A Well-Deserved Rest For Your Minds, Bodies, And Souls.

· Topic: The Sabbath

· Central truth: Jesus offers us the Sabbath where we can find rest for our Minds, Bodies and Souls

I. (Intro):

a. Ring, Ring, oh that pesky alarm clock rings once again to wake you up for your nine to five job in this rat race we call earth.

b. Your daily routines of cramming more and more work into less and less time is beginning to get to you.

c. As each day goes by the anxiety and tension mounts and your rope is about to snap.

d. You come home from work exhausted and you just fall on the couch to vegetate in front of the T.V.

e. This cycle tends to repeat it self-day after day, week after week until chronic fatigue sets in. You begin to feel that there’s no meaning of life?

f. I believe this description describe many of us who are living in America today.

g. Where will all this stress lead us?

h. If you look at the news your can see it’s shocking effects all around us.

i. As a nation we are becoming used to terror, horror, and bloodshed.

j. Statistics shows us the United States is by far the most violent industrialized nation on planet earth. The homicide rate among young Americans males is 20 times more than that of Western Europe and 40 times the Japanese rate.

k. Theirs is something deadly wrong in our society. Could it be that we have lost the meaning of life?

l. I believe God never intended us to live this way with all this strains and stresses of life.

m. Did you know that 40 billion aspirin are consumed in the united stated alone each year as people try to deal with the headaches of life? I know the other week I consumed at least ten aspirins myself.

n. Did you know that eighty-six thousand pounds of Marijuana are smoked each day in America and countless other drugs as people try to escape the reality of living?

o. Americans also spend 36 billion dollars a year on alcohol!

1. That’s over $1,000 per second all year!

2. Thirty-three gallons per person per year!

3. Since I don’t drink, there must people out there, drinking more than their share.

p. I found another interesting fact that in the early 1900s heart attacks was seldom heard of, but now they are the number one killer in America.

q. Did you know that thirty thousand Americans commit suicide each year?

r. We also live in a world where people have no time for their families.

1. In America one out of two marriages end in divorce.

s. History has taught us that no society can survive under these conditions.

t. Is our world on a one-way track to it’s own meltdown and destruction.

u. Oh, my friends, where can we learn how to slow down, relax, and have peace of mind in this stressful world.

(Framework)

a. Jesus knows of the problems we are facing today and He gives us this invitation: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Matt. 11:28, 29).

b. What is this rest that Jesus is offering to us and how might we receive it?

c. This rest is the Sabbath, and it has been forgotten by most of the world today.

d. I invite you to come with me on a journey to find this rest that only Jesus can offer.

e. On this journey we will find that this forgotten day of rest will bring Rest for our minds, Rest for our Bodies and Rest for our Souls.

(Transition): How will this Sabbath day that Jesus offers bring rest for our minds?

II. We live in a world where people have no rest for their minds. Why because we seemed to have lost our identity.

a. How can we find rest for our minds if were always questioning where we came from? And questioning why are we here, and where are we going?

b. Our Friend Darwin came up with a theory called evolution in a conquest to answer these questions about life.

c. His theory of Evolution might answer the first question: where we came from, but the monkey business of evolution fails to answer why are we here, and where are we going?

d. Then men invented the telescopes and universe seemed to draw nearer.

e. Looking up to the heavens, hoping to find something out there, that tells us how we got here, how life began.

f. In the 60’s we left planet earth, and ventured out to walk on the moon.