Message - Rest For Your Soul (Part 1)

All right, so uh I want to ask a really obvious question to get this started this morning.

Um have you ever been so physically tired that you found yourself doing something that made no sense?

And you almost had to like snap out of some fog that you were in, going, like, what am I doing?

Whenever I was getting used to having kids, um, like, and and what that means really is being woken up like every two hours consistently, which is fine for the first few nights.

You know, when you see parents with new children and you ask them how it's going, and they're like, Oh, it's great.

They sleep really well.

You're like, oh, yeah, okay.

Um, that's not gonna last.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just one of those things.

Maybe you're one of the lucky ones and and your kids just all slept.

Mine didn't.

And so um, you know, when you're a new parent and you're getting used to this whole, like, oh yes, sleeping through a night without being interrupted, what was that like?

You get to this point of exhaustion, and uh, you start waking up wondering, like, did I did I sleep?

Did I even sleep?

I remember one morning, pretty early on in the whole uh new parent experience.

I got up, I was like a zombie.

I was in a fog.

It had been a really rough night, and I think it had been like three or four rough nights in a row.

And so I went to make myself breakfast.

And so I went to the pantry and I got some cereal out, went for the cinnamon toast crunch.

And you know, I'm an adult man, and if you're judging me right now for eating cinnamon toast crunch, this place is about love.

We don't judge each other.

Um, cinnamon toast crunch is the best cereal, and it's not even really debatable, right?

Like, is it even a debate?

I mean, come on, it's the best.

If you say like raisin bran, just leave, just go.

Just get it.

I'm just joking.

I'm just playing.

Um, someone is like, I love raisin bran.

Why?

I'm just I was trying to think of what's the most opposite of cinnamon toast crunch I could think of.

It was raisin bran.

So I grabbed some cinnamon toast crunch, you know, I got a bowl, and I went in the fridge, grabbed some orange juice, and and I poured the orange juice into the bowl with the cinnamon toast crunch, and I got a spoon, and then I ate it, and then I went, wow, what just happened?

Like what it I just so you know, I didn't stumble onto some amazing recipe.

Like orange juice and cinnamon toast crunch do not go together.

And it wasn't like the orange juice looked like the milk in the fridge.

It wasn't like they were even in similar-shaped containers.

Like orange juice is, well, it's orange.

And so milk is not.

I was just so tired that I didn't know what I was doing.

Like I grabbed orange juice and I poured it into my cereal, and it was awful, it was horrible.

Um, but that's what happens sometimes when you're physically tired, right?

When you get exhausted, when you're spent, you find yourself doing things that you just, what am I even doing?

But there's another type of exhaustion that we've all experienced.

In fact, I think it's even more persistent than physical exhaustion.

It's something we're gonna talk about for the next few weeks, and that's the exhaustion of your soul.

What do you do when your soul is spent?

And what I mean by soul is really in the New Testament, the word for soul is suke, and it's a Greek word that means your will, your emotions, your motivations, your desires.

It's like that deep part of you that really motivates much of what you do in life.

It's just kind of like one level higher than your spirit, which is an even deeper part of who you are.

You've kind of got your spirit, your soul, your body.

Your soul is, it's important.

Jesus talked about the soul a lot.

Our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions and our desires and our motivations, all of those things that drive us.

What do you do when your soul is tired?

Megan talked earlier during Lord's Supper about our need for strength.

And even though we're married, uh, we don't really communicate that much about, well, we do.

I mean, I don't mean that.

We have great communication, I'm not saying that.

But uh, but we didn't communicate about what we were gonna talk about this morning.

I didn't know what she was gonna talk about during Lord's Supper, and so it was interesting to me as she said that God gave her the word strength.

And I was thinking, like, well, Lord, today is about rest.

So, our what gives?

And if you don't have rest, guess what you don't have?

You don't have strength.

So if you want strength for your soul, which you do by the way, because without a healthy soul, you can't have a healthy life, you need rest for your soul.

And if you don't have rest for your soul, then watch out.

The things that can happen, I mean, my goodness.

Just like I said, every once in a while, if you're physically tired, you find yourself doing something that doesn't make sense, going, wait, why am I doing this?

Oh, I'm I'm tired.

I need sleep, I need rest.

If your soul is tired, if your soul is spent, you'll find yourself doing all kinds of things that don't make sense either.

And you recognize, whoa, there's something going on inside of me, something isn't right.

I'll give you an example.

I'll pull the curtain back a little bit for me.

Uh, you may not know this, it's kind of a dearly held secret in my life, but I have a son who plays basketball.

Um sorry, if you've been here long, that's like a running joke.

