Team Conference 2020 | Real Rest

Hey, welcome to the No More Answers breakout session number three with Pastor Brian Schwartz.

Today we're gonna be talking about what is real rest and what does the Bible have to say about it.

So let's tune in and hear what Pastor Brian has to say about rest.

Pastor Brian, I want to thank you so much for creating some space to come on and chat with us today.

Um our goal for this year was to really create some space where we can have people like yourself come in and invest in our teams.

And so every year we do a team conference where we try our best to encourage our teams.

And and this year we we came up with this theme called No More Answers.

Now that that seems like an interesting take, but we realize that we all have questions.

But there's a moment when every time Jesus got a question, it got to a point where he provided an answer where it says, There is no other answer except Jesus.

There's not another thing we could say about this.

The answer has already been set.

So no matter what the question is, it's leading to this pace.

So we have no more answers.

And so that's kind of been the theme.

And so that theme kind of emerged even before we found ourselves in this pandemic.

Um so I think it does fit because I think a lot of us have a lot of questions, but we don't have any more answers.

Jesus is the answer.

And so what our hope is is in our time today that we can talk around um some really powerful subjects, some really important topics that we hopefully think can be an encouragement for our team, specifically in the area of rest, because as you know, as a church, we we really value it.

We talk about it quite a bit.

So before we jump into that discussion, I would love to just hear from you.

Um would you mind introducing yourself, giving us a little bit about your background, helping us to understand maybe even how you've arrived at Celebration Church, and then we'll jump into some of these discussion questions.

Sure, absolutely, Pastor Keith.

Thank you so much for having me and all those that are participating, and welcome to you guys.

Thank you for letting us invade your lives uh through moments like this.

And yeah, I'm Brian Schwartz.

I'm a part of the team here at Celebration in Jack's.

Uh, part of, I don't know how all the org charts look, um, but I'm a part of that that global senior kind of leadership team.

I still don't know what that means exactly.

I just try to do enough to where I stay out of the way and don't get in too much trouble.

But um, you know, I've been married to my wife Diane 25 years.

Uh, we got born again this the same night.

Uh, we have seven children.

And from the very start of our relationship with Jesus, my my prayer was, Lord, please make this.

It was more of a demand than a prayer.

It was like, make this so real that I don't go back to my old normal.

And the Lord has been really faithful with that over these years.

We church planted for years.

We were part of athletic ministries.

Uh, before I jumped into ministry, I was playing in the NFL.

That's how I got reached through one of my teammates, our quarterback.

He and his wife invited us to a Bible study.

And man, we just we've been on this collision course with the kingdom and the king for the last probably 20-some years.

We got born again in '96, and you know, we've seen a little bit of everything on a lot of different fronts, been in high intense intensity environments, high performance, high premium environments, and then shifting into ministry, you can see some of the same traits.

And so, you know, I just think what we've tried to do over the course of, you know, having seven children and and uh bearing with one another for 25 years, we we've always had this understanding, man, if it can work at home, um, it could probably work anywhere.

And so a huge part of our restfulness, if there is such a thing, it is comes from really, you know, the basics of just like Jesus told the disciples they were going to receive power and he told them to start start at home, start in Jerusalem, and and then you can start moving out from there.

So we've always tried to keep things simple, keep things grounded.

Um, I'm I'm with you, Pastor Keith.

I I believe Jesus is perfect theology.

And so when we look at any of these subject matters, it's always the best place to just look at at Jesus, especially when you're looking at a uh a matter, subject matter of rest.

I mean, I I marvel when I read through the gospels and I can't imagine and fathom the intensity of need.

Uh kind of like a season we're in.

It's a it's a season where the the needs are that they're they've always been intense, but now they're being revealed.

And and when Jesus walked uh in the earthly realm and his earthly ministry when he was released into that for those three years, I I try to sometimes imagine the intensity of the needs he was met with, and yet seeing him function seemingly effortlessly, and and him, you just see this pattern, not a pattern, you just see a reality of rest.

He is the embodiment of rest in motion.

And and I think that's that's the hard thing for us to grasp in our modern day culture with social media.

And you know, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, Pastor Keith, but when when the electricity goes out in your house and you're confronted with, man, it's eerily quiet.

