WEEK 02 || REST AND IDENTITY IN JESUS - Who We Rest In || Matt 14:22–33 & 1 Kings 19:9–18

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. Well, today as we start, we're part way

through a series called The Rest and Identity

in Jesus. To pause and look over these few weeks,

what's it like for tired people? I think being

honest in self and for you also. That covers

most of us, to different degrees. Last week we

heard something almost too good to be true, that

the best things God gives are free, and the free

things can only be received when we pause and

stop. Maybe some of you even tried some of the

life practices which you could be doing anyway,

like grace before any meals, God before the phone.

mention about God before the phone it's like

well this could be reading a book it could be

doing all sorts of things because this holds

so much now but it could also be a physical book

now if you took that seriously and did some of

those things maybe for the first time or more

regularly well done and but if you didn't remember

that the feast is free and we can keep coming

back to it but here's the thing about rest The

moment that we decide it matters most of us turn

into one more thing to be good at because that's

what we do isn't it? The moment I think that

we decide that rest matters we start performing

it instead of just settling into it. There's

a whole industry that's waiting for us to help

us to do it. Sleeper apps that grade your night

like an exam so when you wake up in the morning

you think I felt good until you look at it and

it says well I woke up at this time and this

time and this time. There's wellness retreats.

There's meditation subscriptions that people

can take up. Books about slowing down that we

listen often at one and a half the speed to get

through it. You see, we take the free gift and

we turn it straight back into homework, something

to be good at. And we can maybe say to say, no,

I'm not just failing at work or other things

that I'm doing. I'm also failing at resting properly.

Lastly, we asked why we rest. And the answer

was because the best things are free. And the

free things can only be received. And as you

receive them, we must learn to stop. So this

week's question cuts underneath all of that and

asks not, why do we rest, but who do we rest

in? Because in the Bible, rest is never a technique

that you and I master. It's actually a person.

And this morning, we get to watch, through the

scripture readings, two of the most exhausted

people in scripture. One is lying under a bush

in the desert wishing he was dead, the other

is drowning in a lake at three in the morning.

Now if you've ever been either of those people

in different circumstances of course, and some

of us have, I hope this message resonates with

you and helps you. So I want to introduce you

to Elijah. It was on the greatest day of his

life. Elijah is God's spokesperson at a time

when the country's leadership has gone all in

on a fake God called Baal. We do it today called

whatever's trending will follow. This is what

the people have done back then at that time.

And in the chapter before our reading, Elijah

has the ultimate public showdown with 450 of

Baal's prophets and fire falls from the sky upon

them. The whole nation hits the deck shouting,

the Lord, He is God. It's the biggest win of

Elijah's career, the mountaintop, literally.

And yet one page later, He's now 150 k's away

from where that happened and he's now lying under

a desert shrub praying, I've had enough Lord,

take my life. How does that happen? One threatening

message from the Queen, that's how. It could

be for us, it could be one text from someone.

And the man who called down fire from heaven,

we see him falling apart. Now before we judge

him and say well we wouldn't do that, anyone

here ever crashed after the big thing? in life,

like when you finish a massive project, or you've

helped maybe plan for a wedding, whether it's

after bringing the food in from a harvest, or

the exams, or the event that you poured everything

into, and instead of joy after succeeding with

that, a hole opened up underneath you. There's

a reason burnout so often follows success, not

failure. Adrenaline actually feels like strength.

