Unplug, The Gift of Rest and Margin II

That sound that some of you can't hear right now if you're participating in Oakland is there's the pounding of showers on our rooftop. I'm praying in my spirit right now that we don't lose power because if the power goes out we all go home. I have to do this somehow to an empty auditorium. I don't want to do that. Doug Miller gets, you know, the number one mark for that. I do want to say before I begin the message though, the last weekend was very special for me, my family, and yet as Scott said, friends, that was something that I want you all to clearly understand. I received on behalf of you because if you as a church have not over the years received ministry God's given and then taken it and been really devoted to going out and making a difference, then we wouldn't have been noticed. But it's significant and I don't want to be lost on you that when an institution like that recognizes a church like ours, that's an unusual thing. And it's an encouragement to us, by the way, not to just say, hey, great job and I'll chill out, but as I think you'll find as we go through the message today, it's really more of an encouragement like you're on the right track, keep going. So that's how I saw it and as long as the Lord keeps the power on, that's what we're going to do. So let's pray and we'll get right into it. Father, I thank you. With the showers pounding down and the thunder in the background, the reminder even now that you control heaven and earth and certainly I pray that the words from my heart, my mouth today would be of encouragement and also, Lord God, a real exhortation to those who need to find the rest that you call us to. I thank you for this time. I thank you for your word and I pray you'd anoint it now in Jesus' name. I invite you to take your outline out of your notes and there's a few things that changed along the way. That's what happens. Last week, Scott mentioned that I wasn't part of the service, but you know what that freed me to do was to be able to kind of wander around. Now, not on Saturday evening. I was really kind of in recovery mode, but on Sunday morning, in both services, I took the time to just float around and sit in different places. It's quite an experience, actually. Just observing, not intentionally like you would know it, but just observing at a distance. Seeing some of you very engaged in what's going on and some of you very expressive and demonstrating in worship part of what you've understood, the biblical design of what worship is to be like, and others of you maybe quietly doing so. When it came to the message, some of you took notes and followed along in your outline and others of you, well, I'm not sure what you were doing. Others of you, you had your electronic devices on. You could have been certainly taking notes there, I guess, or maybe doing something else. Some of you were actually one week ahead and thought that it was time to take a rest, and you used that 30 minutes to check out completely. And, you know, it's interesting. I've been around long enough to know that a myriad of things can affect that. Some of you come to service, and it's a time in your day that you're just exhausted, and maybe you're just barely able to stay awake, but you're here because you want to be here. I understand. Some of you have health issues, and that makes it hard for you to participate in different ways. Have you ever found that Satan loves to get things riled up in the car on the way to church, no matter how far? Even if it's a five-minute ride, you know, there's something that you forgot or something that your spouse did, and the car can become Satan's instrument of division before you get here. And so you arrive, and it takes you like an hour before you really start to engage. And I know all those things. And some people are just brand new, and they're not sure what's going on. So they're just kind of looking to see what's the quickest way out. I understand that, too. So that's not a judgment. My observations were just simply that, observations. But it's clear to me as well that as the church is growing, and many folks are new, that a lot of people are here who don't know why we do the things that we do, whether that's worship or how we approach God's Word. And I'm going to be very intentional in the weeks, and the rest of the team I trust as well, in helping to give a little more explanation at times, because it's clear that some people who jump over from years of being in a more traditional setting, or maybe no church at all, you're not sure, well, where does that come from, and why do we do that way, and do I have to, and all that kind of thing. Some of you don't know, for example, that the Bible, Old and New Testaments, has very expressed purpose. On your outline, there's a verse there that talks about the importance of two-thirds of the Bible, the Old Testament says, these things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age. Now, I looked up the Living Bible paraphrase. We're going to put that on the screen. I like it a little bit better. Here what it says in the Living Bible paraphrase. All these things happened to them as examples, as object lessons to us, to warn us against doing the same things. They were written down so that we read about them, and learn from them, in these last days, as the world nears its end. And so, what Paul's writing in Corinthians, he's saying, all the things in the Old Testament, the stories, the narratives, the characters, they all have meaning. There are entire books in my library on typology, in other words, what certain things stand for. There are extensive teachings on the very details, for example, of the tabernacle, and how each little element of the tabernacle had specific meaning toward the character of God, and the work of God in our lives. And so, the Old Testament is very rich, but if you don't know that, you pick up the Old Testament, start reading through it, and say, well, what's all this about? And you don't realize the depth that's there, and the purpose of it. And so, it's particularly helpful to know some of that when you're trying to discover what God is saying to us about the topic of the day, which is rest, and particularly from the book of Hebrews. And I selected that book in this particular passage because it has the highest concentration of the word rest in the whole Bible. It appears in these two chapters 11 times in 21 verses. The book of Hebrews was written to the...okay, this is a really hard one. The book of Hebrews was written to the Hebrews, right, the Jewish believers. Most scholars think it was the Apostle Paul. I tend to subscribe to that theory. And so, therefore, there is a lot more references to the Old Testament kinds of things than you find in the other epistles. In the chapter 3 and 4, which I refer to here on your outline, and we won't bother turning there right now, but you'll see extensive references to rest. And what's going to maybe surprise you a little bit is that I'm not going to be talking today about, well, how to find more margin in your schedule or how to be less busy or how to be more organized so that you can have life more under control. Those of you who came in hoping that we would talk about doing less are going to be disappointed because, really, it isn't so much about doing less, friends. It's about learning to do the right things. And I know that some of you, well, feel like your life's out of control. And maybe there is certainly some place where you need to find some extra margin