Follow | Rules and Rest (Kirk Giles)

Good morning, everyone. Take your Bibles.

Turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 6. If you're using one of the

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Bibles in the seat around you, it's on page 914.

We're going to be celebrating Communion a little bit later in

the service. So if you did not receive a

Communion Cup when you came in, would you just raise your hand

and we'll make sure that you do receive a Communion cup?

Just keep it up there until someone comes around to you to

get a cup into your hands. Last week we were talking about

how Jesus came to make everything new.

That when Jesus came, he came to not only patch us up, but to

make us into a new creation. That when we're forgiven of our

sins, we are forgiven past, present and future.

But we also saw how Jesus teaches us that this new

creation that he makes us into also calls us into a new way of

living and being as humans. That the Christian life is not

about us adding some of Jesus to our life, but it is also about

us putting our hands into the hands, our lives into the hands

of Jesus. That's what the Christian life

is all about. So let me ask you this question.

If you were Jesus, it's always dangerous to start with this

question. If you were Jesus, but if you

were Jesus and you came to bring new life to someone, what would

be one of the very first things that you would want someone to

do with that new life, right? Because that's usually what

happens when we think about new things.

When we're starting a new chapter in life, we're moving

into a new house or a new neighborhood, starting at a new

school, starting a new job. Whenever we're starting

something new, we start off with the mindset of, OK, what are the

things I need to do? What are the things I need to do

to get life in order? What are the things I need to do

to be able to make sense of where this is going to go from

here? But in the passage that we're

going to look at today, Luke is going to record a story that's

going to teach us something really important about this new

way and that. And it's this.

It's not that this new way is so much about here's all the things

Jesus wants you to do first. It actually starts with the way

of Jesus as a call to rest that that before we get to the doing,

Jesus is calling us to rest. Look at verse one of Luke

Luke 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6 says on a Sabbath he passed through the grain fields.

His disciples were picking heads of grain, rubbing them in their

hands and eating them. But some of the Pharisees said,

why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

Jesus answered them, Haven't you read what David and those who

were with him did when he was hungry?

How He entered the House of God and took and ate the bread of

the presents, which is not lawful for any but the priest to

eat. He even gave some to those who

were with him. Then he told them, The Son of

Man is Lord of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath he entered

the synagogue and was teaching. A man was there whose right hand

was shriveled. The scribes and the Pharisees

were watching him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath,

so that they could find a charge against him.

But he knew their thoughts and he told the man with the

shriveled hand, Get up and stand here.

So we got up and he stood there. Then Jesus said to them, I ask

you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to

save life or to destroy it? After looking around at them

all, he told him, stretch out your hand.

He did and his hand was restored.

They however, were filled with rage and started discussing with

one another what they might do to Jesus.

Sabbath is not a word that gets used very often in 2025 in North

America, but for a lot of Jews both today and historically,

they would have understood the Sabbath to mean one full day

each week as a day of rest. And the idea of Sabbath is built

off of 2 Old Testament passages in particular.

First of all, in Genesis chapter 2, we're told that God finished

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

the work of creation that he had done.

God spent six days creating everything, including humans,

and on the 7th day, God rested from the work that he had done.

So God works, and then he rests. Now, I don't know if you've

thought much about this, but the first full day on earth for

humans was also God's day of rest.

God was done his work, and humans had not yet started their

work. Both are at rest at the same

time. God orders creation in such a

way that the very first day for humans is designed to be a day

of enjoying fellowship with God. The the very creation of rest

points us to the reality that life thrives when there is

stillness. We we can see it in the way that

plants and animals in the land need rest in order to thrive.

God has designed all of creation to rest as part of the journey

of being fully alive and fruitful.

But as humans, as normal, we start to think, well, I know

better than God. There's a better way to do this

in the way that the creator of the universe did it.

And that's what happens in the Garden of Eden.

They sin because at the heart of it, they're thinking we know

better than God knows. Until later on we get to Exodus

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

chapter 20, where God is giving the law to Moses and to the

Israelites, and he's giving the 10 commandments to Moses.

