WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:01.439 Well, you may be seated. 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:03.120 Well, welcome to Christ the Redeemer. 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:05.040 My name is Russ Masterson, the pastor here. 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:24.160 Whether you are here in the sanctuary or you're watching online, we are excited that we are here in 2021 to celebrate again what we celebrate every week, and we have been for about eight years now, and that is we are more broken than we originally thought, but we are more loved by God than we could dare to dream. 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:35.039 And so what I want to do this morning before we jump back into the book of Hebrews, if you remember before Advent, we were in the book of Hebrews and we made it about halfway, so we will jump back into that. 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:43.200 But this morning I want to revisit a passage that we usually revisit anytime we kind of reset the calendar because it's a heartbeat passage for us. 00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:46.240 It's the heartbeat of our church type of passage. 00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:51.920 And this is Jesus speaking to us in Matthew 11, 28 through 30. 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:56.880 Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:00.159 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. 00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:11.120 For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:15.680 So in the next 20 minutes or so, I want to just tease that out. 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:23.120 Uh, teach some, get the implications of that a little bit, and get a few points for us to carry into 2021. 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:27.920 Point number one is this people get weary, and we are people. 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:30.799 Christians are people, uh, just in case you didn't know. 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:34.480 And so if you're a Christian, you're also a person, and we get weary. 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:36.480 We get weary. 00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:48.239 In Confessions, Augustine wrote, You have made us, he's writing to God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you. 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:58.959 Now that was true before you were a Christian, and even as a Christian, you'll find that to be true, that anytime you're finding your heart placed somewhere other than the Lord, you're restless. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:00.640 I'm restless. 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:06.239 And just because we're Christians doesn't mean we don't have weariness or burdens. 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:15.360 And in the grace of God, we don't have to sort of like put those under the rug of Romans 8.28 and just kind of like pretend like they're not there, right? 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:16.719 Can't just explain it away. 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:23.680 Well, that's just the sovereignty of God, what might be the sovereignty of God, but we can still face our weariness and burdens of what's going on in our lives. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:26.159 And that's part of our growth in grace. 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:31.360 And Jesus actually speaks to our weariness, not just tells us to kind of push it aside. 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:39.599 Now, my normal method of coping with any sort of weariness or burdens is more TV and uh Reese's dark fins. 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:41.280 Do you all know the dark thins? 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:46.879 Not the cup, not the normal cup, but they make a dark fin, it's real thin, so it makes you think you can eat more of them. 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:50.560 And it's dark chocolate, so it means it's healthy, so you can really eat more of it. 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:57.280 That's how I made it through 2020, to be honest, is the dark fins in my refrigerators keep going by all day long and get another one one at a time. 00:02:57.439 --> 00:02:58.719 The bag's gone at the end of the day. 00:02:58.800 --> 00:02:59.520 It's how I made it through. 00:02:59.599 --> 00:03:00.719 I don't know how you made it through. 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:05.039 Now, here's what I'm learning, because that's my normal coping mechanisms and stuff like that. 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:13.360 But what I'm learning is part of my spiritual maturity and growth is discerning the difference between my resting and my coping. 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:17.280 Or my resting and working. 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:20.639 Sometimes I'll just go to work instead of resting myself in the Lord. 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:23.680 You know, I feel burdened, I feel weary, I feel ashamed. 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:26.719 Go work, go exercise, go eat more, right? 00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:27.919 Go do these different things. 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:33.520 Rather than go, no, no, no, my heart is restless until it is at peace with you. 00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:40.800 Christian writer Gordon MacDonald, he hammers this home when he talks about even the ways in which we turn to leisure and entertainment. 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:53.120 He wrote this since we have not understood that rest is a necessity, we have perverted its meaning, substituting for the rest that God first demonstrated, things called leisure or amusement. 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:57.039 These do not bring an order at all to the private world. 00:03:57.199 --> 00:04:05.280 Leisure and amusement may be enjoyable, but they are to the private world of the individual, like cotton candy to the digestive system. 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:09.599 They provide a momentary lift, but they will not last. 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:10.879 Right? 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:12.879 Leisure and amusement, we want that. 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:14.719 That's wonderful, that's good, it's good. 00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:16.319 So much of it is good. 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:19.680 But it doesn't bring rest to the soul, right? 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:21.360 It's just something fun to participate in. 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:22.879 It's cotton candy. 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:33.839 And something good for us going into 2021 would be to ask the Holy Spirit, spend a little bit of time and ask the Holy Spirit, you know, in what ways can I find greater rest for my soul in you? 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:36.560 Because God wants that for us. 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:43.439 We're already at rest in Jesus fully, and yet at the same time, we're not yet even experiencing the fullness of the freedom God desires for us. 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:50.079 Point number two is this adding more burden to your life is not the way to have victory over burdens. 00:04:50.480 --> 00:05:03.279 Like a lot of times we'll have a burden, okay, maybe we have a burden, well, the way I'm gonna do it is I'm just gonna like add more like religious burden, put myself to work in the religious world in order to get over some burden of mine in another area of life. 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:07.120 And we can just trade burdens all day long, is often what happens. 00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:11.680 But when we look at this passage, he's talking to a religiously burdened people. 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:16.160 And he doesn't add for them more to do, he's explaining who he is. 00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:21.199 This idea of yoke in verse 29, this is a harness put over ox. 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:28.399 Here's a picture of what a yoke is, if you're not familiar with that, and put over an ox, a couple of oxen, and that way they pull the load. 