Uh what's really cool though is now I can say that I have a son and a daughter who play basketball.

Lily had her first season this year, and it was great.

This is actually her yesterday.

We told her to do whatever the girl she was guarding was doing, and she took it really, really serious.

She's like, look at her.

That's her number four there.

We said, stay in front of her.

She failed there.

I, yeah, we're good.

But look, a block that counts.

So you can move on.

So I have a daughter that plays basketball too.

Pray for me, because um actually I'm just really excited about that.

My my oldest started playing basketball when he was in the first grade.

And he was just kind of instantly really good.

And so we we worked hard, we practiced, and and he was having just a ton of success at a really young age.

He was scoring 25, 30 points a game in the third grade, and even had a game as a fourth grader where he scored 22 points in the first quarter.

And if you've ever been around elementary basketball, that's not normal.

Um, and so as a dad, it was like, you know, proud dad stuff, right?

So I would film every game.

And I would tell people, if you ask me, like, why do you film every game?

It's like, oh, I would say the the token answer is uh I have family that lives out of town and they don't get to see them, and so I send those videos, and that's like maybe like a tenth of a percent of why I actually film the games, mainly because I just take a lot of joy and and borderline obsession, and sometimes it's really unhealthy, and I do it for me, okay?

That's what I'm trying to say.

And so I found myself like a year ago doing something really odd.

And it's like I didn't even recognize that I was doing it until this one moment it clicked, and I was like, oh, that's that's probably not good.

I would I would watch the videos of of Liam's games, and I would find myself not watching him, but watching the frustration on the other team's coach and fans, and like like taking a lot of satisfaction out of it.

You know?

Keep in mind, these are elementary school children, okay?

And these are like great people who have volunteered to coach elementary sports, which if you do that, by the way, if you're like an elementary sports coach, well done, great job.

Um, some of y'all are nuts and you need to pull it back a little bit, but most of all, you guys are mostly you guys are great.

But like seriously it's a huge thing to do.

I would find myself watching these games, and I I was not watching my child, I was watching other people's misery and going, yeah.

And I had a moment where I went, that's probably not from God.

You know what I mean?

And I mean, literally, it was like this this weird moment where I went, Whoa, what am I doing?

Kind of like the orange juice in the in the cereal moment.

Like, what is going on?

Something's not right with my soul.

There's some insecurity that I must have that I am, I am filling with something as ridiculous as this.

When your soul is not at rest, you'll find that manifesting in a variety of different ways.

You know, it might be insecurity, like I just mentioned.

Maybe you find yourself constantly worried about what other people think.

And you're always suspicious of whether or not the people around you are pleased with you.

And maybe you even find yourself asking very often, hey, is everything okay?

Are we good?

You ask that question all the time because you need almost constant reinforcement that, yeah, it's good, it's fine, we're good.

You post pictures or posts to social media and you you have to check to see if people have liked it.

Or if that one person that you posted the picture really to see, or the post, that one person that you had in mind when you did it, have they liked it?

Have they responded?

There's sort of an insecurity that drives that, and that's indicative of a soul that is not at rest.

Maybe it's sort of a constant cynicism, this belief that everything's just getting worse.

It's really easy to have that belief right now, depending on what you watch and who you listen to.

You can be convinced really quickly that things have never been this bad and they're only going to get worse.

That, by the way, is not the perspective of people with faith.

But it's really easy to get in that mindset, to be fixated on all the things that are going wrong and to become consumed with that, and that can even become personal, where you see all the things that are wrong in your life.

Or you become convinced that things are about to go really poorly, you know, you have a headache, and your instant thought is that it must be something incredibly serious.

Because there's this cynicism that just is pervasive and it causes you to constantly fixate on the negative.

That is indicative of a soul that is not at rest.

So many of the things that we struggle with as people anxiety, depression, fear, worry, stress, all of it, all of it, those are symptoms of a soul that is not at rest.

A soul that is not at rest is easily panicked, easily frustrated, constantly detoured when it comes to experiencing the joy and the peace that God has for us.

But a soul that's at rest, a soul that actually has genuine rest, that is a soul that is strong.

That is a soul that is ready, ready for what God has next.

And God always has something ready for us.

So I want to ask the question.

Be honest with yourself.

Is your soul at rest?

And if the answer is yeah, my soul is absolutely at rest, then that's awesome, that's exciting, but be on guard.

Because we do have an enemy, and he is not content with your soul being at rest.

And this life will do everything that it can do to pull you from that rest.

But if your soul isn't at rest, if you can say no, it's not, then do you want it to be?

And how does that happen?

How do we get that?