The body is using itself to keep you going. But

adrenaline is not God. And when it drains away,

whatever's actually underneath you is what you

actually land on. So here's Elijah, successfully

celebrated and suicidal. And I want you to watch

very carefully what God does with them because

it is not what religion would predict. God doesn't

tell him off. God doesn't hand him a self -improvement

plan. God sends a messenger to him and touches

him and says, get up and eat. And here's the

fresh bread and the water and Elijah eats and

goes back to sleep. And then God's messenger

comes a second time. Get up and eat. The journey

is too much for you. Sleep, food, more sleep,

more food. That's God's opening move with the

burnt out man. Before any sermon, any lesson,

any spiritual anything for Elijah, there's a

sleep and a meal, twice. And some of us need

to hear this if we're tired. There's a line in

the Psalms that says it outright, he gives sleep

to those he loves. Sleep is a love gift from

God for us each night. The journey is too much

for you. God says that without judgment. He's

not disappointed. that you and I have limits,

he installed them in us. Then Elijah travels

over to the mountain of God and he hides in a

cave. And God asks this question he asks every

hiding person throughout the centuries. What

are you doing here Elijah? And out pulls a speech

from Elijah. I've given everything. I'm the only

one left. They're trying to kill me God. It's

part truth, part exhaustion. It's also part self

-pity from Elijah. And God just lets him say

it all. All of it. You and I, just like Elijah,

can bring God our unedited version of how we're

feeling. He can handle it. He knows us. And then

God says, OK, come on outside. I'm about to pass

by. And then we hear in the reading that a wind

tears the mountain. Rocks are splitting. But

God wasn't in the wind. An earthquake, God wasn't

in the earthquake, a fire. And Elijah, the fire

guy, must have leaned right into it and said,

that must be where God is. But God wasn't in

the fire. And after the fire, there was that

sheer silence, a thin and a quiet stillness.

The old translation calls it a still small voice.

And that's when Elijah covers his face and steps

out to meet God. And here's a question that puts

to us today. If God's favorite volume is quiet,

and we have built lives where there is never,

ever any quiet, what have we actually done? People

sleep next to their phones now. We fill every

gap. We queue with cars, kitchens, and headphones,

and something plain. We are the first generation,

I think, in history. that never has to be alone

with our own thoughts. And we've taken the offer

and the offer is the one of wind, earthquake

and fire all day and every day. And the God who

speaks in silence is waiting for us to rest.

The old Christian teachers of centuries ago before

the smartphone said silence is God's first language.

And then Henry Nguyen a lot closer to our time

called solitude the furnace of transformation

that in the silence we hear ourselves we hear

God speak to us and when we hear ourselves for

who we are before God and the transformation

begins the place where the noise burns off and

what's left is just you and God and the truth

of who you are before him Not comfortable, is

it? Because we're facing ourselves. But it's

where the real work actually happens. But notice,

though, that the silence is in the end. In the

quiet, God here gently corrects Elijah's story.

He just says, hey, Elijah, you're not the only

one that's left. I have 7 ,000 you don't know

about. And then he sends him back to work, fed

and rested. As we rest in God, it's never a dead

end. It's where your distorted story, the lies

and the myths of what others say to you and what

you say to yourself gets retold truthfully before

God by someone who actually knows the facts about

you. So let's go to the lake and now it's 3am

in the morning. Straight after feeding the 5

,000 Jesus, get this, he makes his disciples

get in the boat, sends the crowd home and climbs

the mountain alone to pray. And there it is again,

the Son of God guarding His time with the Father

like oxygen, because it is. He needs us to do

the work that He's called to do. Meanwhile, we

heard in the scripture reading how the disciples

are having a shocker of an early morning. Wind

against them, waves battering the boat. And it's

a darker stretch of the night, 3 to 6 a .m. I

think every one of us in this room knows that

shift, doesn't it? The 3 a .m. to 6am shift,

not on the water, could be in bed, wide awake,

doing battle with the worries that are always

twice their size in the dark, could be the bill,

the scan results, someone that you know who's

struggling. The 3am committee has roused you

and has met most of us in our heads at that time.

And then Jesus comes to them, walking on the

sea, not around the storm, on it, on the very

thing that's threatening them. He's using it

like a footpath. They scream as Morgan said,

it's a ghost. And straight away Jesus speaks

these words, take heart, it is I, don't be afraid.

And in the original language, it is literally

I am the personal name God gave Moses at the

burning bush. The name of God is out there walking

on the chaos towards these men in the boat. Then

Peter. A wonderful impulse of Peter. We've all

got some of Peter in us, haven't we? He says,

Lord, if it's you, tell me, come to me on the

water. And Jesus says just one word, come. And

Peter, give him credit, the other 11 blokes stayed

in the boat. He climbs over the side, walks on

the sea towards Jesus until he noticed a strong

wind and he was frightened. He noticed the wind.

He took his eyes off the one who said, come.

He started scanning the sea around him, down

he went. Haven't we all lived that verse? Doing

okay, trusting God, coping, even froze until

we start doomscrolling the wind. What someone

could be saying about us, what we're thinking

about ourselves, the struggles of what we've

got to meet. You know, the worst case rehearsals,

the comparison feed, and down we go when we start

to focus on it. But here is the gospel, and don't

miss this. Jesus immediately reached out his

hand and caught him. Immediately. There wasn't

a lecture to Peter first. No treating water while

Peter thinks about what he's done. Hand first,

gentle question after. Why did you doubt? And

notice Peter's small face still got him out of

the boat, but his sinking faith still got caught.

