Good morning, everyone. Well, I have the privilege of being up here once again. So my dad is out in North Carolina right now ministering to some families out there. So today we'll be starting in Mark 6, verses 7 through 12. If you would, please turn there in your Bibles. And then also, please stand if you're able as we read God's word. So Mark 6. verses seven through 12. And he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil, many who were sick and healed them. And then if you jump down to verse 30, The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. For many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the privilege of coming once again before you to study your word. We thank you for both the lessons that you teach us and the weaknesses that you reveal in us. And so we ask that as we look at these passages today, that your spirit would give us understanding and wisdom, that our consciences would be pricked, and that our hearts would be motivated to have right attitudes towards what it means to rest in Christ and to rest in your promises. Father, we pray for peace today. In your name, amen. You may be seated. Well, a few years ago, there was a survey that was conducted that found that about one third of the adults in the United States get less than seven hours of sleep each night. And that number of seven hours is considered by a lot of people to be the minimum number of sleep, the minimum number of hours of sleep that you need each night. And if you get less than that, there are a variety of side effects. You can suffer from depression, anger, slower reflexes, decreased stamina. And for those who routinely get six hours of sleep or less each night, the effects can be even more damaging. There's actual brain damage that happens. Your nervous system can start to be affected. Another survey found that approximately 25% of the people in the United States don't do any type of exercise or physical activity during the day. And that, in turn, often contributes to its own side effects, such as obesity, heart problems, joint pain. Now, what do these statistics tell us? There's a reason why I want to talk about those just right off the bat here. And that is, if those numbers are true for us as well, that means that at least a third of us here today are getting less sleep than our bodies need, and at least a quarter of us are not doing any type of exercise, despite the fact that our bodies need it. And so the question for us is to ask why. What is the reason for not getting rest and not taking care of our bodies? And for those who do get a decent amount of sleep each night and who do regularly exercise, the question is why? Why do you do those things? So I wanna look at both of those questions today, both the why and the for what purpose of rest. In Mark 6, we see a new phase of Jesus's ministry beginning. He's gone out, he's preached to some of these towns, and he's made a circuit of many of the villages in Galilee. But now he instructs his disciples to go out, and he sends them out in groups of two to preach the need for repentance and to heal the sick. After a time, the disciples come back and they begin to give Jesus a report of what's happened, but there's a problem. News of what Jesus has done, news of what his disciples have done, has spread so much in the surrounding areas that the house that all of them are in is constantly full of people. And you can imagine the chaos of this situation. You can imagine all of these individuals, both sick, both sightseers, officials, disciples, they're coming in and out. You've got members of the household trying to control the chaos and get their duties done, trying to bring out food for everyone. And the chaos is so great that the disciples don't even have time to eat. And so Jesus tells them, all right, come away to a desolate place and rest. But what does that word mean? What does it mean to rest? You may think that it means to stop any activity and to sleep or take a break from your work. For you moms, you may think of a break from the chaos of noise in the house. as the kids take a nap. And some of you may think of rest not as a ceasing of all activity, but maybe it's a break from your normal work. Maybe it's so that you can go out on a walk or visit with friends. And both of those ideas of rest share a common concept of ceasing from our normal labors for a time. And either doing something to regain energy, like sleep, or to maintain a healthy lifestyle, like exercise. And I think that's a good start for a definition, just ceasing from normal labors. But let me give you what I think is a fuller definition, and then we'll unpack it as we go. So I would define rest as the intentional ceasing from our normal labors for a limited time in order to refresh our bodies, recenter our focus, and acknowledge our dependence on the Lord. So let me say that definition one more time. Rest is the intentional ceasing from our normal labors for a limited time in order to refresh our bodies, recenter our focus, and acknowledge our dependence on the Lord. If you think about that definition, it does involve that concept of ceasing from our normal labors. And that's one of the most obvious aspects of rest. We all recognize that rest from labor is needed. And we know that we can't continue working forever. We know that sleep is needed if we want to even survive. But sleep is more than that. Whether we like, think about it or not, sleep is an acknowledgement that we are mere creatures. We can't live constantly neither slumbering nor sleeping as Psalm 121 says about the Lord. That is not us. We are creatures. We depend upon rest. Now, I used to work with someone who loved all of the latest energy supplements, and you may know someone like this, too. And he started out just drinking one cup of coffee a day, but after getting hooked on these energy supplements, he was always trying something new. And he found supplements to help with focus, and some to help with stamina, and some to help with short-term energy levels. Well, after a year of taking these supplements, he had gotten to the point where not only was he not sleeping very well, but he had gotten to the point where he was having a cup of coffee a day, multiple energy drinks, in