Sabbath, Finding Rest in Jesus - Linsey Wildsmith

Hey there, this is Gem Wade, part of the core team here at Springs Church. We just want

to say thank you so much for joining us and listening to our podcast. We are praying that

it encourages you and it inspires you. And if you'd like to find out more about Springs

Church, please visit our website springschurch.co.uk. Here's today's message.

I'm afraid there isn't going to be a live straight-on message. I'm just taking days

to prepare. So I'm confused that God wants to say something. So I thank you that you're

with us, thank you that you want to speak to us and I pray that as we listen to your

word, Lord, that you give us hearts to hear what you want to say and for us to put into

practice. In Jesus' name, Amen. We are continuing our series today at just

about one o'clock, the only important clock today, trust me. That's my phone. We're going

to continue our series today on the 10th of Mammon's and we're going to be talking about

Sabbath. I'm not going to start by reading the scripture, I'm going to start with a story,

a true story about Onesford Matt who, Pete has already mentioned,

Anyone who knew Matt before we got together,

we were together for nine years now, eight years now, I remember, a while. If you knew

before that, in his younger days, because he didn't always have the grey hair, he was

younger at some point, he used to be a bit of a workaholic. He worked for a long time

for a global marketing firm and he was very successful at that company. He was a bit of

a ticket, actually. He was awarded employee of the year in his mid-20s, which is no mean

thing, there are thousands of employees in this company, it's absolutely enormous, they're

a bit much of the best one, like me, if it was a little swat. But his working pattern

to achieve these kind of heights was not healthy. He was under a lot of pressure and it still,

actually even now, the pressure affects his sleep, but even back then it was even worse

and often he'd wake up at two, three in the morning thinking about work, so we'd just

go downstairs and start. Three in the morning, that's normal, isn't it? So his laptop would

be open and he figured, oh, I'm not thinking about it, let's just crack on. So his working

day would start at three a.m. and then he'd just carry on all the way through till silly

o'clock. But because he was so bored and because he worked so hard, he got lots of promotions

very quickly. And he was soon handed the management of a particularly challenging client for this

marketing company, a global brand, who were very lucrative to their business, they paid

a lot of money to Matt's company to look after them, and Matt was in charge of that client.

And they were very demanding, very difficult, and also based near London, so he was up and

down about twice several times a week trying to keep his company sweet. Also around the

same time, Matt was stepping up in leadership of a new church plant in Birmingham called

Gallery Church, and they wanted to release their new pastor Andy to earn employment a

few days a week so he could serve the community and serve the church. To do that, you have

lots and lots of legal things that need to be in place, lots of employment admin and

taxi stuff you have to do. So Matt was tasked with the job of sorting that out, because

he's good at that kind of stuff. He does it for Springs too, that's what he does now.

He loves Excel basically, he's a bit of a dork really, he's really good at that kind

of stuff. Also around this time, he started dating me. Yeah, he'd never had a long term

girlfriend before, insert Matt's embassies on, by choice. He knows I'm telling this story,

but he said you had to tell them I chose not to have, I have options indeed, I just didn't

want a long term girlfriend. Yeah, okay. And then I came along and he couldn't resist.

So he delved into the depths of Matt.com and nothing had come of it. And then we met and

we started going out and bearing in mind I also had brought with me a one year old son

and a divorce, so it wasn't the easiest of girlfriends to choose to be honest, for more

reasons than one, which he was yet to find out. Also around this time, all this is still

going on, Matt's sister Emily became pregnant with our niece Holly, but the pregnancy was

not straightforward. And Emily and her husband Mark found out that the baby had a major issue

with the kidneys. One of them wasn't growing and the other kidney wasn't really working.

And they were told basically to expect the worst. And it's a miraculous story because

Holly's fine, she just has one kidney, it works fine, but she's perfectly fine. I'm sure

they'll meet her one day. She's eight now. But at the time they didn't know. So now Matt

and his family, they're pretty tight. There's not many of them. There's hundreds of them

for me. There's gazillions. I've got so many cousins. I think I'm 267 now. True story.

