Move: Rest

Amen.

It's been a good morning so far.

It really has.

Man, I was baptism, baptisms are always especially I love seeing all the different places that people are coming from in life.

And and you know the reality is it doesn't matter where you're coming from, as long as you come to Jesus, that that's all that really matters.

Uh, because he can handle whatever you bring him.

And so every time we get to hear those stories and see those different people just responding to God, that's all that's really happening.

People are saying yes to God and lives are changing.

So, man, what a day.

Um, if you're just joining us, we're in a series right now called Move.

We started this a few weeks back.

We took a break for Easter, obviously, but we're back in that today.

We're gonna be in this series for the next few weeks.

And the premise behind this is really simple.

We want to be people who learn to move with God.

We want to be people who are part of God's movement in this world.

Because God is always moving, he's always doing something new, he's always doing something exciting.

In fact, Jesus even told his disciples, hey, you will you will see and do even greater things than I have done.

Even greater things than I have is done.

You look at that and you're like, well, I mean, what miracles do they do afterwards?

They did a few, but but when Jesus was done on this earth, when he went back to heaven, there were maybe a couple hundred at most people following him.

But by the time the disciples' lifetimes were over, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people had given their life to a man they never even met personally, face to face.

I mean, Jesus was right.

God is always moving, he's always doing something new.

And that's where religion gets off track.

And it's so easy for us as people following God to get into that mindset.

We think sometimes that God dropped anchor 300 years ago and said, This is where we're gonna stay.

I like pipe organs, I like it this way, we're gonna keep it all like this, right?

And and the truth is, God, God's always doing something new, he's always doing something great.

And and we have to be people who are willing to move with God.

We have to be people who are willing to respond to God if we want to be part of his movement.

And so that's what we've been talking about for the last several weeks.

I have a question though.

Have you ever had to move or learn to move in a way that you've never moved before?

Have you ever had an experience like that?

I've had a few of these.

I remember when Megan and I first got married, I did a Pilates class with her one time.

And I Pilates, I don't, I don't know, it's kind of like yoga, I think.

I don't really know, it's like a Christian yoga, I don't know.

Um, but uh but we did Pilates, and it was like this video she had.

It was a c the class was me and her in our living room.

And I don't remember like after the third exercise, just going, my body does not move this way.

This is not, this is not an exercise for me.

I don't bend like this.

This is not, this isn't good.

This isn't something I want to do.

I've moved houses several times in my life, and every single time I move, some of you have this experience.

I have to learn a new way to move my body.

Because if you've ever moved houses and you're a guy, you know, you're kind of looked upon as the one that needs to lift the things up and down the stairs, and someone always hands you some awkward-shaped box or piece of furniture, and you're like, How do I?

And you start to do this kind of thing, and you've never moved like that before, but you just have to figure it out and hope you don't die.

It's hard.

It's hard to learn how to move in a way you've you've never moved before.

In fact, I I wanna I want to do a little experiment this morning, if this is okay, just to have some fun together, to illustrate how difficult it is to learn how to move in a new way.

And so um, I'm gonna need my my five-year-old son Liam.

If Liam can come help me as we get this all set up.

Where you at, Liam?

See over in the sides.

Come on.

There he is.

Liam uh Liam turns six on Wednesday, okay?

So, yeah.

And so he's five, but only for uh only for a few more hours.

Um, Liam, can you say hey to everybody?

Hi.

And um Okay.

You looked like you had something to say.

Were you about to say something?

No.

Okay, cool.

Why don't you why don't you do this, Liam?

Why don't you come stand right here for me?

Um I also need another volunteer from the audience, and and here's here's what I'm looking for before you raise your hand.

Very specific.

I'd like someone 45 or up that has never played video games before at all.

Anyone, anyone willing to come on, people, some brave soul 45 and up, never played a video game.

Just stand up if that's you.

Um somebody there, yes, in the back.

Come on up, come on up.

There we go.

The person that the person sitting the absolute furthest away possible stood up.

This is good.