addition to multiple servings of these energy supplements just to stay awake. Now, that's an extreme example of someone who enjoys energy supplements. But what was going on here? Behind that lifestyle was the idea that rest was not as important as productivity and work. My co-worker's response, whenever he was feeling tired or drained, it was not to take a break and rest, but it was to try and push that off with something else, some other way of stimulating his body to keep going. As we look at this issue of rest, one of the first things that we need to do is open our eyes to warning signs in our own lives. For example, are you struggling with feeling tired at work? Do you dread going to sleep each night or waking up in the morning because it means you have to face another day? Are you becoming pessimistic about the nation or your family or yourself? Do you have regular breakdowns and mood swings Do you see yourself in a hopeless cycle of chores and work that has no end in sight and feel like your to-do list is just impossible to ever get through? Perhaps you struggle with saying yes to every request for help that comes your way and worried that some vital aspect of ministry or work will fail if you don't step in to help with that need. And maybe there's more. Maybe you're finding that you're spending less and less time reading your Bible, or that prayer is just something you can't possibly fit into your schedule. Are you reading books or watching movies that have heavy language or that have content that you would be ashamed for your elders or your friends to know about? Do you find yourself gossiping or telling partial truths, or overeating, overdrinking, overspending? Friends, if you're like me, at least one of those things, if not several, of those or similar warning signs are present in your life right now. And some warning signs may come on in different seasons and for a short time. Some may be dim warning lights that are just starting as you only slightly struggle with something at the moment. But there may be some other warning signs that are just constantly on. and that reflect deep-rooted issues. And if you're seeing that, if you're seeing those warning signs just consistently on, or if you're noticing yourself slipping in more serious areas, such as fantasizing about relationships, or regularly sharing only half-truths, then that is something that you need to take note of right away. For my coworker friend, there were warning lights physically, as his body was just constantly tired. There were warning lights mentally as he struggled with staying focused on the task at hand. Emotionally as he wrestled with depression. Vocationally as he worked through holidays and into weekends. And the answer was he needed rest. But the issue in some ways ran even deeper than just a surface level statement of, hey, you need to get more sleep. because ultimately his refusal to rest was a denial of the fact that God has made us with both a soul and a body. From the beginning of the Bible, we see that God has made us with physical bodies. When God created Adam, he gave him a physical body. When he created Eve, he took a rib from Adam and created her. And as we look through the rest of scripture, we read about death, we read about old age, we read about physical appearances. Paul even compares the church to a body. And so, obviously, God acted intentionally when he created us with physical bodies. The area that we struggle more often in is what to do with those bodies. In the first century AD, there was a line of thinking called Gnosticism. And that became popular among some Christians. And what the Gnostics thought was that bodies and the material world were flawed or were evil, and that you needed to do whatever you could to push it away and focus only on the spiritual. You can think about some of the monastic movements throughout the Middle Ages of people wanting to sequester themselves off in monasteries and just push all of the physical needs to the side. Well, there's an aspect of that which is admirable in that it is absolutely necessary and desirable to want to worship and pray and to grow spiritually. The Bible is clear that both the spiritual and the physical are important. And so Gnosticism got it wrong in saying, no, we can't do anything with the physical. That's not what the Bible says. In 1 John 4, John says, by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. In Luke 24, we see Jesus appearing to his disciples, and he shows them his hands and his side. And in Acts 1, we see Jesus ascending into heaven, still with his resurrected body. So the question is, if the physical world was so bad, why does Jesus take on a body, and why does he keep it after the resurrection? If God created our bodies intentionally, and if our bodies aren't bad, or to be despised, then we can start to see that it is important to take care of them, and it is important that we use them in a way that honors the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 20, Paul addresses various types of sin and of behavior, and he addresses things like sexual immorality, adultery, homosexuality, drunkenness, and gluttony, and he describes all of these things as sinful. The reason for this is that as Christians, our bodies are not our own because they've been bought with a price. And Paul describes our bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit within us. The one who commits sexual immorality unites something which is the Lord's, the body, with that which is sinful. The one who is a glutton or a drunkard takes what is the Lord's, which is the body, and he abuses it and uses it for his own pleasure. And in contrast, Paul says, so glorify God in your body. And we could keep going on that topic, but what I want you to see is that when we talk about rest, we first need to understand that God has given us bodies, that our bodies are important, and that God requires that we be good stewards of our bodies. And when it comes to rest, that means that there is not only a need, but there's a necessity to having times in which we cease from our labors, and also a necessity to having times in which we take care of our bodies through things like exercise and good nutrition. And some of you