Rest

 Read Matthew 11:25-29

Anyone ever get—I’m going to use a highly technical term here—just plum worn out? Have you ever been just plain tard? It’s like tired with some extra exhaustion.

Anyone ever get weary as in weight of the world weary?

Anyone ever feel like they just need a good nap three or four times a day?

In the Marine Corps, I ran on 4 hours of sleep a day.  I was good with that. In fact, I thrived on 4 hours and was always ready to go.

Sometimes I would go 3 or 4 days on a major operation with no sleep. Those were days where I could fall asleep standing up if that was the only chance that I got.

Here is a short Public Service Announcement. Smoking kills. Snuff gives you cancer.

OK, thanks for that Tom. Maybe I should explain why I brought that up.

Back in the day, I stayed awake for 5 straight days for 3 or 4 college semesters. I studied without any sleep at the end of each semester. I had finals and term papers and put them off until the very end.

How does someone do this? Coca-Cola and Copenhagen.  Dipping helps you stay awake, really?

How can this be? After you put in a fresh dip of Copenhagen, there was always a little on your fingertips.  A quick brush of the sides of your eyes and you were good for another half hour.

You young folks need to google Pappy Boyington when you get home. When these World War II Marne pilots had to stay awake for extended periods, they would rub a little tobacco in their eyes.

Just so you know, back in the day smoking was just becoming suspect as being unhealthy but Copenhagen and Red Man were good for you.  They also only cost a quarter. That was one thing that fit into my meager college budget.

Just a quick rabbit trail. I got out of college debt-free.  It took me an extra year but I took out a loan from my hometown bank at the beginning of each semester, and worked real jobs, not those student jobs that were easy but didn’t pay squat. I had my loan paid by the end of the semester.

I was working about 40 hours a week, more if I could get it. My grade point would have been better off if I had waited to pay off my loans until later, but I have no regrets

I have gone long periods without sleep many times.

I remember being on an operation in Norway in the early Fall. It was a little too early for snow, but not for freezing rain. We had been going for 30 or 40 hours and came to a point where we were not going anywhere for a little while.

It wasn’t enough time to set up a bivouac or anything along those lines but it was enough to try to grab 15 minutes of sleep. I told my driver to wake me in 15 minutes. He had gotten plenty of sleep over the past couple of days, but I was in need of a short nap.

I must have gone to sleep right after I told my driver to wake me because when he awakened me, my right leg had been encased in ice. I was in the passenger seat of a jeep and jeeps leak. The freezing rain landed on my leg and made a legsickle.

I realized this and gave my driver a funny look. He said, “I wasn’t going to wake you until the 15 minutes were up. You needed the sleep.”

I chipped the ice of my leg with the butt of my pistol and we resumed our movement.

You know that if we got 8 hours a day of sleep, we would sleep a third of our lives away.

How much sleep do we really need? I don’t know, but we do need rest on a regular basis.  Yes, we can’t go without sleep for too long or we will just collapse.

But if we go without rest, we will burn out and be dysfunctional. We won’t be focused. We won’t be effective.

We need rest and in this crazy world, we need more rest than we realize.

I didn’t say we need a lot of rest, but we need to rest on a regular basis.  What do I mean?

We rest from the day.

We rest from our labors.

We rest from our worries—which we shouldn’t have but we do.

We rest from our problems.

We rest from our battles.

We rest from our injuries and ailments.

We need rest from our bills and obligations and schedules and our own time management.

Sometimes if I take my grandkids on vacation, I have to rest from my vacation.

Some of you say that we have to rest from Tom’s sermons.

I have to rest from my sermons. For about 2 hours on Sunday afternoons, I am worthless to the world.

We need rest. Jesus knew that and knows that. He gets it.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

We need to receive the rest of the Lord. We need to turn over so much that we were never intended to carry to our Master. We need rest. Jesus offers rest.

Rest renews.

Rest empowers.

Rest relieves

Rest restores.

Rest invigorates.

How important do you think this rest business is?  God thought it important enough to tell us to rest one day out of seven.  It is important.

You can debate which day of the week that is and have good biblical foundations for something other than it can only be Saturday, but you were designed with rest in mind.

So here is where we wrap this up.  Here’s Tom’s bullet. 

You were designed with rest in mind.

Here’s the words of Jesus

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

We were made to get rest—rest to our very soul.  Jesus offers rest. So, let’s go to Jesus again and again and get our rest.

We need it. We’ve got work to do. We are to put his words into practice.

So, what do you take with you this week?  This one is just too easy.

We need rest.

Jesus gives rest.

You were designed with rest in mind.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

It’s the easiest connect-the-dots puzzle that you will ever do.

We need rest.

Jesus gives rest.    Amen.

Take My Yoke

 Read Matthew 11:25-29

I have looked forward to this message since we began this Words of Jesus series 4 months ago. In many ways but different words we arrive where we began.

