10.07.2012 Margins Pt. 2 - Rest!

SermonAudio

Thank You for Your Word – and Your grace – who knows where we would be without it – we can say, The Lord has helped us and brought us to this point and has worked. Help us to focus on those – to be grateful for what You have done – to learn to be thankful – to give thanks. Open Your word to us – may they be an encouragement to all.
We started a series on Margins and Boundaries – I have gotten a lot of response. When we talk about Margins – I am talking about providing space in your life for God and the things that really matter. I gave the Top Ten Ways to know that you don’t have margins in your life – and someone came up – if you have 8 of those what does that mean? You are in trouble!
Others have asked if I listen to their conversations and follow them around. And I want to let you know – behind that door – is a huge supercomputer that when you come in – connects to your cell phone and that is how I know all these things.
The best one – I won’t mentioned my wife’s name – but she told me - I wish you had told me you were going to talk about Microsoft Word – when I open it up, I go to margins and blow them to the edges! She’s not getting graded on it – she’s the teacher – but that is what a lot of us do – push it as far as the program will allow us – this program called the human mind and spirit – and that has significant consequences if you do that over time.
That is the focus. We tend to push things to the edge – family, God, help, self – and we are looking for a proper Biblical balance.
Matthew 11: 28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. 30 "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."
What we see – there is this metaphor – this symbol of spiritual rest – rest in God – rest in Christ – a life of rest.
How would you like your life to be like this: You are tired and burdened – and He gives you rest.
First – surrendering ourselves to God – allowing Him to have His rightful place. Give our will to His will. Allow Him to have His way in our lives – that is where rest in God begins.
Rest in God --> Spiritual Rest --> Emotional Rest --> Physical Rest --> Rest in God...
Exhausted people tend to do the wrong thing. I put that up there – keep it in mind – how am I doing on that cycle? If one is missing, the rest begin to crumble.
Worship, Work, and Rest - need to be a significant aspect of our lives. If you don’t have those – you are in trouble – a proper and healthy balance.
Last week we looked at schedule and time – today we are looking at physical things.