who hear that may be saying, and again, an extreme example, but maybe some of you are thinking, oh, okay, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I've always known I needed to have a 20-hour work week. And I've always known that I wanted to talk with my boss about those nine months of vacation each year that I need to have. And so someone may think, oh, well, I'm gonna go to my boss tomorrow and I'm gonna tell him that and ask for the same amount of pay. And so what I would say to them is, okay, you're partly missing the point here. For some of us, yes, we do need to take a step back from some of our duties. The majority of us have an addiction to productivity and to busy schedules, and we act as if we need to fill up every weekend and almost every weekday with some project or event. And sometimes we do have busy schedules out of necessity or perceived necessity. Maybe your days are long because you're repeatedly asked to do overtime at work and you feel like your job or your promotion would be at risk if you say no. And maybe you're a mom whose days and weeks are crazy because you have young children that constantly need your attention. Let me start by saying that just because we have a good reason for being busy doesn't take away from the fact that we still need to rest. So the question is not whether we need to rest, but it's how do we get from this position of having these crazy schedules to being able to rest. We've already talked about how one of the first steps is to pay attention to warning signs in your life. And the next step is to replay how you got to that, got to that point in your life. And if I can take an example, you take a busy wife who's at home. She feels depressed and overloaded. And to replay how she got to that point is to recognize that life has been a whirlwind of activity up to that point. Maybe it's the fact that she had a child recently and is getting used to a new schedule and to new routines. Maybe it's feeling isolated from friends because sickness keeps going through the house. Or just you don't have the time that you used to to connect with people. Maybe it's the fact that she's newly married and life isn't exactly what she had expected or hoped. And the goal in this replaying of how you got there is to recognize that there are things that got you there. This position is not just out of the blue. And some of those observations will be basic. Some may just be, hey, we moved. That is a reason how you got to a particular spot. Some of these observations may be a little bit more complicated, though. They may be harder to pinpoint, like the slow distancing from a friend, or regular disagreements with your parents. The important thing is that you cannot address an issue unless you know what that issue is. And so the question that you can ask is, what has been pushing on my life to create these pressure points? What has been pushing on it up to this point? That's vital to understand because in the midst of our busy lives, our rest needs to be intentional, both in the fact that we need to plan times of rest, and we also need to have a purpose for our rest. Rest or the lack of rest is always a declaration of something. And you can think about it like a billboard sign along the freeway of your life. and if you struggle with being a workaholic, ignoring your rest is like putting up on that billboard, me, me, me. Because work has become your idol, and you're either driven by pride in wanting affirmation or the next promotion, or by greed in wanting to accumulate more wealth. If you're a social butterfly who wants to attend every event or wants to keep up with every social media post, you're intentional putting away of your phone for a little while or skipping an event to rest, maybe like saying on your billboard, okay, I am trying to learn that it is okay to be disconnected from the world for a time and to refocus on what is truly important, to refocus on the Lord. And you could do this for any number of situations. There's the busy mom, there's the student that just wants to get straight A's. There's the grandpa who's counting down the days until retirement. So what are you posting on your billboard when you take times of rest? Or what are you posting when you push off rest for another time when it's more convenient? Does your billboard reflect a trust in the Lord and in his provision and care? or does it reflect a self-centered attitude that centers on me, me, me? The act of resting is consistently to be a declaration that we are the Lord's, that he provides for us, and that the things of this world, though they are important, they do not control us. Remember, both the physical and the spiritual are important. Rest not only allows your body to recover, but it allows you to have time to pray, time to reflect, and time to acknowledge that the Lord is the one who is in control. And that is part of being intentional. We rest for a purpose. So far we have talked about the need to respond to warning signs, the need to replay what has gotten to this point, and also the need to be intentional about what we are declaring when we rest. But let's say you get through this self-evaluation, and you can identify the issue. You've been working way too much overtime, and have little time with your family, and you're exhausted when you get home, and you want to relax, but the kids are hyper. Your wife is stressed with making dinner and trying to get kids ready for bed. And you know what you want to declare. You want to declare, my work doesn't own me. The Lord is my provider. He's the one who's in control of my work and my children's hearts. and you know something needs to change, but how do you move from that to actually putting it into practice? And so here are a few thoughts. First, map out what you spend your time on during the day. There are lots of little periods of time throughout the day that could be redeemed for a better use. For example, you may have a 20-minute drive to work, and you could use that as your prayer time instead of randomly flipping through channels on the radio. or maybe you have an hour after the kids go down for bed, and you could spend that with quality time with your spouse instead of turning on a movie that either