabbath expectations, this is not something pastors created, right?

We didn't think this up.

We didn't think, okay, how can we, how can we make a living at this?

Let's get people to come on one day.

Well, trick them into thinking they got no, it's this God's idea from the very beginning.

And what we usually do is we we push up against it, we pressure back into it.

Let me give you some examples.

This is a general guide.

This is not a hard and fast rule, but in general, probably what rest looks like is you cease from one kind of work and you engage in another kind of work that's reviving, renewing to you.

Here's an example.

So the person who's a logger who's running a saw, felling trees, quartering them up, onto the mill.

When that person rests, it might look like uh reading poetry.

No logs, no saw, words.

And the poet, when they Sabbath, when they rest, it might look like no words.

I need to pick up an axe and split something.

See, you you rest is, you stop the work you had been doing, and some other work becomes rejuvenating.

For me, most of my day, my work here is meeting with people.

It's thinking, planning, reading, writing.

And so you know what's really reviving and refreshing to me?

Getting super sweaty in my yard.

Mowing, trimming the grass, yes, the hot, the bushes, ruling and subduing my yard.

Being a sweaty mess about it.

That's reviving to me.

That's work that renews me.

Charles Spurgeon, the English pastor, preacher, his renewal was this it was horseback riding.

He would get out of his study, get on a horse, and it was the fresh air, it was the kind of the cajoling of his body in the saddle, the thumping of the hooves.

He said, This is this is uh feeling and sound and smell that I can't get in my study.

And I need it to refresh me.

So it's likely whatever is your work, there's a work that's renewing.

That's what Sabbath will probably feel like for you.

Rest of verse 3, because on it God rested from all the work he had done in creating.

When we refuse to rest, uh we're blasphemers.

We're false teachers.

When we refuse to rest, we are false teachers.

We're saying something false about God and about us.

When we refuse to rest, we're really claiming self-sufficiency.

I got enough in me.

I got more in me.

And we're also claiming self-rule.

I know better.

Now, this sounds noble: work less, rest more, but it's actually just pure steward, it's poor stewardship, it's what it is.

It's being a poor steward of what God's entrusted to you.

See, God has designed us for rest.

Maybe you are, maybe you're not aware.

You know, every day God kind of forces upon you rest by making you tired, where you pretty much have to sleep every day.

Every day He forces you to say a creed with your body that God, I trust you way more than I trust myself.

Here's some things, just in how God's designed the world, He's designed it so that work has consequences.

For example, you know, you may not be aware, maybe you are, that uh a diminished sleep is linked to um serious mood swings.

It's linked to illness.

You probably knew that.

Oh, you've got a little tickle in your throat.

I need to sleep more tomorrow.

But it's also correlated to infertility, diabetes, heart disease.

God has designed you as a worker and a rester.

He's designed the world to work best when these two dance appropriately.

Roger Federer, the accomplished tennis player, uh, in mid-season, where he's got stuff to do, like win tennis tournaments, he sleeps 12 hours a day.

10 hours at night, and a two-hour nap in the day.

And he's trying to maximize, uh, he squeeze as most out of himself as he can and win everything.

He's just someone trial and error has figured out.

He's not reading Genesis, he just figured out life is better when I commit to resting.

See, God has designed us to rest, and when we don't, not just our bodies, but our relationships suffer when we don't rest.

Now, no one has ever said, I love it when I get terrible sleep.

It's awesome.

I go to work and the people go, Oh, thank you so much.

When you like were overly mean and loud and had that like disgusted look on your face, you know, when you were explaining to me, that just made it so clear I totally understood what you're saying.

I'm just so grateful to work here.

Yeah, no one ever says that.

No one ever says, I love how my body feels when I don't sleep well.

I love that kind of groggy, hazy, heavy-legged, weary, low energy.

I love it because I want to give myself a challenge.

I want to see how hard I can make life.

No, we always say, I need I need to sleep more tomorrow.

Tomorrow, tomorrow.

When we ignore enjoying the work we've done by resting, whether it's unconscious sleep or simply taking deep pleasure and satisfaction in what's been done, when we ignore that, we slowly become calloused in our hearts.

We become bitter, we become ungrateful, we become blind to the good, and we begin to think, yeah, all I've got is curse.

I've got no blessing.

I gotta find something else.

When really the difference is you need to rest.

