REST AREA
Matt 11: 28-30 (p689) June 10, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
“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, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
In this life what do you long for? What are you looking for?
Are you kidding Rick? I long for the same things everyone else does….Someone to love…someone to love me….I don’t want to constantly struggle financially…I want to be happy or at least somewhat satisfied with what I’m doing…
That’s not much to ask is it? No…It’s too little to ask for!
In the book ---“the Demise of Guys: why boys are struggling and what we can do about it” Psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan say we may lose an entire generation of men to pornography and video gaming addictions. Their concern isn’t about morality, but instead about the nature of these addictions in reshaping the pattern of desires necessary for community.
Before you zone out…listen to what they’re saying… Satan is not a creator…He’s a plagiarist. His power is parasitic, latching on to good impulses and directing them toward his own purpose.
God intends for a man to feel a strong sexual desire for his wife. And a man is meant to, when necessary, fight for his family, his people, for the weak and vulnerable who are being oppressed…
Those are God given desires and drives…these desires for real love and heroic valor are gospel matters…spiritual to the core!
But what Satan does in pornography is offer sexual release without intimacy…and in many games…video warfare games, he promises adrenaline without real danger…the arousal that makes both these so actractive is spiritual to the core.
Zimbardo and Duncan say powerfully…this is a generation mired in fake love and fake war. “The answer to both addictions is to fight arousal with arousal. Set forth the gospel vision of a Christ who loves his bride and who fights to save her. And then let’s train our young men to follow Christ by learning to love a real woman, sometimes by fighting his own desires and the spirit beings who would eat him up. Let’s teach our ment to make love, and to make war…for real”.
And although I do not have the right to elaborate on it…Satan does the same thing to women…he plagiarizes God given impulses and desires…He lies about security and relationships. He turns having a child into the answer instead of godly product of a Christ built union. He is a liar, murderer and a thief or our joy and lives…
He offers novelty…what does Jesus offer? Much, much more….
He offers
I THE RELATIONSHIP THAT CHANGES EVERTHING
As we journey through this life the most important stops along the way are with people.
You’re gonna forget things you worried and fretted over…you’re gonna forget things you thought you couldn’t do without…
But you will always remember important people in your life…and these relationships that changed you….family, people you loved, and people that loved you…even…negative relationships will make a mark…or a scar.
Satan offers no relationship…He offers novelty…faux friendships, selfish acquaintance, fleeting conquests…”The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boaster pride of life”
Solomon had 300 wives and 700 mistresses…more stuff than anyone could even need…more power…more popularity...and he said at the end of it all… “Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the teacher everything is meaningless…Here is my conclusion. Fear God; keep His commandments…for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment including every hidden thing…whether it is good or evil… (Ecc 12:8, 13-14)
Solomon said…let me try it all…and he did…and at the end he said…you know the only thing that really matters is my relationship with God…He knows it all!
That’s why Jesus says…”Come to me”
Jesus isn’t a theory…He isn’t a philosophy…He isn’t a religion…He is a person…a person that invited us to intimately know Him…and share life with Him.
How would you describe a life spent searching for salvation and completion following Satan’s lies?
How would you describe the man or woman who has exhausted all their energies on porn or games, or relationships and stuff…
How about these two words…Weary and burdened. They fit well, don’t they?
I think my favorite New Testament illustration of this is in John’s gospel, chapter 4…It’s a woman you’re familiar with..you’ve seen her at the grocery store…probably late when no one else is there….In John 4 she’s drawing water at a well in the middle of the day…(crowd avoidance)..She has a horrible track record when it comes to relationships… 5 husbands….5 divorces…now she just lives with a guy…maybe trading sexual favors for a place to live…Weary…burdened, dying of thirst…they all fit well.
There’s much we could say about how Jesus treats her…the worth he gives her…the soul searching truth without condemnation…but He offers her “living water”…something that will forever live within her soul…here’s the end of their conversation…
John 4: 25-26 (p 753)
She is saying…”We need a Messiah…We know He’s coming”
“I know you do…I’m here and speaking to you!” “Come to me…I’m the rest area for your weary and burdened Soul.