We love the first part of this pericope. 

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

That’s some cool beans right there. How many times are we overwhelmed by our circumstances, at least in our hearts and minds? We need rest, respite, relief, and probably some words that don’t begin with the letter R.

We want the rest of the Lord. We want rest like we can find nowhere else. We know that God grants us peace that goes beyond understanding. He grants us peace not as the world knows peace but as only God knows it. We want and need and long for rest that goes beyond what we can get in this world.

We need more than the world can give.

Jesus went up mountains to get his relief from the world.  We go to Jesus.

We love that, but that’s not the part of this pericope that we are focusing upon at the moment. We continue reading to the end of this scripture set.

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.

And so we come to a word that we don’t use much anymore—yoke.

If I tell you something funny, it’s sometimes called a joke.

If I push my finger into your belly, it might be called a poke.

The white part of the egg is called the albumen. Got ya!

But we are not talking about the yolk but the yoke and we don’t do a lot of yoking these days.  When we did, the yoke was often a wooden crossbar that connected two animals used for pulling something—a wagon, a plow, or a stump that needed to be removed from a field.

A yoke is a cross beam from which bells are hung—at least back in the days when bells needed to be substantial enough to alert a community.

Animals were yoked together. Paul talked about being unequally yoked—bound together with a pagan.  That creates problems just as yoking a huge animal and a small one together might create problems if you wanted your furrow to be straight.

This is western Oklahoma so I probably don’t need to explain furrow. If you don’t know, you can google it or ask a farmer. It’s a plowed row.

There is another form of being yoked. It is being yoked to your rabbi and his teaching of the Torah.

Priests came from the tribe of Levi—the Levitical order. They did the work in the temple, including the sacrifices, incense, and I’m guessing that the junior priest was also in charge of the cleanup. There was surely a lot of blood and some guts on sacrifice day.

Rabbis were teachers.  What did they teach?

They taught how to apply the Torah in the lives of God’s people. It was surely a respected profession or calling. It required work. It required commitment. A heart for God would surely come in handy as well.

To understand the rabbi and his yoke, you need to understand elementary education in Israel.  Great! If Tom sees 2 or 3 teachers gathered together after the service, he always scolds them and says, you better not be talking school on your day of rest.

But Tom gets to talk about elementary education. Yes, we are talking 2000 to 3000 years ago, but elementary education nonetheless.

Everyone went to school. The curriculum was not approved by the superintendent or a committee. It was approved by God.

Education back in the day didn’t involve multiplication and division as much as it did knowing God’s word. Every kid learned the Torah. Every kid knew the first 5 books of the Bible. These young men knew what it said and had much of it memorized.

Sorry girls, but it was a different time.

Some had a natural inclination to learn what God had to say to them. A rabbi might come across such a child and challenge him to follow me and I will teach you the ways of God so you can teach them to others.

If they accepted the call, they were said to have taken on the yoke of the rabbi. They were bonded to him by his teaching and application of God’s word.

What about the other kids?

At some point, those not chosen to take on the yoke of a rabbi were told to go learn to do what your father does: Stonemason, carpenter, a worker in the fields, rocket scientist, or fisherman.

So, what was expected from the student—or disciple—of the rabbi?  Learn from him.

Learn from him!

The disciple was to learn from his master. Just to tie up this part a little more succinctly, rabbi means my master.

The word rabbi was pronominal.  That is, it is a noun meant to be used as a pronoun.

Teacher was a good form of address. My master offered a hint of a deeper relationship.  This was my rabbi. I am yoked to him because I am seeking God and his ways and desire to learn from the one that he sent me.

It was a very special relationship, one in which the rabbi would teach his disciples how to put God’s words into practice.

OK, thanks for that tidbit on history and education. Can we go to lunch early today?

We could, but you will be fed better her if you can hang in there for the charge or challenge.

What about us?

Jesus was teaching. He was speaking to those who followed him or were considering it. He was speaking to some who might one day profess Jesus is Lord!

We say that Jesus is our Savior. Amen and Hallelujah.

We say—or at least we are working towards—saying that Jesus is Lord.  That’s a tough one but we have committed to get there.

·       The Bible tells us that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

·       He is Messiah.

·       He is our intercessor at the right hand of the Father.

·       He is the best hotel manager ever. Our room is already ready for us.

·       He is the light of the world and the bread of life.

·       He is the Gate and the Good Shepherd.

·       He is the resurrection and the life.

·       He is the Son of God.

·       He is Lord!

Are we ready to call him my Teacher and my Master? Are we ready to take on his yoke and learn about his Father’s ways from him?

Are we ready to take on the yoke of our Master and learn from him?

Hear the verse again.

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.

In taking the yoke of Jesus upon us, we not only learn from the Lord, we receive rest for our souls. We are granted rest beyond what we can get in a good night’s sleep or the best nap ever.