So the practical – general physical rest – sleep – briefly – we live in a time where people don’t get enough sleep – or get too much – it is hard to find a balance. Those of us who have had kids in our lives – know that is a circumstance that stops sleep – but all you can do is be patient.
There are also mental, spiritual, and emotional issues that keep us from getting sleep. There are also physical issues – but that is for a doctor.
Psalm 127:1
127:1 (A Song of Ascents, of Solomon.) Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. 2 It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved [even in his] sleep.
Notice – that [even in his] is not in the original text – so some say, For He gives to His beloved sleep.
Rest is a gift and blessing from God. God wants us to be able to rest. When I was young and in college, we would read these great biographies of missionaries who would get up in the middle of the night to pray – and we would try to emulate that and think it was spiritual, but this verse says that it is not spiritual. It is vain to try to make it without proper rest.
Psalm 4: 8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep, For Thou alone, O Lord, dost make me to dwell in safety.
Rest is connected with our trust in God. Many times there are things that keep us from trusting God.
Ecclesiastes 5: 12 The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much. But the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.
Rest is tied to a balance of good work.
Proverbs 20:13 – Do not love sleep, or you will become poor; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with food.
There is the other side of the equation – if you love sleep and are a sluggard.
I encourage you to have a short time with God before you go to sleep – it sets everything in its proper balance – so that you enter rest with an attitude of trust. It doesn’t have to be long – a psalm – 4-5 verses – that kind of thing. It is a small practice that can have dramatic impact on your life. Try practicing it for the next week.
I stopped at halftime last night because it was getting so late – give it a time of rest.
That does it for sleep – I’ll talk now about Sabbath.
I don’t have time to debate about Sabbath – There are many questions that people debate: Is it for today? Did Jesus say we need to do it? Did Paul say we don’t need to do it? I think the argument is looking at the wrong thing – looking at the Sabbath goes back to Genesis – 6 days of work – and on the 7th to rest. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day. That is the foundation of having a day of rest. He made the seventh day holy and blessed. Now – when we think about that – we think about someone taking a Sabbath rest as sitting in a lounge chair all day – and we think – how will that work? How will I get things done? Can I garden on the Sabbath – and I think that is looking at things improperly…
Deut. 5: 12 'Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 'Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; [in it] you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 'And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.
Do you see that? It is not a legalistic you better do this because you should do this – but it is the opportunity to remember our redemption and freedom – like the 4th of July once/week. It is a day of fireworks going off once/week – a time to remember how God took them out of Egypt – these great miracles – now take that seventh day and remember it – what your salvation is all about – a day of freedom.
Now, some of you will go – we notice in the New Testament they are always arguing about the Sabbath – Jesus would get in these fights with the Pharisees – and we think it is okay to just keep going and going and going and never having any rest. What is interesting…
Colossians 2: 16 Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day--
Romans 14: 4 Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand. 5 One man regards one day above another, another regards every day [alike.] Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God. 7 For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; 8 for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.
So what is it? I think Paul is saying that the Sabbath is not a requirement for God to love us – or something the Jews had to do to be right with God. We have entered into the Sabbath rest – according to Hebrews – Jesus has given us the rest – so it is not mandatory as it relates to our salvation and approval by God. The Pharisees had all these strange rules and regulations for the Sabbath – and we would say they were being legalistic, but we shouldn’t put them down – when they went into exile – the prophets told them – this happened to you because you did not keep the Sabbath. This is one of the primary reasons this happened and so the Pharisees came up with all these rules. But for us, it is not an issue of being judged by God.
Mark 2: 27 And He was saying to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 "Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
It is not mandatory, but it is beneficial – good, healthy, spiritually healthy, spiritually good – so we shouldn’t look at it – Do I have to do it? It is a blessing! Do we say, do I have to get God’s blessings? No! Should we not want something that is good for us and makes us healthy? That is what He is getting at here.
What does it mean? What does work mean? On the seventh day He rested from WORK – does that mean you can’t play around in your garden? That is the wrong way of looking at it! What am I not allowed to do, God? Maybe a better way to look at it – what are we free from on that day – I am free not to HAVE TO work. Would you like to be free? Would you like freedom from work? God is giving us one day a week of freedom from work. Work speaks of that which is necessary to provide for our livelihood. If you have to work on a Sunday – you haven’t sinned in doing that – that is not where this is going. But you know that working seven days/week is not healthy and it is not a blessing. You may make money, but you will not be blessed because of it. Whatever is your primary way of providing for life – you get a day off.
Maybe you are a homemaker – and never get a day off?! Maybe it means you don’t clean on that day. This doesn’t mean you are free one day to not love.
It is a day of freedom from your checklist – if it causes you stress or must be done to get approval, you are free from that – it doesn’t mean we eliminate all activity – that is not what Sabbath is meant to be.
I get it – if you are a student and have final exams, we’re not going to be legalistic about it. If you have to work a Sunday, it won’t kill you. But if you work every day for an extended time, it might!
Second – Sabbath should be a day free from worry and anxiety – and what I mean by that – we are free to give our burdens to God – giving them to Him like in Matt. 11.
Third – Freedom from Materialism and Consumerism. Some of us want our Sabbath to be all about that! But it is to step out the economic system that run and ruin society. That doesn’t mean that you cannot stop and pick up some milk – but I urge you to stay out of commerce if you can. Set the day aside for God and rest. We don’t think about profit margins
Ruth Barton:“For consumers, Sunday is a day to shop – for working people to catch up on household chores that are missed during the week. For athletes, to pack up and go to sporting events. I didn’t know how to do it in a culture that knows nothing of setting aside a day for rest and delight in God – what a messy can of worms this was going to open up!”
Taking a Sabbath is radical. So what do we do during a Sabbath? Going back to the freedom – you rest. It is a day to rest – physically and spiritually.
Now, What I would say – it is a slow paced day – one day a week that you drop down into first gear – no rushing – no pushing – just a day of slow pace. Purposeful rest – not just lying around – maybe you need a nap and that is good – but it is for spiritual and physical rejuvenation. There is a difference between leisure and rest – “we don’t need to slave every minute in order to eat, and yet few really rest.” – Boundaries.
Leisure is needing a vacation after your vacation – It is not REST.
Worship – can be corporate like going to church – but should be personal worship also – setting aside time to think about God – who He is and what He has done – and time to reflect how God is working and active in your life.
Third – a time for family – you see this in the old testament – but maybe you don’t have family – time to gather with a church family.
Fourth – a time of delight and joy! For some it might be excruciating – Look at Isaiah 58: 13 "If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your [own] pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy [day] of the Lord honorable, And shall honor it, desisting from your [own] ways, From seeking your [own] pleasure, And speaking [your own] word, 14 Then you will take delight in the Lord, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you [with] the heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. "
What he is saying – it should be the best day of the week – you work all week and look forward to this day – a day of the Lord and those things that are most important.
First – what do you do? Is it okay to do something? That is thinking of it wrongly – but first – does it promote rest and relaxation for you? If it doesn’t – don’t do it! A rigorous hike may restore you. Working in the garden may connect you with God – that is fine.
Does it bring joy and delight?
Does it give a sense of holiness and sanctification?
Finally, Jesus mentioned – showing mercy on the Sabbath – it is a time that if God brings an opportunity to be merciful, you should do that.
"There is something deeply spiritual about honoring the limitations of our existence as humans. A peace descends upon our lives when we accept what is real rather than pushing beyond our limits. Something about being gracious and accepting and gentle with ourselves enables us to be gentle and acceptng and gracious with others." - Barton When you allow yourself a day of rest and relaxation – you will have more compassion/sympathy/understanding of others.

"If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath" – if you don’t take care of your body, your body will make sure it gets the rest it needs. It may take ten or twenty years – but your body will make sure of it!
In closing – how to do this: the Jews – in the Bible – began the night before. Think of it this way – you work through the day – and plan to go out for dinner – and then when it is done – you stop – and on that evening – have a family time – have dinner together – watch a movie or have a devotional time – go to bed early (and if there were fewer kids here, I would tell you how the Rabbis encouraged people to enjoy the Sabbath!) – have a restful day – pretty simple. Let's pray...