overstimulates your brain or that just ends up keeping you up way later than you originally intended because you get caught up in this action movie. Second, think about what fills up your energy tank and what drains it. One of the struggles that moms especially face is what to do with kids' naptimes. What do you do during that time? And it's tempting to see that time as an opportunity to whiz around the house doing chores that you wouldn't be able to do if you were holding a baby. But the reality is that that activity means that you're basically spending the whole day doing draining activities. You're watching your kids, and now even when the kids are down for naps, you're doing another draining activity. And so it's important to remember the housework will still be there. Your opportunities for rest will not always be there. And some of you may be thinking, OK, well, that's nice. That's a good thought. But I don't want my family to starve. We still need to have clean clothes. So yeah, that's great. But if I don't do it, then I'm not going to get it done at all. And so what I would say is it is a challenge. And that oftentimes it does require a little bit of forward thinking and planning and also calling in help. We are a body of believers. We are a family. And that's part of the blessing of being part of a family. Maybe you can do a speed clean each dinner after night after your husband is home and you have two people there to help watch the kids. Maybe you decide, OK, we're going to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a couple of nights a week. because that then takes away some of the time of your normal duties and makes it an easier thing to do. And maybe you work out a deal with friends to do a deep clean at each other's house once a month, to where you say, okay, this month, everyone come over here, we'll have a couple people watch the kids, we'll have a couple people clean, and then we'll switch off. Okay, there are things that you can do, but again, some of it takes a little bit of forward planning. A third thing you can do as you try to implement more rest is to break out your to-do list into three categories. One, things that have to get done that day. Two, things that need to get done but can get pushed off. And three, things that you just want to get done. They don't need to get done, they're just desires. And then think about when you are the most productive during the day. And use that time to get done the things that must get done. So for example, if your mornings are the time when you have the most energy and the most focus, use that time for those things that must get done. Don't use it doing some random task that you think is more enjoyable but may not be as necessary. So focus on those times where you have more energy and more focus. A fourth principle is that we need to learn how to say no. In my work as an engineer, we often will get projects, we'll send them into cities for review, and then we'll have a few weeks or even a few months where that project, we just don't hear anything on it because it's all in review, there's nothing else for us to do. And during those times, it's always tempting to go, I have nothing to do during this time. I need more work. OK, boss, can I have three or four more projects? Because I just don't have anything to do. Well, then he'll give me those projects, and then what happens a couple weeks or a couple months later? Well, all of those original projects come back, and the cities go, hey, can you make this change? Can you do this? And now I'm going, what do I do? I have so much work now that I can't even handle it. So part of it is to be thinking ahead and to be willing to say no in those situations. Be willing to say, no, you know what? I know what's coming down the road. And this often happens with ministry too. You may want to help and you don't want to disappoint people and so you say yes whenever you're asked to. And what happens? Well, after a year of yeses, you're now burned out and ready to be done. And you step away completely. And now there's no one to serve. So again, you need to be willing to say no at times in order so that you can be effective in the future. So in those situations, be realistic with how much you can handle. And again, learn to say no. The answer is not to squeeze more time out of each day but is often just to recognize that there are some things that simply won't get done because there's not enough time. And again, that is why it's important to figure out what must get done during the day. Now, recognizing that our time is limited forces us to prioritize things that are most important. If you think again about Mark 6, Jesus knows that there are still ministry tasks to be done. He can still see all of the needy people. There's so many people in the house that the disciples can't eat, so he can see all of these people. It's not that there is too little to be done, it's that there's too much to be done. But Jesus also recognizes the importance of saying no for a time so that he and the disciples can minister to them effectively in the future. And the goal is not to be like a match that just flares up brightly for a second and then sputters out. The goal is to be more like a candle that burns steadily, it still burns brightly, but it lasts for a lot longer. So the four principles are map out your time, redeem the little moments, find what fills up your tank, use your most productive times of the day for the most urgent tasks, and learn to say no. Again, we need to remember why we are talking about this. If we are more intentional with the time that we have, we'll be better able to rest. And as with the disciples, those times of rest are vital so that we can refresh our bodies, recenter our focus on the Lord, reflect on what he has done, declare our dependence upon him. That is the purpose of our rest. With all of this talk so far on the need for rest and some of the application of that rest, you may have noticed something about the definition that I said earlier that we haven't touched on yet. And that is that rest is the intentional ceasing from our normal labors for a limited time. If we go back to our enthusiastic person who's gonna go in and demand nine months of vacation, we