And it it's it's like we have so much background noise and so many things pulling at us, and then we're talking about people.

We're talking about God's most beloved, treasured possession, if I could use that word.

It's actually accurate.

He bought us and and to to go, we're looking at people issues.

Um, and so it's just yeah, I'm excited to talk to you about this because it's something I don't I don't claim to have a superior or even astounding revelation on this.

I I just feel like we've we've tinkered around over the last several years, and I think at times we've stumbled into true biblical rest.

So maybe maybe we could talk about how what it looks like to occasionally stumble into it and set a realistic goal versus this this idealistic uh thought of rest and and stop looking at rest as a principle and start looking at it as a part of our inheritance.

Come on, I love that.

And I think one of the things that that you hit on that that really stood out to me amongst everything you said is you know, you you came from the the athletic industry and and and it's very high performance and seeing how that can work its way even into ministry.

You and I both know um how those things can be.

So for many of the people that are that are watching and listening to this, they may be in high performance industry and as it relates to their workplace.

And so they're trying their best to simultaneously be a child and a follower of God, doing their best to understand when we talk about the importance of rest in the table and and Sabbath and all those wonderful things that are are incredible with allowing God to come into our homes, but they still are in these high performance environments, which could include the home as well.

So one of the things that I admire about you is just seeing the way that you have managed to steward your family.

And while I'm not there behind the scenes, it's not a reality TV show, but I've seen you in your family, I've seen the way that you guys interact, and there's a genuine love.

And so there does seem to be like this genuine um space of rest and peacefulness that exists within your home, which it can only be found through some version of rest.

So, so what is what has been your process with being high performance, having expectations, but at the same time understanding the importance of unplugging, so to speak, but also being fueled up and charged up into the right things.

It's that's a that's a massive question.

And I I think there are a lot of practicals built into it.

I would attribute most of it to my wife.

She she has this ability, she's got a simple gift of faith.

I don't know how to describe it any other way, meaning she just she just trusts, she trusts the Lord, she trusts his ways, she has very little doubt.

She was brought up in an environment even growing up where a real stable environment, and then she met me.

I'm the embodiment of chaos, and so it it's we've learned how to um cooperate with the Holy Spirit.

I guess I could say it like that.

I I don't think there's a such thing as like when you think of biblical rest, I always, like I said, start with Jesus.

Rest is first and foremost, it's a person, and and his name is Jesus.

And when you look at Romans chapter five, one of my favorite verses, chapter one, uh verse one, he says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have, we possess peace with God.

And I remember the night I got born again, it was the first time in my existence I experienced peace, not the peace of God, but peace with God.

Wow, that's good.

And and I think I think sometimes we can confuse when I say peace with God, there's a tremendous rest that I think Jesus speaks to in Matthew 11.

Uh he he it's in this context of they went through all these villages and he says, I did great works in these villages, and yet they still did not receive me.

Even though I did all this working in front of them, they didn't receive me.

And then he goes on and he says, All you who are weary and heavy laden, come to me, and he says, I will give you, I'll give you a gift.

And he called that gift rest.

And it always starts with kind of the core value system of who we believe, what we believe, and why we believe that.

And it starts true rest starts with this understanding that no matter what I do, don't do, have done, haven't yet done, what's expected of me, what I should have done, what I didn't do, that I should have, you know, all the sins that we commit and all the sins that we omit, all the stuff we do, don't do.

It's coming to the realization that even in spite of all of that, because I'm in the person of rest, because that's what the word says, we're in Christ.

Yep, he's in us.

And it's it's it's kind of like the difference between the legal side of salvation and the experiential side.

Wow.

Because there's a legal side, which is like, man, I'm acquitted of all my sins, I'm forgiven.

He nailed all my sins to the cross.

And yay, Jesus, and mentally I'm like, oh, but to feel that freedom, to that takes interaction with the person of peace.

That is so true.

And and that comes through the relationship we have with Holy Spirit.

You know, Jesus said, Yeah, you guys are just right before he was dying, he's like, You guys are freaked out right now, but I got some good news for you.

I'm sending another helper.

And his name is Holy Spirit, and he is a paraclatus in the Greek.

It's this, he's a legal helper, he's an empowerer, he's gonna be an advocate for you.