Okay, as you're making your way up, here's what we're gonna do.

Um Liam, because I'm a good father, has learned how to play video games.

I I do my job.

I I want to train my kids in the way they should go.

That's what the Bible says.

Okay, ma'am, you can just come stand right here next to him.

He won't steal your purse, I don't think.

You're good.

Um, Liam, why don't you stand right here by me?

Okay, so there's a there's a just a game we have pulled up, no guns, nothing like that, just walking around.

And here in a second, I'm gonna give I'm gonna give Liam and then will you tell us your name?

Diana.

And Diana, thank you for being brave, Diana.

I'm gonna give you a chance to uh to just simply move the character in the game from point A to point B.

That's all you're gonna do.

It's really simple.

You're gonna use this controller, it's a PlayStation 4 controller.

Liam, have you ever seen this?

Yes.

Of course, it's his it's his.

Okay, so I mean, you know, I bought it for for him.

Um so here's the way this works, Diana.

Real simple.

There's two sticks.

Okay, one stick moves your legs.

See, so if you move it forward, your legs move forward, just like that.

One stick moves your head.

See?

So it's like if you want to turn, you just do that.

Real simple.

So you're just gonna walk from point into point.

But Liam's gonna demonstrate for you.

And we're actually gonna, we're gonna time Liam.

We're gonna see how long it takes him, okay?

And we're gonna see how long it takes you.

It's simple, it's just moving from one point to another.

And so this stick moves your, you know, you don't need me to explain.

Okay.

So uh to make this exciting, and here's what's gonna happen.

He's gonna walk down a hallway, he's gonna go around, oh just just wait for a second.

He's gonna go around this little this little desk, this is like a hotel scene.

He's gonna go around a desk, out onto a balcony, he's gonna turn right and go up a flight of stairs.

Real simple.

Something all of us have done in real life.

Just moving your legs and then moving your body.

That's all it is.

Um, and if you stand right here so that everyone can see, even though, well, you're you're short enough to, you're not blocking it, you're good.

Um can we put some music on here in a second to make this feel epic?

I want this to feel epic.

I want an experience for my son.

If you guys will help me count down, okay?

Here we go.

We'll start from three, we'll go down to one, and then Liam, when everyone says go, you go.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Okay.

He's he's very confident.

All right, here we go.

Ready?

Help me out, guys.

All right, three, two, one, go.

Nine seconds.

All right, good job, Liam.

Good job, Liam.

And hey, will you will you get it back to the to where you were while we get Diana set up?

Nine seconds.

So he's just going down these stairs, you know, looking down at the balcony.

He's gonna go over here, he's gonna go back.

There you go, Liam.

Get her back in that hallway, all the way at the end, and then turn around, turn around.

There you go.

All right, so very good.

Let's hear a round of applause for Liam.

Take a bow if you want to.

No?

You want to go back the way you came?

To your to no, you stay with me?

Deal.

Deal, stay with me.

We can do the whole message this way.

I don't care.

All right, Diana, come on up, come on up.

So again, here we go, real simple.

I've never seen one of these.

I know, I know.

This is this is uh, I mean, you have been duped.

I just want you to understand this.

So this goes your legs, okay, and this turns your head and all stuff like that.

So you gotta, you know, it's like it's like your body, like if you're walking and you want to turn, you go, oh, I'm doing this.

Same thing.

All right.

So again, for Diana's sake, let's count it.

Let's treat this exactly the same as we treated Liam.

Just as exciting, okay?

So from three, we'll go three, two, one, go.

Pretty well.

Oh, we've hit something.

We're in like a wall.

This is good.

No, you're you're fine.

I think you're in the deck.

You're good.

So, um you're okay, we're gonna help you out.

Musically, I think we need some I think we need some music that more fits this experience.

Here we go.

Go ahead.

Hello, darkness.

This is better.

She's doing it though! There's the stairs! You're in the home stretch! Don't walk off the balcony.

That would be bad.

There you go.

Oh, yep.

Just right around the railing.