all laugh at that thought. But that's because we, inherently recognize that rest is not to go on forever. And this concept of limited rest is rooted in creation itself. When God creates the world, he does so in six days. But Genesis 2 tells us that on the seventh day he rested. Later in the giving of the law as described in Exodus 20, God says that his people are to continue to labor for six days and rest on the seventh because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. In other words, our weekly rest is to be limited to one day and seven because that reflects the pattern of God's work and rest in creation. But that's not the only type of rest described though. In the law, the Lord instituted yearly times of rest with the feasts and festivals And every seven years there was a special rest for the land in which the Israelites were not to sow their fields or to prune their vineyards, but were to let them grow of their own accord. And the Lord anticipated that the Israelites would hear that and would start to panic and go, Oh, if we're going to do that, what's going to happen in that in between time? What if we're not working? There's always that fear that sort of lingers behind this. What happens if I do actually rest? And the Lord anticipated that response. And in Leviticus 25, he says, I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you'll be eating some of the old crop. You shall eat the old until the ninth year when its crop arrives. And so we see that there are regular but limited times of rest. And in those times of rest, the Lord provides for his people. So think about how that affects us. I want to ask you to raise your hand, but how many of you plan for retirement and have a 401k or maybe you're counting down the years of work until you can rest for the remainder of your life? And what I would ask you is, is that what scripture teaches? The author of Hebrews tells us that we are to run with endurance the race that is set before us. And that implies two things. One, that we are to be running, and two, that we are not to sprint and try and cover half the distance in the first half of our lives so that we can just stop in the second. We talked several months ago about the biblical vision for old age, and if you remember from that time, our work may look different once we get to different stages of our lives, but that doesn't mean that our work stops altogether. What I wanna point out here is that part of what drives this mindset of retirement and just ceasing work altogether is that we have not been good about taking rests along the way. If you've ever read about or watched the ultramarathon races, where people often run distances like 50 or 100 miles at a time, one thing that you will always see is that they have pit stops at regular intervals along the run. And those pit stops, they've got food, they've got drinks, they've got restrooms. They also end up being sort of the social centers for the runners as they're all stopping here and talking together. And that is sort of what our lives are to be like. That's what they're to look like. We're not to sprint past the first 10 pit stops only to be so overcome by cramps and pains that we have to drop out of the race. Instead, we're to regularly take those pit stops as they come so that we can continue running well into the end. Is there ever a time when we are not to rest? Yes, there may be times and seasons where our rest is taken away or looks different than we might like. And in Mark 6, Jesus tells the disciples to come away, and they get a brief time of rest on the boat ride over. But if you read just below in our passage, so right after verse 32, you'll notice that they never actually rest when they get to the other side. Because the crowds have figured out where Jesus is. They've all come over to the other side. And Jesus and the disciples get there, and they're looking, and now the shore is just filled with people. And what is Jesus' response? In that instance, Jesus could have said, nope, you know what, I'm just gonna sail back over to the other side and we'll keep doing this until we find an empty spot. That's not what he says. He has mercy on the people. And so he teaches them. But if you notice what happens when that teaching is done, then Jesus says, all right, let's go. Let's go back to the other side. And he again tells the disciples to cast off and head back across the lake. For us, we may still need to do the occasional day of overtime. We may have days where kids don't nap. So we may miss out on seasons of rest. And that is to be expected. That is normal life. So the problem is not with the occasional times of busyness. The issue is with the regular neglect of rest. So friends, I want to leave you with one final thought here today. Rest not only plays a large part in the law and the Old Testament, but it can also be seen throughout the Psalms, the Prophets, and on into the New Testament letters. The picture that is consistently given is that the Lord is both our rest and our refuge, and that what is planned for us in the future is a rest from our struggles and pains and a freeing from the effects of the curse of sin. the New Testament writers talk about this rest that remains for us, which we see now in part as we have been freed from bondage to sin, but will one day experience in fullness as we are also freed from the effects of sin. It is to this rest and to that time in which our bodies will be renewed and not grow weary, and in which our joy will be in the Lord, and our worship will be unto him. It is to that rest that we look forward to. So let me leave you with this call from Jesus in Matthew 11, as he says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time of gathering together to worship you and to hear your word and to honor you with this day. And Lord, we know that you have given us rest. We know that You have given us times and seasons to delight in you and to see your goodness. And Lord, we confess that we have not always been good about taking those times. So Lord, we ask for your forgiveness and we ask for your grace as we go forward and as we evaluate our own lives. Lord, give us wisdom, give us honesty, and show us grace. We pray this in your name, amen.