And then on top of that, he's gonna give you strength to do things that I expect you to do.

And even when you don't do the things that I expect you to do, he's gonna come and bring conviction to you, not to condemn you, but to cause you to come back to me and get resourced again by my rest.

And it's just this beautiful picture that we're not left as orphans, that we're not left powerless, even when we don't know how to pray as we ought.

The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we're sons of God.

And so I know I'm kind of rambling here, but it starts with the rest, seeing rest as not something to attain, but a person.

His name is Jesus.

Yes, and then through Jesus, we now are in a position of rest.

So, like I think about football, I was a middle linebacker.

So uh in my spot, you looked at the defense, I was the guy in the right behind the the bigger the butt in front of me, the more secure I felt, Keith.

That means my D-linemen were big and they kept people off of me.

But I was the second line of defense, and and if I stayed in my position, if I didn't try to do somebody else's position work, but I really found out who I was, what I was, you know, if I tried to be a defensive end, I would have lived in unrest.

But it's learning how to get comfortable with who he's designed us to be, and he puts us in a position, we're positioned in a state, like it's an inheritance.

This is not something we have to go try to get, it's already in us, and that's what I think so marvelous.

First Corinthians 2, Paul talks about how these things are spiritually discerned, meaning it we don't have the spirit that's of the world that leads to fear, but we have the spirit who is from above, right?

That reveals everything that's been freely given to us.

So every person that's listening, I want to encourage you, you have rest in you.

You may not have learned how to tap into that because you're getting pulled so much, but you are actually have rest in you, you have the spirit of rest in you.

And I think it comes down to this, Pastor Keith, it's learning how to relationally connect and mingle with the Lord.

And that sounds really mystical, but how do we actually draw from what's already in our possession?

Because here's what most people think of I gotta go get rest.

Yep, I gotta do Sabbath, I gotta do the Shabbat meal, I have to light the candles, I have to break the bread a certain way, I need to pray a certain blessing over my wife or it doesn't count.

I need to, yeah, you see, but it's that's that's the wrong way of thinking about it.

It's like, no, no, no, no.

That's thinking like you've got to do something to get Jesus to the table, not realizing that Jesus already is at the table, he already set the table, he's already given you the elements, he's already given you the meal, he's already given, and so all you're doing is responding through action, through interaction, just like we are on this call, we're responding, you're responding to the invitation that he gave in Matthew 11.

Come eat from this table.

I've already provided everything needed.

And then Jesus goes on and he says, Okay, then we come out of this, when we leave the table, I've got a yoke for you.

It's not heavy, it's not burdensome.

I'm gonna have you get in the yoke with me.

I'm gonna do most of the lifting, most of the carrying, but I'm gonna bring you along for the ride.

And as I do that, you're gonna grow and you're gonna develop.

He says, Learn from me, I'm meek, I'm gentle.

And then he says, once you learn that, you actually don't just have the gift of rest, you find rest.

And Jesus talks about two types of rest: the one that's given, which is reconciliation with the Father, that none of us can earn.

And then there's another rest we find.

So there's a given rest, and then there's another one we can find through yielding to the Holy Spirit, being in the yoke with Jesus, letting him do his best to lead us and do our best to let him lead.

And it's a day in, day out battle.

But I think maybe we could clear it up.

There's a there's a gift of rest, just like there's the peace with God.

Yes.

That's settled.

Yep, nothing you do or don't do can ever change your peace with God.

But there's another rest that you can find.

Finding that rest is actually participating in the very things He's designed us to participate in, like the Sabbath meal, like prayer, like meditation, like studying the word.

The disciplines now become this awesome opportunity to live from the place of rest.

So when I teach my kids at the communion table or at the Sabbath table, I pull up and here's what I say to them almost every time guys, we're not doing this to get Jesus at our table.

He's already right here.

Yes, and he's right inside of you.

And so what we have is an opportunity to come together as a family, agree together because two or more gathered, yeah, right?

He's right there, he's already here, he already set the table.

It's just kind of reframing it because otherwise, a Sabbath meal can turn into another attempt to get God at my table.

And meanwhile, he's been in your house all week.

You see what I mean?

It's like, don't compartmentalize.

This is like we we we are in the person of Jesus, we are in rest.

Rest is a position.