And one of the 10 commandments given to Moses is this.

Remember the Sabbath day. To keep it holy, you are to

labor 6 days and do all your work.

But the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

You must not do any work built into the very Ten Commandments.

God says this is something you need to remember to do.

He doesn't say that about the other commandments.

He says you need to remember to Sabbath because we as humans

quickly forget the idea of taking rest.

And God says it's one day of the week.

It's a day that's meant to be holy to the Lord and God defines

Sabbath not by what it is, but by what it's not.

It's not work and it's not just referring to your employment

type of work. Anything that could be

considered work of any kind is what the the 10 commandments is

referring to. Now, I know that whenever we

hear a command from God, there are different responses that we

have. And whenever, as humans,

whenever we have a command from God to rest, there's different

responses we might take. So historically, when God issues

a command, one of the things that more religious people take

is, is one of the approaches we take is all right, So what are

where's the line that I can't cross?

Like what, what's the actual line in the sand that as long as

I don't cross that line, that I'm still OK And and I'm living

in obedience to God. Where, where's the line?

So that if I, you know, I don't want to dishonor God.

I don't want to get myself in trouble.

I don't want to disrespect God. So just give me that line.

Because this idea of not doing any work raises questions.

It does for most of us. Like what is work?

What's he talking about? Is it work to do my laundry?

Is it work to clean my garden? Is it work to to clean out my

car? Is that work?

And so we ask all these questions about what is work?

So what? What do religious people do?

So they know where the line is in the sand.

Religious people go, well, let's create some more rules so we can

bring some clarity to where the line is in the sand.

And the Jews were no different. The Jews created about 30-9

different types of prohibited activities that they were not

allowed to do in on the Sabbath. So, for example, if you were in

farming, you couldn't do any sewing, plowing, or reaping,

which makes the disciples in Luke 6 guilty.

You couldn't do any baking, which really stinks for people

like me that have a sweet tooth. You couldn't do any cleaning or

sewing or tying a knot. You couldn't make leather

curtains. You couldn't do any writing or

any construction or any demolition work.

You couldn't kindle a fire or extinguish a fire or carry

things past a certain distance. And even today you will find a

lot of Jews who are still living out this idea and these rules

for the Sabbath. I I was told just this week

about how a synagogue will hire non Jews to lock and unlock

their doors and turn their lights off and on during the

week so that nobody is breaking the rules of the Sabbath.

Now over the years as Christians we haven't been much better than

the Jews. We've created all kinds of

rules. Some of you grew up with rules

of what you could or could not do on Sundays.

Does any of this sound familiar to you kids and teens?

No dancing or swimming competitions on Sunday, but the

adults are allowed to have a baseball tournament.

No fishing, but you can go water skiing as a child, one guy told

me that as a child he once rode his bike on Sunday and he was

grounded for a week and he wondered like, is it a sin for

me to ride my bike to church? Now, fortunately, over the last

two or three decades, most Christians have looked at a lot

of these rules and we thought to ourselves, well, that's dumb.

Why would we do that? Who came up with those rules?

So then there's this wrestling that happens and we have to

figure out what do we do with this idea of Sabbath because it

still shows up in the Bible. And this has LED for most of us

to take one of two different types of responses, kind of two

different extremes that we take when it comes to the idea of

Sabbath. A lot of people just ignore it.

We we think, I don't need to take a day of rest a week.

I don't have time to rest one day a week.

Some of you are very busy just out of a sense of survival.

You, you think to yourself, I have to get all of these things

done just to survive this week. Some of you, you're busy out of

a deep sense of passion for life, because staying busy helps

you to feel more and more alive. But if we're honest with

ourselves, there's a lot of us who ignore the idea of resting

one day a week simply because we're just addicted to being

busy and we ignore this idea of resting.

Or maybe we just feel like it's impossible to achieve.

Then, then there's another response that we could have, and

that's where we start to create our own definition of what it

looks like and means to rest. We create our own vision of rest

in life. For a lot of us, what that means

is I just want time for myself. I want time for leisure.

