This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Wintersbrings, Florida, where Reverend Kevin Lavia is our senior pastor. Today's message is part two in a series titled, Stretched, How Grace Creates Space for a Better Life. The sermon is taken from Mark 631 and is titled, When Rest Is Best. Now here's Kevin with today's message. As the children file out, I ask you to turn in your vitals to the gospel of Mark 6. We're going to be looking at verse 31 this morning, but more generally, the surrounding context is just a little bit to understand 31 what Jesus is doing there. And as you open there, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you that we are not left to our own devices, but instead now know your wisdom. But Lord, walking in your wisdom is not an easy task. Daily, we forget who we are. Daily, we forget your promises. We are more prone at times to live in fear rather than faith. Father, would you help us to move beyond fear to faith, to remember our identity in Christ, and to live in view of that identity, that perspective, shaping our priorities, and how we live out our life day to day. Father, for those here this morning who know you, who have been known by you, will we pray that they would grow to a deeper reliance and trust in your Son Jesus. For those who are new to the church and maybe have yet to turn to you, Lord, we pray that you would draw them close, that you would let them know the depth of your love, that you would reassure them that they can be forgiven and restored, to fellowship with you, and then partake of an everlasting life, and maybe even more than that, an abundant life, a different way of living for your glory, for our good. In Jesus' name, we pray these things, amen. There were four college students who moved into a two bedroom apartment. Their names were Matt, Michael, Andrew, and Steve. And the first three found out, very shortly thereafter, that Steve had a terrible snoring problem. Nobody wanted a room with them, so they all agreed that they would take turns. The first night was Matt's turn. The next morning, Matt walked out of the room into the living room. Michael and Andrew asked him, what's going on? You look tired. He walked out looking like a zombie with glazed over eyes, and he said with no small amount of awe, he said, Steve snored all night. It was so unbearable, all I could do was sit up and look at him for those eight hours. The next night, Michael, like a beautiful soldier, took his turn. He went in and emerged eight hours later, eyes blood shot, his hair a wild mess, asked by the guys how it went for him. Michael said, Steve snored so loudly that he, too, just sat up all night staring at him. Night three was Andrew's turn, and Andrew was a football player, about 300 pounds. The next morning he walked into the living room, bright eyed, bushy tailed, stretching, yawning from a great night of sleep. Matt and Michael were surprised out of their minds and asked him how the night went, and he said, well, before I went to sleep, I tucked Steve in bed and I kissed him good night. And instead of sleeping, he sat up all night watching me. I confess to the 830 service that I'm a horrible joke teller. I'm just terrible at it. Steve Brown is amazing. Pete Owlinson, they're great. This morning, when my alarm went off, the first words in my head were this joke. Remember the names. Remember the cadence. Remember to tell it this way. I've been obsessing over it, and now I can rest. It's so important to get enough rest, isn't it? But rest doesn't always come easily. When our lives are stretched too thin, too many demands crowd in, oftentimes the first thing to go is rest. Maybe to sleep, maybe to just be still, oftentimes those are the first things to go. Maybe we find ourselves falling behind at work and in an effort to get caught up, we work longer hours. We get up earlier, we go to bed later, we sleep less. The time in our day is rushed and frenzied rather than calm and reflective. We don't have the peace required to be proactive, we're constantly living reactive lives. Maybe we pack our schedules too tight and do too many things. We're running here and there with the kids, we're running here and there with the grandkids, we're going shopping, we're fixing cars, we're doing home repairs. And resolve is all of the space that would be there for prayer, for a contemplative life. To meditate upon the deep things of God, these things evaporate and what takes their place is what so many others have called the tyranny of the urgent. Maybe you know something of what that's like. Maybe you don't have so much time crunch, maybe your crunch is a little bit different, maybe it's financial. You don't know if you're going to be able to pay all of your bills this month. You don't know how you would weather a big repair to a major appliance or your car. Maybe some of the financial needs of your life are weighing in and compromising your peace and joy so that when your head weighs down in the pillow, you're just tossing and turning all night filled with worry. Maybe you have anxiety over a relationship stress or a medical question. That stress of life can push us oftentimes to faulty forms of relief. Isn't it true that when you're weighed in on too much, oftentimes you seek relief in all the wrong ways? Maybe you fill your gullet with junk food. Maybe you fill your