That's what we're going to talk about for the next four weeks.

Rest for your soul.

Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30.

Matthew 11:28–30

Jesus says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you.

Because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.

I love Jesus.

I love him for so many different reasons.

I love the things that he does.

I love the things that he says.

And sometimes you you read a statement or a teaching of Jesus, and in that one statement, in those few sentences, you get a glimpse of his heart.

And you see the genuine love that he has for people and the genuine desire that he has for all of us to have something so beautiful, so sweet.

And it just makes you want to sit at his feet and learn.

This is one of those statements.

I want to read it again.

I want you to really hear the heart of Jesus in this.

This is what he desires for you.

He says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

My yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.

Understand that if you're carrying a heavy burden this morning, Jesus didn't give it to you.

Because he doesn't do that.

The burden he gives is light.

And so I'm finding in my life that when I feel weighed down and burdened, I am almost always carrying something that I'm not meant to carry.

And sometimes I even convince myself that this is something God has given me.

Oh, no, no, no.

If God gives it to you, it is not a heavy burden.

He takes the heavy burdens away.

The burden he gives you is light.

That's a promise that Jesus makes.

How do we get rest for our souls?

Jesus tells us right here.

And for the next four weeks, we're gonna look at four aspects of what he says.

Really, really simple stuff, but powerful.

Number one, he says, Come to me.

Come to me.

You've got to come to Jesus if you want rest.

Number two, we'll talk about this next week.

Let him lead you.

Let Jesus lead you.

He says, Take my yoke upon you.

We'll talk about that next week.

Number three is let him teach you.

Is Jesus your teacher?

Is his perspective the one that you listen to the most often, the most closely?

Is his perspective the one that shapes the way you think more than anyone else?

And finally, number four is let go of heavy burdens.

We're gonna spend the next few weeks talking about these things, and the result, I pray, is that we learn how to be people who have souls at rest.

That we learn how to live this life that Jesus offers us, this life where we can live freely and lightly, not a life that is devoid of problems or tough circumstances, but a life that does not weigh us down.

And if you feel weighed down this morning, know that your God, who loves you, his desire is to take what is weighing you down off of your shoulders and give you rest for your soul.

Is there anyone who hears that that just says, yeah, I want to sign up for that?

Like I'm up for that.

Anybody want that?

Because I want that bad.

And as I've prepared for this over the last several weeks, I've just learned I'm really bad at rest.

I'm not very good at physical rest, but I'm even worse at rest for my soul.

And I'm excited about learning from Jesus together.

So we're gonna start with number one today, come to Jesus.

Now, you've probably heard the phrase, have a come to Jesus meeting.

And I don't know where that phrase came from in terms of the way we understand it today.

Like, like if someone says that they're gonna go have a come to Jesus meeting with someone, is that good or bad?

What is that usually?

That's bad.

Whoever came up with that phrase must not have known Jesus very well.

Because it should be that if someone says, I'm gonna have a come to meet uh to Jesus meeting, it'd be like, oh wow, you're gonna go get encouraged and inspired and maybe healed and just affirmed, and he's gonna lift you up and give you an identity that's so much greater than what you've ever had before.

It's like, no, I'm about to get yelled at.

Um, you know?

So hi, we we got to change that phrase.

We're gonna have a come to Jesus meeting for real this morning.

And the kind of come to Jesus meeting that like he promises where what you receive is what you need.

No one's gonna get yelled at today.

At least I hope.

Something would have to go terribly wrong.

I'm not planning on yelling really at all.

Um, might get a little excited, but you know, not not yelling.

Come to Jesus.

Here's the simple truth.

And by the way, this is a conviction that as a church we kind of exist for.

Like this is almost every Sunday.

It should be this at least.

Jesus is the answer.

Jesus is the answer.

Jesus, he's not just the one that has the answers, although that is true, and as we talk in a few weeks about what it means to let Jesus teach us, we'll learn that Jesus has the answers.

But it's more than that.

Jesus doesn't just have the answers for your life, Jesus is the answer for your life.

Everything that you truly desire.

If you really go deep with it, if you go beyond the surface level, everything that you truly desire is Jesus.

He's everything.

And Jesus has the audacity to really talk about that.

That's one of the things I love about Jesus.

He's willing to say it like it is.

I mean, and he's very bold, right?

He says, Come to me.

I will give you rest.

He's saying that he's the answer and that he's the one who can provide the rest that we need.

It's not the only time in Scripture that Jesus tells us that we need him.

Not just something that he has, we need him.

We see it in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Actually, let's look at uh chapter 11, rather, verses 24 through 27.

Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock, though the rain comes in torrents, and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock.