From Gorlough. But Matt's family are not like that. There's not that many of them,

so they are close. And so Emily's news was really carried by them all. So Matt was happily

supporting his parents and Emily and also having her own grief at the potential of losing

his only niece before she was even born. A lot was going on in his little life. Matt's

solution to coping with it all was to work even harder. Believe it or not, to get up

even earlier, to make himself even more available to those around him. And therefore he saw

he was spreading himself way too thin. It doesn't take a genius to work out what happened

next. Matt was my bird outing. I won't go into all the gory details for you, but I can

assure you Matt was good for nothing. He spoke to his boss who could see for themselves that

he was not the Matt they thought he was and they gave him a better month off on a paid

sabbatical to try and get him to have his head back in the game. And Matt was forced

to rest. You know, God literally made him lie down in green pastures, as the song says.

He literally led him beside quiet quarters and he gradually restored his soul. And he

is a different person to who he was back then. That was, like I say, nine years ago and he

learned an awful lot about the importance of resting, of switching off, of knowing when

to stop. And despite what Peter just said, when to say no. I can't. I haven't got the

capacity. He's a better husband for it by far. He's a better father for it. He's a better

manager for it and he's a better employee for it. Now Matt's story isn't unique. There

will be people across this room that have experienced similar things in their own life.

And in fact I think there's something about the pace of modern life that impacts all of

us at various times. Anxiety levels across the nation have never been higher. The pace

of modern life, it does not lead to the restoration of our souls. It actually leads to implosion

within our souls if we don't watch it. Because there's something about the speed at which

we live our lives that is not conducive to human flourishing. Many of us are surviving

but we are not thriving. Since afternoon we're going to be looking at the Sabbath day and

what God says about taking a rest. To see if we can understand how we as creatures are

supposed to work and function and thrive as a species by looking to the one who created

us to the one who designed us. And when we do that, what we do, what we find is that

our creator is very keen on his creation resting regularly. We can see this when we look at

how God created the world after six days of creating the skies and the land and the animals

and the people. This is what the Bible says that God did. This is Genesis 2. It says,

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day

God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all his

work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made him holy. Because on him he rested from

the work of creating that he had done. Now that word rested in Hebrew is the word Shabbat.

You might have heard it before. You've heard a sermon on the Sabbath, you've heard of

the word Shabbat. But if you haven't let me tell you what it means. It means to stop.

So that word Sabbath, Shabbat means to stop, to cease. Now I find this interesting because

God wasn't tired from his creation because God doesn't slumber or sleep. So God doesn't

get tired. Yet he modeled the art and the practice of stopping and resting for all his

creations to copy. And then he blessed that day, he said, and he made it holy. Holy means

he made it special, he set it apart. He made it a priority for all his creations to rest.

So he literally wove Sabbath rest into the rhythms of creation. And that's the first

point to make. Sabbath rest is a rhythm of creation. That word rhythm I found really

illuminating. I'm thinking about this. And we can understand it a bit more. If you think

about the set of drawings and Adagio's paper, it was splendidly tonight. Because he's done

something very important. Because both of my boys are learning the drums, by the way,

at school, God help me. And their method is to just... which is not rhythmical, it's

noise. And any musician will tell you that when you play an instrument like the drums,

what makes it rhythmical is not just the hitting, but the stopping. You hit it, then you bite,

then you hit it. Anyway, and that's what creates the rhythm. That waiting in music has a proper

name. It's called a rest. So if you want good rhythm, it involves rest. Good rhythm in life

comes with good rest. God built it that way. Can you see it? How many of you wish your

life had better rhythm? Had some order to it. How many of you wish it wasn't all go, go,

go, go, go, go, go, go, all the time? That desire was put there by God. He created us

to live rhythmical lives and rhythm involves resting. Technology forms its principle too.

When's the last time you turned your phone off, by the way? 1997? But if you have an

app on your phone and you get the Catherine Weed of Death, you know the one, and it just

won't work, you take it to a phone shop and they'll say, turn it off and on again. Give

it a second, it needs to rest, and then reboot. Human beings were exactly the same way. I

went through a phase of thinking that I could run every single day. I'm a runner. I've preached

on this before, I'll bore you with the details. But I am a runner. And I thought, if I can

run every single day of the week, I'll get even fitter and even faster and I'll beat

all my PBs. So I tried it one week and within days my foot was raging, because it's not

very good anyway, and each run felt harder, not easier. Despite doing the same distance

and often the same route every single time, I wasn't any faster and I wasn't any fitter.