And when you rest, the blessing, not just the cursing, becomes apparent.

When we sleep, we proclaim a creed that's just as much as what we just recited today.

Adam Mabry, in his helpful book, The Art of Rest, he says this.

When we sleep, we are saying this the God who made the world rules the world, and I trust him to do it better than me.

When did you know when you sleep, you are a profound theologian?

When you embrace sleep, you're a profound theologian.

And when you cut corners and put it off and trade it for entertainment, you're a false teacher.

When we sleep, we are really saying, God, I'm resting in you, in your ability to protect, provide, and care for me.

Second thing Mabry says, it writes, you won't lose anything by resting that you need to keep.

And you won't gain anything by overworking that you won't lose one day.

And we usually have it inverted.

We think, unless I protect and keep, it's gonna be gone.

And and and all I can scratch and crave and pull to me, I'm gonna get all of it.

And really, God says this is kind of inverted.

When you trust me, when you work within how I've designed the world, you flourish.

You flourish in relationships, you flourish in your health, you flourish.

It's a small taste of the garden.

Last point.

Number five, enter the true rest.

Matthew 11, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

This is Matthew recording Jesus.

Jesus, co-creator, co-rester, he says there's another rest.

And this is the one you don't want to miss out on.

If you were to Sabbath really well, okay, stop chopping your wood and start reading poetry.

If you were to engage that rest fully, stop your work and just enjoy it.

But miss this rest.

You're to be pitied because you're doomed.

You see, Jesus invites us to the most important rest of all.

This is the relief that comes when the burden of sin is listed, when the burden of sin is done.

Those who've truly come to Christ have actually entered this rest.

Living on our own strength, our own wisdom.

It's supposed to feel too hard.

It's supposed to feel too vexing, it's supposed to feel too burdensome and wearisome.

You're not supposed to flourish being self-sufficient or self-ruled.

God's designed the world as kind of a slow vice to point you to Him.

You need me.

So this morning, if you're unsure that this has happened to you, if you're unsure if you've entered this rest, or if you're feeling, yeah, I want this burden lifted.

I know I don't have it.

I want this freedom.

Then linger.

Talk with some of our staff that'll be here.

Or make an appointment this week.

Or talk to the person who brought you.

But do all you can to enter this rest.

St.

Augustine, he writes a long time ago, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.

And you really will.

You will be ultimately restless until you have this true rest in Christ.

And if you're sensing Jesus say to you, Come, come, come over here to this rest.

Don't delay.

Take them up on that offer.

Father, this morning I asked that you would give us abundant clarity.

That's we would see more clearly how you have made us, how you intend for us to live as a worker and a rester.

But mostly we would we would be taking deep satisfaction and pleasure in rest that's in Christ.

Give us eyes to see this now.

Amen.

We here we try and teach the Bible, and then we want to give space to really, we want to give a rest.

Want to stop preaching and you stop listening to me and thinking.

And we want to pause and rest and give our attention to God.

We've got some questions that might help lead this for you.

We're gonna pause for some moments.

We're gonna rest and let the Spirit invite the Spirit to work in us.

Father, there is peace because you say there is.

And we want to taste and see that peace.

Empower us as working resters today.

Amen.

Thank you for being here.

If you're a guest, you'll notice in the chair right around you is a little box with a card in it.

That's where you can give us some information about yourselves and let us kind of make a step toward you and engage in you, be a part of this church body.

Uh, you can fill that out, and each door is a little box with a slot on top.

You just drop that inside the slot.

If this is your church, this is where you uh practice obedience to God through giving.

That box and that slot's also where you take care of that.

If this is a Sunday, you do that.

One last thing.

We have a video announcement, so give your attention to the screen.

Join us for our annual pumpkin clues on Friday, October 1st at 6 30 p.m.

We will have a pumpkin carving contest, a food truck with four mini mini donuts, and we will watch monster scene coming out the removie screen.

Everyone will bring their own pumpkin, and we will provide the carving and decorating supplies.

There will be prizes as well as something for every family to take home.

If you have any questions about something you've heard today, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our services.

All right, please stand to your feet.

We'll close our service with a blessing.

Hold your hands out if you're comfortable, as if you're gonna receive something.

And these seem like they resist each other, but they actually fit perfectly.

They're like a dance, and he wants you to get on beat.

Depart now.

Work and rest, and expect to feel the pleasure of your father.

In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.