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The sermon that you're about to hear is from Pastor Paul Borman at Hope Lutheran Church, located in Tiger, Oregon. For more information and for more content, go to HopeinTiger.com.

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So to think about this, um, beginning the sermon off here, I'll tell the story of when I was most exhausted in my life because it was one week ago today. Um God blessed our family with our our fourth child, beautiful baby girl named Audrey. And so this is gonna sound sarcastic, but it is not sarcastic. Uh, the week before, um, I was blessed to be up several times during the night with our little baby girl, and and then I was blessed also to be up early in the morning with the older kids, getting them ready for school and and getting them everything that they need. Um, and so the whole week beforehand was already a sleep-deprived week. And then uh you know this as well, that that on Sunday morning it was like at about midnight that these two windows were also broken. And so I'm thankful for everybody who came in the middle of the night to come and help clean up. Uh, and and so we were here cleaning up, um, taking care of everything else that needed to be done so that we could have worship. But it meant that, okay, Sunday morning, uh, a whole week of sleep deprivation behind, and then about two hours of sleep that night, and I went home uh to get ready for worship, and I tried to make myself coffee. Um, if you know how a coffee grinder works, you know that you're supposed to put the whole beans in the top, press the button, and the the machine grinds the coffee beans, then grounds come out the bottom. What I did is I put my coffee whole beans into the bottom of the um coffee grinder, pressed the button, and then was frustrated when nothing happened. And and I was thinking to myself, great, now the coffee grinder is busted too. I did eventually figure that out. I put the coffee beans into the top, pressed the button, and I had coffee grounds. But then my second mistake is that I turned on the coffee brewer without putting any grounds in. So I turned on the coffee brewer and I walked away and I came back and I had a beautiful cup of hot water. And and I I gave up on making myself coffee, and I just got myself Starbucks on the way to church. Um so you you can think in advance of Growth Group this week about the time when when you were most exhausted. I'm sure we'd get some some maybe some fun stories. Uh but I'm I'm sharing that with you because right when when exhaustion sets in, you're not yourself. You're you're not your whole self. Um, you're not making really good decisions, uh, you're making mistakes like I was with the coffee maker. And and it's just not a fun place to be when you're exhausted. And we also know this that being physically exhausted is not the only kind of exhaustion. Physical exhaustion when you're just at the end of what you can physically handle, but there's also mental exhaustion. Maybe you're a student and you've been working hard all semester, studying hard, and now you get to exams. So as hard as you have been studying, you gotta study more. Or maybe you're you're um you're an employee and it's just a really, really busy time of the year, and there are deadlines that have to be met. And so you have been working 65 hours a week for eight weeks, and you gotta keep going. But try as you might, whether you're a student or employee, try as you might to focus. There's just no focus left. Mentally exhausted. There's also emotional exhaustion too, and I think the the sources of emotional exhaustion are just myriad. I think about sometimes how a parent can be feel emotionally exhausted from just meeting the the needs of your children all the time. Um, I I think about the the emotional kind of exhaustion where maybe you're you're an employee again and and you have been under high pressure to perform and to deliver all the time, and it takes a toll. Um I I think about this too. Maybe you're someone who deals with chronic pain, chronic physical pain, and it just pushes you every day. Maybe you're someone who deals with chronic uh uh emotional pain, struggling with mental health, and and again, it pushes you, it pushes you to the limit every single day, and you just feel emotionally exhausted. Maybe you're you're struggling with loneliness, maybe you've got um uh a financial stress that that causes this emotional exhaustion and finally there's spiritual exhaustion too, right? So many people carry that uh around with them where where they know that there is a God-sized hole in their heart and they're not sure how to fix it. Walking around uh feeling the guilt of of what we've done, maybe walking around feeling the shame of who I know I should be, but I'm not. It's all kinds of ways to feel exhausted. Not just to feel it, to be exhausted. And so this is something I'm really passionate about sharing with you today, that we need to know how to truly rest. I'm really excited