I was worse. So now I make myself have two rest days each week. And as a result, I always

run way better and faster and further the day after a rest day, always. That rest day

usually is a Sunday for me, not because it's the Sabbath, just because we're really busy

on a Sunday. So on Monday morning, I do more 10Ks on a Monday morning than any other day

of the week, because I've had a rest day, a day before. My body needs to rest, it's better

for it afterwards. And when God created the world, he built rest, like I say, into the

rhythm of his work. As his creatures, we need rest, we need sleep. Don't think that you

don't, people, you do. I keep telling Matt, Matt, you need sleep. We spend a third of

our lives sleeping. Did you know that? You should do. That's how God designed us to be.

Rest is essential for our health. And you all know what happens when you try to fight

sleep, don't you? Or sleep is taken from you. Some of you are vile, but sleep is taken

from you. You know what you're like, you know how much you need it. You know the torture

that we went through with Danny last year, this many times, two and a half years, that

kid woke up every single night, three, four, five times a night, two and a half years.

We were walking zombies by the end of it. We had to make a rule up that if we said things

to each other between the hours of midnight and six and they weren't very kind, the other

person was not allowed to bring it up in the morning. Because we were not in control of

our thoughts, we were battered, so tired. And when you're tired, you don't flourish.

The best doesn't come out of you, the worst comes out of you. I recommend that rule for

any parents of a young baby. Feel free to take it, it's kept our marriage intact.

Sarah, thank you. God designed us to rest. We can't function effectively without it.

Have you ever seen the impact on a day out by a tired child? Or no one can ruin a day

out like a tired child. Oh my goodness. Those of you that are children, very much

be sure you can remember the days that you planned, where you put your heart and soul.

So excited to take them somewhere and they just have a massive tantrum and no racket.

Just like our kids need their parents to make sure they nap and make sure they go to bed

at a decent time. Our heavenly father knows we as children, sometimes we need God to say

stop. You need to have a rest now. You're being disruptive. One of the ways to show

him that we trust him is to stop and to rest. And that brings us nicely onto our next point

about the purpose of the Sabbath. Sabbath isn't just about having good rhythm for the

sake of our health, although that's very important. Choosing to stop and rest is actually a

demonstration of our faith in God. And we can learn a lot about the purpose of Sabbath

by looking at how the people of Israel screwed it up actually. So we're going to get more,

build me more into the Bible now with this one. So that verse in Genesis, it was initially

written for a group of people called Israel. They're a nation, a group of people, thousands

of years ago. And it was written to explain to them who they were and who their God was.

How they got here and what he wanted them to do. It was written how to show them how

to live well in the way their God had created them. Now the funny thing with the nation

of Israel is that they didn't listen to God. In fact the whole Old Testament is pretty

much about how Israel didn't listen to God. Story after story, time and time again, they

gave God proverbial little finger and ignored all of his instructions and warnings. Now you

might know this particular story well. The Israelites are enslaved in a place called Egypt.

And they are literally slaves working for nothing. And God calls a guy called Moses,

he says Moses I want you to go to the Nazi Pharaoh who's keeping all the slaves and telling

them to let my people go. So Moses goes to Pharaoh and long, long story short, the Pharaoh

lets these Israelites go and God leaves them out, using Moses out of Egypt, even parts

of the Red Sea for them to walk through and they cross the Red Sea and then they don't

really trust what God's going to do. So they're in the 40 years in the wilderness because

again they don't really listen to him, which is a story for another time. Anyway, they're

slaves of Egypt, they're not slaves anymore, they're going to the wilderness. But God says

even though I didn't really want you to stay in the wilderness for 40 years, I'm still

going to look after you because I love you, I will provide manna, quail, bread, birds

for you to eat every day, you don't need to worry. But remember, don't gather them up

on the Sabbath day. Don't work on the Sabbath day, you have to rest. I'll make sure you

have enough food the day before so you can collect enough to last you through the Sabbath

so that you don't have to worry and fret about where your food's going to come from,

but you have to rest on the Sabbath. But in Exodus 16, we believe they didn't do it.