But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand, and when the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

I actually think that is Matthew 7, now that I say it.

But whatever.

You have a Bible?

Look it up.

Um can you imagine if I said that this morning and meant it like personally?

If I said, hey, anyone who listens to my teachings and does what I say, you're smart.

You're like a person who builds your house on rock.

But if you don't listen to what I say, you're a fool and you build your house on sand.

How many of you would just get up and leave?

None of you?

Wow, okay, I've got a lot more power than I thought.

Um, okay, let's let's let's talk about it.

No, I'm just joking.

Come on.

If I said that my personal teachings were the were the foundation for your life, I please, if I ever say that, do leave.

You need to go to a different church if that ever comes out of anyone.

Like if I said, you need what I have to say, no, but Jesus said that.

I mean, it's audacious to make that claim.

He says, You need me.

He says in in John chapter 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

John 14:6

No one can come to the Father except through me.

Not a lot of wiggle room in that statement.

He says, I am the way.

I am the truth, I am the life.

That's a bold claim.

John chapter 5, verses 39 through 40, he's talking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day.

John 5:39–40

He says, You search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me.

Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.

Jesus over and over again tells us that he is the answer.

That Jesus is the answer.

And what I'm what I'm gonna say till I'm blue in the face today, if I have to, is that Jesus is the answer.

He is what you need, he is who you need.

And like at the end of the day, I think we we all understand as people that we need someone more than anything.

We we don't need something, we need someone, that's something we say from time to time here at his hands.

We need someone.

And this is something that we're hardwired to understand.

Like those of you that own businesses or you're in management at your company, you know that it really it's about the people you have on your team.

It's it's about it's about who you've got.

If you're a coach, there's nothing that replaces having the right, the right players on a team.

The very first thing that Jesus does in his ministry is is recruit.

He finds the who, he finds the people.

We're hardwired to need people.

And we see that by the way, evidenced in our culture very much right now in politics.

It's kind of the easiest example.

Politics should really be about policy.

You know, politics, policy, those words are closely related, but it's never really about policy, it's always about people.

It's always about personas.

And every few years, there's another person that you're supposed to put your hope in.

And this person, this person has the vision that we need, this person has the temperament that we need, this person has the ideas that we need, and almost always, let's just be honest, they all, they just disappoint.

And then we do it again.

And there's posters and there's slogans and there's a person's name, and it's like, we just keep doing it.

There's scandals, there's all kinds of ill-gotten gains, it's just so corrupt.

And then we have Jesus who says, I'm the answer, I am the one you need, and try to find corruption in Jesus.

He's unimpeachable.

Try to find he is, you can't find it.

Because Jesus just wasn't interested at all in his time on this earth and playing the game.

That's why the Pharisees and all the leaders of his day, they couldn't figure him out because he just didn't value any of the things that they value.

There's no corruption in Jesus.

He never, you know, do this read scripture, read the stories of Jesus, the miracles that he performed, find one that he performed for himself.

Jesus didn't use his power, his influence to up his lifestyle.

It wasn't like he got popular and all of a sudden, wow, he's got a nicer donkey, or however that worked back then.

I don't know how it worked, you know, like ooh.

In fact, there was a man who came to Jesus and said, I want to fire.

You and Jesus looked at him and said, Really?

Because I'm homeless.

And you're not going to have it better than me.

Try to find scandal with Jesus.

Here's the scandal, by the way.

The scandal of Jesus is that he loved people society said were unlovable.

That was his biggest scandal.

That, like, there was a leper early in his ministry, and leprosy was a huge issue, a huge pandemic in their time.

Like we're dealing with a pandemic, that's a word that we've been talking about for far too long now, and and like that's how it feels anyway.

But they had like this pandemic called leprosy.

A little bit more severe.

And uh and and leprosy was was rampant in their culture.

And they didn't understand, you know, germs and virology and all that like we do today, uh, but they understood enough to know that if you hung out with lepers, you got leprosy.

And so lepers were cast to the side, lepers had to live in separate colonies.

If lepers ever went into public, they had to avoid physical contact with all people at all times.

And if you touched a leper, that was against the law.

And so early in his ministry, this man comes to Jesus who has leprosy and he wants to be healed, and of course, Jesus heals him, but he heals him by touching him.

And he didn't have to do that.

Because there's all kinds of people Jesus healed just by saying a word.

He would just look at someone and say, Your faith has healed you.

So why did he touch the leper when that's the one person you're not supposed to touch?

Because Jesus understood that this man needed more than just his flesh to be healed.

He needed his heart to be healed, he needed love, and Jesus was willing to do that, and it was scandalous.