to share with you today in God's word that a true rest is way better than a nap. As good as a nap is, right? True rest is is better than a day off of work, a week on vacation. True rest is better than self-care. True rest is something that happens every day. In the middle of the hardest things that we go through, not after they're done, in the middle of them. We we can truly rest when we stop and remember Jesus. Remember who he is, remember what he's done, remember who we are in him. In Jesus, we can always have true rest. So let's dig into this in God's word. The text that we're looking at today, it's printed in your bullets in Exodus chapter 20. Um, this is the chapter of the Bible where God is giving his people the Ten Commandments. So a little bit of context here. God's people, the Israelites, they had been in Egypt for 400 years as slaves. And now God has come to Egypt and He's rained down the Ten Plagues. Pharaoh has said, get out of here. He's chased them down, um, the Red Sea has covered them, and now Israel is at the foot of Mount Sinai. And God is giving the people the Ten Commandments. The third commandment, we're not going to cover all of them, but the third commandment is all about rest. The third commandment says, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Something that struck me about those words is that if you look at them in the original language, the Hebrew, the third commandment is only three words. Three words that get at the heart of what the third commandment really is. Three words, the first of them is the word shamar, which means remember or keep. So God is saying you remember this day, you keep this day. This is a day that you will not use for anything else. To put it in 21st century words, this is a recurring event on your calendar. Everything else on your calendar is negotiable, this is non-negotiable. Remember, keep. And the second word, keep, the Sabbath day. That Hebrew word is the word that uh the word is Shabbat, which means rest. And the heart behind that word isn't just to kick your feet up, it's it's the word that means stop what you're doing, cease what you are doing. So God is saying, keep this day as a rest day. And this day is meant to be a stopping, a ceasing of what you normally do. Finally, the last word is the word um holy, kadosh. And the and the heart behind that word is the is the it means to set apart. To set apart as holy, to set apart for God as we're about to see. So God is saying in this command, three words, remember, set apart this this Sabbath day, this rest day. Stop what you are doing and keep it holy. Keep it sacred, keep it for God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Um, this Thursday, uh, another little advertisement. What one thing that we're going to be doing is I'll be teaching a Bible basics class. Um, if you haven't taken that class before, um, please do consider being a part of it this time around. Um, and and you'll hear you'll get to hear that every time I teach about the Ten Commandments, I teach the same thing. That God gave us, God gave his people the Ten Commandments, not because he wanted to give us a list of things to restrict us, or not because he wanted to give us a list of things to do just like this. This is what's going to make you different. He he gave us the Ten Commandments because he loves us, because he knows our temptations, and he does not want us to fall away from him. And so God commands his people, God commands us to keep the Sabbath day, keep it holy. He commands that because he loves us. And because he knows our temptation to not remember him. And he knows our tendency to get so fixated on the work of every day, to get so fixated on the things that we gotta do, to get food on the table, to make sure that we're taking care of all of our responsibilities. He knows our tendency to get so fixated on that that we will forget the Sabbath day completely. We will forget to rest, we will forget how to rest in God. So because God loves us, he gave us this command to us too. Remember, keep this Sabbath day, this day of rest, where you will stop from doing what you normally do. To worship God. For the Old Testament people, for the Israelites, God got very specific about it. He said, Six days you will do all your work, and then on the seventh day you will rest. And if you read even further, you see how extensive that rest is. There will be not a single person among you who does any work. You are all to stop what you are doing and remember the Sabbath. God wants us to rest. Now, this is still a hard thing. We still gotta talk about what true rest is because it's difficult. I was sitting with somebody in a coffee shop a couple weeks ago, uh, three weeks ago, and and I was sharing with them. I'm gonna preach this sermon where God commands us to rest. And I was encouraging them, rest in Jesus. You're taking on so many different things. You're taking them on to yourself, rest in Jesus. And this person looked at me and said, I'm trying, but I don't know how. So we