I think you're on the There we are! Turn! Keep turning! There's the clouds! Almost! Here we go! This is you're on Oh, there we're just looking up at the sky now.

There's the plant yeah.

A few feet forward.

There you're right.

There we go, there we go, there we go, there we go.

And she's done! She did it! Woo! Liam, will you get that back to where it was for us?

Thank you so much, Diana.

You're awesome.

Thanks for being brave.

Well done.

He's focused.

He's very focused right now.

He's got a job to do.

All right.

Liam, well done.

You got us back to the starting point.

You can head back to Papa, put that controller down.

Thank you so much.

That was fun.

That was fun.

It is difficult to learn how to move in a way that doesn't feel natural.

You know, and I'm sure many of us in the room have children that have played video games, and maybe you've had that experience where they hand you the controller and you kind of go, oh no, what am I doing?

What's going on?

It's it's frustrating.

And you know, uh, in my life, it's actually a decent illustration of how it feels to learn how to move with God.

Because God does not move the way that I am used to moving.

I want to be a person who moves with God.

I want to be a person who lives in rhythm with God.

Like I want to move with him, and I want to be able to respond to the ways that he's calling me to move, but half the time it feels like the experience Diana just had.

It feels like I'm having to learn how to walk all over again because God does not, he doesn't move like us.

He doesn't behave like we do.

In fact, the book of Isaiah puts it really, really simply.

I'll move this over.

Isaiah 55, 8 says, My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord, and my ways are far beyond anything you can imagine.

In other words, God's saying, look, I don't do things the way you do things.

And so to learn how to move with God means learning how to move in ways we've never moved before.

It's relearning everything.

But it's it's a necessity if we want to be people who can say what very few people say.

I move with God.

I respond to God, I'm sensitive to when he moves and how he moves.

And when we do that, when we live that way, our lives get to be the adventures that they're meant to be.

No one has a greater adventure than the person who says yes to God and learns how to move with him.

So today I want to talk about one aspect, one simple aspect of learning how to move with God that has been the most difficult for me personally to grab a hold of.

It's the one aspect of moving with God that makes me feel uh like Diana felt up here, that makes me just feel like I don't know what I'm doing.

This is brand new, this doesn't make any sense to me.

It's completely and totally counterintuitive.

And it's it's actually this it's it's rest.

It's resting, it's stopping.

Now, you might be thinking, okay, well, the series is called Move, and we're talking about stopping, and stopping is actually the opposite of movement, so how in the world are these related?

But the reality is, rest is a vital part of movement.

I mean, it really is.

In fact, um, I've mentioned this like a half a dozen times this year already, but bear with me, it's a new experience.

And so if I sound like a broken record, it's just because I'm I'm doing something new in my life and I'm learning things through it.

That's kind of how God tends to teach me.

Uh, I hired a personal trainer this year uh because I have some goals I want to hit, and I've been going to the gym for like 10 years, and nothing has been happening, really.

Um nothing good anyway, and so I thought maybe I'm not doing this right.

Maybe I should get some help.

And so I hired this personal trainer, and it's been like the worst month of my life so far.

It's been awful.

I'm not telling you not to do it yourself.

I'm just saying, know what you're getting into.

Uh, this person is a mean, horrible human being who I just I know like they encourage me with their words, but in their mind, I just think they're I think they're having fun at my expense every single time I go.

Literally at my expense, because I'm paying to be there.

Who does that?

So I was working out, and they had me working out in this totally different way, a way I've never worked out before.

And and it was really simple.

We work out hard for like 30 seconds, just hard, and then I have to stop for 10 seconds.

And then hard for 30 seconds and stop for 10 seconds.

And see, I just want to get in there and get out.

I want to be done as fast as possible.

I want the torture to end.

And so I tend to want to go a little faster.

And so the 10 seconds of rest, I get through like five, and I'm like, all right, I'm ready for the next one.

Let's just be done with this.

And they'll say, No, you gotta stop.