That's what is restful to me. Last year, Stats Canada released

a report on how the average Canadian spends their time.

On average, if you are a Canadian, you spend just over 22

hours a week on some form of leisure activity, whether that's

playing sports, using technology, taking up a hobby,

watching TV, reading, listening to music, any of those kinds of

things. And if you add in time

socializing with other people, that number jumps another 7

hours a week to 29 hours. So Canadians on average spend

more than one full day a week in some type of leisure activity.

For most of us, rest means how can I just escape the pressures

of life? That's what we think about when

we think about rest. Why do you take a vacation?

I need to get away from the pressures of life.

Well, why do you take a break on a weekend?

I just need to get away from the pressures of life.

But I want you to think about this question today.

How would your life be different if Jesus were the Lord of your

Sabbath? How would your approach to

taking one day a week to rest be different if Jesus were the Lord

of your Sabbath? In in verse 5, we see Jesus

talking about this. This idea of Jesus being Lord of

the Sabbath is not something we often think about.

We we either have inherited a bunch of rules about the Sabbath

or we come up with our own definition of what to do with

it. And in verse 5, the Pharisees

have been challenging Jesus about how his disciples seem to

be breaking the rules that they were required to keep on the

Sabbath. And the response of Jesus is

this. The Son of Man is the Lord of

the Sabbath. This title, the Son of Man, it's

actually the primary title that Jesus uses to describe himself

over and over again. In fact, you're going to see the

title Son of Man show up over 80 times in the New Testament.

It's it's a primary description that is used to describe Jesus.

And on one level that title Son of Man is an acknowledgement of

the humanity of Jesus, that he came to earth to dwell amongst

us, that he is fully human, which means he's got some

limitations that you and I have. He got tired at the end of the

day. He needed to have some sleep, He

needed food, he needed sustenance.

Like Jesus had some human limitations to him, and when we

hear the title Son of God, it acknowledges his divinity.

But when Jesus uses the word Son of man here, it's actually

referring back to something from the Old Testament that would

have been very familiar to the Pharisees, his audience that

he's speaking to Here. Jesus is pulling from Daniel

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Chapter 7 in a vision that Daniel is describing.

In this vision in Daniel Chapter 7, he sees the heavenly

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

courtroom of God, and in verse 13 he says this.

Suddenly one, like a son of man, was coming with the clouds of

heaven. He approached the Ancient of

Days. He was given dominion and glory

and a Kingdom so that those of every people, nation, and

language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting

dominion that will not pass away, and His Kingdom is one

that will not be destroyed. Jesus is taking the Pharisees

back to this passage from Daniel, and once again we see

this over and over again in Luke.

Jesus is making a very bold claim about Himself.

He is again in a different way, using a different phrase,

equating himself to God. He is the Son of man that has

come into the throne room of God who has been given the authority

to rule the nations, to be the king of all kings.

And if that's true, if what Jesus is describing about

himself is true, then what it means is Jesus has divine

authority over everything, including over all the rules and

regulations that would govern the Sabbath day.

Now, when we think about Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath,

depending on who you are, it's going to mean something

different to you if you're the type of person who ignores it or

takes it for granted. This idea of a weekly rest is

actually a question of are you willing to pause long enough to

acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of everything in my life?

Or do you feel the need for control of everything?

If you're a rule keeper by nature, this idea of Jesus being

Lord of the Sabbath will make you pause and go.

OK, so I acknowledge Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath, but then

what rules does Jesus want me to keep to acknowledge and live out

that he's the Lord of the Sabbath?

And to both of you, I want to say this Sabbath is a day of

rest that is given for your benefit.

The Sabbath is a day that's given to help you, not to burden

you. But the Gospel of Mark actually

tells the same story that Luke does.

But Mark adds one more line, one quote from Jesus that Luke does

not include. Mark says this.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

When the rules of Sabbath rest just create more work, then

we've missed the point. One, one of the things that I

really appreciate that's happened over the last several

years is we as humans, we go on these kind of pendulum swings.