Because Peter's safety was never in the strength

of his grip on Jesus, it was Jesus' grip on him.

Who do we rest in? The one whose hand is faster

than our thinking. That's who we rest in. And

then a third reading that's set down for today,

the epistle. Paul says the same thing in one

line, that you don't have to climb up to heaven

to reach God. He says you don't have to pull

off something impossible because the word is

near you, on your lips, and it's in your heart.

How near is rescue? It's this near. Everyone

who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone. Whatever calling distance you think

it might be. So Peter's entire prayer on the

water was three words. Lord save me. And it was

enough. Not because it was a great prayer, but

because it was aimed at a near God that he knew

could save him. I'd say we've all prayed in our

life, or maybe even if you've struggled to. Your

three words from being heard, Lord, save me.

So as I asked you this morning at the beginning

about how your practices may have gone, we've

got some more for this week. Very simple ones.

There's four of them. You just choose one or

two, whatever you can do. The first one is 10

minutes of quiet as we practice these things

during our week. Put your phone in another room

or... or turn it off. And I mean, because on

your phones, your books and everything else too.

Or a book or a radio, turn that off. Go for a

walk or sit by the river path or on the back

step. Park car if you're... The wind and the

earthquake of your thoughts as you do this at

the beginning will blow through for about five

to eight minutes. That's normal. You're not doing

it wrong when it's like that. It's the sifting

and the settling and then the surfacing as we

spoke about before. You keep being company with

the God who speaks after the noise. And that's

what you're aiming for, for the stillness and

the silence. The second thing is just a three

-word prayer. When the wind grabs you this week

in some life circumstances or situation, the

email, the bill, the 3 a .m. spiral, don't wait

until you've composed a full prayer to there.

Just call, Lord save me. Amen at the near God

and let His hand do the rest of reaching out

to you. And then the third and fourth one. It's

a digital sundown or maybe it's a turning off

of anything. The radio, the TV, the book, or

anything. The last voice of your day shouldn't

be the wind. And four, sleep is trust. This one's

kind of like Sneaky Deep. One night this week,

go to bed early deliberately out of your normal

routine. Do it as like a spiritual act as you

switch off the light. Maybe you go early and

you might just lay there and rest. God, the world

is yours for the next eight hours. So if you're

going to bed early, it's going to be longer than

eight hours. I presume you're not going to bed

at midnight usually. Hand it over to God because

that's what sleep actually is. It's his love

gift to us to recharge, restore ourselves. Eight

hours admitting that you're not God, you don't

have to worry about. Leave the committee. Don't

let them disturb you at 3 a .m. in the morning.

And the world spins fine without you. He gives

sleep to those he loves. So take the gift of

rest and sleep. So where it lands? It lands on

this question, who do we rest in? That it's not

in techniques, it's not in the sleep scores of

a sleep app or anything else like that. Not in

our own struggles and grips. It's in the God

who feeds burnt out people, tired people, and

he lets them sleep. He lets them rest even during

the day of doing tasks. We can still rest as

we work. He speaks in the sheer silence underneath

all our noise. He walks on the chaos at three

in the morning saying, I am, do not be afraid.

Whose hand comes immediately, whose three words

away from anyone anywhere with any past. Lord

save me. And it's also about the promise God

made to Moses long before Elijah. And it hasn't

aged a day. It says this, my presence will go

with you. and I will give you rest. I'm not going

to give you techniques, I'm going to give you

my presence. And there's a woman named Kori Tenmum

who trusted God through a concentration camp

and out the other side. She put it like this,

never be afraid to trust an unknown future to

a known God. Never be afraid to trust an unknown

future to a known God. So with those words, I

want to leave you with this question. Something

for you to carry forward into the week. What

wind has my attention right now? What earthquake

or fire thing that's just pulling me away? And

what would it mean today to look back at Jesus

and not allow the wind and the earthquake and

the fire to take your eyes from Him and to discover

Him in the still silence? You will notice the

wind this week in different degrees, guaranteed

that. But when you do, look back at Him. Look

back at Jesus. And if you sink, know that you

will be caught by Him. Amen.