So I'll look at him and I'll go, we're taking communion from the place of rest.

Yeah, I use terms like that.

We come from rest, not trying to get it.

We already have it, and that's why I think the writer in Hebrews chapter 4 he says, let us strive.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

It's a weird statement.

Yep.

He says, Let us strive to enter his rest.

It's a weird statement.

I don't know about you, Keith.

I don't uh that's a weird statement.

It is because I've I've I've blabbered, I've blabbered too much.

I'm sorry.

This is this is so good though, because you know what I what I feel is when we talk about like this idea of like let us strive for rest.

You know, I'm I know that we could, you know, I don't have it in front of me, but I know we could break down what that word strive means and what the original writer was thinking.

But what I what I sense when I hear that is that that rest is going to take work.

And sometimes that work is trusting.

And sometimes we have to put those disciplines you were talking about into practice, which is how we flex those trust muscles.

And that could be our version of striving.

Again, this is not, I haven't exhaustively studied that word, but when I look at it and discern it through scripture, it does take work, and it is a little bit of striving to implement these disciplines so that we can grab a hold of it.

Because when I do think about different biblical examples of rest, and I and I think you you hit on so much when you talk about being in a proper position and not allowing yourself to get try to do someone else's role, I think that is just some of the things that can cause us to inherit unrest.

But I I often found myself thinking after after, of course, like Moses is leading the Israelites, they cross the Red Sea and they finally get themselves in a spot where they're getting ready to get God's laws and the way that God wants them to function.

I often found it interesting how like Sabbath was a really big deal that God really wanted them to get a hold of.

And and the and and you've hit on so much that I really feel like there's like it's echoes of it all through it, of course, in the ministry of Jesus, because of course there's the idea of manna.

Hey, on a Sabbath day, don't we're gonna, I'm gonna provide for you double.

We're we have to talk about trust here.

But I think the reason why, and I mean, this is what I want to hear from you.

I think one of the reasons why God wanted to get this into their system very early as they were beginning their journey, is because they're coming off of a of a 400-year oppressive situation where there were no days off.

They had to work nonstop in order to even validate themselves as not being equal.

So this is a world that they lived in.

And so now they're entering into a space where God is saying to them, I want you to like you're used to working by your hands.

Everything you have has been done by you.

I want you to get into a space where you can trust me and know that you have space where you can just rest.

And I often think about how God was reframing in their mind.

You're talking about reframing, he was trying to retrain them to get out of the slave or bondage mentality and turn into the position of being a son.

And so I think that's something that's so, so important.

So when we talk about biblical examples of rest, you gave the you gave this example, but I want you to talk a little bit more about how Jesus had so many needs.

Um, but there's moments where they say that he pulled away and he rested alone with the father.

So he did.

So for you, and he didn't, he yes, you're you're tapping into what you just articulated about the Israelites.

Think about it.

They their work in Egypt, these gods of Egypt, these lesser gods are so they never let you know where you stand, they always keep you insecure, and they always make you offer things.

And even if you don't offer right, they're gonna ding you.

And if you offer raw, even if you offer right, they're gonna demand more.

And and so the Israelites, they could never catch up.

Now God catches them up.

Now they're not in debt.

It's a different.

I remember when I was in debt, and then I got my first check.

I remember being a poor college student, and I got my first signing bonus.

And I'm telling you, that's what I'm saying.

It was and then I remember my first paycheck after the NFL.

I literally Keith, I literally cried, not tears of joy.

I was like, this is it?

What has happened?

But but it's like it's a mindset, it's it's moving from going, I'm always playing ketchup.

Always most humans live like they're always playing ketchup.

And and then all of a sudden, God goes, No, I caught you up.

The slate is clean.

Let's start living from, and that takes discipline.

I think that's the striving.

Yeah, it it takes discipline to not go back to the Other pattern of always having to grind it out and make it happen.

And most of our anxiety comes from what we don't have.

We're fearful about what we don't have, and so we keeps us from giving what we do have.

And here's what you see about Jesus: He would go away to a desolate place, the Bible would say, but it wasn't just to like take a snooze, it was to interact uninterrupted with the Father.

I do it, I'll just like every morning I have to get up before anybody else gets up in my house.

And I go out to my garage, and honestly, I will work out.