They didn't rest. They continued to work and tried to collect food on the Sabbath day

as well. So why, why did they do that? Well, ultimately, they didn't trust God. They didn't

trust God to provide the food that he said they would need on that day. They thought

they were going to go hungry and they needed to depend on themselves because true rest,

true stopping is actually a sign of faith and God's ability to provide care for us even

if we stop. True rest is saying to God, you're in control, you're the captive of this ship,

I'm not and I trust you. And some of us are rubbish at doing that. Absolutely rubbish

at doing that. We worry that if we don't keep going, if I don't keep working, if I don't

keep striving, if I don't keep pushing on, if I don't answer every email straight away

or don't answer every WhatsApp message as soon as it beeps, if we don't say yes to every

request made of us, people are like us less, if we're not always available for them, they're

only like me anymore, if I let people down, they'll think a bad of me. And actually, what

we're doing is missing the point because we can't ultimately trust that God is the one

who plans our future. We don't trust that God is the one that opens and closes doors

of opportunity. Every promotion you have, he provides it. Not you, he does it. God is

the one we ultimately live to serve. God's opinion is the only one that matters. And

he asks us to rest. He asks us to stop. He asks us to trust him to provide and be there

for us. He asks us to stop and acknowledge that he's in control and we are not. But like

us, the Israelites, because they were just like us, the Israelites, they didn't trust

God, they didn't observe the Sabbath. He so wanted them to enjoy. So, God had no choice.

And he not only makes the Sabbath a rhythm of his creation, he makes it a rule of his

covenant. He writes it into the Ten Commandments that every Israelite has to obey. So this

is where it brings us onto the Ten Commandments part. This is what it says, okay? This is

in Exodus 20, verse 8 to 11. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you

Exodus 20:8–11

shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your

God. On it you shall not do any work neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your male

servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner resting in your towns. For in six days the

Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all the sing them, but he rested on

the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. He tells

them basically, I've given you the chance to do this willingly and you've not done

it. So now I'm commanding you, take a day off and you're blessed and he makes the day

holy. He blessed it. It becomes a gift of blessing to them. He gives them the Sabbath

as a gift, as a blessing, not as a noose around their neck, as a gift with health generating

potential. And he makes it holy by taking it away from all the normal days of the week

and setting it apart. He adds to the quality of the time I have on earth each week by taking

a day of your week away. So addition, life, subtraction. He says I'm taking a day of your

week away so that you can see and remember how much I love you and how much I take care

of you and how much you can trust me. Taking a day away so you can see that you're dependent

on me. But we're just not good at that as humans. We're not good at depending on God.

For two reasons, anxiety and ego. We worry that he won't provide for us so we work harder,

anxiety. Or we think we finally can do it on our own and we don't need to do it in the

morning, ego. But God wants to show us that we can trust him and we can't do it ourselves.

We need him. So stopping the striving, stopping the constant work and toiling and resting

in God ultimately reminds us that he's in control and he loves us and that we can depend

on him. So we both rest into the rhythm of creation but if you want to function well

you need to rest. And he made a rule, a commandment for our own good. All the Ten Commandments

were for Israel's own good. If they wouldn't listen to their bodies, God would make them

rest while assuming the Interlord. But Sabbath wasn't only a rhythm of creation or a rule

to demonstrate our faith. Sabbath was also a sign. It goes in Exodus 31.13. Then the

Lord said to Moses, Satan, it is your life. You must observe my Sabbath. This will be

a sign between me and you for generations to come so that you may know that I am the Lord

who makes you holy. That's interesting isn't it, to think that the Sabbath is a sign. A

sign points to things they want you to see. That's the function of a sign. So what did