and space, but that's not what we're going to focus on today. I want to give you the definition of rest as it's meant to be understood in Scripture. So here it is up on the screens again, and I would jot this down. I left you a lot of room on the bottom here to write this down. This is going to be important throughout this message, which is relatively brief. So grab on to this. Rest is inner peace, lack of stress, worry, or fear, confidence in God's ability and power to sustain you. On that definition, how many of you need some rest in your life? I would put both of my hands up. Inner peace, lack of stress, worry, fear, and a confidence in God's ability and power to do what needs to be done in my life. I need that, and most of you that I know need that as well. Now, here's where we'll get a little bit personal, and I'm going to challenge you all to participate in this. So those of you who like to sort of float in and out, now is the time to float in. And if you have something to write with, this is when it would be helpful. Because I'm going to ask you to do something. I'm not going to ask you to share this with somebody else in specific, so you can be really honest. But if you had to evaluate your personal faith right now on a scale of 1 to 10, and 10 being that definition that I put up there, where you're free from stress and worry, free from fear, totally confident in God's ability to care for you, unhurried in your time with God, sensing the full weight of God's glory at work in your life, then that would be a 10. If, on the other hand, your life is a train wreck, you're afraid all the time that you may not have enough of this or that, you're sensing that you're maybe completely out of the will of God, you're just frustrated, angry, whatever, you're stressed out, then 1 would be the number. And here's what I'm going to challenge you to do. I put a scale there from 1 to 10. You can cover up, okay, so no one can see, because this is just your business for now. But I'd like you to put down the number that best, right now, honestly, would exemplify where you are, represents where you are. Are you a 7, 8? Are you a 2? But be honest. I want to see pencils and pens moving, okay? I don't want you to just make it up in your head. Any doctor will tell you, any person that's here to help you would say, can't help you until I know where you are. So, honest diagnosis is the beginning of getting someplace. All right. Now, notice I said I wasn't going to ask you to share that with someone. I think I will. No, I'm not going to do that. I am going to ask you to do this. For my sake, if you'd be kind enough, just everyone bow your head for a second and close your eyes. So, let's just be real. Let's just lean into this a little bit. If you're participating in Oakland or the county, just do the same thing. Close your eyes, bow your head. And if your number is 6 or above, just real quickly put your hand up or down. All right. Thank you very much. And those of you, I'm not looking at people, I'm just looking at if your number is 5 or below, put your hand up and put it down. Thank you very much. All right. Let me fill you in. It's probably, just my quick analysis of the crowd that's here, might be different in the other places. It's about 60% above 6 or above and about 40% 5 or below. I don't know how you feel about that. And I also know that, by the way, maybe this is a great day in your life and tomorrow you could be a 2. I get that. You know, I understand that or vice versa. So, this is just a snapshot. But friends, if I could just be real honest with you, if you had a 6 and you're feeling pretty good about yourself, may I say, that's not probably what God's looking for. In fact, if you're not a 7, 8 or 9, I don't think you're really attractive to the unchurched, the unsaved people in the world. I sat last night with two men. I'm doing one of these Seeker Small Group things that Gary Poole has been encouraging us to do. And I'll tell you what, it is challenging in our world to really just get to know people and where they're at. And great time, humbling time for me, though, because I don't have, you know, my life is not so magnetic that they're saying, oh, I mean, that little video there, they don't care if I wear that thing, you know, into Giant Eagle. They don't. If I want to be a bozo, that doesn't impress them. They have honest questions about, is God real? Is He in control? Why does this happen? You know, why do children die? Why do people hate each other? Why are Christians hypocritical? All those different things. Amazing kinds of stuff in those conversations. See, in order for my life to be attractive to them, I've got to be living, I'm going to say it, at an 8 or a 9 level. So they start saying, there's something about your life that I find. And by the way, if you're on the low end of things, you probably got a lot of friends that don't go to church and they feel real comfortable with you. In fact, they'd be surprised to know that you go to church. So, let's take a look at this for just a little bit and ask the Lord, what is it about us that might change that definition of rest to be true about us? And just two things that I'm going to pull out of this little passage, all right? Now, remember I talked about the fact that the Old Testament, the promised land, or Canaan, stood for or represented something very profound. What is, here's number one blank, what is the promised land for us as believers? Well, here's what Paul writes in the message to paraphrase. So, watch your step, friends. Make sure there's no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God. For as long as it's still God's today, keep each other on your toes so sin doesn't slow down your reflexes. If we can only keep our grip on the sure thing we started out with, we're in this with Christ for the long haul. Now, let me back up and say, the King James Bible says we are partakers in Christ. Where it says we're in this with him for the long haul, the NIV that most of you have says we share in Christ, and here in the message it says we're in this with Christ. So, to be in the promised land as a believer means that we're partaking with Christ day to day in the life that Jesus came to give. What kind of life was that? John 10 10. An abundant life. A life full of the things that I defined there. Stress free. Free of worry. Provision for what you need to live, and I'm not just talking about financially. I'm talking about to live relationally and to live in a way that you feel that you're fulfilling God's plan and purpose for your life. Loved ones, that's what it means to be God's person in the promised land these days. And you know, notice what he says here, and it does say this pretty clearly in the other translations. If we can only keep our grip on the sure thing we started out with. Now, think back to when you started your Christian life. For some of you that's been recently. Maybe it was Easter. For some of you it might have been 30 years ago, but how many of you would just be honest enough to just to recall with me when you first received Christ and you were first really sure you were because you were fired up. Let me see your hand. I mean, that's very much the norm. In fact, it's been said that might be a good idea for the first six months of your Christian life to put you in a separate room because you just go mowing people down with your enthusiasm. But I don't know if that's true. I think it's awesome to hear. I was with someone who came up to me last week after the service who met Christ.