I try to burn a lot of calories so I can eat heartily throughout the day.

I don't work out to get in shape.

I work out to eat.

Okay, let's just get something straight.

Love it.

So I will literally, I tell I literally beat, it's just how I am.

I beat, I discipline my body.

There's something about discipline that brings peace to me.

And I think we've been over-graced so much in our culture.

Like we talk about grace all the time that we forget what it is.

Grace is actually empowerment to do the things that are required.

It's not the excuse to keep doing things that aren't.

It's the empowerment.

And that's what you see about peace.

Peace is a possession, but it's also power.

Peace is a place of so I work out and then I'll get my plyo.

I've got my boys, I've got four boys, so they're all in athletics.

So I've got a plyo box.

I pull a work, my workout bench up to my plyo box.

I put my iPad right in front of on the plyo box, and I take out my prayers, and I take out my they're written, and I just begin without any interruption, nobody else around.

I just begin to open up my airwaves, and I begin to fill my garage with praise, with worship, with adoration.

And I don't know if that moves him, but it sure moves me.

And and I think but I had to first discipline myself, put myself in a position where I had to pull away from nor everything else, including other humans who I love immensely.

Yes.

But I try to give him my first fruit of my day.

And I think Jesus did that.

I think he got up early before all the other disciples.

I think he spent time with the Father.

I think when he was stressed out, he knew better than to try to go feed a bunch of people.

He knew he had to go withdraw.

See, Jesus understood his limitations as a human, and he was led by the Spirit.

Just like he was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, he was led by the Spirit sometimes into the desolate place, but it was rest with interaction.

And I think that's where we could miss it.

I I actually do better on little sleep.

I can do great on little sleep if I've had great interaction with the Lord.

That's true.

Because it uninterrupted interaction with the Lord, which is sometimes me releasing his word, sometimes me sitting and waiting on a word, sometimes I don't hear a thing, but it doesn't matter because there's something about just being in his presence that the word of God declares in his presence is this fullness of joy.

And I just think if even if it's five minutes, even if it's two minutes, everybody's got two minutes.

Even if it's just a couple minutes in his presence, Jesus just knew it's better that I go away than to try pouring out from empty.

I think we live on empty so much that that that we we don't even realize we're empty.

And because we're usually pretty resilient, we can actually do really good things on empty.

My truck still drives, and I test it every every uh uh uh every certain number of miles when my E, my, my thing goes to E, and my little digital thing says you've got 50 miles to empty.

Here's the deal: my truck works just as good with a teeny bit of gas in it as if it has a full tank.

I think that's the deception.

I think we think we can just keep going off fumes just because we can run hard.

But what if we had a full tank?

And you never had the anxiety of worrying about, man, am I gonna run out?

And I think that's where he's trying to get us, striving to internet.

I already got a full tank.

But there are times I need to get refueled.

And Keith, you know as well as I do as a as your minister in the Word of God.

Jesus, remember John 4, he ministered to that woman at the well, and they were all hungry and tired from the journey.

All the other disciples go away and they they come back with food and they look at Jesus, and something about him, his countenance is looking good, and and they're like, Man, who came and fed you?

Yeah, and he's like, guys, you're missing it.

You I have food you guys don't know about.

And I think there's fuel, but I think he got peace and rest from spirit-led ministry.

Wow, there's the key word spirit-led obedience, spirit-led ministry, spirit-led love.

We can do a lot in our own strength, but spirit-led, that's just, and I don't know if we want to talk about that, but I'm just I'm trying to throw, it's like a fire hydrant got opened up in me.

That's great.

I'm trying to just like overwhelm all of you with the reality that rest is a person, it's a position, it's a possession, it's permission, and it's power.

Wow.

And that's what rest is.

So, yes, strive to enter that kind of rest because it's found in one place, it's found in Jesus through the Holy Spirit working inside of us.

Man, you you hit on so much.

Like it's it's it's ministering to me.

And there's a couple of things that you said that that I'm hearing.

First and foremost, um, I need to change my workout strategy because you're working out not to get in shape, but so that you can eat without judgment or any form of condemnation.

That's the key.

Oh, that is that's the key that I'll be making immediately.

The other thing is, man, um, you really are like in the presence of God during your workout.