need to talk about what true rest is, but before we get there, I'm gonna talk about what true rest isn't. True rest is not a break from regularly scheduled programming. I think I think we think of our um our days off, our weekends, our vacations. This is my rest. And it is. But it's not true rest. Having a day to to wake up late and sip your coffee without having to think about the responsibilities of what comes next. That is rest. It is not true rest. Think about it like this. If that's our truest rest, then we're spending most of our lives exhausted, aren't we? Our days off, our vacations, it's not not true rest. Another thing that's not true rest is I think there's a tendency, a big push in America in American culture to talk about self-care as being rest. Um I want to be clear when we talk about this. There are things that we do need to do to take care of ourselves. We do need to take care of our bodies. We we need to eat as well as we can, sleep as well as we can, exercise as well as we can. But but if so, if what self-care means is that I need to make boundaries so that I can prioritize myself, so that I can just take care of me and put me first, that's not true rest. True rest is this. We take this straight out of the third commandment, and this is your first note for the day if you want to fill in the blanks here. Truly resting means to stop and remember God and his promises. Truly resting means to stop and remember God and his promises. Again, for the Old Testament Israelites, what that meant is literally stop. Literally don't take too many steps in a day. Literally stop from all of your work, all of your labor. You will rest on this day. Now, that command is no longer for us. We are not forbidden from working on a Sabbath day, but we still do need to rest. We still do need to stop and unhitch from everything to remember God and his promises. Right. So, in a moment of stress, what does that mean? It means you stop. You pray. Remember that God loves you, that he's with you, and that he's working everything out for your good. And in a moment of fear, what does it mean? It means you stop. And remember that the God of the heavens and the earth, the one who has created everything, he cares specifically about you. He is your rock, he is your fortress. And in a moment of exhaustion, it means to stop and remember God. That he is your strength at your right hand and your very great reward. Truly resting means to stop and remember God and his promises. But the hard thing about that, I want to help you think about this, is that in order to stop, you need to trust that God is going to follow through on his promises to you. If I'm in the middle of a crisis, if you are in the middle of a crisis and you know that you have to get X, Y, and Z done in order to make sure that everything's okay, the last thing that you want to do is stop. To remember God. I was thinking about it like this. The Israelites, they were called upon to literally stop everything that they were doing. And I was thinking about the fact that it was everyone in the community. What would it be like if everyone stopped what they were doing? The whole day, every week, everyone in the world. I think we almost did that six years ago. It's crazy that it's already six years ago. I remember the the words came back to me, shelter in place, right? Where most of the world was called upon to stop. Stop what you are doing. But then there were the essential workers who had to keep going and make sure that the world didn't grind to a halt to make sure that people could have the care that they needed. We we had to have the essential workers to keep on going, but for the Israelites, it wasn't so. The whole community was called upon to stop. Think about what kind of faith that must have taken. Especially I think about during the time of the judges, during the time of the kings, when when you've got your household and and and and maybe you're not sure how you are going to have food on the table the next day. You you are called upon to stop and trust that God is going to take care of you. The entire community is called upon to stop and rely on the Lord and rely on Him to provide everything that we need. So now we think about that for ourselves, too. To truly rest in a difficult situation, in a hospital room, in the middle of a crisis, in the middle of a sleepless night. What does it mean to rest? You put these two things together, right? This is your second fill in the blank. Truly resting means trusting that God's promises are true. It means trusting that God's promises are true. So truly mess resting, putting those two things together means to stop and remember God's promises and to trust that they are true for you. Now again, this is a difficult thing. I have those words ringing in my ear. Pastor, I'm trying to rest, but I don't know how. So let's get concrete about it for a second. So it's Sunday, right? I know it's Super Bowl Sunday, so maybe you're not doing this, but I think Sunday is generally the time that you