"Rest for Your Soul: Embracing God’s Invitation" (January 18, 2026 Sermon)

Preacher: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Texts: Jeremiah 6:16 & Matthew 11:28-30 

When the world shouts from every screen, how do we stay awake to suffering without burning out our souls? We open with Jeremiah’s call to “stand at the crossroads” and pair it with Jesus’ invitation to the weary, building a roadmap for people who want to be engaged, faithful, and sane in a noisy age. The result is a practice-based approach to balance: hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, but add Sabbath so your heart can hold both.

We trace how notifications, social media, and AI-driven feeds hijack attention and push our threat-biased brains into overdrive. Drawing on psychological insights about doomscrolling, anxiety, and decision fatigue, we explain why information overload makes everything feel urgent and trivial at the same time. Then we pivot to hope: ancient rhythms that protect empathy, restore nuance, and make our activism more effective. Rest is not retreat; it is training. Limits are not laziness; they are wisdom.

Along the way we share two sticky models for daily life. First, Brene Brown’s household check-ins—How much do you have today?—which turn love into logistics and prevent resentment. Second, the sentinel meerkat, a simple picture of rotating vigilance so everyone gets to eat, sleep, and play. Apply those patterns to families, teams, and congregations: share the watch, schedule digital sabbath windows, and trust your circle to tap you only when it truly matters. We close by reclaiming rest as a spiritual discipline that honors our design and fuels sustained, compassionate action.

If this message helps you breathe a bit deeper, share it with a friend who needs a reset. Subscribe for more grounded conversations on faith, resilience, and wise engagement, and leave a review to tell us where you’re finding rest this week.

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Transcript

Scriptures Of Rest And Invitation

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let us pray. Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit. That as the scriptures are read and your word is proclaimed, may we hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen. Listen to God. Voice. Jeremiah 6, verse 16. Thus says the Lord. Stand at the crossroads and look and ask for the ancient past, where the good way lies, and walk in it and find rest for your souls. Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.

Castaway And The Crossroads Metaphor

Life Speeding Up And Tech Overload

Doomscrolling, Anxiety, And The Brain

Faithful Activism And Real Sabbath

Rest As Acceptance Of Limits

Rest As A Team Sport

Be Each Other’s Meerkats And Return To Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:46

