"Rest"

This has been automatically generated, and therefore may contain some unintended inaccuracies.

Actually, this morning's reading is from Psalm 62, which can be found on page 5 7 9 of the church bibles. Truly, my soul finds rest in god. My salvation comes from him. Truly, here's my rock and my salvation. Here's my fortress.

I shall never be shaken. How long will you assault me? Would all of you throw me down this leaning wall, this tottering fence? Surely, they intend to topple me from my lofty place. They take delight in lies.

With their mouths, say bless, but in their hearts, they curse. Yes. My soul finds rest in god. My hope comes from him. Truly, he is my rock and my salvation.

He is my fortress. I shall not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depends on god. He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people, pour out your hearts to him for God is our refuge.

Surely, the lowborn, a bit of breath, the highborn are but a lie. If weighed on a balance, they are nothing. Together, they are only a breath. Do not trust an extortion or put vain hope in stolen goods. Though your riches increase do not set your heart on them.

1 thing God has spoken, 2 things I have heard. Power belongs to you god, and with you, lord, is unfailing love. And you reward everyone according to what they have done. And I will gonna flick forward to Matthew chapter 11 verses 20 eighth to 30, which is on page 9 7 7. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Thank you. Well, let's keep our bibles open at Matthew chapter 11 And when the bar asked me to come and, minister today, I was really happy to, accept that opportunity, and he said I'd like you to preach on rest. I swear, if you if you want someone to preach on the whole idea of a kind of work, life balance resting, forget it.

I I've never sorted that 1 out. He said, no. No. He said, the the church is gonna go through this, spiritual mot at the beginning of the year. And he said that they're gonna be looking at bible reading, looking at praying, look at fellowship and being committed to 1 another.

And then Bart said, by the end of all that, they'd be weary than he'd rest. So I said, oh, okay. So I am a man under orders. And as John Wayne once said, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. So I will do what Bart has asked me to do.

Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 to 30. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Jesus says, in those words twice about rest, So let's think about soul rest, rest for our souls, soul rest in Jesus. So 3 things. First, what is our soul? Second, why does it get weary and burdened?

And third, how do we find rest for our souls? So what is our soul? What is it? What it's difficult to define is that non material, non physical reality in our lives. A soul cannot be photographed.

It cannot be x rays scanned or detected with a probe. I, I once had a a cardiac MRI, and it showed me the inner structure of my heart. The muscles and vowels of, like, my physical heart in a very colorful way, but I looked and looked at the screen. I couldn't see my soul. But it's there, and your soul is there.

It's unseen. But you have a soul. Everyone of us has a soul. A theologians and philosophers and psychologists, they will all disagree or have their opinions about what the soul is. John Calvin wrote that the soul is made up of 2 things, the understanding and the will.

The understanding distinguishes between good and bad, and the will then makes its choice to follow and do what the understanding has discerned to be either good or bad. Others will say that the soul is that which integrates the mind, the will, the body into a single whole life. Psalm 103 verse 1 puts it a little bit more simply. Praise the lord, my soul, All my inmost being, praise his holy name. And this is a little bit of a Hebrew poetic parallelism.

It says 1 thing, then it says exactly the same thing, but in different words. So praise the lord, my soul. And all my, inmost being, praise his holy name. It is like when we say, and now we shall pray, let us all pray. They're exactly the same thing, but in different words.

And so praising the lord with my soul means praising the lord with my whole inmost being. So my soul in biblical terms is my inmost being. And is my deep inner life. Is that which runs or ruins my life? Michael John Orteberg wrote this fabulous book called Solar Keeping I thoroughly recommend it, to you.

I've got most of my ideas from it for today. But, he he says this. What is running your life at any given moment is your soul Not your external circumstances, not your thoughts, not your intentions, not even your feelings, but your soul. The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates integrates and enlivens everything going on in the various dimensions of your life. The soul is the life center of human beings.

We speak about body and soul The body is the outward reality that we are, that we spend so much time and money on at the gym or with cosmetics or clothes. It's what people see. And of course, we want to look good We want to take care of our appearance, but our life is more than body. Our life is more than physique, more than looks, more than weight. Our life is more than muscle abs, glutes, and biceps, Our life is more than that.

Our soul is our deep inner reality that people cannot see, but makes us who we really are. It's our interior life. So our soul, our inner being, shapes our life. And people may be in love with the shape of you, but it's the shape of our soul that really matters. That's what counts.

So if we have shallow souls, we'll be shallow people. If we have deep souls, we'll be meaningful. If we have empty souls, we'll probably live empty lives. If we have full souls, we live full lives. If we have weary, heavy burden souls, we'll have unhappy lives.

