WEEK 05 || REST AND IDENTITY IN JESUS - Sent into Monday — Rest That Takes Up a Cross || Exodus 3:1–15 | Romans 12:9–21 | Matthew 16:21–28

Kia ora and welcome to the St Francis Church

sermon podcast. We're so glad that you've joined

us. Our prayer is that as you listen, you would

encounter God's presence. Be refreshed in your

faith and equipped for everyday life with Jesus.

As a church, we are learning to faithfully follow

Jesus by practicing His way at His pace. For

more info about who we are and what God is doing

among us, head to stfrancis .co .nz. Grace and

peace. Good morning everyone. But today as we

come on this Sunday, it's really covering the

last of the five weeks of the series of the rest

and identity in Christ. And I want to share about

What are the rest of our weeks like? By being

sent into Monday to Saturday, and how the rest

they've been talking about and trying to understand

enables us to take up a cross in those other

days. I want you to think about your between

Sundays, your Monday to Saturday, and what that's

like. Picture this. Picture it in your head,

what your days are like. Not your Sunday because

it could be going fine. Can't guarantee that

it's going fine, but you're here. But picture

your Monday and maybe where you are around about,

say, 10 o 'clock. Whether it's the office, the

classroom, could be in a hospital ward, the kitchen,

could be in the rest home, the office with the

cat that's walking on the keyboard. And when

you're picturing that time, who's around you

and what does it smell like using all your senses?

Hold that picture because this whole service

is about that place outside these walls. Five

weeks ago, we began with why we rest, then who

we actually rest on, and then what rest is for.

Last week, the hinge of it was knowing that you

were named, that you were secure in yourself

before Christ, before you were actually sent.

Our identity actually precedes any activity that

we have. And today the series does the only thing

that a true encounter with God can do. It actually

sends you. So let's go where there's a bush.

on fire on a normal working day for Moses. Look

at what Moses is doing when the biggest moment

of his life arrives. Moses was keeping the flock

of his father and Lord Jethro. He's a work -minding

sheep. It's a Tuesday, let's say, as far as he

knows. His 11 ,000th more or less identical Tuesday

caring for the sheep because he's been doing

this for 40 years. Moses is 80. Whatever dreams

he had of significance died decades ago in Egypt.

And in the middle of this working day, which

is a normal ordinary day for him, in the wilderness

a bush burns and it's not consumed. And notice

a small hinge the whole story turns on. Moses

said, I must turn aside and look at this great

sight. He turned aside and he stopped. The man

Moses paused. his work long enough to pay attention

to what was around him and only when the Lord

saw that he had turned aside the text says, did

God call to him. Now I wonder how many burning

bushes we drive past at speed. Not literally

driving, walking or forgetting that we don't

actually see them. This series over these last

five weeks has been teaching us the disciplines

of turning aside. The morning verse, the 5, 10,

15 minutes of silence throughout the day, the

evening prayers. They're not religious hobbies

to try and do better. They're to help us be better

people. How you become the kind of person you

notice when the ordinary ground starts to glow

around you. And then we hear this voice, Moses,

Moses. He's been called by name. Remove the sandals

from your feet for the place in which you are

standing is holy ground. Holy ground. It's not

the temple, the temple's not even been built

yet. It's not a Sunday, there's no Sunday service,

but it's a patch of working wilderness. He's

out there with the sheep, made holy by the one

thing only, that God is there. Which means, and

to hear this, that your Tuesday at 10 o 'clock

or any other day can be holy ground. Whether

it's your classroom, whether it's out walking,

whether it's the ward or your desk that you work

at, not because of what happens there. but because

of who is there. We hear these words from God

says, I will be with you. And that's the God

promises that God gives Moses and it's the only

qualification that Moses actually gets. I will

be with you. Because look at the conversation

that God says, I have observed the misery of

my people. I've heard their cry. I know they're

suffering and I've come down to deliver them.

So come. I will send you. You see, God's compassion,

God's mission, God's deliverance, and Moses actually

gets a part in it. And Moses, if you remember

the reading or recall it, immediately starts

making excuses. Watch how honest this is, because

I suspect you'll recognise every one of them

and then five of Moses's excuses. Let's go through

them. Who am I that I should go? Now that's the

first excuse from him. And it's the one most

of us reach for fastest. The sense that we are

simply not significant enough for this. An 80

-year -old shepherd with a stutter and a murder

charge in another country and God doesn't argue

the point. He says, I will send you. He doesn't

actually say, Moses, you're more capable than

you think. He says, I will be with you. Notice

that. I will be with you. God never answers,

who am I, with a pep talk about Moses. He answers

it by moving the weight of Moses entirely and

saying, I will be with you. The question was

never who Moses is, the question was ever only

who is with him. Same as for us today. And then

comes the second excuse. Now, if I come to the

Israelites and say, the God of your ancestors

has sent me to you, And then they ask me, what

is his name? What shall I say? This is the theologian's

excuse, or the disciples' Christian's excuse,

the one that sounds like diligence, but is really

delay. I need more information before I can possibly

act. I need to be able to pray better, be able

to speak better, be able to actually say who

I'm going and being sent by. And God gives them

the name I am who I am. Which is really less

an answer than an invitation to trust a presence

rather than a formula. And then we have this

third one. It's back in chapter four and it says,

but suppose they do not believe me or listen

to me. This is a fear of rejection, of looking

foolish, of walking into a room and having nobody

take you seriously. Who's felt like that? God's

answer is three small signs for Moses. It's a

staff. It's a leprous hand and water turned to

blood. Proof that God can work through Moses'