And a few weeks ago, my trainer, I don't know if you heard from the Holy Spirit, spoke directly from God because my trainer said something that was so profound to me as I'm sitting there on the verge of hyperventilating.

My trainer says, Justin, you need to learn that the rest is just as important as the work.

The rest is just as important as the work.

And I would have told this person, I think God just spoke through you to me, but I was like, okay, sure.

I mean, that was what I was doing.

It was hard.

It was hard, but the rest is just as important as the work.

I heard that and I was like, oh my goodness.

That that's that's definitely from God.

That's something I needed to hear.

I think that's something that a lot of people need to hear.

That rest, when it comes to moving with God and learning how to move with him, rest is just as vital as the work.

And if you don't rest, you'll never have the energy and the strength and the wisdom to move the way you need to move.

The rest is just as important as the work.

Now, now we're Americans, I think, hopefully.

Um and if you're not, you know, you can be.

You can you can you can make that change.

So we're Americans, and and if there's one thing we're really good at, it's working.

It just is, and that's not just our opinion, it's it's facts.

We work more hours and take fewer days off than any other nation in the world.

And so, for example, uh, an average American full-time employee, if that person took the last three weeks of the month of December off, they would work the same number of hours in a year that their British counterpart would work.

Like three whole weeks.

You could stop working after the first week in December, and you would have worked the same number of hours as whoever has your job in England.

France, you don't even have to go to work in December.

You don't even have to go.

You're like, yeah, I'm done, and you will work more hours than the person who has your same job in France has worked.

And I hear that and I'm like, come on, France, you know, just get in a game.

Like, what come on.

But as it's us as Americans, we we work.

And so we might nod our heads and say, yes, rest is very important, right?

But but real rest is kind of a foreign concept to us.

Like, have you ever heard of the concept of siesta?

I I don't even think it's real.

Every time I hear it, I'm like, that's a joke.

That can't be a real thing.

That people in in certain countries, like middle of the day, will stop and take a nap.

They'll take a nap and then they'll get back up and go back to work.

And I hear that and I go, what that no, no.

I mean, if I walked in on somebody asleep and they said, Oh, it's a siesta, I'm like, you're fired.

What is what are you doing?

You know, siesta, that's that's a foreign concept to us.

That rest would be viewed as that important that, hey, middle of the day, interrupt whatever you're doing, take a little nap.

You know what else is a foreign concept to us?

Sabbath.

That is just as foreign to us as siesta.

See, the concept of the Sabbath is in in Exodus chapter 34.

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

God says, you have six days each week for your ordinary work, but on the seventh day, you must stop working even during the seasons of plowing and harvest.

Now, over time, the people of Israel got really confused about what was work and what wasn't, and this actually became a really restrictive law, believe it or not.

But what God was saying is, hey, take a day off.

Like a real day off.

Just take a day off and rest.

Doesn't matter what's going on.

I mean, he says, even in the seasons of harvesting and plowing, those were important seasons.

Because if you don't plow and you don't harvest, you don't eat.

And God says, no, no, no, just take a day off.

No matter how busy you are, take a day off and rest.

This is the pace I want you to live your life.

We don't do that.

Because we have days off, but how many of us actually use our days off to rest?

How many of us are like, hey, it's my day off?

Finally, I can do all that stuff I've been meaning to do.

Finally, I can work on this at the house, or I can clean this up, or I can run this errand, or I can finally, you know, get caught up on my taxes.

Oh, it's my day off.

I can use it to get more work done because I'm an American.

That's that's how we are.

That's just how it is.

Even those of us that don't have jobs, some of us stay at home with kids.

How restful is that?

I mean, there's times, I'm just gonna be honest, Megan, I'm really sorry, but but I'll stay home with our three children for a day, and I'm like, when can I go back to work?

So I can chill for a little while, you know?

Because it's hard.

There is so much to do, and we put this pressure on ourselves to get it all done.

And what happens is we we value work so much more than rest.

That eventually we just don't rest.

And see, God tells us if you want to move with me, if you want to learn how to move with me and be in rhythm with me, the rest is just as important as the work.