If our souls are at rest in Jesus, we will have contented joyful lives. So that's our secondly then. Why is it that our inner being, our soul gets weary and burdened? Why is that? Well, our soul is a deep mystery.

Our soul is, described in proverbs chapter 20 verse 5 as deep waters. And deep waters are hard to see down into. Deep waters are difficult to explore. Deep waters can be dangerous. But our soul is like a deep water.

Our soul is hard to read. Sometimes we kinda even understand ourselves. But what gets that inner being? What gets our soul down? What makes us weary and burdened in life?

Well, there's a few things. First, our souls become weary and burdened when they are downcast. What what is that within us that feels emotion? When what feels happy? What within us feels sad?

What feels elated? What feels miserable? Psalm 42 tells us it's our soul. Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

It's our inner being. And when deep things happen in life, it's our souls that are affected. So if something happy happens to you, then your soul is buoyant, and it floats. Something sad or tragic happens to you, then your soul becomes heavy. And it sinks.

When disappointment takes place in our life, that too can weigh our souls down. And disappointment is often underestimated in the Christian life. It's 1 of the biggest causes of why we get heavy burden and heavy labored because something has happened that we're really expecting the opposite of what we really want to happen, and we get cast down. At a time like this, when our souls are downcast, we need rest. Second, our souls become weary and burdened when we over desire good, nice things.

Tim Keller once wrote this. The word that the NIV translates sinful desires and the ESV renders lusts is epithelium. Literally, it means over desire. It's an all controlling drive and longing. That's revealing.

The main problem of our heart is not so much desires for bad things, but our over desires for good things. Our turning of created good things into gods. So in other words, there's nothing wrong with desiring a fit body, more money, a better house, a nice holiday, a good car, an advancement in Korea, Nothing wrong with desiring those things. But if we over desire them, it weighs heavy on our souls because we are unlikely to get our dream house, our dream figure, our dream job, our dream holiday, and load of money. So the over desires for good things can really get to us internally.

And if we make those things the goal of our life, Ecclesiastes says it's like chasing after the wind. It speaks about the roving of the appetite is a chasing after the wind. So what gets our souls down? Well, when sad and bad and disappointing things happen, and when we over desire good things. What's more?

Our souls can become weary and burdened when we look for salvation by our own efforts and works. The context of Matthew chapter 11, you're probably wondering when I was gonna get to the context to the context of Matthew chapter 11 is that Jesus is speaking to people whose souls were weighed down by the demands of the pharisees and the sadducees and the teachers of the law. That the people of Jesus' day had turned god's good law into intricate demands and prohibitions that were impossible for people to keep. And if you should look on to the context in chapter 12, it shows us that there's this argument that arises about the Sabbath Day. And we know from the rest of the scriptures the way that the scribes and the pharisees and the religious teachers had turned the Sabbath Day into a drudgery and not a joy.

And Jesus said in Luke chapter 11 verse 46, woe to you experts in the law because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry. So the people that Jesus was speaking to were burdened by the laws that the religious people of the day had put upon them in order to keep in order to be right with god. And instead of them being saved by god's grace, they felt condemned by their failure to keep god's law. And the same thing can happen to us as well. If we seek salvation by our own efforts, then, then we get burdened.

We get weighed down because we will never find salvation by our own efforts. And if we seek salvation by being the best version of ourselves, we'll get weighed down as well because we will never attain to the best version of ourselves. We'll always be failures. Our souls would be wear worn out weary and heavy burdens if we seek to be right with God or get to the best we can be by our own effort. Martin Luther, the the reformer, Martin Luther of the 15 hundreds.

He he really was a felt his guilt in his soul. And he tried All he could get all he could try in order to be right with god. Martin Luther decided that he would fast as much as he could. He would read the Bible as much as he could. He would pray as much as he could.

He'd stay up all night to pray. He went on pilgrimage to Rome. He climbed the Scarlet sancta in Rome on his knees to be right with god. Everything failed him. He even became a monk to be right with god, and he was the best monk that could ever be.

And he said that if ever a monk could be saved by Moncary, I were that monk. But he was not saved by being a monk. He was not saved by all that he tried to do. Until Titus chapter 3 came into his life. When the kindness and love of God our savior appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

So if we are trying to get right with God by what we do, then our souls are gonna be burdened, weary, and heavy laden. There's a fourth reason why our souls get cast down and burdened. It's when we, even as Christians, forget about the grace of god, and we do that. Even as Christians, we can often turn our faith into a religion of works. Especially when we feel that we've failed god, and we sinned, which we do.

