Rest In The Midst Of Life // 26 July 2026

That's lovely.

Thank you.

Um holidays.

You know um uh holidays when after you've had a holiday, you feel like you need a holiday.

Well, uh recently I had a holiday that wasn't like that, that was a great holiday.

And um uh one of the great memories and experiences of this holiday was going in the hotel swimming pool.

It was an infinity pool, like um up a few levels, and when I was in the pool, and normally it was just me, occasionally my son-in-law might come and try and disturb me or something, but normally it was just me.

It was beautifully tranquil, and I was uh swimming in it.

You can imagine how just relaxing it is, that idyllic scene.

And um uh this was a holiday in Southeast Asia, and a couple of blocks away uh there was like a tower block being built, and uh it was about uh eight floors high, and it was that stage where it was like a pack of cards where you could see all the way through it, but not could you just see all the way through it, you could see the men working.

Oh, the swimming pool, I didn't go there at any time because the weather was too hot.

So if if like the building was shading the pool, I would go in, but sometimes it was just too hot.

But these guys working on that building, some of them were at the top.

To be honest, I didn't see any safety nets, let alone any shade.

And uh and sometimes when I was just relaxing and just going through, and as I was looking at this building, I saw sparks coming from the building because these guys were welding.

And it, I mean, goodness knows what the temperature was, they were up there at the top, and I was just thinking how relaxed I was, and then I wonder what they do for relaxation, and do they get a time to be to relax?

And one day on our holiday, I was in an air-conditioned car, and we left the hotel to go to a restaurant, and we drove past that building, and these guys were coming out, clocking off, and they had their like hell protective helmets on and they had like guards around their neck, I think, to stop the sunburn.

You can imagine how hot and tired they felt.

And of course, staying in a nice hotel, swimming in an infinity pool is really relaxing, and you do feel better.

But this sermon is about not just that form of like luxury and how it helps us unwind.

Although hopefully holidays can help us do that, and God designed sabbaticals for us to stop.

What I'd like to talk about is how we can rest in the midst of life.

How can we have a peaceful, restful disposition while we're working and while we're doing things?

And I was thinking about those guys, but thinking about us as we're doing it.

How can we have that sense of rest?

We believe in Sabbath, it's great to stop things.

There's a problem with like being addicted to work, but this is a talk about how can we know rest while we are active.

So obviously, I've been thinking about this word rest and where it occurs and what happens in the Bible with it.

And um, very early on in the Bible, God gives tasks to humans, a task to Adam, the first man.

In Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, it said that God placed the man in the garden to take care of it, sort of like an early version of putting the bins out or something.

Genesis 2:15

But there was a there was a job there, and it said that that phrase where it said, put in in the garden, that the Hebrew root word for that is to rest in that place.

It's like uh maybe being settled, or maybe sometimes we use the phrase uh uh putting our roots down.

So, right at the beginning of Genesis, God is saying, There's this garden, but I'd like you to work in it, but with a spirit of restfulness, knowing my purposes.

And uh that uh Hebrew word, which is used for rest, as this man is placed in the garden to do work, but the Hebrew word uh is also the same word in Psalm 23 when it says by still waters.

That literally is by restful waters.

And I think I've noticed over the years as a Christian that sometimes more experienced or people who have been a Christian for a number of years seem to really appreciate Psalm 23.

And I think one of the reasons they appreciate Psalm 23 is because it shows God's faithfulness and his purpose and his rest in the turmoil of life.

So in that Psalm 23 where it says by still waters, it's by restful waters.

So this Hebrew word rest, I looked at the origin of where it came from, and it's two thoughts are combined to make rest.

And it's that you've got a protective barrier or fence, and behind the protective barrier or fence, you've got a seed or a garden growing.

I guess it's a little bit like a windbreak that you might get on a beach, that sort of idea.

But those two complementary sorts of things of life grows when there's a protective shield around it.