God want them to see through the Sabbath? What was yet a sign pointing to? They find

the answer to this in Deuteronomy 5.15. He said, remember that you were slaves in Egypt

and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and outstretched

arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath. The Sabbath was

a sign of God's salvation, of his rescue. Every time they were Sabbathed the Israelites

were told to remember that God had saved them from Egypt. He provided escape and food for

them. To remember that their salvation and their freedom was not because of their own

works or effort but by his grace. Now I know what you're thinking because some of you

are eyes are slightly glazed over so I'm not going to see it. Lindsay this is a great

mystery, there's something right off the peak. But we're not Jewish. We are not lived

by the law of the Jews. We're Christians. We follow Jesus and this is irrelevant. Well

that's true, we are Christians. So let's look at what Jesus said about the Sabbath. Because

Jesus got into trouble a lot on the Sabbath. Jewish people they are available for Sabbath

religiously. You can kind of see why. I mean there are so many verses about it in the Old

Testament it was drilled into them to the point that actually it became a proper kind

of religious observance by the time that Jesus had walked on the earth. It had evolved as

traditions often do into a strict observance of the day of rest when nothing could happen.

Nothing at all could happen. It was based on ritual and religion not relationship with

God. And we read in Matthew 12 that on one Sabbath day Jesus is walking through some

fields with his disciples and they're hungry so they start picking some grains at the ears

of corn and putting the shells off them and eating what was inside them. Some of the religious

people see them and they're outraged because they say that's harvesting, you're harvesting

on the Sabbath, you're picking corn and you're taking the shell. That's work, you're

working on the Sabbath and they try to kill you. All these reasons that I don't know

how Jesus ended up on the cross. Later that same day Jesus is in the synagogue and a guy

comes in who's got this kind of with a triple cam, something wrong with his hand and you

can see there are just people in the background thinking he's not, he better not, don't you

know what I mean? I think he better not, I think he better not. And then Jesus, I love

it, I think honestly if you had the chance to live on, because he reaches out and he

heals this man and he makes his hand better. And when they start going, what, you can't

heal this, it's the Sabbath, do anything on the Sabbath, Jesus turns to them and basically

says, I hope you're translating to modern day language, screw you all, I'm the Lord

of the Sabbath, I mean he didn't say that, I'm paraphrasing it but I'm putting my own

spin on it, but he says I am the Lord of the Sabbath. In other words the Sabbath was a

sign pointing to Jesus, which very much offends the people listening to him. But Jesus embodied

everything the Sabbath represented, Jesus is our rest, Jesus is our provider, Jesus

is the one that we can trust. And the Sabbath meant to show us that I'm weak, someone else

needs to strengthen me, I'm guilty, someone else needs to pay my debt, I am enslaved,

someone else needs to free me and that someone is Jesus, he's the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus

did away with the rule of the Sabbath, I'm going to say that again, Jesus did away with

the rule of the Sabbath to want to restore the rhythm of life resting in him. In other

words, instead of the Sabbath becoming about the same day every week that you have to observe

it, you don't observe it, you go to hell. Jesus said no, you're missing the point, the

point of Sabbath was to create a rhythm of resting where you realise that God loves you

and provides for you and I am the Lord of the Sabbath. You don't need to observe it

as a rule anymore, you need to enjoy it as a relationship. Now the question we often

hear then about the Sabbath is this, are we still supposed to keep the Sabbath day

as a rule? That's a fair question, if throughout the Bible as Christians should we keep the

Sabbath day? Well I won't go into the internet for you, for starters, Sabbath day isn't

a Sunday anyway, even though we do church on a Sunday, Sabbath is a Saturday for the

Jews, Friday night is Saturday night. But actually rather than maybe in my opinion,

we can read all about it, if you read Romans 14, Paul, the apostle Paul says basically

no you don't, no. Which some of you are thinking, what? But that is what Paul teaches, we no

longer have to keep the Sabbath as a rule. In Romans 14 Paul teaches that the sign of

the Sabbath simply pointed to Jesus and that of one particular day of Sabbath rest it is

absolutely fine, it's up to you. Doesn't matter which day and it's okay if you want

to but you don't have to. It's not wrong to do it but it's not essential either. What

matters though, what is essential is who we find our rest in, not when we find it. Which

is good news if you work sheeps or knights. The rule of the covenant is over, okay, this

Ten Commandment you must observe the Sabbath day, that rule is over because of Jesus but

the rhythm of Sabbath rest is still something that we all need to submit to because with

our rest can't function as we've got intended. So you're not going to get into trouble if

you work on a Sunday or a Saturday but the rhythm is still in place, you are still built

to function optimally with rest and if you don't rest in Jesus and submit to his purpose

and plan for your life you are going to break. You're going to burn out like that, did you?