And so we say, oh, boy. Okay. I'm I'm gonna increase my bible reading. I'm gonna pray much more I'm gonna evangelize all I can thinking somehow that all that will make up and make us right with god. We forget about the grace of God that we are accepted, love, children of god.

And once as Christians, we start looking at our works instead of god's grace, Then we get burdened. It's it's a bit like, I I know we're gonna be coming to communion soon, and there we say we do this in remembrance of Jesus. And we say, well, we'll never forget Jesus. We we love him. So we we will ne surely we won't forget Jesus.

And of course, we won't. But what happens is this? That Jesus gets pushed down. It's it's like when my children used to come I don't know if it's still to do it today, but children used to come home from school with their school bags, and in their reading bag, there would be their coloring, their numeracy, the book they've got to read, the book that I then have to fill in that they've read that book and how they did. And then there's an important letter from the teachers about a day to an event at school.

And it all comes home, and, of course, the parent takes it out and looks at everything, sees the important letter puts it down so it can make the most of what their child has done. And they put that on top of the important letter, and then the coloring on the important letter, the numeracy on the important letter, and what gets forgotten? The important letter. Why? Because it's buried.

And it's like that with us and Jesus. We'll never forget him. For sometimes, he seems to get lost in our lives because of the things that we have to do in a busy life. Even in church life, Jesus can get buried under all kinds of things, even in church life with its policies and its risk assessments and its duties and its rotors and its meetings Even in church life, Jesus gets buried under all that. And if we lose sight of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, then our souls get weary and heavy laden.

So thirdly finally, how do we find rest for our souls? How do we find rest for our souls? By coming to Jesus? Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

Learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Coming to Jesus Christ first for salvation. Stop trusting in what we are trying to do to get right with God and start trusting in what Jesus Christ has done for us in his life, death, and resurrection, and then clearly and deliberately ask Jesus to be our savior and give yourself to him. Psalm 62, truly my soul finds rest in god.

My salvation comes from me. Uh-uh. Truly my soul finds rest in god. My salvation comes from him. We come to Jesus.

But you know, but we don't just come to Jesus once for salvation as if that was, like, 1 year ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, we keep coming to the lord Jesus Christ. Daily, we turn to him. When we sin and when we fail, we turn to him. Psalm 116 verse 7, return to your rest, my soul, for the lord has been good to you. Somebody has said that repentance is not a 1 off duty in the Christian life repentance is a lifelong thing that we must do, and it is.

And it's the same with faith. It's not just a 1 off. I believe in Jesus. That's it. I believe in Jesus every day.

Oh, happy day that fix my choice on be my savior and my god, long may my flowing heart rejoice until its raptures all abroad. High heaven that heard that solemn vow. That vow shall daily hear. So daily, we come to the lord, and we find rest for our souls in him. You see, 1 piece of chapter 2 verse 25 says this, You were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

Jesus described there is an overseer, someone who likes just to watch over us, but also he's described as this shepherd. And Jesus said that I am the good shepherd. Psalm 23 tells us that the lord is my shepherd. He restores my soul. So how do we what do we do in looking for salvation?

What do we do in living the Christian life? What do we do when we are faced with disappointment and real sadness in our lives? What do we do? We come to Jesus. We find rest for our souls in Jesus.

My soul is in his hands, in his care, and he can restore it. And just think who it is that invites you to come to him. The 1 who is gentle and humble in heart, the lord of life, the lord of love, we come to Jesus. There's a man called Thomas Brooks. He lived in the 16 hundreds.

He was a preacher and a writer. And I reckon that Thomas Brooks predated the advert for Pepsi by over 500 years. He said this. Christ is the greatest good, the choice is good, the chief is good, the most suitable good, the most necessary good. Christ is a pure good, a real good, a total good, and an eternal good, and a soul is satisfying good.

Jesus. And it's true. We come to Jesus and our souls are refreshed. John Newton, the hymn writer put it this way. He is the 1 who soothes and sow our sorrows.

He heals our wounds. He drives away our fear. Jesus is our shepherd brother friend, our prophet priest and king. Jesus is the 1 who has music in his name that refreshes our soul in death. Jesus is the 1 who makes the wounded spirit whole and calms each heart oppressed.

His manner to the hungry soul and, 2, the weary rest. So let's do what Jesus said. What is our soul? Is that inner part of us? How does it get weighed down when we try our own works to please god?

When we go through tragedy and sadness and disappointment when we over desire good things. What do we do when our souls are cast down? We come. To Jesus Christ. Come to me.

All you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest. For your souls.