He touched a leper.

Like that was a big deal.

They were all talking about Jesus touched a leper, and they should have said, Well, yeah, but did you see what happened to the leper?

Like he doesn't have leprosy anymore.

That's what we should be talking about, but they were so fixated on the fact that Jesus did that.

If you want to find a scandal in Jesus' life, it's that Jesus loved people that society said you shouldn't love.

Great news.

If you ever feel like you shouldn't be loved, Jesus loves you.

He loves you.

Period.

End of story.

Doesn't matter what you've done or where you've been, that's who he is.

Jesus is the answer.

You know, when someone really is the answer, they're gonna have three things in their life and who they are that you get value from.

They're gonna have some version of truth, love, and power.

Truth, love, and power.

Jesus is truth personified.

When you sit at his feet and you learn from him, you'll grow to understand very quickly that Jesus not only knows everything, but he knows everything about you.

In fact, one of the first stories of Jesus speaking to someone and sharing the truth about who he was, the Messiah, is the story of the woman at the well in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

And and Jesus tells her everything about herself.

In fact, that's her testimony.

She runs into town and she says, Hey, you gotta come meet this guy.

He told me everything about me.

Jesus knows everything about you.

When you sit at his feet, you sit at the source of truth itself.

He can tell you anything that you need to know.

He can reveal anything that you need revealed to your heart.

He can help you understand yourself.

And let's be honest, how many of us struggle to understand ourselves?

Why do I do what I do?

Anyone but me in that boat, by the way, I could use some encouragement, just a few hands.

Okay, good.

Elliot, thank you for raising your hand.

I appreciate it, man.

Love you because I respect you.

And knowing that you deal with that, we're good.

Okay, so not just me.

Jesus can tell you anything you need to know.

Because he's truth.

You want to talk about power?

Oh my goodness.

Like Jesus, you want to talk about power.

Jesus died.

And then three days later, like he was just showing off, got back up.

You know, it could have been like three hours later, but if it had been three hours later, everyone would have been like, that's amazing.

But I mean, maybe he was maybe he wasn't dead.

You know, like three days it was like, no, I'm gonna make this tough.

Jesus has power.

That's why, by the way, in Philippians chapter four, the apostle Paul says that he's learned the secret to be content in life, and it was the knowledge that that no matter what he goes through, he could do all things through Christ who strengthens him.

Jesus has the power that you need to strengthen you.

I'm always reminded of this story in Jesus' life where he shows up on the shore of this place and there's a man who's possessed by demons.

And I know that in our culture today, that can like some of you are like, yeah, demons.

Some of you are like, this has gotten weird now.

Um and if that's okay, it's all right to feel that way.

What I will say is that one of the core teachings of scripture is that there is a spiritual world.

And there's good in that spiritual world, there's God the Father, and there's also a lot of a lot of dark stuff.

And I think we actually have the ability to recognize that far easier than we think sometimes.

Like if you ever looked at the world and been like, man, it almost seems like there's something really malevolent going on behind the scenes.

It's like ding ding ding, there is.

There is.

And Jesus, he's he's my source, right?

Jesus is who I go to, and so it's really easy for me to figure out what I believe.

I just look at what Jesus believes, and Jesus clearly believed in the supernatural, and he clearly believed in in demons.

And so there's this story where this guy shows up and he's like, he's possessed, and it's intense and it's crazy.

I've never seen anything like this in my own life, but it's incre it's crazy.

And Jesus finds out through a conversation that there's like thousands of demons in this guy.

Demons are very small, apparently.

And you can have, I'm sure that was it's probably not good to make a joke about demons, but I don't know.

Sometimes you're on stage and you're talking and you can only see half of people's faces, you just you feel in insecure.

So that was my joke.

All right.

So tiny little demons, thousands of them in this guy.

And uh, and when when this man filled with a multitude of demons sees Jesus, the natural instinctive response of the demons is to scream in terror and fall down at the feet of Jesus.

And so I had a friend of mine a few years ago who called, he called me and he said, Man, I'm struggling.

I just I feel like there's this presence that just is like haunting me.

I think it might be a demon.

And I was like, Great news.

You need to get like 3,000 more demons, apparently, before they even have courage in the face of Jesus.

Because if 2,000 demons scream out in terror in the presence of Jesus, what's one demon gonna do?

Right?

Like Jesus has power.

And that's historically, by the way, why we're even talking about Jesus right now.

The entire point of his ministry, the whole, the whole impetus for people going to see him is that he did things.

People would hear that Jesus could heal blindness and sickness, and they would go to him and just understand historically, even if you're a skeptic, think about how quickly the movement of Jesus would have died if that power wasn't there.