actual hands, not some more impressive version

of him. He's saying, let me do this, Moses, and

I'll show the people. And then there's the fourth

one, the one I suspect is nearest to home for

most of us in this room. I'm a Lord, I've never

been eloquent, I am slow of speech, and I'm slow

of tongue. I can't do that talking partly. Leave

it to someone else. I'm going to fumble it. And

I don't want to look a fool up front. Someone

else would say, there's so much better than I

would. And God's reply cuts right through all

of that excuse. He says, who gives speech to

mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seen or

blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will

be with your mouth and teach you what you are

to speak. So in a simple way, don't overthink

it. Just go. I'll give you the words. And finally

the fifth excuse, which isn't really an excuse

at all, it's just the truth coming out. Oh Lord,

oh my Lord, please send someone else. Not I can't,

just please don't make me. How often have we

said that? And that of all the five excuses that

Moses is saying is the one that finding provokes

God's anger. Not because Moses is weak, but because

Moses is refusing a gift. that was never about

his strength in the first place. I recall back

over the years of my life, and I'm most probably

going to do it again, where I say, can you send

someone else? Where it provokes God's anger by

saying that. Where he said, I want you to go.

You're the one for this task. Five excuses over

two chapters, and God answers every single one.

with some version of the same thing. This is

never about your advocacy of any of us or Moses.

I am who I am and I will be with you enough for

us to do whatever we need to do. Now listen slowly

because I know there are excuses that are in

this room because that's who we are as humans.

Excuses that we put up not just in this place

but in our workplaces or homes or anywhere else.

And I want you to hear your own voice somewhere

in that list. Not significant enough. Not informed

enough. I'm not credible enough. I'm not articulate

enough. I'm not willing enough. Every excuse

we make on a Monday to Saturday morning is a

hundred generations old already. And every one

of them gets the same answer. The mission runs

on God's sufficiency, not yours, not mine. That's

why the rested people of God can be sent people.

That's why surrender, not talent, is actually

the doorway for God to actually work. We also

have to practice losing our life on purpose.

In Matthew 16, and it's the very next scene after

last week's reading, Peter has just been named

the rock and Jesus immediately begins to show

them that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo

great suffering and be killed and on the third

day be raised. And Peter, well freshly named,

feeling built up and confident that this is what

he's going to be doing, takes Jesus aside and

he rebukes him. God forbid it Lord, this must

never happen to you. And Jesus turns with the

sharpest words he ever speaks to a friend. Get

behind me Satan, you are a stumbling block to

me, for you are setting your mind not on divine

things, but on human things. Peter Rock. to stumbling

block in five verses. How often there's been

in our life too that we say yes Lord I'll do

that and then the next breath or five minutes

or later that day we stumble. Why so severe?

Because Peter is offering Jesus a cross less

mission. You can do all of this without dying

and being and being killed. Glory without surrender

that's what Peter was more or less saying. The

same often that Satan actually made in the wilderness

and a cross less Christ can't save anyone. And

Jesus from that rebuke turns to all of them and

he turns to us as well and he says if anyone

want to become my followers let them deny themselves

and take up the cross and follow me. For those

who want to save their life will lose it and

those who lose their life for my sake they will

find it. Here is the last and I think one of

the deepest truths of this series, that rest

is not the destination, not to find that rest

and just stay there. Rest is actually the wellspring.

We haven't spent five weeks learning to rest

so we can settle into a comfortable well -boundaried,

self -caring little life. We've been resting

for the same reason Jesus rested, so that there's

something to pour out for the people around us.

Why, only rested people can hear this call without

terror. You can only afford to lose your life

if you've already been found. You're securing

your identity in Jesus, and you say, I'll go.

People still working for their identity can't

take up a cross. They're too busy carrying their

CV with them and saying, this is who I am. This

is what I'm about. But the person you know is

a name. beloved and human from the rock, fed

at that free feast that Jesus sets for us, that

person can spend themselves gladly for Jesus,

for his people. Actually, what's the worst the

world can take from someone who's already handed

everything over to Jesus? Nothing. That's why

people can be persecuted and be killed because

of their life for Christ. They've surrendered

everything and said, Lord, my life is your life.