hours with mindless amusements. Maybe you watch television to the point of distraction. So when the time of rest comes, your mind is racing too much to enjoy it. You don't get the rest and the sleep that you need. Maybe not in the amount of time, but in the quality of it. Examples are myriad. I could go on and on for hours and you could too. But the end result is the same. We're stretched too thin. And that's what we've been talking about. And that's what we're going to talk about for the next couple of weeks. And this morning we're going to be talking about being stretched too thin, even to the point of not resting or getting the rest that we need, to live the peaceful and quiet lives to which God calls us. And that's where I want to draw your attention this morning. Mark chapter six, verse 31, Jesus does something so interesting. We're going to look at the broader context, not verse by verse, but just to understand a little bit of what he's doing in Mark six, thirty one. Listen to these words and Jesus, or he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest for a while. For many were coming and going and they had no leisure to even eat. Now if you know anything of the surrounding context, you know that Jesus sent out his disciples two by two into the surrounding countryside. He wanted them to preach the good news of the kingdom, to preach that there was forgiveness available for all of those who would turn away from their self-sufficiency and their self-trust and trust rather in God in his grace. There was forgiveness available and there was rest available. All of their religious toil would come to an end if instead of trusting in their own righteousness, they would come to rest in his. And to manifest the power of that teaching and Christ's power among them, the apostles were given special authority to drive out demons, to pray for the sick and to see them healed. And as they by-tenorated and undoubtedly seen wonderful things, the adrenaline has been pumping. Now many of you know that from your own life, maybe you've never cast out demons or prayed that the sick might be well, but you've experienced something of God in a close communion with him. Maybe you've seen the power of God manifest in shocking ways and it fills your veins with adrenaline. You're so excited to see the power of God at work in the world and all you want to do when you're coming down off that mountain top is gather around anybody that might understand it, share it with them in review and rejoice in what God has done. Well, that's something of what the disciples undoubtedly are doing in March 6. They've done all of these great things and now they've come back to Christ emotionally, spiritually, they're riding high, higher than you've ever written before, but physically, they're exhausted. They've been gone for a long, long time. Now it's probably quite likely that the disciples were not alone in coming to Jesus. That there was another band of disciples drawing near at the same time. This text doesn't say it overtly, but I think implicitly it strongly suggests it. And I don't think it's in any way shape or form irresponsible to say that another group was coming near Jesus not physically exhausted necessarily but emotionally and spiritually exhausted and that would have been the disciples of John the Baptist. If you've not grown up in the church, you've not read the Bible very much. Don't worry, don't fret when you hear the name John the Baptist and maybe don't know who that is. He was the last prophet of the Old Testament, the last one to foreshadow to foretell the coming of Christ. In fact, John the Baptist is the last prophet and the greatest of the prophets in the view of Christ because he's the one who stands as the last link in the chain, the one who points to Jesus physically and says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In other words, the Messiah for whom you've longed, the Redeemer that you have waited to rescue you. He's here and that's him. John the Baptist pointed people to Christ and called them to repentance, preparing the way for Christ. And you know there's no human being that stands outside the Lordship of Christ. Jesus Christ is not the Savior of all but he is the Lord of all from the highest to the lowest. Kings, queens, princesses, princes, none of these are outside the Lordship of Christ. And so when John the Baptist issues the call to repentance, it goes to the highest as well as to the low and the highest herod felt threatened. So for a variety of reasons, he has John the Baptist killed, murdered and John the Baptist disciples, his followers, are undoubtedly grieved and to whom would they have gone in their grief if not the one that John the Baptist pointed them to, to Jesus. So not only are Jesus disciples coming back to him physically exhausted, now perhaps John the Baptist disciples are coming to him emotionally and spiritually exhausted. Now I want you to imagine Jesus having all of these folks come to him so tired and weary, maybe some of them not even realizing how tired they were and how did Jesus react? Well, he reacted the way we would expect God to act, right? He told them, suck up and deal. We all have troubles. We're all pressed to the breaking point. What do you think this is? This is the most important thing going on in the world right now. You need to work