sit down, you get out your calendar, and you think through your week. And you think through all the things that you gotta do, all the places that you gotta be, and and and maybe you go go to bed on Sunday night with a to-do list a mile long. And the tendency is to wake up on Monday morning and feel like you gotta go a million miles an hour and take care of all of these things. But but here's what it looks like to truly rest. Truly resting means getting up on Monday morning, and I am not going to immediately go a media a million miles an hour. I am going to stop. Pray. And remember God and his promises. That he's going to be with me in everything that I do today. And he's going to bless all the things that I do to his glory, and he's going to make it all work out for my good. Stop and remember God and his promises. Maybe it'll look like this for you this week, you're at work. A crisis comes up, you are responsible for fixing it. And you know all the things that are gonna have to get done so that so that everything is going to be okay. What does it mean to truly rest in the middle of the crisis, not after it? It means to stop, even if it's for a millisecond, just to remember a couple truths about God. Stop. And remember that the God who made the heavens of the earth, he cares about this. He cares about what you're looking at. He cares about how it's going to turn out. He loves you. You can truly rest even as you dive into the work of figuring out the crisis. What about this? I think truly resting is especially difficult when it's an ongoing situation. When someone you love is sick. When someone you love is hurting. When you're hurting. How do you rest then? Truly resting in that situation, I think, means this. It means intentionally, right? Intentionally doing this, intentionally taking time often, not just once, but often to stop. And remember this is why Jesus came. He came so that sin wouldn't get the final word. He came so that pain would not get the final word. He came to make sickness end. And so we stop and remember that God promises that He is going to redeem all of it. He's going to end our pain. He's going to wipe every tear from our eye. He promises. Truly resting in an ongoing situation means remembering that often. I think we can make some really simple and concrete application here, too. How do you truly rest? Come to church. We need that really often. God commanded his Old Testament people once a week. You are going to take a full day and you are going to stop in your tracks and you are going to worship. We need that once a week. We need that way more than once a week where we stop in our tracks, which is what we do on Sunday morning, right? We stop in our tracks to remember God, to remember who he is, to remember what he's done, to remember who we are in him, to remember his promises. Because in the middle of life, it can happen so easily that our grasp and our and our trust and our faith in these promises, we weaken. We forget. That's why God gave us the command. Come to worship. Truly resting. Truly resting isn't self-care. Truly resting isn't a day off. Truly resting isn't investing into a hobby. Truly resting means resting in Jesus. I was thinking about this, that all this might sound like too good to be true. Okay, it sounds too good to be true that that in the middle of one of the hardest moments in my life, I can stop what I'm doing to trust that God is gonna take care of it. It's not too good to be true. This is your final fill in the blank. We are safe to rest in Jesus. And here's your proof about that. We are safe to rest in him because of Jesus' death and resurrection. The final fill in the blank: Jesus, death, and resurrection are proof that we are safe to rest in him. We are safe to rest in Jesus. Because this is already done. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Jesus has already died. Jesus has already risen, and so we can have 100% confidence that every other promise that God has made is going to be true. So when all of the things that threaten to exhaust you, whether it's physical exhaustion, maybe, maybe it's mental exhaustion right now, maybe it's emotional exhaustion, maybe it's spiritual exhaustion. All of God's promises are true. He promises to be with you to the very end of the age. So no matter what, when you stop and remember, you can remember that Jesus is right at your side. He promised. And you can know it's true because he already died and he already rose. Jesus promised that your pain will end. Jesus promised that your struggle will end. And so when you stop and remember this promise, you can know that it's true because Jesus already died. He already rose. Jesus promised that you have an eternity in heaven. And so in the midst of your deepest struggles, in the midst of your deepest exhaustion, you can stop and remember my future is heaven. And you can know that it's true. Because Jesus already died and Jesus already rose. This is true rest in Jesus. Holy Spirit, help us to rest more and more in you. Amen.