But don't just take my trainer's word for it.

Look at scripture.

Exodus 33, 14.

The Lord replied, I'll personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest.

Everything will be fine for you.

Psalm 127, 2.

It's useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat, for God gives rest to his loved ones.

Mark 6, 31, then Jesus said, Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.

He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat.

Isaiah 30, 15, this is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved.

And quietness and confidence is your strength.

Matthew 11, 28.

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

Rest is vital.

It's vital if we're gonna be people who move with God.

Because so often when we think of moving with God, we think, oh, go! God's gonna tell me, I want you to go here, I want you to do this.

But what happens when God tells you to stop and wait for a while?

See, that's that's the hardest for me.

I'm all about going.

I like to go.

I like to go, and and our team here jokes all the time that sometimes I try to make everyone move at Justin's speed.

And that justin's speed is just a nice way for them telling me that I'm really impatient.

Because I am, I'm a very impatient person.

And in fact, most of my prayers with God where I'm really frustrated are me telling God he's too slow.

I don't use those words, like I'm nicer to God than that.

But sometimes if I'm honest, I'll say, hey God, I'm sure you have a plan and all, and I bet it's awesome.

But I think I've got a pretty good one too.

And if you would just go ahead and get at my pace, if you'd start moving at my pace and stop all this waiting for us to mature and grow and you know all that garbage, then we could actually get some stuff done.

But I have found in my life, more often than not, what God tells me is to slow down, to hold off.

Maybe it's because I'm not ready for whatever it is I think I'm ready for, maybe it's because he knows that if I keep going at this pace, I'm gonna burn out.

I don't know.

But God often tells me to slow down.

And what I'm starting to find in my life, it's very hard for me, but what I'm starting to find in my life, that it's in those moments of rest, it's in those moments of real rest where I really understand who God is.

I love the way that the Psalms put it.

Psalm 46, 10 says, be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I'm God.

And I was thinking about that this week, and I think the the wording is very, very important there, and I think it's very specific.

I was thinking about my life and and how in those times, which is really most of the time, when I'm not still, when I refuse to be still, I forget that God is God.

It says, be still and know that I'm God.

When I'm going and going and going and working and working and working, I actually start to think that maybe I'm God.

Not in the sense that I'm trying to speak things into existence and or anything like that.

Like I don't actually believe in my mind that I'm divine, but I act as if I'm God.

And here's what I mean by that.

I begin to act as if it's all on me.

I begin to believe in my mind that I'm the one that gets it done.

That I'm the one that really makes things happen.

That it's all up to me and it's all on my shoulders.

So if I don't go the extra mile and work the extra hours and put in all this extra work and just keep going and going, it's not gonna get finished.

All the things I want to see accomplished, they're not gonna get done.

Because if I'm not gonna do it, who's gonna do it?

God?

I mean, that's that's how I think.

I think that's how a lot of us think.

See, when when I refuse to be still, I forget that he's God and I'm not.

And I start to believe that it's on me, but it's not.

And that's for you too.

Do you do you believe this morning that it's not really on you?

And you might believe that because you know it's the right answer.

Because we're in church and you go, yeah, yes.

But but no, no, do you do you really believe, and does your life show you that it's not up to you ultimately, that it's God's?

That God has actually chosen you, chosen to adopt you as your father.

And when he brings you into his family, when he says, I'm your father, when Jesus says, I have purchased you for a price, I have purchased you with my blood, what he's telling you is I have taken responsibility for your life.

And so it's not all on you, it's actually all on me.

Don't get me wrong, God's not saying that, hey, just chill out, you don't have to do anything.

But if we'll if we'll stop for a second and learn to rest, we realize that God really does, really does the heavy lifting.

In the early church, there was all this debate going on about, you know, which which apostle was the greatest and who was the best, and you know, all these guys, Paul, and there was another one named Apollos, and and some of these guys, they're going around Peter.

And they're doing these amazing things for God, and churches are starting and growing, and this movement of Jesus is spreading faster than anything that anyone could have imagined.