harder. You need to try more. You need to do better, right? That's what Jesus told. No, Jesus didn't say any of that. Jesus, I think one of the most compelling reasons that Jesus authenticates himself as a Messiah is so unlikely. What we would expect God to be like, Jesus says the most unexpected things that in a very ironic way point to his divinity, it's not someone that we could create or make up. He stands outside of our expectations. Jesus actually does the exact opposite of what a truly religious person would do. A religious person would play the martyr. Oh, it's my life. I guess I have to carry this cross. Jesus actually does something quite different. He says, come here. Let's get away from all these people. Let's get away from this craziness and let's just relax. Let's just rest. Jesus says the most amazing things. That if you're Christian, you've grown up in the church. They're just so pithy. You probably have lost the shock in the awe. That's natural. I'm not shaming you anymore than I'm shaming me. But consider that God left glory to come in dwell among rebellious sinners and preach to them good news like this. Matthew 11, 28 through 29, come to me, all who labor in our heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. The people of God living at that time had no rest for their souls. They were constantly being told by the religious people of the day, do more, try harder, be better. You're feeling weak. That's a fault with you. Overcome it. You got to fake it till you make it. They compounded the error of believing that obeying God's commands, you could somehow ascend a ladder into heaven and your own merit. They compounded it by adding to the law of God a weight of human tradition that was utterly crushing to everybody living at that time and made them restless, fatigued. Many just simply disengaged because they knew they couldn't do it. They had no hope of making themselves acceptable to God. To come into some spiritual peace with God, Jesus twists that completely and says, look, you can be restless in yourself and your foolish efforts and striving to make yourselves a peace with God or you can rest in me. Come to me if you're burdened and heavy-laden, if you're feeling the weight of these ridiculous expectations, come to me and I will give you rest. But here's the beauty of Jesus. We can so easily hyper-spiritualize the things that he said, as though he has no practical concern for our daily lives in this physical realm. But Jesus isn't like that. Jesus, as we said, is Lord of all, the highest of the high, to the lowest of the low, but Jesus is also Lord of everything about you and everything in all creation. Jesus is as much the Lord of your body as he is your soul. And shockingly, he's concerned about your body. He tells us that the Father looks after your daily needs so that you don't need to be filled with anxiety and worry. Later on in the history of the early church, the physical needs of some members of the church were being overlooked and so God through the power of the Spirit, through the apostles, established a secondary office in the church, the office of Deacon, to look after the physical care and nurture of the church because Christ is Lord of all. One of our members here, Dr. Peter Weiss, has a particular passion for that. He has a blog about health discipleship, growing to follow Christ and seeing the implications of the gospel radiate not only spiritually, but physically, that the truth of Christ affects how we eat, how we drink, how we rest, how we sleep. This past week I started CrossFit and that's kind of a lie because I didn't really start CrossFit, I kind of started CrossFit. I gave them my credit card, that was part of it. And then I started learning how to lift just a little bit, but mind you, they didn't put any weights on the bar and that was wise because the bar was plenty heavy. So I did these motions like learning how to do things and if you've ever done like a deep squat, I can't even do it now, I'm just in so much pain. I went through the process and I thought, you know, this is good for me to do this because I've neglected my body. I need to be not only concerned for my soul, but also my body and later on that day I found that when I take the time to exercise, rest comes so much easier. I actually drugged RTS to work on my sermon, the seminary over in Obedo, I parked in the parking lot and I thought, you know, I'd take some ibuprofen, so I did. And I thought, this chair reclined in the parking lot, so I reclined, and I thought, I've just closed my eyes for a minute or two, I woke up a half an hour later. RTS came easy because I made that a priority. Jesus wants rest to come easy to us, not just because they were physically exhausted, but because we've come to rest in him and in coming to rest in him, we can come to rest in other ways. So I want to give you three things that we've seen as passage, three things for your encouragement. You might even jot these down if you're a note taker just to look at later because I'm going to ask you some questions at the end of the message that might help all of us take a little bit of inventory on our lives. The first thing that I want you to see is that Jesus wants us to know and trust his character. Jesus wants us to know and trust his character. Last week we said, the world tells you that what you do determines