So 20-30 years ago, we were as Christians very much in the what

are the rules for what we can and can't do on the Lord's Day?

And then we kind of moved away from that for a period of time

and we started to live with this sense of, well, like, I don't

want to live under those rules anymore.

We're free in Christ and so let's live in freedom.

And over the last few years, there's been a movement amongst

Christians that have been focusing on calling us back to

considering Sabbath. What, what does that look like?

What does that mean for our lives?

A, a, a movement that has looked at the busyness of our culture

and says, like, this isn't healthy for us.

There's a, got to be a better way than the way that we're

going. But unfortunately, because we're

humans, one of the things we do is we take that to another

extreme and go all the way to the other side where we go,

well, if you aren't taking a Sabbath every single week, then

you're just not spiritual enough.

And it's a new form of being a Pharisee that we end up

instituting in our lives. Here's what the Bible tells us.

If you're taking notes, just jot down this passage.

I'm not going to have us look at it, but Colossians chapter 2

Colossians 2:16

verse 16 says this. Don't let anyone judge you in

regard to food and drink or a Sabbath day.

I want to say 2 statements that are both true.

A weekly Sabbath is not a requirement for a Christian, but

it's still good for you. God created it for your benefits

when you rest one day a week. When you and I rest one day a

week, it's going to restore your mental energy.

It's going to reduce your stress.

It helps to reduce inflammation and risk of heart disease.

You're going to be more creative and productive and focused.

It improves your short term memory.

I was Rachel Nichols works in our office and Rachel said to me

this week, she goes, how many times have you preached on rest

recently? And I said, I'm not sure.

She says it feels like you've been preaching on that a lot,

like you've landed that that message a lot.

And she goes, Maybe God's trying to tell you something.

And I said thanks for the input, Rachel, and went home and shared

that with my wife. And I said, hey, Rachel says

that I've been preaching on rest a lot and maybe I need to listen

to it. And my wife just went, mm, hmm,

maybe God is trying to tell me something.

This is actually the third time that I've spoken on rest in the

last 12 months. I went and looked it up, but

here's what I know. I know that I'm just as likely

as many of us are to live in this hustle culture and be

caught up in it where our entire focus is on how can I be more

productive and how can I live with ambition and this idea of

stopping long enough to rest. I actually feel selfish

sometimes or feels impossible to do when you think about all the

tasks and responsibilities that you have going on in life.

But what if taking one day a week to rest was not selfish?

What if it was actually receiving a gift that God wants

to give you so that you could be even more fruitful with your

life? I I can't tell you that you have

to rest every single week, that you have to take the Sabbath,

but I can tell you that Jesus did.

Jesus took the Sabbath. He observed the Sabbath.

Here in Luke 6 and throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently

observes this day of rest each week.

The Lord of the Sabbath allowed his life to enjoy the Sabbath.

And if Jesus took one day a week to rest, doesn't it just make

sense that the rest of us would do the same?

Like Jesus is the creator of life, doesn't it seem like he

would know what the best rhythms for life are?

Now for Jesus, that day of rest actually looks different than

you. And I might think one of the

things you don't see Jesus doing a lot on his Sabbath days is you

don't see Jesus spending a lot of time by himself.

Most of his alone time is actually through the week when

he would get up early to be with the Father and pray.

So for Jesus, he actually spends the Sabbath over and over again.

What you see is he's hanging out with people.

For Jesus, Sabbath is a day for spiritual community.

It was a day to relax with friends.

You look at the first couple of verses of Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

What's he's doing? What's he doing?

Jesus is walking through the grain fields with his friends,

with his disciples. They're they're walking

together. You can almost picture the

moment they're out for a beautiful walk, enjoying the

scenery of the wheat field and you're strolling along and

you're just casually picking heads of grain and popping them

in your mouth as a bit of a snack while you're up for a walk

together. You know, some of us will

remember this. When we were younger, there were

one of two things that you could count on happening every single

Sunday. You were either going to go out

to eat with a bunch of friends after church was done, or those

friends were going to come over to your house after church was

done. That it was a regular common

occurrence that we would just spend time together on our day

of rest, hanging out with each other.