If people heard, oh, there's this guy, and he can heal, he can heal blind people and people who can't walk and people who can't hear and leprosy, let's go to him.

And if people went by the multitudes and now it turns out he can't do it, none of us would be talking about Jesus today.

His movement would have died long before he did.

But he had power.

And you want to talk about love?

Jesus, the love of Jesus, guys, it's unlike anything else in this world.

And I don't care if you're 15 or 50, I don't care if you're like the most independent, strong person that any of us have ever met before.

If you have a deficit of real love in your life, no amount of success, no amount of money, no amount of accomplishment, no amount of physical pleasure will ever be able to fill that void.

Almost everything we do, amen.

Almost everything we do that's self-destructive is some version of us trying to find love that we feel like is missing in your life.

But if you have the love of Jesus, if you have the love of Jesus in your life, if you experience that love, if you get just a taste of the love that he has for you, it is it is life-changing.

I don't think I ever really had an experience with that until I was about 25, 26 years old, and it brought me to my knees.

And I couldn't help but cry.

And I'm not like a crier.

I struggle with that actually.

But in that moment, just getting a taste of the love that he actually had for me, it changed everything.

So in Jesus, you get truth, you get power, you get love.

Jesus is the answer.

He absolutely 100% is the answer.

Now we're at that point in the message where you don't know if you have to clap or not when I say Jesus is the answer?

You don't, but you can't.

Um He's the answer.

And so whatever you think you need this morning, it starts with Jesus.

Whatever deficit you have, whatever struggles you have, I'm telling you, Jesus, he's the answer.

It all begins by coming to him.

And I want to say this it doesn't so much matter how you come to him, as much as it matters that you just come, period.

You know, if you look at the story of Jesus, you find some really interesting moments.

For example, in the book of Mark, there's this woman who has an issue and she needs healed.

And I just want to say this, by the way, if you need physical healing this morning, God does that.

He does that all the time.

And I used to be really skeptical about that.

And uh, and then I I've I've seen it, I've experienced it.

When my oldest son was born, he was in the NICU for his first 10 days, and the doctors had no idea what was wrong, no idea what was going on.

He struggled to breathe, he had seizures, all kinds of stuff.

And every time they came to us and told us the possible diagnosis, it got worse and worse and worse.

And in a moment of absolute desperation, I got on my knees and I prayed in a way that I've never prayed before, and I really honestly haven't prayed since because I haven't been that desperate since.

And they brought him back from a test, and from that moment on he never had another breathing episode, he never had another seizure, and you can clap for that.

The best thing, the best thing is that um they actually told us when we left, now look, don't be surprised if he's not like a very coordinated kid.

Um, because like, you know, what he's gone through, like he just may not, you know, I don't know, he's 22 points in one quarter, and I'm like, it's pretty coordinated, it works.

And if people ever look at me and say, well, how do you know that was Jesus?

The answer is so simple.

He's the one I asked.

Like, I didn't have to wonder who did it.

Like, I just prayed to Jesus in the name of Jesus, and then what I prayed for happened, and I'm like, I wonder who did that?

You know, like don't don't be so smart that you're stupid.

Like, just you know what I mean?

Like, just believe that Jesus does what he does, he has power.

And so there's all these stories of physical healing, and there's this woman in in Mark who has a desperate need, and she has so much faith, so much faith, Mark chapter 5, verse 28, that she thinks to herself, if I can just touch his robe, I'll be healed.

Mark 5:28

That's a lot of faith.

She's like, All I gotta do is touch the just the a piece of his shirt, and I'll be good.

And so she does that.

She sneaks up behind him, kind of ninjas Jesus, and like touch, she does.

He doesn't even see her coming.

He's just he's walking and he's like, Whoa, someone touched my robe.

And it wasn't him being a diva, you know, like that sounds like something like a celebrity would do.

Like, someone just touched my robe.

Like, who was it?

You know?

But he says, Someone touched my robe.

I felt the healing power go from me.

He says that, and they're like, His disciples, I love it, because in this moment, there's like a thousand people around Jesus, and they're like, Jesus, like, everyone touched your robe.

Everyone, like, we there's no space.

And he's like, No, someone with faith came.

And he looks at this woman and he says, Your faith has healed you.

So she went to Jesus with a problem, with great faith, and she got what she needed.

I really admire her, but I think I admire this guy in in Mark chapter 9 a little bit more.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

He just resonates with me.

He has a son who needs healing as well, and he brings him to Jesus.

In Mark chapter 9, verse 22, he says to Jesus, Have mercy on us and help us if you can.