who you are. So your action, according to the world, precedes your identity. If you're going to be someone, you've got to do the work to give yourself that identity that others might view you with significance. You can chase meaning in your life through your work, through your family. You can be restless, longing to find security, satisfaction and significance in all of the worldly things. And the world will feed that. The world will tell you in commercials and movies and television that you don't matter unless you do X, Y and Z. Who are you anyway until you actualize yourself, the message of existentialist philosophers. You need to make yourself who you are. But Jesus flips that and he says, what you are determines what you do. You live what you are. The problem with for us is that we forget who we are. That we don't need to chase after a worldly identity. We've had an identity graciously given to us by God. An identity that cannot be improved upon. You're a child of God. That's a resume that can't be padded. You can't add anything to that. That's the most glorious identity to have. In out of the fact that you're a child of God, flows a lot of other callings that are commensurate and complementary from it. As a child of God, I glorify and honor God in these particular ways. What you do flows from what you are by grace. If you live according to the law, trying to make yourself into something, you're living out of fear, not in a faith. You're living in fear that what you do will never be enough and that way you've accomplished, you've got to hold onto. You might lose. But if you're living by grace, you live a glorious life of faith and security because what's been given can never, ever be taken away. As Jesus watches this toil, even toil to the breaking point, he's doing a wonderful thing. He's allowing us to come to the end of ourselves so that we can see what a great deliverer he is. Steve Brown has a wonderful teaching moment on the radio. It's one of my favorites that he does. It's about a lifeguard who's struggling to save a swimmer. The swimmer is perhaps caught in a riptide carried out in his flailing, trying to save themselves. Whatever they do to keep their head above water, as the lifeguard draws near to the person who's obviously imperiled, he can't accomplish the rescue because the swimmer's efforts keep getting in the way. So what does the lifeguard do? Well, in the story, the lifeguard lets the swimmer run out of strength, even to the point of dipping below the water. When the strength is all gone, when fatigue finally sets into the point where there's no delusion of self-rescue, then the lifeguard does his work. I think what Jesus is doing with these disciples and what he does with us is allows us to taste the exhaustion that comes from trying to find rescue apart from him. And then in those moments, shows that he doesn't receive us with condemnation or guilt. He doesn't heap upon us more demands. He doesn't tell us to suck up and deal. He instead draws near and saves and shows that he's faithful and will never cast aside his children so that they can toil without fear. That the one who loves them will never abandon them. What a position of security from which to live your life. And when you sense that deep security, it kind of changes the way you structure your life. And that brings me to a second point that I'd invite you to write down if you are the note-taking type. Jesus wants you to know that spiritual rest is so important, produces physical rest, spiritual rest produces physical rest. When you have peace with God, when you're resting more and more in him and the identity that you have from him by grace, you are by consequence. Just freed from so much of the frantic and fearful demands of everyday life. You're free to order your priorities in new and revolutionary ways because you're not chasing after the things that maybe you once felt you needed to chase after. If you ever noticed in God's word how much he weaves rest into the scriptures and into life, remember when God created in the opening pages of scripture, he established a rhythm of rest in creation itself. Every seventh day would be rest to the Lord. Rhythms of rest were designed in a creation later as Moses received the law of God and imparted it to the nation of Israel that he might counsel the nations to know the holy character of God. You know, in that revelation was rest. Whenever God commanded feast days, woven into those were rest. Whenever God sent out his people to take the possession of the promised land, he commanded that they give rest to the land, that they give rest even to their animals, rest is part of creation. But so often times in a rebellion and restlessness we drive out that blessing. In our frantic and frenzied search to find outside of God what can only be found in God, rest gets pushed outside. We're stretched to the limit but when we come to freedom in God we can experience a new kind of rest. One that begins in our souls but radiates outwardly into how we live our lives and the Bible refers to that too. Have you ever noticed in the Old Testament the Proverbs that it says that are physical consequences to spiritual illness? If you are riddled with guilt you don't know the joy of being forgiven. You're living with a tortured conscience, do not expect to rest well. If you are filled with guilt