And so when that happens, when things become successful, people like to point to people and act like they're the ones making it happen.

And in 1 Corinthians, Paul is reminding the people that he's leading that, hey, God's actually the one that's doing the important things.

Please don't think it's us.

And so we see this in 1 Corinthians 3.6.

He uses this kind of agricultural analogy.

He says, I planted the seed in your hearts.

I was the first person to tell you about Jesus.

And Apollos watered it.

In other words, Apollos has been hanging around teaching you guys, preaching to you, those kinds of things.

He says, But it was God who made it grow.

It's not important who does the planning or who does the watering.

What's important is that God makes the seeds grow.

What Paul is reminding us here is there's this really healthy, I'm gonna use that word, healthy.

There's this really healthy approach to life.

Where we learn to recognize what's ours to do and what's God's.

And we say, hey, I'm gonna do what God's given me to do.

I'm gonna do what God has called me to do.

I mean, I love what Michael shared in baptisms this morning.

I mean, men, if you heard that.

What he shared, and I've only met him once, brief moment, but what he shared was this I'm gonna be the man God has asked me to be.

I'm gonna be the man that God has called me to be for my wife.

That's that's that's amazing.

And if and if he would just do that, and he will, if we would just live that way, hey, what has God told me to do?

I'm just gonna do that and then stop there.

Stop there and let God do what God has said he will do.

We will experience God working in our lives in ways we can never imagine.

But if we if we think it's all on us, if we say, hey, God, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I need to do more, I need to go above and beyond, I don't really know if you're gonna come through, so I'm gonna keep messing with it, I'm gonna keep doing it, I'm gonna keep working it.

We won't see God work because we'll basically tell God, and He's very polite to us and He lets us do this, we'll say, Hey God, you're you're sort of fired from doing your job.

I'm gonna do your job for you.

I have fired God from doing his job in my life more times than I care to admit.

And when I find myself the most stressed in life, when I find myself the most burned out, it's when I realize that I've been trying to do God's job for him constantly.

I can't do it.

I can't do it.

But when I stop and rest, I remember that God is God and I see God work.

One of the experiences I've had in my life that I've probably shared this before in this room, but it was such a huge thing for me, a huge thing for my wife and I both, that that I'll probably talk about it a dozen more times over the years.

Megan and I several years ago found ourselves in a really tight financial spot, like I'm sure no one in the room has before.

Um it was it was when the economy went bad back in like 2009.

Megan was working as a teacher, and uh we found out, I think this is the order, it's been a while, but I think we found out we were pregnant.

And we were like, whoa, we're having a kid, this is our first child, and then we found out that Megan lost her job like right after that.

It was tough.

It was very close if it wasn't in that order.

And so Megan got let go because the school didn't think they were gonna need as as many teachers because they weren't gonna have as many students, it was a private school, and then they called her in the middle of the summer and said, Hey, actually, we we kind of counted wrong, so we need you to work, we need you to be a teacher again.

Problem is we only have enough in the budget to pay you part-time, but we need you to work full-time.

And uh, I know, right?

And so that's what we thought too.

But we we needed we needed the the money, we really did.

We were we were having our first child, and and we didn't really realize how expensive that was.

So we needed the money.

So Megan signed a contract, said, Yes, I will teach this year for half price.

You guys get a steal of a deal with me.

And so she she started teaching, and and months and months went on, and you know, like I said, we sort of underestimated how expensive it can be to have a baby and all the medical bills and all the stuff you just have to buy.

If you've never had a child, I mean, goodness gracious.

So our finances just start doing this, our bank accounts dwindling.

And one day we open up our bank account and we were like, wow, that is a small number.

That is a that's like I haven't seen that small of a number in my bank account since I was 16 or something like that.

Like, this is if we go out to Taco Bell, we're gonna be, we're gonna be scraping the bottom.

And and we were we were in a position where we could have freaked out.

We really could have.

We could have freaked out in that moment and thought, oh man, what do we gotta do?