So let's get practical and bring you into land. How do we find rest in Jesus in this

crazy hectic modern world? How do we do it? And how whenever I hear that phrase, let's

get practical, I'm like, let's get practical, practical. That was my hot squad cheese by

the way, in case you haven't done aerobics. Let's get practical. Number one, think daily

rest, not weekly rest. My own personal tactic to finding daily times of Sabbath rest is

to do it first thing in the morning. And it's been interesting in this last three weeks

because Pete had a challenge out at the start that he was going to wake up early in the

morning and go on Zoom and open it for everyone to join and pray with him and people have

been and I've done it too several times but there are times when my laptop has been right

next to me on the sofa and I'm perfectly chosen to put my audio on because I am jealous

for that quiet time in the morning and sometimes I don't want to share it with people, not

that any of you are praying lovely prayers and you spy me, I don't want to share it with

you, I don't want to hear from you, I want to hear from you today. Sometimes I hear from

God for other people so it's a good thing to do but there are times when I just want

to be in the presence of the Lord at home and I find resting in the Lord early in the

morning is a really good time to do it and I know people can find millions of reasons

not to. My challenge would be change your life hacks so they can get it. Switch your

laptop off a bit earlier than the night before, maybe don't play that third PS5 game, go

to bed a bit earlier so you can wake up earlier and spend time resting in the presence of

God. I remember Tony Campo speaking about his own prayer life about 15 years ago, he

said his prayer life used to be get up and get open your journal and it's released off

all these things that you need God to do. Dear Lord, Sister Mary is ill in the hospital,

God's up in heaven going really? I didn't know that, which hospital? And he said that

changed because God only knows what we need before we ask of him and his prayer life changed

from that to he would wake in the morning and he would be going prayer, he would say

goodbye and say the name Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, over and over again and gradually he'd feel

the presence of the Lord come and rid him of the filth and the mess and fill him with

peace and grief and rest. Now some of you are thinking if I did that I'd just fall back

to sleep. I tried it once and it didn't work so I have to get out of here. But the principle

is still the same, finding those times of rest often works well to do it first thing

in the morning, that is the model that Jesus followed. But that isn't the rule, the point

is whenever you do it, whether it's late at night, whether it's when the kids are napping,

whether it's on your commute back from work, on the train, whatever it is, it's finding

that time of resting, it won't happen by chance, it just won't happen by chance, it has to

be something you plan for and prioritise every day. You have to make resting in the presence

of Jesus over with it on your life and that takes effort. So number two, find a mind that's

at rest. Don't think that using Netflix or Instagram is a replacement for switching off,

it isn't. You may have a feature on the sofa and you might not be physically moving around

but if you spend that time racing two hours each night trawling through social feeds I

guarantee your mind will not be rested afterwards. It's not true rest and it won't work. So

what's wrong with social media and other Netflix? We regularly binge on people on that platform

but sometimes you just have to get off social media for a little while because it just builds

your head for days, turn off Netflix for a few hours, it just distractions. We kill ourselves

like that's our release for us, it's how we get our hair done, it's how we relax but actually

it just adds to the volume in our thoughts sometimes and I am the worst for this, I spend

so much time flipping through Facebook to avoid doing other things. Destructing ourselves

though not the same as resting in Jesus is not. Number three, don't let the storms stop

you from stopping. Some of you have got such busy lives, I know that you do. You're caring

for elderly or poorly relatives, you're carrying financial burdens for your family, you've

got incredibly stressful jobs, some of you are supporting your kids who are really struggling

with their life or some of you are advising for very difficult exams. How do you find

rest in those circumstances? I think sometimes we can make the excuse that there's just too

much going on right now. I'm too busy to stop, my mum is too ill, my husband is too depressed,

my kids are too rebellious, my job is too stressful, I can't afford to rest, I'll find

time to rest when this is all sorted and everything is calmed down. Wrong. There's a story in

several of the gospels actually where Jesus is on a boat and there's a huge storm, like

a proper storm and this boat is about to sink and the disciples are pooing their pants thinking

they're going to die and Jesus is asleep. Asleep in the storm. Why? Because he trusted God.