And those are things that, depending on what I'm doing, I don't often engage that because here's what I've seen.

And all sincerity, I've seen the byproduct of you living a life of doing that, of having that routine, of having that discipline in your life.

I've seen the prayers that you have written down as a result of that time with God.

I've seen the words that God has downloaded into you as a result of that.

So, again, other thing that I hear, it's apparently I need to wake up earlier.

I need to um I need to work out exclusively so that I can eat and spend time with God because it seems like those are some rich moments because I see it in your life.

But but one of the things that I that I'm that I want to ask you to share, and we're gonna we're gonna close with this, but I want you to just share it um as you feel led.

We talked about being spirit-led.

Um, I I want to I really want to spend some time just encouraging those people who are trying to figure out how to get started.

For so many people, they have their rhythms and routines and and patterns that maybe they have to figure out at the time of this recording, recording it um during a quarantine.

Maybe by the time people see it, it may have loosened up a little bit.

We could be in a in a unique space.

But we have people that are trying to establish new rhythms and new patterns in our lives and that striving, that discipline, that trusting God.

What do you say to the single mom that wants to figure out how do I do that?

What do you say to the family that they're they're nittly tight together, but they're still trying to figure out how to do that?

Just how do people get started with putting these things into place when it seems as if they don't have any idea of the fact that they're even on fumes?

Because right now the illusion is if I can just get my one or two times a year vacation, that's when I'll get rest.

But no, you can have it right now.

So so help us understand how we can grab a hold of it right now in the context of the busyness that is already arresting every single moment, so it seems.

Yeah, it's a tricky one because you it always every journey starts with that first step.

And I think it's it's it's number one realizing your need for it, the the awareness I need.

And number two is repent.

Repent doesn't mean, oh, I feel so bad, I haven't entered into his rest.

That's the opposite of what we're talking about.

It it's it's repentance is an awareness.

It's it's there's a promise.

There's a promise of rest.

That's what the writer Hebrews says, while there still remains a promise, let us then strive to enter it.

And so it starts with this humility.

I think it all starts with humility.

And it starts with this thing that goes, I'm aware there's a promise of rest in my life that I currently don't experience the fruit of.

So talk to him like he's not disappointed in you.

That's good.

See, if you're dealing with somebody that has rest, you're not gonna get short, snippy responses.

See, when when I'm well rested as a dad, and you bring me a bunch of questions, I have an unbelievable capacity just to sit and listen to him, not cut you off, not make you feel stupid for asking the question.

But man, when I'm not rested, and you start bringing me a bunch of questions, but here's the deal, our father's fully rested.

So good.

And I think it maybe, I just feel like this is what the spirit's telling me, is that maybe it starts with just this mindset.

When my open my mouth to my Lord, I actually believe that he's fully rested, and so I could ask him anything, just like James says, I could ask him anything, and he would give me wisdom without a correction.

And I think that's that's the key, is the starting point is confidence that you're talking to the one who is perfect rest, and so you can draw near with boldness and confidence, like Hebrews 4 4.16 says, to the throne of grace.

It's actually a throne of grace, which means it's a throne of empowerment.

He says you can find grace and receive mercy, it's the place of interaction.

So I think it starts there, Keith, just the simple trust that the one I'm talking to isn't disappointed in me, isn't frustrated with me, he's fully rested.

I'm gonna get his best.

And even when we bring our worst, we're still getting his best.

So maybe it starts with that, and then just the simple approach of daring to draw near.

James says, draw near and trust that he will draw near to you.

And then when you feel him draw near to you, draw a little bit nearer to him.

And I think that requires humility, courage, and moving beyond good intention.

Good intentions fool us.

Like some are gonna hear this, they're like, I'm gonna designate, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna strive to enter.

But but move moving beyond that, I've done it a hundred times, moving beyond good intention and just start start at some of your stickiest points.

Yeah, like in college, Keith, I lived with a bunch of roommates, and and over time we all would build up these dishes in the sink.

Nobody ever wanted to touch them.

And I remember I was like, okay, nobody else wants to do it.

And and I went after the dirtiest one.

I went after the filthiest one.

I think sometimes we just got to bring the thing that brings the most shame and just bring it out in the open.

Don't start with something easy.

Start with something that actually could you feel like causes a stumbling block between you and the Lord.