He still is for you today…He still is for me today…because
II WE CAN PACK LIGHT
Jesus promises “rest” for those who are weary and burdened.
But there are a couple of necessities for that to happen…
1) First you have to “take the yoke of Christ” upon yourself. He will not put it on you or force you to wear it…Here’s what a yoke looks like…
(SHOW PICTURES)
Double yokes have two animals working together…you don’t want to yoke two different animals...The Apostle Paul uses this lesson concerning believers and unbelievers being yoked together…in a marriage or business in 2 Cor 6:14 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers…For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common”.
The 2nd in a single yoke…I believe this is what Jesus is referring to…because every single person is going to serve something or someone…
As Jesus said early in Matt 6 “No one can serve two masters…either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (v.24)
Satan’s yoke is horribly burdensome and heavy…with it I carry my own sin and I try to gratify my selfish desires…”I owe my soul to the company store”…”I’m beaten daily with guilt’s whip...and like many of the coal miners in W. V. and KY in the early 1900’s I’m paid with the companies script or money…that’s worth very little..and I end up owing more than I earned…And I get on that treadmill every day hoping it’s different, but it never is.
Jesus’ yoke is different…it’s easy…and the burden…it’s light.
Here’s why…the yoke of Christ is “Now I will no longer serve myself…I will serve God by loving others…It is the yoke Christ put on…and it’s the yoke he calls His followers to wear…listen to his Yoke
Matt 20: 25- 28 (p697)
2) Because the 2nd necessity is “You are learning from Jesus what it means to be gentle and humble in heart.”
If you want “rest” pack light…and that involves taking the yoke of Christ upon yourself…and learning from him to be gentle and humble.
It’s the exact opposite of Satan’s yoke…promote yourself…boast about your strengths…scream for the attention you deserve.
Do this…live like this…and your soul will never find rest in this life or the next. Gentleness will be strangled with self promotion and the belittlement of others. Humility will die to low self esteem masked with bravado.
The only way I can learn to be gentle and humble is to listen to the spirit of Christ instead of my own selfish, self-centered nature. I have to learn gentleness. I have to learn humility. They do not come naturally. If you hurt me or hit me my natural instinct is to hurt you, to hit you.
My wife has a philosophy. If I put something cold on her back like a jug of milk or a carton of O.J. she then hits me as hard as she possibly can. Her philosophy is I want you to learn it’s going to cost you to do that. You are going to pay for doing that. I do not believe that is a childlike philosophy. And yet it seems to work well for us because she would say Jesus wouldn’t have put that cold jug of milk on my back to begin with. She could be right. But I’m not so sure!
Please know I’m kidding about that stuff but what about “real” humility, “real” gentleness. How do I learn from the Spirit of Christ what those things really mean? I have to let God’s spirit change the way I think! I have to let him transform me by the renewing of my mind. Thoughts flow from either one of two places: my core selfishness, my sinful nature or from God’s spirit. “I want a Twinkie”—which one do you think that comes from? “I know he said some things that hurt me but he’s hurting and I want to be at peace”—which one do you think that comes from?
How do we learn from the Spirit of Christ? How do we enter this “rest” area instead of a war zone? Two scriptures I’ll end with. The first, Romans 12:1-3 (p. 803)—each day I have to lay myself on the altar as an act of worship and as I do that God’s spirit reveals His will. And it allows my thoughts and heart to be shaped by God’s spirit instead of the world’s pattern. I realize in God’s mercy I’m not such a big deal. He is. I’m not.
And the final scripture: Romans 8:11-17 (p. 800)—you see surrendering to God’s Spirit isn’t something you first do at your baptism. If God’s spirit, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, is in you he’s changing you. He’s putting to death sin. You are following Him daily, not the world, not your selfish heart. He’s leading.
And if you are living like that you’re packing light, there’s no real fear, there’s no dark shadow of failure. You’re not a slave any longer, working to get approval. You’re a son, and an heir. The Holy Spirit is your internal GPS. And the directions are toward home. You know, the Father’s house, Abba’s Place.
Let’s pray.