And and there really wasn't anything we could do that was legal that would help us have money.

Megan suggested we knock off the local convenience store, but I said no.

I said, honey, I'm gonna be the man God's called me to be.

And say no, not breaking the law.

But no, no, we we should have freaked out.

And and here's the thing knowing my propensity for just being the one that's gotta fix it, I should have.

This is this is me, Megan will testify to this.

I should have testified.

What in the heck?

I'm sorry.

Um that's a dollar.

I get find a dollar for using really churchy words, so uh, I'm a dollar short.

Megan will back this up, all right?

That uh that that my my nature is to be the one that tries to fix it.

To fire God, say, hey God, don't you can't do this.

Um I will f I will figure out a plan, I will somehow become some master financial wizard and I'll make this happen, I'll get a second job, whatever, I'll do whatever it takes.

But in that moment, strangely, we did not panic and we didn't freak out.

And I remember it was a very, very important time for us in our lives because we had just started saying yes to God financially like we never had before.

Like we had just started saying, you know what, we're gonna we're gonna give consistently.

This isn't a giving message, don't worry about that.

We're gonna give consistently.

We're gonna give every single month, we're gonna give whatever God tells us to give.

And just a few months prior to this, prior to finding out all this happened, God had actually called us to give in a way that made us really uncomfortable.

It was it was above and beyond what we thought we could, but we said yes to that.

And so here we are walking in obedience to God like never before in this area of our life.

And instead of checks coming in the mail and raises happening left and right, it was our bank account going down and down and down.

And we weren't mad at God, but we prayed that night and said, God, you you need to do what you need to do.

Like I didn't, I stopped short of saying, God, you owe me money.

I didn't say that.

But but I felt a little bit like that.

And so so we really said, Hey, God, we have done what you've told us to do.

We've we've done it, we have used our finances the way you've called us to use it.

We've given, we've been generous, we've we've responded to you, we have done what you've said to do.

Now you need to do what you promised to do.

You need to take care of us.

This is on you.

This is on you, God.

We believe that.

We believe this is on you, that it's not up to us to fix this.

We've done what we can do.

Now we need you to do what only you can do.

And guys, I want you to understand that this is not like a made-up story.

The next day, this is so God, the next day, Megan calls me from school, which I don't think teachers are supposed to do, but whatever.

Um, she calls me and she says, Justin, you don't you don't believe what happened.

She says, I was putting up a bulletin board in the front of my classroom.

I was outside of my classroom, and and the headmaster of the school just so happened to be walking by.

This is a big school, and it has elementary all the way through high school, and she maybe saw him in the hallway twice a year, okay?

But this particular day she's putting a bulletin board out.

We just got done praying this the night before.

He sees her, and it wasn't like he was going there to see her.

He was just walking through because it was obvious he sees her and goes, Oh, hey, Miss McTear.

And he starts talking to her and he says, You know, I'm glad I saw you.

Starting on your next paycheck, we're gonna start paying you full time again.

And we're gonna put in all the several months of back pay that we owe you in your next paycheck.

I mean, like.

So we went from having nothing to having hundreds of dollars.

Guys, I'm talking hundreds of dollars.

But it was amazing.

It was you know, it was amazing because it was obvious that that was God.

And I'm not saying that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't prayed that prayer.

God is faithful.

Even when we're not faithful, in fact, I love this verse, 2 Timothy 2.13 says, if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is.

Like God's faithfulness is not dependent on us, but our ex our ability to experience the peace that comes from God's faithfulness is dependent on us.

And I'm just saying, there was there was an ability for us to rest, to rest and trust in God that came from us doing things God's way that we never experienced before.

And so I say all that to come to this moment.

Okay, do you need to rest today?

Like are you are look at what Jesus said in Matthew 11.

Are you tired?

Are you worn out?

And I'll take it a step further.

Have have you been trying to do God's job for God in your life?

Have you been trying to make the seeds grow?

Because you can't do that.

You know that, right?

Like if you go outside and you look at a seed and you yell at it to grow, nothing will happen.