And this sermon is about us having life, flourishing, being protected by Christ in the rough and tumble, the everyday of life.

If we don't have that uh border, I think probably that's like workaholicism and like having being burnt out when you have that sort of situation.

If you only have the fence, well, at best that's stagnation, and at worst it's like death or nothing, you've just got like a barrier.

But those two things are like the hearts of the Bible thought about being rested.

It's like not a place of ceasing from activity, but a place of flourishing whilst being protected by God.

And this sermon is an invitation, really, as it were, to come into Jesus' protection, to come into his tent, to come behind his uh windbreak, and for us to flourish in that protected condition.

So if we could put up the uh one slide.

So I'm preaching pretty similar direction to what Carol preached last week, maybe coming at it from um a different angle.

Um so these famous verses that Jesus spoke about rest, I'll read those in a minute, but um, just a little bit first of uh context.

So I'm gonna very quickly rattle through the chapter before, during, and after.

Uh, because as you read chapter 10, 11, and 12, it seems almost incongruent or different to read what we're gonna read here, these verses behind my head.

Uh Matthew 10, Jesus is uh commissioning the disciples, and it's a full-throttled commissioning.

He doesn't hold anything away, he tells it to them as it is.

He talks about the likelihood of being flogged, going to prison, being mistreated, not being welcomed.

That's the tenor of Matthew 10.

And then 11, Matthew 11, you've got uh John the Baptist, who's incarcerated in prison, asking questions about Jesus.

John the Baptist, he never got out of prison, you know, he had his head cut off in prison.

And then there's some passages that talk about cities that don't respond to Jesus, and that's Matthew 10 and 11.

And then we get this passage here where you can, it's almost like Jesus is saying, right, these are the challenges.

You may have taken a deep intake of breath to realize what the challenge is to be a disciple of Christ, but don't worry, come to me, I'll restore you, I'll strengthen you, I'll be your windbreak, I'll protect you so you can flourish.

Matthew 12 interestingly mentions um the Sabbath and how Jesus is Lord over the Sabbath.

So he agrees with Sabbath, but it's about his lordship and his personality being above it.

And at the end of Matthew 12, uh it's brought to Jesus' attention that his um uh mum and brothers are there, and he says, uh, those who follow me, they're my mum and brothers, they're my disciples, they're the ones who do, who carry a cross and like serve with me.

So I'm gonna read these.

These are the sort of verses that really appropriately to be like a fridge magnet, because you just read them and feel better, and it's absolutely valid sometimes to take something and just to have it as a fridge magnet, as a suite to suck, to meditate on it, because they can just they're beautiful.

It's good to have context, and I think having context, we can understand it more.

But as I'm reading this, you might want to read it uh aloud to yourself and just um enjoy it as as we're reading it together.

So come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Thanks.

So obviously, Carol was speaking on this uh last week, and she was talking about uh yoke, that typically a piece of wood going on the back of the neck of an oxen and two oxen at least, like um paired together to do some work on a farm.

And when we're thinking about the theme of rest, we might think about infinity pools and restaurants.

We wouldn't normally think about yokes, but Jesus says this is the way for a deep peace is to be yoked with me.

Um this matter of like yoking animals together.

So if you have like two oxen yoked together, let's say one has the strength of like one horsepower, and the other one has the strength of like one horsepower, and you yoke them together, uh, their output will be about three or four a horsepower.

And that's not like uh faith, that's just physics.

There's just something that happens through the synergy of team and being bolted together.

Now that's just plain physics.

If you have two animals together, it's multiplied.

Imagine what it's like when you're aligned with God's spirit and he works alongside you, and how he can change and how deep his restoration and healing can go.

So this is rest.

This is not just rest after going for a run.

This is rest of our souls, deep down, something that we can't do, but he can do in us if we're obedient to him.

On that holiday that was on, another thing I had there was a sauna, a great occasion, and uh love that.