We can rest to the core of our very being.

If we really want peace, rest, the assurance that in Christ we are made whole and complete and completely healed of what is killing us, we need to learn from our Master.

Do we want to have this sort of rest and relief and reprieve from what ails us? Do we?

You kids won’t know the band Badfinger but they had a song that went If you want it, here it is. Come and get it.

Jesus wasn’t quite so glib but he was that simple in his offer.  He was telling those gathered and us, your peace is here for the taking.

The answer to receiving real peace lies in learning from our Master and putting his words into practice.

But that comes with the risk of persecution and being ostracized and not fitting in with the world. Yes, it does and all those things are signs that we are seeking the Lord, not the world and seeking the rest that only he can give.

We are seeking rest that goes to our very souls.

The rest that we can get in the world is great if you can get it, but we need rest that engulfs us and protects us and assures us that we can make it. That can only come from the Lord.

Hear the verse once again.

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.

God is love and in his love, we may find genuine rest. Let us take his yoke and learn from him and rest from the world.

Let us take his yoke, learn from him, and put his words into practice and know what it is to really rest.

Can we do this?

Jesus said:  My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Amen.

 

Choose this Day: Live for God or for the Creation

 Read Matthew 6:25-34

We catch todays scripture with the words of Jesus included with a bunch of words of Jesus. We get this red-letter effect because Jesus had begun what we now call the Sermon on the Mount. This didactic turned from homiletic to teaching at some point but Jesus was doing all of the talking.

After blessing and the receipt of blessings for many things that many people might overlook and even discard as trials, Jesus began teaching on of variety of topics.

As we enter Chapter 6 of Matthew’s gospel, we see teaching on not making a show of doing what’s right and giving to the poor.  These things are between you and God.

Don’t pray and count it to your credit that you use some fancy words and can make the name of God into a three-syllable word.  Praying is not for show.

Jesus even gave those who were listening a model prayer.

And by the way, don’t go all snowflake on me when you are fasting.  You are growing nearer to God. Quit acting like you are on the Batan Death March.

And when you think of your treasures, think of treasure that will last. Think of doing the will of your Father in heaven as making deposits in your heavenly account.

Then Jesus sang the first round ever of Be Careful Little Eyes what you seen.

Jesus told us that we can’t sit on the fence. Either we love God or we love his creation more. It’s one or the other. Do we love God or do we love money and all it can buy us?

Which brings us to today’s scripture and the words of Jesus.

And his words are—don’t worry.  Don’t worry.

Can any of you add one hour of life to your life by worrying about your life.  Jesus said, we’ve got this life thing.  Trust the Father in heaven. Trust me, and before you know it, you will be able to trust a spirit that lives within you.

Don’t worry.

You don’t see the birds worrying, do you? You don’t see the flowers growing anxious, do you?  Your Father in Heaven knows just what they need and he knows what you need, so stop worrying about what you think you need.

Why do we spend so much time worried about what we will eat or drink or wear?  Live for your relationship with God, not for your relationship with the opinions of others or those of your stomach or your ego.

We might say, “of course, I get that,” but living it—putting these words into practice—gets much tougher in life outside of the pew you are now in.

Worry shows up uninvited and makes itself at home.  Jesus is telling us not to give worry a home. He will take care of us.

This returns us to a familiar place. It is our nature—our human nature—to worry. We are taught to trust but we practice worry. We worry about things and events and outcomes that often don’t make a hill of beans in the long run.  

Our own understanding wants to take charge and be in charge of our decisions and countenance. Jesus said, don’t worry.

Don’t worry.

It sounds easy but to truly rid ourselves of worry, we must trust God—not a little—but with everything.

Jesus returned to making comparisons with the pagans.  They worry about everything that they have or don’t have.  They make some of the things that they desire into their gods.

Jesus challenges us to seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness before anything else.  The pagans seek after all of the things of the creation.  Jesus tells us to seek the Creator instead and he will bless us with all the things that the pagans have made into gods.

God wants us to have good things. He loves to give good gifts but he must always be God. We must put all of our trust in him. We must choose this day whom we will serve: God or his creation.

And what about worrying about the future? Don’t do it.

Tomorrow will have troubles of its own. You don’t need to claim them today.  Seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness now and let God deal with tomorrow.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make you paths straight.

Some days are going to seem better than others. The flu, the regular crud, and even the common cold are allowed back on the once-dominated COVID scene. Jobs come and go. Death and other losses happen.

Some days are just tougher than others, but even those days are not cause for worry.

Our soul is grasped firmly by the Lord.

He has a room prepared for us.

We just need to put his words into practice.

Even in this life, he has promises for abundance and abundant life.

He has promises of health and well-being.

He has good plans for us.

Let us never despair. Let us never lose hope. Let us live without worry, knowing that God is in control.

Trust in the Lord…

Amen.