But somewhere along the way, a lot of us have exchanged that

time with friends for time by ourselves and having a nice

Sunday afternoon nap. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not

attacking Sunday afternoon naps. I love me some Sunday afternoon

naps. But I do think we're missing out

on something when we just say hey, my day of rest I'm just

going to spend by myself. There's just something life

giving when we can be together with other people to laugh and

play some games and go for a nice walk or or whatever it

might be. Friendships lead to people being

more satisfied with life, less likely to suffer from

depression. It will make you physically and

emotionally healthier. And for Jesus, he used to

Sabbath as a time to just hang out with his friends.

So here's my encouragement to you.

Consider what would it look like to take even one Saturday or

Sunday a month just to invite someone over to your house after

church on Sunday and get together and hang out, spend

some time relaxing and connecting with each other.

But it wasn't just relaxing with friends that Jesus did.

He also gathered for worship on the Sabbath.

That's what happens in in verse 6.

It says on another Sabbath, he enters the synagogue and was

teaching. He's coming together with people

to enter the synagogue on the Sabbath to, to teach.

But what we don't think about is what's happening at the

synagogue. What, what are they doing on the

Sabbath day? You know, what happens in the

synagogue on the Sabbath? They read from the Torah, which

is the first five books of the Old Testament.

They pray together and they sing.

Any of that sound familiar to you?

It's what we do when we come together as Christians on Sunday

morning. We pray, we sing, we read from

the Bible together, and we say, what is God trying to say to us?

Sabbath for Jesus was a time to stop the physical and to focus

on the spiritual with each other, with other people.

It was a day that was holy to God.

Now, unfortunately, gathering for worship has become a little

bit of a well, do I have anything better to do on Sunday?

If I've got anything else better to do, then I'll go do that and

but if not, and then I'll come to church on Sunday.

I don't know how often all of you attend worship services, but

I do know this. On average, most churches in

Canada would say that regular attendance of worship services

is now 1 to about every three Sundays.

Did you know like gathering with God's people to worship together

is good for your soul, being together is good for you.

Last year, Harvard Public Health published a study that said

weekly attendance at worship services is associated with

lower mortality risk, lower depression, better health

behaviors, greater marital stability, happiness, and

purpose in life. It's good for you and science is

showing. It's good for you to gather

together with God's people to worship, to learn, to pray

together, to be together. Now, some of us, we like to just

bolt out of here on Sunday morning after the service is

done. And I just want to say to you, I

want to encourage you, hang out, stay, talk to some people.

If you don't know somebody or if you're sitting around someone

that you don't know, introduce yourself, get to know each

other, connect with each other. That's the kind of stuff that

Jesus would do. Spending his Sabbath day, a

weekly day of rest is made for your benefit.

And part of the way Jesus celebrated was gathering with

people for worship. But in this passage, there's one

more thing that we see that was common for Jesus as he spends

this day in spiritual community. We see that for Jesus, Sabbath

was a day to serve the needs of others as well.

In these two stories that show up here in this passage, there's

two very different approaches to life that are happening for the

Pharisees. Their whole approach is how do

we obey the commands and the traditions?

How do we just keep the rules for Jesus?

His whole focus is how can I love and care for those who are

in need? Because that's what's showing up

here, people who are in need of a touch from Jesus.

Jesus views this day of rest as an opportunity to help give rest

to other people who are in need. And the Pharisees are too busy

going. You can't do that.

There's been some wild rules that we've created over the

years. One, one guy told me this story.

He said, when I was a kid in a walkathon for life, we were

outside where parched were overheated and we saw a house

that had a big Bible sign on it. And so we went up to the house

and said, hey, like we're in this walk for life.

We're raising money for this big need.

Could you, could you give us some water just so we could keep

going? And they said, no, it's Sunday.