And then uh afterwards, that state of like sleepiness and relaxation after having like you know, been in this like um herbal steam room and then just having cold water and a drink.

But that's a really great feeling for like a couple of hours.

It's not, it's it Jesus is talking about something really deep in our lives.

And this evening, like every evening, but this evening, there's that opportunity for deep, deep rest.

Um a friend uh messaged me uh this week, not spoken to him for a few years, and uh it wasn't the sort of message where we were like recounting everything that had happened with our children in our lives.

So it's like to summarize it, and I wrote a phrase and I said, um, it's uh a surprise and a joy how Jesus is the manager of our lives.

It's a slightly unusual phrase, but what I was thinking is the tranquility and the confidence in knowing that over it all, the chaos, the disappointments, the hard things, the good things, he is managing and gives a sense of well-being.

And I think that's part of what we're talking about here, this uh situation of rest.

This is not a sermon where I can promise the ending of certain difficulties in your life or more.

They will come.

This sermon is about knowing rest through things that are really difficult, challenging, and hard.

So we're talking about a yoke and we're talking about burdens and weights, not things that we would naturally talk about if we were talking about giving somebody rest.

But you know, when it says that uh it talks about the burden being light, I actually wonder sometimes whether the burden that Christ gives us is actually buoyant and actually lifts us.

And I was thinking of um Paul and uh in Acts 20, verse 22, he's giving his explanation while he's on trial and he's talking about why he preaches, and he doesn't say because he's employed, he doesn't say because somebody forced him to.

Acts 20:22

He says the spirit compels me.

It's like, you know, if you had told Paul, if you'd restricted him, you put a tape over his mouth so he couldn't preach, he would have been, it would have been like a like a form of depression or frustration to him.

And I think there's a weight that Christ puts on us, but actually, it's not only is it not burdensome, it actually gives us an energy for something else moving somewhere else.

You know, this guy Paul, he wasn't always that keen, was he?

And like on the road to Damascus, when uh he was about to go and like arrest uh Christians, uh Jesus arrested him and spoke to him.

And Jesus didn't use the word yoke, but he used the word goad.

And uh a goad would be like a sharp version of this flagpole up here, and a goad would be used to prod an oxen to like be more obedient and or to speed up.

And Jesus said to Paul, uh, why are you kicking against the goads?

And goodness knows how painful that must have been.

It just makes me understand how the spirit was wrestling with Paul way before the road to Damascus.

But Jesus said to him, Why are you kicking against the goads?

But then a few years later, not only was Paul not kicking against the goads, he was like saying to the Lord Jesus, bring it on, you put your yoke on me, I will go wherever you want.

If it's prison, if it's death, I'm serving you.

And that's the sort of rest that we're talking of, where just every pleasure is to do God's will.

There's no higher pleasure, to be honest.

So we're looking at yokes and weights and how they make a change in our lives, and there's two uh thoughts that I wanted to bring really about being yoked.

Um, one is about things that we're taught, and one is things that we're tethered to.

The first one is tethered.

It may be that we do have a yoke, but it's not a good one.

So we may have a yoke on our shoulders, which is uh, how can I say, not sin in itself, but it's distracting us from the full following of Christ.

It could be uh renovation of a home, leisure, family.

I'm really at this sort of point, it's really good to just like look at nobody's eyes.

Um but you know those sorts of things that are like really decent, but like if they come before serving Christ, they're in the wrong place.

And this is a service where we can just take an honest moment of self-reflection and say, Holy Spirit, is there a yoke that I've put on, which is actually meaning?

Because if we've got the wrong yoke on, I'm not sure that Jesus' yoke's gonna fit us because we've already got one on.

So I think there's a time for us to just reflect and think, have I just added something on that I just need to remove?

Jesus is well able to move it, he'll be really happy to move it.