All right, friends, let us listen again for what God is saying to God's church using the words that I trust are familiar to many of us from Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30. Let us rest in this message that we need to hear again and again and again and again. Jesus said, Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Oh Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord. Our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Alright, do you all remember the movie Castaway? Yeah? If you don't know, it's a Tom Hanks plays, a man named Chuck Nolan's. He's a FedEx employee who is obsessed with productivity, efficiency, and the bottom line. His obsession makes him a great employee of FedEx. I believe he's a troubleshooter that tries to work out kinks in the system to make deliveries more efficient and timely. But his workaholic tendencies threaten his relationships. Spoiler alert, he gets stranded alone on a small tropical island for five years where deadlines, efficiency reports, and the rat race of corporate America become a thing of his past. And again, spoiler alert, he gets rescued. I'm sorry if you haven't seen this movie. I've completely ruined it for you, but it's 26 years old, so sorry. He gets rescued and the movie ends. He travels, he travels back to Texas to deliver a package that he had kept with him unopened throughout his ordeal. The owner of the package isn't at the house at the time, so he leaves a note on the porch saying that this package saved his life. And as he drives away, he stops at a crossroads, looking in different directions, not knowing which way he's going to go. I suppose in this existential moment, this both literal and metaphorical crossroads, that he could go back to the endless rat race of his former corporate life, or he could choose another path, a quieter, more introspective one. The scene fades to black as a gentle smile appears on Chuck's face while he looks back down the road toward the house where he just delivered that package. Now I mentioned that because I believe that many of us are at a crossroads right now regarding the rhythm and the pace of our frantic lives. Especially when it comes to our news consumption, our social media use, and our the increasingly unavoidable presence of artificial intelligence in our lives. For many, life has become so fast-paced and chaotic, and our reliance on technology and social media so overwhelming that it can be hard to find balance and meaningful connections. That's the focus of this three-week sermon series called Stop the Scroll. In conversations with my own therapist, with my wife, who you many of you know is also a therapist, and with many of you over the past year, us pastors are hearing a recurring theme. We're tired, we're overwhelmed, we're disconnected, our spirits, our bodies feel like uh Bilbo Baggins once said, like too little butter scraped over too much bread. I suppose I should confess that this sermon series is personal for me. I'm in a chapter of my life where finding rest has never been more difficult. But certainly you do not need to be a young parent like me to understand that feeling. I know many of you who are in different stages of life than my own are also feeling burdened and weary. Some of you are caring for aging parents, worrying about the world that your children or grandchildren are inheriting, struggling to find employment, wrestling with messy relationships and trying to help loved ones in cycles of addiction. I'm not going to stand here before you today, wagging my finger and offering simplistic, callous message that suggests that finding rest these days is either easy or straightforward. We all know it's not. But I do hope that you and I together can spend the next few weeks just examining our relationship with technology and news and social media, because all three of those are major factors in our collective struggle to balance the response, to balance responsibility and rest, advocacy and Sabbath, action with stillness. So together, let's stand at this crossroads and listen for God's voice, inviting us, as we heard both spoken and sung to find rest for our weary and burdened souls. As a millennial who grew up in the 90s, I remember the days before internet. I promise you, I do. I remember, vaguely, flipping through card catalogs at the library. I remember when our family's cell phone had to be physically installed in our minivan, complete with a literal antenna that I believe worked maybe 17% of the time. I remember getting my first cell phone in late high school. It was one of those Nokia phones that was literally indestructible. You could run over that thing with a semi and it would still work. I remember getting in trouble with my parents because a single text message cost 10 cents, and my parents' phone bill suffered as a result. I remember my mom going through a really big scrapbooking phase long before we started to curate our photo albums digitally. And I remember eight-tracks. Okay, I'm joking on that one. I've never used an 8-track a day in my life. But then things sped up really fast, didn't they? I remember when we first got dial up internet and the drama that was caused when somebody in the house picked up a phone, you know, with a cord and all of that. And the Backstreet Boys song that I've been so carefully ripping off of lime wire for the past seven hours disappeared mid-download. I don't expect y'all to laugh at that, but if there's any other millennials here, you know my penny. I remember getting my first smartphone when I went to seminary and the iPhones had just come out, and of course I could go on and on about all that's led us up to here today. It would take forever, but but now we are all glued to our devices. Artificial intelligence, AI is in almost everything we do. I can't even refill my prescriptions at Walgreens without using AI. Gone are the days when there was a slower pace in life. I know things have always been crazy, but you know, I remember the days when politics was boring. Remember that? It was really nice. When we weren't constantly at each other's throats. Gone are the days when news consumption was just limited to the paper newspaper at breakfast, or just NPR in the car, or maybe watching CNN or Fox on the treadmill at the gym. Now, notifications about the latest shooting, the latest political cage match, or natural disaster are so frequent that they become white noise, a constant source of both addiction and exhaustion. I think the nonstop flow of alerts and updates and breaking news has changed how you and I relate to information. Ironically, it makes it feel both more urgent and trivial at once, not quite sure how, but it does. We scroll mindlessly through headlines, often desensitized to the seriousness of events, yet still pushed to debate, discuss, and things escalate so quickly. Our social media feeds, once used to share funny cat videos and fun recipes, now serve as a battleground for opinions where nuance is just lost in the chaos, and empathy feels so very scarce. So in this chaotic landscape, we are both simultaneously connected and isolated, craving meaningful interactions while sinking in a sea of digital noise. And here's the problem with all that. I suspect none of that is news to you. I think here's the problem. At a neurological level, our brains were never designed to handle the enormous amount of noise that we face this day. You know, from an evolutionary perspective, our brains tend to favor bad news for biological reasons because our Neanderthal ancestors, who were more hyper-aware of threats, tended to live longer and pass their genes on to others. So it's not just the type of news that we consume, it's also the sheer volume. I was reading an article on psychology today by a psychologist named Dr. Charles R. Chaffin, and he said this. He said, Beyond the brain's natural inclination toward negative information, the sheer volume of content we consume also affects our ability to process it effectively. The constant flow of news can create a numbing effect where people either become desensitized to tragedies or experience heightened anxiety because they feel