We can't give you anything to drink.

Like, that's wild when you start and stop and think about it.

And we don't usually come up with rules like this.

But for a lot of us, this day of rest has gone to a different

extreme. And it's become more about what

can I get out of it instead of what can I give.

I want you to imagine with me the story of a mom who's trying

to raise her children on her own.

She's got a couple of young kids running around the house.

You can imagine the chaos and the busyness.

She's maybe working a couple of jobs just to pay the bills.

Her kids are her world. But by the time the weekend

comes along, she's completely worn out.

And she decides, you know, I, I need to be somewhere where I can

get some type of hope from the chaos and the busyness of life.

And so she decides maybe I should go to church and try

church. So she drops her kids off.

She comes to Forward, drops her kids off at forward Kids.

And there's other adults who are loving and caring for her kids

while she comes into a worship service just to have a breath

and to get some type of hope. Now imagine where that mom would

be if there was no place for her kids on Sunday morning.

You know, over the past year, our kids ministry here has grown

by over 10% a week. We we sent out a bunch of kids

to help plant Forward Brant and we still have more kids than we

did before we started Brant. That's the kind of growth that

we're seeing. And right now we need a minimum

of 25 people to say yes to showing compassion and love for

families and to care for kids by surveying in kids ministry here

at Cambridge, 25 people. And if we want to disciple the

next generation, well, we need at least 65 more people to sign

up to be part of discipling the next generation of kids.

That's what happens when we serve in kids ministry.

It's not just a, it's not a babysitting service, despite

what you might think. It's a space where you're

showing compassion and care for families that are in need.

We need people that are going to get down and roll around on the

floor and just play around with some toddlers.

We need people who are going to care enough about children to

say, hey, let's talk about Jesus.

And we need to care enough for each other together as a church

family that we're showing and providing a place of compassion

and care for each other by taking our turn and serving in

kids ministry. Serving is not doing the church

a favor. Serving is just a normal part of

the way of life of a disciple of Jesus.

It's how we show our love for each other.

So today, if you are not serving in kids ministry already, first

of all, if you are, thank you so much.

And if you're not, then I'm going to ask you to consider

signing up to serve in kids ministry.

We're going to put a slide on the screen.

Just text the word serve to the text number and just follow all

the prompts to get involved. One of the great joys of coming

together in spiritual communities, we get to point

each other to one truth of God's love for US.

One of the things that Jesus keeps pointing us back to is

that Sabbath isn't just about a single day of the week, it's

actually about a whole life. Sabbath is a day to recenter

your life on resting in Jesus. You know when you study the

Bible, you're going to see that God often designs into creation

physical things that point us to a greater spiritual reality, and

Sabbath rest is no different. Colossians 3 verse 17 tells us

Colossians 3:17

this about the Sabbath. It was a shadow of what was to

come. The substance is Christ.

But the one day of resting was never meant to be about one day

of resting. It was meant to point us to

something that that is meant to shape our entire life, our

entire way of being where we are, people who are resting in

the love and power and person of Jesus 24 hours a day and seven

days a week. In Luke 6 verse 10, Jesus

Luke 6:10

encounters a man with a deformed hand and he asked a question

that seems really odd. Is it lawful to save a life or

destroy it? Now it seems odd because all the

guy has is a deformed hand. What does that have to do with

saving his life? And the reason it's odd is

because this guy's not going to die.

But what Jesus comes to do is not only heal a hand, but save a

life. That that's the work of Jesus.

He's pointing us to the bigger story, the story that brings us

back to the Garden of Eden, where on God's day of rest and

our day of rest match up on the same day.

A world where the foundation of life is fellowship and

relationship between humans and God.

But our sin, your sin, my sin breaks that relationship.

So since then, humans have tried to figure out how do I get right

with God? What do I need to do to earn

God's favor, to make God like me more, love me more?

How can I do all the things that will help me to avoid God's

judgement? But God shows his love for you,

not because of anything you've done, but because he loves you.

He doesn't require you to do any work.

