Rest For Your Souls

Rest for Your Souls

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 12/31/2017

If you’re anything like me, now that we’re looking at Christmas in the rearview mirror, you’re probably ready for a little rest and recovery!

The thought of rest is one that seems all too elusive in today's lightning-speed culture of news, technology, work, demands of daily duties, children's activities and even church commitments, especially during the holidays. Holidays can be pretty hectic. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, it seems there’s a holiday event every day. Often, we feel obligated or compelled to attend each one, regardless of our already busy schedules. All this business, of course, mixes into a corrosive cocktail of conflict, strife, and stress. We get burnt out—emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained. Sometimes you just want to take nap.

Some of us crave rest more than others. In fact, my wife saw this t-shirt online and just had to have it. It says, “I love Jesus… and naps!”

I don’t know anyone who loves naps as much as my wife does, but we all need rest. Psychology Today lists some symptoms of being overly burdened and burnt out, including: chronic fatigue, insomnia, forgetfulness, impaired concentration, loss of appetite, anxiety, depression, anger, and a depleted immune system, making you more vulnerable to infections, colds, flu, and other immune-related medical problems.

On the other hand, rest and relaxation restores our energy, repairs our bodies, clear our thoughts, improves our focus, lifts our moods, stimulates creativity, and allow us to get much more accomplished with less effort.

Now before you take that as an invitation to sleep through this sermon, as much as we need physical rest for our minds and bodies, I want to talk about a rest that’s deeper and more revitalizing than simply taking a nap or a vacation. I want us to think about rest for your soul.

Do you ever feel weary and worn-out deep in your soul? Drained souls send desperate messages. Snarling temper. Waves of worry. Festering guilt and fear. Hopelessness. Sleeplessness. Loneliness. Resentment. Irritability. Insecurity. These are warning sings. Symptoms of a weariness deep within—proof that something within you is starting to shrivel.

So where do you find rest for your soul? Jesus gave the answer Matthew 11. If you have a Bible or an app on your phone, open it to Matthew 11:28, where Jesus offers this warm and welcoming invitation:

“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, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV).

Jesus’ gracious invitation is open to all. Nobody is omitted or neglected. If you’ve ever felt weary and worn-out deep within, this invitation is for you. And within this invitation, Jesus gives us three simple steps to experience rest for the soul.

Step number one is—come to Jesus.

• COME TO JESUS

Experts make all sorts of suggestions for experiencing rest and overcoming exhaustion. They offer you sleeping pills at night and five-hour energy pills in the morning. They recommend diet and workout programs that promise to make you healthier and happier. Eastern philosophies encourage you to find peace and rest through meditation or yoga. But this deeper spiritual rest is not a pill, a program, or a philosophy; it’s a person: Jesus himself.

Jesus begins by saying simply: “Come to me…” (Matthew 11:28). The simplicity of Jesus’s promise is both striking and refreshing. Jesus doesn’t offer us a four-fold path to peace-giving enlightenment, like the Buddha did. He doesn’t give us five pillars of peace through submission as Islam does. Nor does he give us a click-bait headline, “10 Ways to Relieve Your Weariness,” which we self-help-oriented 21st century Americans are so drawn to. Unique to anyone else in human history, Jesus simply offers himself as the universal solution to all that burdens us.

And his simple promise is audacious. The only way that this isn’t megalomaniacal lunacy is if Jesus is who he claims to be: the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Son of the Living God. His simple promise implies a power behind it more than sufficient to lift what weighs us down.

If you want to experience real rest, it starts when you come to Jesus. But how do we do that? What does it even mean to come to Jesus?

Run a finger over the Gospels and you’ll discover all sorts of people coming to Jesus for all sorts of reasons. Some people came to Jesus for healing. Some people came to Jesus for forgiveness. Some people came to Jesus because they were hungry. Some people came to Jesus because they had big questions about God and life. What all of these people had in common is that each one of them believed that Jesus could meet their needs. They had faith that Jesus could heal them. They trusted that he could feed them. They believed that he could forgive them. They had confidence that Jesus could answer life’s biggest questions.