Mark 9:22

And Jesus says, What do you mean if I can?

Anything's possible if a person believes.

And the father instantly cried out, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.

I love this guy.

I love this guy because I've been this guy so many times.

And let's be honest, how many of us are there sometimes, right?

Like all the time.

Like, yes, Jesus, I absolutely believe in you.

Also, I kind of don't.

And so, you know, help me.

Or maybe you're kind of new to the whole Jesus thing and you're here and you're in that space where you're like, I think maybe there's something to this Jesus thing.

I look at the world and it doesn't seem like the world has any answers for anything.

So maybe this Jesus guy is the one, but then at the same time, I'm not sure.

Look, that's that's an okay place to be.

This guy was really honest with Jesus, and guess what?

Jesus, Jesus didn't half heal his son because he only had half the faith.

He healed his son.

One person comes to Jesus with great faith, the other person comes to Jesus with, like, let's be honest, mediocre faith at best.

Both got what they need because they both went to Jesus.

It doesn't matter the manner that you come to Jesus, it just matters that you come.

And when you come to Jesus, you get what you need.

Worship team, you guys can make your way out.

We're gonna we're gonna wrap up and we've got two people getting baptized, which is super exciting.

Can't wait for that.

Um I say two people getting baptized, that's how many were signed up.

And I always have this nagging thought in the back of my head what if one didn't show up?

And if that's the case, you know what it means?

We have one person getting baptized.

We'll see.

Either way, it's gonna be good.

But uh, no, I'm super excited about this.

We've got we've got some baptisms coming up, and and that's kind of what we live for.

And so I want to encourage you, by the way, um, stick around for the baptisms.

It's like the most important thing that that we do getting to share this moment with people.

But here's what I want to encourage us with right now.

Um come to Jesus.

Come to Jesus right now, in this moment.

Now, for some of us, maybe you've never had a moment where you have have said, okay, I'm I'm in.

And the beautiful thing is that you can have that moment today, right now.

It's just it's between you and God.

You can give your life to him, he will accept you.

He's already accepted you, he loves you.

If you feel something stirring you, if you feel this desire to step forward, that's the Holy Spirit, God's actual spirit, that's him, that's him calling you to him.

So respond.

Just respond.

But some of us, most of us, I imagine, probably almost all of us, have said, Yeah, I've come to Jesus before.

I did that.

I've prayed the prayer, I got baptized, you know, I've I've done those things.

Well, coming to Jesus is it's a daily thing.

That's beautiful, by the way, right?

That Jesus is not just this one-time experience that one time you get to come to him and then you leave and you try your best to remember it.

You know?

It's not like Disney World where you know you go once and you're like, all right, can't afford to do that again, so like just remember this.

Take pictures.

Not it's not how it is with Jesus, it's an everyday thing.

It's an everyday thing.

I have to remember to come to Jesus and sit at his feet.

I I like to think of that picture of just coming like one of his disciples would have and and literally sitting at his feet and just saying, What do you have for me today?

What do you have for me today?

I think sometimes we as Jesus followers, maybe you'll track with this, get a little jealous of the people we read about in scripture, because we're like, they got to actually physically go see Jesus.

That would have been so awesome, right?

Wouldn't it have been great to like physically be able to go and and and be with Jesus?

They got to come to Jesus for real.

I don't I don't have the ability to do that.

No, don't be silly.

We have it so much better than they did.

Because we have the Holy Spirit, we have the Holy Spirit, like like we can come to Jesus anywhere at any moment, all the time.

We can come to him in any moment because because the Holy Spirit is in us, and the Holy Spirit is the very Spirit of God, and we can have this sort of constant communion with Jesus, this constant contact.

In fact, in Hebrews, scripture says that Jesus, right now, in this moment, is at the right hand of God the Father, and he's interceding on your behalf.

It's like he's telling God the Father what you need, so that when you pray and you don't even know what you need, and you're like, God, I need this, this, this, and Jesus is like, actually, Lord, here's what they're trying to say.

Um that's that's powerful, that's amazing.

You can you have access to Jesus right now.

I believe that is one of the fundamental missing components from the way that we think about life as followers of Jesus, the recognition that right now you have the very Spirit of God within you.

He does not depart from you, he does not leave you, he is inside of you.

Scripture says that if you've given your life to Jesus, that God's spirit has joined with your spirit to affirm that you're his child.

You can come to him at any moment, at any time.

In fact, I was talking to a gentleman this week, and he described his come to Jesus experience so beautifully.

He said, I had a lot of close encounters with Jesus in my life.

I was like, that's a good way to put it.

