1 LEARNING TO REST Sermon preached by Pastor C. John Steer Autumn Ridge Church, Rochester, MN April 29-30, 2017 No. 2: Becoming a Lifelong Learner Scripture: Matthew 11:28-29; Hebrews 4:1-11 Some of you will enjoy the message today because it is called LEARNING TO REST. I see you practicing this during church. Normally you might get an elbow in the ribs from your spouse if they see you with your eyes shut. But today you can explain, I m just applying John s sermon. When I see you drifting off I rejoice in the promise of the psalmist who said God grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:2) Today we are giving thanks that rest is one of the great gifts of God. When Jesus calls us to be his disciples he is inviting us to be lifelong learners because that is what a disciple is. So in our new series Becoming a Lifelong Learner we are looking at areas where we can learn some transforming truths. Last week as we opened the textbook of God s word we learned about contentment. This week we are learning to rest. Jesus offers to teach us. He says, 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. (Matthew 11:28-29) Isn t that a lovely invitation for those of us feeling weary? That word burdened means top heavy; about to tip over. Perhaps we have been carrying a great weight and we can t keep going for much longer. So Jesus says, Learn from me. I want to teach you how to rest. This is a lesson we all need to learn for Americans work more than anyone in the industrialized world. We work more than the English, more than the Germans, even more than the Japanese. We take fewer vacations. We work longer days and we retire later. Some years ago Juliet Schor wrote a best-selling book called The Overworked American. She concluded that Americans are now working an average of one month more a year than we did in 1970. The consequence of this is that we are stressed out and burned out. We are not getting enough sleep and often when we try to sleep we can t. We have heard of the famous Protestant work ethic. We have a pretty good theology of work. But what we need is a Protestant rest ethic.
2 We must develop a good theology of leisure and play. The good news is that Jesus wants to show us how to do this. The Bible gives us three great truths about rest. First, we learn that REST IS NECESSARY FOR OUR BODIES. Jesus demonstrates this by his own example. During his extraordinarily busy public years Jesus found times for retreat. After a hectic day serving people Jesus would go off by himself to rest, renew and pray. The gospels tell us that one of Jesus favorite activities was attending dinner parties. They provided down time for him. On one occasion Jesus instructed his disciples to stop looking after the needs of the crowd and instead spend time refreshing themselves saying, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. (Mark 6:31) Jesus did not restrict his life to constant healing and evangelism. He took time to contemplate the beauty of the lilies and he tells us to do likewise saying, See how the flowers of the field grow." (Matthew 6:28) Jesus knows that it is unwise to be so busy that we can t appreciate nature. The Christian view of leisure begins with the biblical account of creation. After God worked for six days He rested and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:17) So here is a creation ordinance that prescribes periodic cessation from work as a necessary part of life. The gift of the Sabbath reinforces this. The Fourth Commandment tells us Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day...you shall not do any work." (Exodus 20:9-10) Here is the God-intended balance of life in which work and leisure are equally important. The Sabbath was a time of total rest for the entire household with neither servants nor animals exerting themselves in work. God thinks that our rest is so important that he tells the Israelites they must keep the Sabbath even during spring plowing and fall harvesting. Now remember they were an agricultural society. They depended on the food they produced. Yet God is very clear when he says Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest." (Exodus 34:21) Yet somehow we think that we don t need to rest. The rules apply to others but not to us. Pastors are particularly guilty. We often don t practice what we preach about rest. Edna Millay wrote a little poem that describes us: My candle burns at both its ends. It will not last the night. But, ah my foes, and ah my friends, It gives a wondrous light.