Because you're not God.

But you don't have to be God.

Why would you try to be God?

That's exhausting.

Do you know that it's not exhausting for God to be God?

It's easy for God to be God because God is God.

And so if we could just be people that learn to say, it's not on me.

Fixing your marriage is not on you.

I'm not saying there aren't things you need to do to fix it.

Absolutely, if it's counseling, if it's a confession, if it's an apology, that's great.

There are steps you need to take, but just like Paul said, look, I've done what I'm supposed to do.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it.

God's gonna make it grow.

Fixing your marriage, that's on God.

And so you just need to do whatever He's called you to do and then trust Him and rest.

Your finances are not up to you.

Not ultimately.

You need to do what God has called you to do, and then you need to stop and rest and let God do His part.

Your relationships, your career, your personal life, your struggles, your addictions, whatever it is in your life, it's not on you unless you tell God that it's on you.

But if you would, if you would just learn to move the way God moves and recognize that when you're stressed out and you're exhausted, and you feel like you can't do anything more, maybe it's because you can't do anything more.

And you just need to stop and rest and relax and trust.

Now I know that's a lot easier said than done.

I know that.

I know it's it's hard for us to trust God, it's hard for us to let go.

But it's it's vital.

And I wish I wish I could tell you right now that, hey, I know this sounds really hard, but here's the easy way, here's the easy three steps that you can take in your life to learning how to rest and trust in God.

That's garbage.

It's hard.

It's really hard.

It's not natural to us, it's not intuitive to us to stop and let God do his thing.

It's it's not, but it's vital.

And I don't have the secret formula for resting.

The only thing I figured out so far is that when I'm really stressed out, I should just stop and say, Whoa, God, am I trying to do your job for you in my life?

And when I am, I just stop.

That's it.

That's that's all I've learned to do.

And hopefully I'll master this a little bit later in a few years, and I can give you the three steps.

I just don't know if they're there.

But what I can tell you is that if you don't, it's not like a warning, I'm not trying to threaten you, but I'm saying if you don't learn to rest, you're never gonna be anything but worn out.

And God does not want that for you.

He doesn't want it for you.

I want to read what Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28 one more time as we close out this morning.

Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens.

Does that describe anyone today?

Or do you look at that and go, man, I wonder who he's talking to?

Certainly not me.

I will give you rest.

I want you to believe that today.

I want you to put your faith in the God who wants to give you a day off.

I want you to go home today.

And you know what?

I I have I have a sink that I need to fix.

I don't know how to fix it, but it's leaking water into our basement.

There's like three things that my wife has bought that need to get hung today on the walls, because she does that, she buys things, and uh, I do too.

Uh there's a number of other doors that squeak, and that's waking up the kids at night.

When one of our kids gets out of their room, it squeaks, and the other kid wakes up and it's just a it all falls apart.

Um there's probably 15 home projects that I need to do, and I'm not going to do any of them today.

I'm not.

Sorry, honey, I'm not.

Um because I need to rest today.

I do.

I need to rest.

And if you need to rest, rest.

Pray with me.

Jesus, thank you so much for being God and releasing us from the pressure of being our own gods.

And Lord, it's just human nature that when we refuse to be still, when we refuse to stop, when we refuse to settle down, we actually forget that you're there.

We forget that you're you're working, we forget that we can just trust in you.

We forget that you have have taken ownership of us, God.

You've said that we are yours.

And you want to help us, you want to come in, you want to do the things only you can do.

So, God, I pray this morning that for all of us we would grow in our understanding, in our ability to discern when it's time for us to stop and rest.

God, give us peace, give us joy, give us whatever it is that we need to get through our days, to get through our weeks, and to thrive.

But Lord, today, specifically, give us rest for our souls.

As we walk out of here today, Lord, I pray that burdens feel like they're not there anymore, God, that that weight feels like it's gone, and that we realize that it's on you.

It's not on us, it's on you.

Help us trust that, help us believe that.

We love you, Lord.

Amen.