He's done all the work. When Jesus goes to the cross and

takes your place and dies on the cross for your sins, He pays the

ultimate price so that you and I can be reconciled to God.

He does all the work so we can be at rest.

The death and the resurrection of Jesus means this.

That you never ever, ever have to work to earn the favour of

God. That you are completely forgiven

and adopted and loved when you place your faith in Jesus alone.

But it doesn't end there. His grace in your life is

designed to actually lead to a whole life that is at rest

because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave.

When you rest in Jesus that no matter what you're facing today,

you can live with confidence that Jesus is Lord and He's got

it. When you rest in Jesus, your

past does not need to define you anymore and your future does not

need to scare you. When you rest in Jesus, you

don't need to feel the pressure to achieve every goal and dream

that you have before you die because this life is only

chapter one of your life. When you rest in Jesus, you can

look at all the wild and crazy things going on in the world and

you can be at peace and go King Jesus has this.

When you rest in Jesus, you get to boldly enter the presence of

God and receive mercy and grace in your time of need.

Taking a weekly Sabbath rest, it's not about the law of doing

it for the sake of doing it. It's for your benefit.

Because I don't know about you, but life gets pretty crazy

sometimes. It's pretty busy.

There's all kinds of worries and fears and things that you're

thinking about and stressed out about.

And pausing and taking a day, a week to rest allows you to

recenter yourself away from the craziness of life and recenter

yourself on resting in Jesus. It's not laziness to do this.

It's surrender. It's a weekly reminder to

yourself that you're not in charge and you don't have to be

because Jesus is Lord and He loves you.

Mark Buchanan wrote a book called The Rest of God.

Here's what he says. He says in a culture where

busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is

sloth. But without rest, we miss the

rest of God, the rest that he invites us to enter more fully

so that we might know him more deeply.

Jesus is your Sabbath rest. It's not ultimately about a day,

it's about a person. That's what we celebrate when we

come together each week, and it's what we celebrate when we

take Communion together. I want to invite you to take

your communion cups out just before we take Communion.

I am going to wager a guess that there's more than one person in

this room who's a little bit stressed out on life.

You got some concerns, whatever they might be right now, you're

a little worn out. Worn down.

Maybe some of you are beat up. Maybe you got all kinds of

fears, anxieties, worries, concerns.

Here's what I want to do. I want to take the next just 30

to 60 seconds of just silence. I want us to be still before the

Lord. And in your heart, just ask

Jesus. Reach out.

Like Jesus says to this man in the story, reach out your hand.

And it's almost like in your heart you're reaching out and

saying, Jesus, I need your rest. Help me to know your rest today.

Would you just do that right now?

If you could take the wafer out of the Communion cup, hold that

in your hand. This wafer represents the body

of Jesus, which reminds us that Jesus is the Son of Man.

He came, He's a human, He dwelt amongst us, He's one of us, and

as one of us, he's the only perfect one, which made him the

only one eligible to be able to go to a cross and die for the

freedom of the whole world to take our place, the perfect

spotless Lamb of God, so we can take this wafer and remembrance

of the body of Jesus that was sacrificed for us.

Eat all of it. If you open up to the juice, the

juice represents the blood of Jesus that's shed on the cross

that makes it possible for the forgiveness of our sins.

The beautiful, amazing promise of Sabbath rest for our souls

that we never, ever have to do anything to earn the love and

the favour and the mercy of God that it was finished on the

cross through the shed blood of Jesus.

Let's take this to remembrance of Him.

Father, thank you for how great your love is for us.

Thank you for sending your Son Jesus to show us that rest isn't

just about a day that we have to keep repeating over and over

again. But rest can be a state of

being, a way of life for us as we rest in Jesus.

And in moments like this God, where some of us are coming off

of busy and crazy weeks, help us to find our rest in Jesus again

today. Help us to find our rest in the

presence of the God who loves us, who allows us over and over

again to keep running back into His arms.

I pray this in your mighty name, Amen.

Amen. Let's stand together and worship

church.