Uh but also as I was preparing, I felt like the Spirit saying that he's actually gonna move some yokes that are on our lives that are not because of any willful or lazy problem that we've had, but just there are just things that have come on us and that are a restriction and that they limit us, and he's gonna move them.

And so the application for that really is to be prepared for it, to accept it and move on when it happens.

I guess it is possible to have a yoke removed and then have another one added.

So, but I do believe that there's something that the spirit wants to say just about things that are being frustrating or just weights that you've had continually.

This I'm I'm coming to take them off.

The other thing with uh yokes is um, as Carol referred to last week, is yoke in New Testament times was referred to as uh the teachings that rabbis would give about uh the um the Hebrew scriptures.

Um the rabbis were like um, I guess, religious influencers of their day.

And they would have like disciples and they would um give them certain instructions and help them understand.

You know, one of the worship songs we were singing, it talked about, you know, something about, you know, you are the you fulfill the law and the prophets, you know.

And the the rabbis, these teachers, they would have a group of people and they would add things to scripture, and that would be like a yoke that a certain group of people had to understand about following God.

My guess is that a lot of those rabbis and disciples were totally sold out in wanting to know the God of Israel.

They added humanly things to it, which is not good, and created a fissure or a film or a blockage.

And this second point really is about a yoke that's been added in like an inappropriate position.

Imagine if you had a yoke that was like really, really well made, but you put it on the wrong way.

Sometimes I struggle with like um the more complicated uh uh leads that you have for a dog, and they've got to go through various legs, and you get it and you've got it the wrong way around, and and of course the dog's looking at you like, get a life, get a grip, you know, you've done it, been doing it for five years or something, you know.

But imagine if you had a perfectly crafted yoke, but it just went on the wrong way.

And some of these well-meaning rabbis, I think they gave teaching which was just adding too much, and actually created a distance.

And Jesus is saying, Hey, it's me, I'm here, come to me.

And this afternoon's talk is really Jesus saying, I'm here, I'm really close.

And if you look at this, these three verses behind me, I think seven times Jesus uses like a personal pronoun saying, I or me.

He's not uh delegating responsibility, he's saying, It's me, I, I'm the one who will come and touch you and bring release into your life.

Um a similar conversation happened in John's Gospel, chapter five, where they were talking to Jesus about his identity and his ministry, and and he said to them, He said, Uh, you study the scriptures diligently because you think in them you'll find eternal life.

But these very scriptures testify about me, and yet you refuse to come to me, who has life?

And I just feel like this here is like Jesus saying, I've got life, there's no there's no gap, uh, and I just want to give it and lay it on to you now.

I don't know if I've actually ever had individually tailored clothes, but it must be great to have that experience where you have a jacket or trousers or something which is made to measure.

But there's a yoke for all of us that Jesus has made, made to measure.

It's absolutely perfectly fitting.

I was actually thinking, I wonder whether Jesus actually made yolks as a carpenter.

It's just an interesting thought.

He could have could have done that.

It's quite a legitimate thing that he could have done uh with his dad.

But um so we are here, uh, and uh Jesus is before us, and we have an opportunity just to remove from our shoulders and let him place his yoke on us.

It's interesting in Matthew 11, I think it is, where he's talking about carrying a cross.

I was actually thinking how similar a cross is to a yoke.

Really very small amount of carpentry, I think, to converts uh a cross to a yoke.

But that is the route to rest.

Agreeing with Jesus, allowing him to put his yoke upon us, and uh we can serve and do different things.

Um, so I'm praying and hoping that those workmen that I saw in that block of flats, you know, that they know something of Christ, and that they can know some level of peace and contentment in the midst of things.

So this sermon has been about knowing rest in the activity and the busyness of life, and God can give us a fruitfulness, full throttle, harnessed for Him.

The sermons about Sabbath and stopping working are absolutely valid, but this sermon has been about allowing God just to put that beautiful weight that actually lifts us.

I'd just like to ask the worship team to come out and lead us into the next part.

Thank you.