powerless to change the situation. This paradox, both being overwhelmed and disengaged, can lead to decision fatigue, stress, and an overall feel of helplessness. The rise of doom scrolling, mindlessly scrolling through bad news for extended periods, exacerbates this problem. He said studies show that excessive news consumption is leaked to increased anxiety and depression. And then he closes by saying the more we consume distressing information, the harder it becomes to put it into context, leading to a skewed perception of reality. Friends, that's the paradox that you and I face. That's the crossroads in which we find ourselves. And it's a crossroads that's actually mentioned in today's verse from Jeremiah that Pat read for us. It says, Stand at the crossroads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way lies, and walk in it and find rest for your souls. So easy, right? So simple. Together we stand at a crossroads between our obligation to be informed and active citizens of our democracy on the one hand, and the need to protect our own sanity on the other hand, and to rest. But the good news is these aren't necessarily two divergent paths. Nowhere in the gospel do I see Jesus expecting his followers to avoid the messiness of the world, bury their heads in the sand, and pretend everything is just fine. No, he expected his followers then and now to be active participants in creation, bending that moral arc of the universe, sharing the good news of the gospel with those who need rest from oppressive powers that assail them. But Jesus also slept. He slept in a storm. The Son also took time to rest, to pray, and to be with the Father. Christ got tired, Christ got overwhelmed, Christ got grumpy sometimes. Yes, it's in there. Christ needed Sabbath, and in turn he offers that Sabbath to us. Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, Jesus said. 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. We've heard those words spoken today. We've heard those one, those words sung today. Taking them to heart is one of those ancient paths that Jeremiah uh hearkens to, the paths where the good way lies, and we find rest for our souls. But you all know the drill. The problem is that you and I too often only rest when we can get around to it. We wait to rest until the to-do list is finished. Is it ever? We wait to rest until things calm down. Spoiler alert, they never dim. We wait to rest after we feel we've pleased the gods of productivity. Hence, they are greedy as you know what, and their appetites for our souls are never satisfied. So at some point, I'll just speak for me personally here, I've had to accept that rest isn't just something that my body needs out of necessity, but it's also something my spirit has to do to honor God and accept my limitations. You know, even Jesus accepted his limitations. Satan tried to tempt Jesus with more: more power, more security, more satisfaction, and each time Jesus responded, nah, I'm good. I don't need to be more than I already am to be who God is already calling me to be. My baptism has that covered. What a radical statement, y'all. Perhaps if we channel that voice, that vibe, that sense of vocation, you and I might be able to better strike a balance between, as Carl Bart once famously said, having the Bible in one hand and what in the other. The newspaper. Yeah. So no matter what you need rest from today, social media, technology, news consumption, always saying yes, whatever it is. Remember this week that rest is a way to acknowledge our lim our limitations and honor God and the way that God made us. God did not make us to be supermen and women. As we've said, it's hard. Rest is hard. There are many reasons why we find it difficult to rest. And so I want to turn our attention to this that rest is not necessarily always a solo activity. In fact, it's often a group effort, kind of like what you and I are doing right now. This was a recurring theme, and about eight of us gathered last Tuesday in the Word this week, and I've thought of two examples to show that truth that I stumbled across this week. The first example comes from my frequent uh inspiration, Brene Brown, in a podcast from some years ago. She talked about marriage, and she said that whoever first suggested that a healthy marriage is always 50-50 didn't know what they were talking about. She and her husband Steve check in with each other every day when they get home from work and they rate themselves on their energy patience levels. Steve, her husband, might come home after a particularly tough day and admit that he's only at a 20. And Brene might respond, okay, that's good to know. Don't worry, I've got the other 80 covered. On other days it might be the opposite. Brenee may come home and say she's only got 10, and Steve will say, I can cover the other 90. Some days they may not even add up to 100. Some days they might be lucky to get to 50 between the two of them, and that's when they make a conscious effort to sit down and talk about what the game plan is. How they're not going to kill each other, how they are going to be kind and compassionate and gentle with each other despite their energy rest deficiency. I love this example because it doesn't just apply to romantic relationships, although it is great advice for any couple. So I wonder how you and I might find more rest if we normalize having those honest and vulnerable conversations. And the second example of how rest is a group effort involves this little adorable creature right here. Who can tell me what this is? I think I heard it. Say it nice and loud, Lynn. It's a Meerkat or Murkat, however you want to say it. Um, this is a Meerkat. How many of you all have seen? I'm gonna put Mr. Meerkat right there. Stay. Okay. Um how many of you all have seen the Meerkat exhibits at uh at the Greensboro Science Center right up there? Okay, so y'all know the drill. Meerkat live in clans of about 20 to 50 members, and you know, at the science center there's that tall central pillar right in the middle where you will always find a single mere cat standing watch looking for danger. They're kind of looking like this, around, like that. You know how it how it works. Uh, this meer cat I learned this week is called the Sentinel. Yeah? It's called the Sentinel, and it constantly scans the horizon for potential threats. You can kind of think of it like you know, like your brain when you're doing this and you're doom scrolling, you know, going through and saying, oh, what do I need to be worried about today? What do I need to be pissed off about today? What do I need to be angry about today? Well, it's kind of like you're being that sentinel mirrorkat. And, you know, it's an important job, right? Let's let's admit it. That sentinel's job is really important. Otherwise, they all get eaten by really big, big creatures. But this is the important thing. The mere cats take turns. Every single member of the clan takes turns as the sentinel so that the rest of the group can get what? Sleep, rest, eat. So if you remember nothing from today's sermon, remember this. Let's be each other's mircats, all right? Let's be each other's meerkats. Because I believe, like Chuck Noland at the end of that movie, we're at a crossroads at a society. We've been through so much. And like Chuck, we may be struggling to practice rest after such a long period of disconnection and disorientation. So I hope that you and I can be each other's meerkats to watch out for each other, check in, to advocate for our neighbors, family, and friends when rest is needed for our bodies and our souls. Because in doing so, we honor God. We acknowledge our limitations and we accept Jesus' invitation to rest. So this week, try to step away, even briefly, from the news, from the doom scroll, from whatever it is that is draining you. Be a sentinel mirror cat or ask somebody else for a moment to be your sentinel mirkat. And then, y'all, we get back to work. We get back to work, bending that moral arc of the universe towards the place that God has already promised its heading. In the name of God, the creator, redeemer, and sustainer, may all of us God's meerkat say. Amen.