I had a lot of close encounters with Jesus.

But every time he got close, he had a reason to pull back.

And then through some circumstances in his life, there was desperation.

And in that desperation, he recognized his need for Jesus.

He said he was hunting and he was in a deer blind, and that's where Jesus met him.

Because Jesus is everywhere, his spirit is everywhere.

Romans, or rather, Revelation chapter 3, verse 20 says, This is Jesus talking.

Revelation 3:20

I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears me knocking and opens the door, I'll come in and we'll share a meal together as friends.

One of the beautiful things about understanding what it means to come to Jesus is recognizing that Jesus has already come for us.

He's the one at the door knocking.

If you'll listen and respond, you'll have what you need.

So for some of us today, we just need to be more open.

We just need to have this understanding that right now and tomorrow and tomorrow night and next week and next year, no matter what's going on, Jesus is he's he's available, he's there.

Come to him daily, pray, ask him for for what you need.

Recognize that that there's not a time or a moment that you can't have.

A moment with Jesus.

It's when you wake up in the morning, it's when you drive to work.

It's definitely right here.

And I will say as we wrap up, take advantage of this.

You know, something that we've really decided to do as a conscious effort is be a one-service church.

And that's really counterintuitive because we were two services prior to COVID, and uh it's gonna be challenging as we grow to figure out how to do it all with one service.

A bunch of you are gonna have to park at Lowe's one day, but you're good for it.

And um, you get your steps in, it's gonna be great.

Um, but the reason that we want to be a one-service church is because we want people to be able to linger.

And I want you to know that you're here right now.

When when we're done, so to speak, I mean, we're done when you leave.

This is your church, this is your family.

So if you need to be here, if you need prayer, there's people who'll stay and pray for you.

If you need to sit in this room for an hour and pray and have some time with God, do it.

We're not done till you leave because you're the church.

This is not an event that we attend together.

This is a family that we're part of, and so we're here till you're not here because you're us, and this is getting confusing, so I'm gonna stop.

Um, but you get what I mean?

So take advantage of this.

This time.

And maybe today you just need to linger a little bit and you need to have some time with Jesus.

Before you go out and you get in your car and you and you go off to do all the things you've got to do.

Maybe you need 10, 20 minutes to just sit and be in the presence of Jesus.

Take that.

But for all of us, every day this week, let's live with a conviction.

Let's believe this for the truth that it is.

Jesus is the answer.

And when you come to him, you find rest for your soul.

If you're tired, if you're weary, if you're if you're tapped out, you just need Jesus.

That's what you need.

You need more of him, you need time with him.

You need to remember what he said, you need to spend time reflecting on who he is and the way he feels about you.

That's the first step in having rest for your soul.

Come to Jesus.

And with that said, we're gonna celebrate right now as a couple of people do that very thing.

If you believe in Jesus and you haven't been baptized, know this God's not mad about that.

No one's judging you for that, but you need to do it.

Uh because Jesus asked us to.

And we've got we've got someone right now in this moment that's about to do that.

His name is Alex, and I'm about to pray, and Alex can uh can get in the in the tank.

And Alex is gonna be baptized uh by someone named Micah, who's been part of his hands since she was, gosh, I think in like fourth, fifth grade.

Uh I used to be her kids' person way back in the day.

Um, and so, like I said earlier, when we invest in young people at our church, we get to see the benefit.

She's baptizing someone that she brought here, and she's been here since she was a kid.

How cool is that?

Then we have an awesome guy named Josh, and he's the one, by the way, that came to Jesus in the deer blind, um, who's getting baptized after her.

So pray with me.

Let's celebrate some baptisms.

Let's come to Jesus together.

Father, thank you.

Thank you so much for who you are, for what you do.

God, I know right now in this room there's a variety of problems, there's a variety of struggles, God.

There's an almost countless amount of situations.

And if I tried to categorize them and list them all, I never could.

But you know every single one of our hearts, you know our pain, you know our struggles, you know our frustrations, you know our holdups.

And Jesus, you can you can you can move all of those out of the way.

You can take all of that stuff and you can you can push it to the background where it belongs so that what's in the foreground is you and your love for us, your truth, your power, your love, it's real, and I pray, Lord, that you put a hunger in our hearts and a desire to come to you often, to come to you daily, to recognize, Lord, that you are what we need.

You, Jesus, are the answer.

You not only have the answers, but you yourself are the answer.

Thank you, Lord, for being the answer for our lives, Lord.

Bless us.

Help us this week as we continue just to try to do our best, living life connected to you and managing through all the things we go through, Lord.

We love you.

We pray all this in your name.

Amen.