He understood that God was in control, no storm is too great for our Heavenly Father

to deal with, he understood that everything we need is provided for by God so therefore

peace and rest is available in him regardless of the circumstances that we're in. That's

what being rooted in him does for us too. The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything

I need, he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores

my soul. So let's bring it into land. Sabbath is not a specific day of the week, Sabbath

is a rhythm of rest in Jesus. It doesn't have to be pinned down to one day, it's a daily

rhythm where we are led by to lead us beside quiet waters to show us how to lie down in

the patches of his presence and find restoration and refreshment for our soul in him. And if

you're not having periods and resting by still waters then you're not letting God shepherd

you. You will have busy seasons, Jesus did too, sometimes he worked all day and all night

but they must be punctuated with rest. That's why Jesus often took himself away very early

in the morning, he often sets into the quiet places to pray and be with his Father. So

he says, Ben do you want to come back up? And I've got one little challenge for you

before we sing together. Because I want you to look at your life and ask yourself, when

am I stopping each day to rest in him? Do I even know what that looks like? How is Sabbath

part of the rhythm of my life? How aware am I of my need and my dependence on him? When

was the last time I stopped to acknowledge his provision? When was the last time I asked

God to lead me beside these metaphoric quiet waters to restore my soul? At the start of

the service room praying and I had a picture of me praying of one of those old silent TV

sets. You know I used to turn them off and the light would kind of slash them and a white

colourful line would appear in the centre of the screen before it went blank. I saw this

picture of someone just turning the telly off and it would go off. And the challenge

I felt the Lord say was that someone must need to find me a switch. Someone must need

to look at our lives and think, at what point do I need to just say enough? Turn off the

noise. I want to be with Jesus. I want him to restore my soul. To give me the rest that

I need in his presence. So as the band plays, let's take a few moments just to reflect on

what needs to change for each of us to create that space for us to stop. Just switch off.

Lord I thank you that your heart for us is to rest in your presence. Your heart for us

is that no matter what's happening around us to know the peace of God. Keeping us rooted

and established in your love. Father I pray in your grace I want you to teach us how to rest.

God our shepherd will you teach us how to lie down in green pastures and lay beside

quiet waters so that you can restore our soul. We crave your peace Lord. And for some people

here today, this might be the first time that you ever considered that Jesus is actually

a living person that he comes and keeps us resting. He's not just a blonde haired, blue

eyed white man in a Sunday school story we were giving years ago. He's a living entity.

He's alive. That's what he's all about. He's a person that calls us to rest in him. To

enjoy his presence. He died on a cross two thousand years ago to pay the price for our

mistakes and then he rose again from the grave and now he's come alive in our hearts. All

we need to do, all we need to do is ask him to find his place in the throne in our lives

so that we can rest and become rooted in him. So I'm going to say a really simple very quick

little prayer and if you want to ask him to come and show you what rest looks like for

the first time to encounter him as a real person why don't you just pray this word in

your heart for me. Thank you Jesus that you love me. Thank you Jesus that you died for

me. All the ways I've screwed up. I ask you to forgive me. Make me whole. I ask you to

come into my heart and fill my life with your rest and your peace and your purpose. In Jesus

name. Amen. I'd like you to do something very brave. If you have prayed that prayer with

me, everyone else is going to be staring at their feet but if you've prayed that prayer

I'm going to look out on their congregation. I'd like you to look at me because I'd like

to give you a Bible before you go and just help you to understand a little bit more about

what you've just done. So if that's you, just have a look at me now. Thank you Lord. Thank

you for speaking to us Father and as we worship you we pray that you help us to put you in

your rightful place and we praise you on your name. Amen. Thanks again for listening. To

hear more of our messages make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our podcast channel

for past preachers. If you feel like you've got something out of today's message, why

not share it with your friends and spread the good news of Jesus. We are praying for

you, we love you so please if you need anything at all check out springschurch.co.uk. God

bless.