3 We pastors justify our lack of rest by saying that the devil never takes a vacation. But we are not following the devil but the Lord Jesus who says Learn from me and I will give you rest. Pastors are not alone in ignoring God s command to rest. It is also true of others in the helping professions. A recent paper by our own Tait Shanafelt and Dr. John Noseworthy reported that at least fifty percent of U.S. physicians are experiencing professional burnout. A 2015 paper in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings breaks down physician burnout down into specialties. Emergency medicine is the highest at 70% reporting burnout. Occupational medicine is the lowest with around 40% reporting burnout. Similar problems arise in other jobs. For we are a nation of workaholics. We are proud of the long hours we work even though studies show the longer we work the less productive we are. Sadly instead of being rebuked by our superiors we are often praised, for workaholism is the only addiction for which we are congratulated. Our bodies need rest. But while we we are taught how to work we are not taught how to play. As a result we can imagine that play is unproductive and even a sign of laziness. We need to remember that God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." (1 Timothy 6:17) Notice that word everything. It means that God has given us the game of golf for our enjoyment, and sometimes our frustration. God has given us a lovely walk through Carley State Park in a week or two when the bluebells are at their best. God has given us a day of fishing on the lake. In their own way these activities are every bit as important as coming to church or doing our job. Jesus said, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10) A full life includes learning to rest and enjoying times of play. Now we need to be responsible about rest. Leisure did not escape the impact of the fall. We mustn t make an idol of rest or fill it with immoral activities. Nor must we take more of it than we should so that it becomes an indulgence and we neglect our other duties. The Sabbath is a good guide. It tells us to find 24 hours in the week when we can cease from all our work. We are created beings made in the image of God. The way we live either destroys our creation or develops it. So a lack of rest causes what I would call de-creation. The right amount of rest yields re-creation or recreation. Here is a man. Let s call him Joe. Joe wants to get ahead in his career and be successful so he works every hour of every day. Joe doesn t enjoy a Sabbath or a time of worship or relax with his family.
4 Now Joe can manage this breakneck schedule for a month, maybe even six months, but then he will start to de-create. His blood pressure will go up. His relationships with people around him will deteriorate. People will start to say Joe, you are so edgy. I don t even like to talk to you. His wife and kids will be walking on eggshells around him. He won t be able to sleep so he starts to drink too much and because he is tired he eats too much. His work suffers because he is not creative. There is no freshness in his ideas. Joy disappears and his family life collapses. What s the solution? It is to begin the work of re-creation. Joe needs to trust God that the work will get done. That it is not all up to him. Joe needs to plan for rest times, to schedule vacations into the year and then take them. Joe needs a good theology of leisure and to understand the benefits of rest and recognize that his rest is every bit as important as his work. If Joe is a manager he can think of ways to build rest into his organization to ensure that his employees enjoy a good work/life balance. There is an organization in Colorado that gives all of their employees a monthly Joy Day which they can take off and do whatever they want. When I visited the International Justice Mission in Uganda they have a half an hour of silence every day from 8:30-9:00am when people can be quiet and read and pray. IJM does this in their offices all over the world. The Aetna Insurance Company is paying its employees $300 a year if they get at least seven hours of sleep a night. Aetna spokesman T. J. Crawford said Having a well rested and more present workforce is a win for everyone, our employees, our members and our shareholders. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults age 18-64 get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night. Teens need more. But studies show that 30% of us only get six hours or less. Getting less than seven hours of sleep a night has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and depression. Sleep loss results in impairment in thinking that is comparable to being drunk. The plain truth is that rest is necessary for our bodies. The second truth we learn from scripture is that REST IS ESSENTIAL FOR OUR SOULS. We are more than physical bodies. There is a spiritual dimension to us. The Sabbath was not just a day for relaxation but for worship, for our souls also need to be renewed. Spiritual rest reorients our values and turns our focus on to God and eternal realities. This means that when we go to the cabin this summer to rest, we also need to go to a local church to worship. The rest is not only necessary for our bodies, it is essential for our souls.