Bring it.

Just bring it.

Start dealing with that, and then know this.

God is just as glorified by your development as He is by your deliverance.

Some of the greatest joys I have as a father is watching my kids grow and develop, not all their breakthroughs.

And God is glorified by incremental change.

Yes.

I think we sometimes in the church don't give enough space to give people permission.

Do you know that your father's glorified by the fact that you dared to just draw near?

You know, it's little things like he's glorified by incremental change.

There's a power with incremental growth.

Don't try to get where somebody else is at, just start.

Yes.

Little bite-sized moments, little steps.

And I think it's different for every one of us.

Hopefully that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense.

And I think, again, you know, every time you speak, there's so much that that you say.

But that that last piece that you said, like, let's let's not be consumed with like looking at someone else's journey.

Um, and I'm paraphrasing that, but ultimately I do think that sometimes comparison, um, specifically as a parent or even even in as a pastor, no matter what role you in, you that that social media or just relationships, you can begin to look at what someone else is doing, and it can create this anxiety or stress or cause you to get out of position because now you feel like you should be doing a whole bunch of things that maybe God has not called you to do, but be faithful where you are.

So I I love everything that you just said, man.

So I want to thank you so much for taking the time.

I really do believe that you really helped a lot of people with what you just shared.

So, what I want to ask you to do, man, is I want to ask you to just pray a blessing.

Pray a blessing on every person that may hear this in real time, someone who may hear it a year from now.

But I think that this is a prophetic word that's not that's not bound by time.

But no matter when someone hears it, it's gonna be right time.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Lord.

Father, we just Keith and I, we just agree right now for everyone that's listening, everyone that's watching.

Holy Spirit, we ask you to go right now into to just literally do what Paul said you would do.

Reveal to your children everything that they've received that's been freely given to them, especially this reservoir, this possession of rest.

Jesus, I'm asking you right now to reveal yourself as the supreme person of rest.

That as people draw near to you, it wouldn't be just a scripture we read in Matthew 11, but but literally, people that are watching right now would hear you, Jesus, invite them, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls.

Take my yoke upon you, learn from me.

I'm gentle, I'm meek, and you will find rest for your souls.

Lord, we agree with the priests of old when they prayed over the people of Israel.

We just agree right now that you would bless them.

Not only bless them with extreme joy and extreme favor, but you would keep them.

Lord, they wouldn't just get a gift, but they would also get something you would keep them, you would keep them bound with it.

You would keep them, and then you would do something else.

You would literally make your face, your very presence, shine upon them and be gracious to them.

And and that promise, you would turn your countenance.

God, would they see that you're a father that when you turn your face to them, it's not a face of consternation, it's not a face of frustration, it's the face of joy, it's the face of rest.

Let them, as you turn your countenance to them, let them experience that supernatural rest, which you call shalom.

God, would you release that shalom?

Nothing broken, nothing missing, all things whole, all things well, even though maybe we're not yet all the way there, but Father, right now, you would infiltrate through all darkness, you would into this space.

And we invite you now, Holy Spirit, to come and re-release and reveal peace in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, Pastor Brian, that was that was so powerful, super encouraging, and I truly know um that people are going to be blessed as a result of it.

So I want to thank you and and and send blessings your way for you creating this space um to come and be with us.

I can't wait for you to come and preach um here on location again once we get back to being able to gather, but I know we can still have moments like this where we can touch space.

So I'm grateful for your history.

I'm thankful for your investment.

I'm praying for you and your seven children and your workout routine and your diet, all that stuff.

I'm with you, brother.

Dude, there ain't no such thing as a diet.

I play for the tie.

I play for the tie.

Listen, all of you that try to work out, listen, burn enough calories so you can eat well.

The Lord calls us to feast a lot more in scriptures than he calls us to fast.

Just think about all the feasts throughout the entirety of the year.

Praise God.

Amen.

Love you, brother, man.

Can't wait to see you.

Love you too.

See you later.

All right.

Bye bye.

Thanks so much for joining us today for the No More Answers breakout session.

This is our final session for the virtual team conference.

We hope that you enjoyed it.

We hope you enjoyed Team Month as a whole.

We can't wait to get back together with you guys.

We love you.

Praise in peace.