So what does this poured out look like on a Monday

to Saturday for us? Well, if you want to know

what this cross -shaped poured out life actually

looks like for us to live it out on those days,

it's not usually dramatic for us. Paul paints

it in Romans 12 and it looks like a week and

it's got these things laid out into it. Let love

be genuine. Be patient in suffering, persevere

in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints.

and extend hospitality to strangers bless those

who persecute you rejoice with those who rejoice

and weep with those who weep associate with the

lowly and do not repay anyone evil for evil do

not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with

good that's what you do during the rest of the

week those things I invite you to read that slowly

again at home and notice that almost every line

happens outside the church outside these walls

today. Hospitality to strangers blessing the

difficult colleague sitting with the workmaid

who's weeping, refusing to join the pile on in

the group chat and venting yourself and overcoming

evil with good on the street or in the school

or anything else. This is our liturgy, the work

of the people of Jesus Monday to Saturday and

every one of you is ordained to it by your baptism.

It's not given to certain people, it's given

to all of us. And I want to say clearly what

that means for how we talk about ministry around

here in the life of this church, because the

church has often got this wrong and people have

been hurt by it. We've sometimes behaved as though

real ministry is what happens just on this site

and everything else is just life stuff. As though

the teacher, the nurse, the builder, whatever

professional thing that you do through the week

doesn't really matter. and not real work. That's

exactly backwards. We gather on a Sunday to be

built up to go out for the rest of the week.

For most of you, the primary place that God has

assigned you is out there. You will spend perhaps

100 hours or so in this place in a year, and

you've got over 2 ,000 hours or so outside of

here. Which mission field do you suppose God

is more interested in? When you teach a class

well? Why a house honestly if you're an electrician?

Nurse a patient gently, run a business justly,

raise a child patiently. With all your heart

is working for the Lord as Colossians says, that

is ministry. Not a platform for ministry, the

thing itself. God cares about the good tables

that we sit around, not just the good sermons.

And there's a person who lived this, a better...

that most people have in the 7th century monastery.

He was a cook named Brother Lawrence. Anyone

heard of him? He was born Nicholas Herman, a

soldier and footman before he ever wore a habit.

He entered the monastery as a lay brother because

he judged himself unfit for anything grander

and was put to work in the kitchen. He has no

pulpit, no title. It was a lifetime of pots and

pans, cleaning all them. hauling firewood, standing

at a hot stove for men more educated and more

esteemed than himself. And it was by his own

account, he initially hated it. Kitchen work

was noisy, it was repetitive. Clean the dishes,

prepare it again, clean them again. And beneath

the dignity that he might once have imagined

for himself. But over those years, he began to

practice something almost embarrassing and simple.

Doing every task, however small, consciously

in the presence of God. Now he wasn't stopping

to pray between tasks but treating the tasks

itself as the prayer. He wrote in letters that

would be later collected together as a practice

of the presence of God. That he saw God so faithfully

in the kitchen that he wrote this. The time of

business does not with me differ from the time

of prayer. And that in the noise and clatter

of of the kitchen or people were calling out

for different things at once. He possessed God

in as greater tranquility as he had been upon

his knees at the Blessed Sacrament. He could

work and pray at the same time. He was practicing

the presence of God while working and praying

together. And he is remembered for saying that

he did not need a lengthy prayer to be with God.

That he flipped his omelette or whatever he was

flipping in the pan for the love of God. And

when there was nothing to do he would prostrate

himself before God in gratitude. And then he

would rise happier than a king to go and pick

up straw from the ground for the love of God.

Everything was done for the love of God. The

kitchen became his cathedral. Not because the

work changed but because he knew who was standing

beside the stove with him or beside the cleaning

place with him. And visitors began seeking him

out. They weren't seeking the abbot of the monastery

but they were seeking him. their old brother

among the pots because they could feel that what

he had found was something that they wanted and

something that they needed. And that's the ground

prayer 300 years early and is available to every

one of us from our Monday to Saturdays as well.

Whatever your version of the kitchen is for you,

the classroom or just the home or wherever you

are. So here's the final track and it's simply

called Go. and it is a daily part and a decision

part for each one of us. The daily part is a

ground prayer, is to remember as we begin our

day to pray this, Lord this is holy ground because

you are here. Send me into this day and go with

me. You don't have to physically take off your

shoes or your sandals as you walk through the

day, but recognise that wherever the ground is

that you are it's holy ground and He is with

you. Then in the evening, you practice this.

Name one place you saw God at work in your Tuesday,

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

Train their eyes to turn aside and thank Him.

And the decision part is in your hands right

now. One of them is in this place and also outside,

the ministry booklet that's been around for a

few months. Here's how I want you to think about

it. Everything that's in that booklet, the welcoming,

the morning tea, kids teams, practical crews,

the community facing work like the white table,

the opt shop and daily bread, none of it is helping

out at church. It is one Sunday expression of

a seven day calling. The same serenity life gathered

and scattered today as it is Monday to Saturday.

So I encourage you as a household or a single

or a couple or whatever, open it together and

choose one way to serve as a family this season.

And then if your season of life means that what's

in the book and for this place isn't right now,

your Tuesday place is your ministry placement

as always was. Serve there. But this week and

this season, go because He is with you. Always

will be and always has been. Let us pray, Father.

We know that the word go can frighten us, and

we can often say like Moses, can you send someone

else? We forget that you are with us, and you'll

always be with us. May we live our life to serve

you, lose our life so we can gain it. And we

thank you that you died for us, you rose again,

and you give us a life that is for freedom.