5 The meaning of spiritual rest is found in some beautiful Old Testament pictures. Part of the symbolism of Sabbath rest for the Jews was that it pictured release from their bondage in Egypt. God told his people, Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day." (Deuteronomy 5:15) So rest is a form of freedom from human striving, from acquisitiveness and from worldly preoccupation. When we let go of these we gain freedom from anxiety. Then Moses paints a picture of those whom the Lord loves resting in safety between God s shoulders saying, Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders. (Deuteronomy 33:12) Here we see that spiritual rest is a relinquishing of human assertion and trusting in God s loving care. Isaiah sees rest as trusting in God s providence. He quotes the Holy One of Israel who says, In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." (Isaiah 30:15) When we arrive in the New Testament we find Jesus offering us lasting spiritual rest. This rest is based on who he is. When Jesus gives the invitation Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28) It follows the statement of his unique relationship to his Father when Jesus explains, All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." (Matthew 11:27) Here we discover that if we want to know what God is like we must look at Jesus. If we want to get through to God we must come to Jesus. This extraordinary claim is what makes Christianity so widely attractive and so widely hated. The sheer exclusivity of the claim drives people in one direction or another. We are not given the comfort of occupying middle ground. It is after this statement of who he is that Jesus makes the breathtaking claim Come to me. Not Go to God because we couldn t find the way. But Come to me because I have come to seek you. It is a remarkable statement of grace that God should come to seek his rebel people with no word of condemnation on his lips but just the invitation to come. That word Come shows us the very heart of God.
6 Jesus came to lift burdens off our aching backs. To enter his rest we only have to entrust ourselves to him. Millions have done so and have found peace. Then Jesus goes on to teach of a deeper rest. It is the rest of taking Jesus yoke upon us and entering into partnership with him. So Come to me is followed by Take my yoke upon you. The yoke was the wooden collar that ran across the shoulders of a pair of oxen which enabled them to jointly pull enormous weights. There is a lovely old legend that Jesus made the best ox yokes in Galilee and people came from all over the area to buy these yokes. As a result there was a sign above the door of the carpenter shop in Nazareth. It read My yokes fit well. That s what Jesus is telling us here. My yoke fits well. The life I give you is not a burden. Rather it is made to measure to fit you exactly. When we are walking in partnership with Jesus we enter into his rest. The third great truth scripture provides about learning to rest is that REST IS THE GOAL OF OUR EXISTENCE. The rest we experience here on earth is a foretaste of the heavenly rest that we shall enjoy in the new heaven and earth. This rest will be absolutely fabulous. That is why the writer of Hebrews urges us to pursue it relentlessly saying, Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest." (Hebrews 4:11) He explains how we do this telling us, We who have believed enter that rest. (Hebrews 4:3) As we believe in Christ we experience this rest and peace. The writer is aware that some of us have not yet done this, warning It still remains for some to enter that rest." (Hebrews 4:6) However, the good news is that "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his." (Hebrews 4:9&10) Then the book of Revelation points us toward the future when it informs us, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord they will rest from their labor. (Revelation 14:13) This does not mean that heaven is a place of idleness for elsewhere we are told that the new heaven and earth is a place of fellowship, service and worship. But those activities will not be exhausting or stressful or boring. They will fit perfectly with our personality and therefore all our activity will be restful. When I began in ministry at a church in Los Angeles I was excited but also overwhelmed. There was so much to do. So I never took a day off for months and months and months.
7 In time I felt terrible. My body wasn t working as it should so I went to see my doctor. He examined me, asked questions and did some tests. Then he wrote a prescription and handed it to me and said, I want you to do this immediately. I assured him I would, assuming I was to go to the pharmacy for some pills. I stuck it in my pocket. He said, No. I want you to read it before you leave. I did so. It said Take a week s holiday right now. He had diagnosed my problem. It was a lack of rest. I couldn t afford to take the time but Dr. Bryant said there would be severe consequences if I didn t. So I did. The church did not fall apart. The work of the kingdom was not halted. And I felt much better. Perhaps the Great Physician is saying to you this morning, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29) This is an opportunity to write our rest ethic, and to develop our theology of leisure and play. It s a hard class but we have the best teacher in the Lord Jesus.