and holding your sin inside the Bible says it eats away at your bones, there's a physical effect to your spiritual condition and if you're in Christ and at rest you can experience a little bit more by grace the physical rest that comes as a result. So Jesus thirdly wants us to live proactively not reactively. You know when the disciples were descending upon Jesus the gospel writer Mark was on to say that the crowds were weighing in upon them even to the point where they couldn't eat. The tyranny of the urgent was at a feverish pitch and Jesus confident of his identity, King of King's lord of lords, confident of who his disciples were by grace. He says no to the throngs of people weighing in upon him trying to determine his agenda says no we're going to withdraw. He says no. In many of you know this but it's such a wonderful and paradoxical truth saying no to some things is saying yes to other things and sometimes the things that require a yes don't get it because we're saying yes to other things that crowd them out. When Jesus says no to the throngs and the multitude and allows his agenda to be defined by his heavenly perspective he can say no with confidence and withdraw and invite the disciples to do the same. The simple truth is you don't have to do a lot of the things that you might feel so powerfully obligated to do. You can't say no and it might be the most righteous thing for you to do in a moment to say no to carve out the space and the rest that God desires for you and that by grace liberates you too. You don't have to chase after false forms of redemption and rescue in this life, false forms of comfort and satisfaction, you can cut that garbage right out of your life and then chasing after God is the highest good, the greatest good you can rightly prioritize the rest of your life a little bit more. Will we ever perfectly no absolutely not we've continually forget our identity we continue wander away entropy is spiritual function as well as a physical one but let me close with just a couple of questions I'd like you to reflect upon maybe this coming week go to Duncan Donuts or Starbucks go to Chick-fil-A if you can get a seat things always packed go someplace carve out some time and if anybody gives you grief say my pastor said I should do this son who are you to contradict a man of the cloth go and do this ask yourself does your life have a rhythm of rest or are you just constantly running to and fro and what do your rhythms of rest say about the deeper spiritual rest you have in Christ. When you look at your calendar and the things you do why are you doing them are you doing them because they flow from your identity and your joy in the Lord or are you doing them in some vain attempt to get something that really already you have in Christ and don't need from the world. Maybe it's time to inventory your life and remove the garbage the stuff that's not of God that needs to be gone completely and you're free to buy grace more and more remove it but then maybe the task is to take the remaining good and prioritize it in deference to the great. Another question do you get enough sleep are you taking time to rest at night are you taking time to meditate daily hearing from your father enjoying his company and communion and prayer or is the tyranny of the urgent driving out the time that it would take to do that maybe it's time for you to say no to those things and yes to your father to withdraw to a deserted place and spend time with your Lord before re-engaging with the life life and its demands. Are you taking care of your body are you resting are you feeling rejuvenated or have you bought into some sort of dualism that teaches you that Christ only is concerned about your spiritual well-being not your physical that the two aren't related do you have a well-ordered sense of priorities shaped from a true perspective of your identity and do you order your life accordingly a piece of paper and look at what you do and question the motivations examine and see if you might be able to create some space to enjoy what has been lost in the hurried and hairy nature of life take time to rest and reflect reorder rearrange get rid of the garbage rearrange the good and deference to the great reject the unnecessary demands that you and others heap upon yourself and and be sure that your life is characterized less by fear and more and more by fate. I just want to close with encouragement in that regard I had a good friend pastor who suggested this to me heard it elsewhere it's not novel to him he said Kevin you're gonna rest it's just the question of whether it's gonna be in a hospital bed or on your couch by choice the body can only do so much in Christ you're free to take care of it for his glory for your good and the good of others let's pray father we thank you for the grace that you've given to say yes to you and know to what is not of you to reorder and reprioritize things that maybe have gotten a little out of whack help us to look at our lives and knew from a heavenly perspective to not be so hurried and hairy but instead to feel a deep rest in our souls that radiates out really in every spirit like research we prayed in Jesus name in love. Willow Creek Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America our website is www.WillowCreekChurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.