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:32.160 Now, this word would have triggered something in these Jewish listeners. 00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:37.360 And we've talked about this before because a yoke at the time was a rabbi's teaching. 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:49.040 And so when they heard this word, they would have understood completely Jesus is using this imagery and this metaphor, and at the same time it was a built-in metaphor for their society that it was a rabbi's teaching. 00:05:49.439 --> 00:05:55.680 A yoke was the set of laws, interpretations, and expectations laid upon a student by the teacher. 00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:04.879 So here's a rabbi, this Jesus, who's claiming to be God, and he says, his yoke is easy, his burden is light. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:11.199 He's saying to them, you aren't holy, but I am holy for you. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:21.040 And our spiritual work is not for our acceptance with God, because we have that in Jesus, but it's because of our already acceptance with God. 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:23.680 And that would be why the yoke is easy. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:24.959 Point number three is this. 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:25.920 We're already at point number three. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:28.240 It's a long point, though, so don't get too excited. 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:34.879 Point number three: the person of Jesus is always our way to salvation, growth, and wholeness. 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:36.079 And it's all those things. 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:38.000 We don't have to separate them out. 00:06:38.399 --> 00:06:42.959 The word salvation in the Bible actually means wholeness. 00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:51.040 And that's the wholeness that we have for eternity with God, a whole, perfect relationship with Him eternally, that's secure. 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:56.959 And it's also us growing in the identity that we have in Jesus even now. 00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:04.879 That we would become more whole now, comprehensive as a soul and heart and body as a person. 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:09.040 We have this phrase in this passage, ye shall find rest unto your souls. 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:12.399 You may not have noticed it's on the front table of our church out in the front lobby. 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:17.600 It's there painted onto the table because it's the heartbeat of our church. 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:25.920 We can certainly take those words and tie them to the words of Jesus when he says, I fulfill the law. 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:34.720 See, we're not held to routine religious acts or even our own performance to be loved by God or to be holy. 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:35.680 Isn't that good news? 00:07:35.839 --> 00:07:36.800 That we're not tied to that. 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:38.639 He fulfills the law for us. 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:41.680 I think there's three implications of that coming out of all of that. 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:42.720 Three implications. 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:44.879 Because we are in Jesus, implications. 00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:50.240 And when we say that, maybe you read that in the scriptures, you know, in Christ or in him, or we say in Jesus. 00:07:50.399 --> 00:07:52.560 It's easy to just like keep saying that, never kind of pause it. 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:54.000 What are we saying when we say that? 00:07:54.160 --> 00:08:05.120 What we're saying is the core of who we are, our heart and soul, the core of who we are, rests back in God's grace for us, in this person and work of Jesus. 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:07.279 God Himself for us. 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:12.800 So that is our identity and our growth, our forgiveness, all that we need. 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:16.160 And in that is God's regard to us. 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:17.600 So we are in Jesus. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:19.199 All right, so here's the three implications. 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:29.439 Because we are in Jesus, we are already loved and holy, because we're in Jesus, we're already loved and holy, so we are as holy and loved as Jesus is. 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:43.039 So right now, also on Tuesday and Friday night and Saturday morning and next week and next month and last month, all of it, all the time, because you are in him, you are as holy and as loved as Jesus is. 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:49.840 Because God sees you, regards you, views you, and deems you through himself and his son. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:59.759 Number two, because we are in Jesus, we're already accepted with God, so we don't have to fear acceptance with God or man. 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:06.720 So this speaks to all the ways we try to compare or like impress people or perform in front of people or perform before God. 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:09.759 All of that can settle down and we can we can be at rest. 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:12.480 The yoke is easy because we're in him. 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:19.519 Third, lastly, because we are in Jesus, we do not have to fear our own fear. 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:22.000 It means we don't have to fear our own emotions. 00:09:23.039 --> 00:09:27.919 We do not have to fear our own depravity, and we don't have to fear our own woundedness. 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:40.639 See, in grace, when we're securely loved, we get to move toward all the emotions we want to avoid, all the woundedness we want to avoid, and all the propravity we want to avoid. 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:45.519 We get to live in confession and courageous curiosity toward those things. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.080 That's our growth in grace. 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:51.600 This past week I read three different writings. 00:09:51.679 --> 00:09:55.600 And what I want to do is just we're gonna pause mid-sermon, do something a little bit different. 00:09:55.679 --> 00:09:56.559 I think you can handle it. 00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:04.000 We're gonna pause mid-sermon, and we're gonna read these three different writings that for me are ushering me into 2021. 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:07.519 I think they're the heartbeat of Matthew 11, certainly. 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:16.320 And I want to read each one, and then we're gonna pause just communally, like a communal contemplative practice going on in the middle of the sermon. 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:25.440 We'll read one and we're gonna pause and we're gonna pray, just as a practice of asking the Lord to prepare us to move into 2021. 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:33.679 So the first is this Christy and I we were driving home from Florida just after Christmas, uh, down there with her parents, and listening through St. 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:39.279 Jim McCracken's new album, Patient Kingdom, and the song on High Places came on. 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:41.679 And here's some of the lyrics. 00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:48.000 Oh, fear has been an old friend of mine working hard, making sure I stay alive. 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:51.519 Everybody feels this kind of holy fear inside. 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:54.000 Oh, I'm not afraid to be afraid. 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.240 On high places, here we go. 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:00.240 We will rise, we will rise, and pass through shadows. 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:01.679 Take it slow. 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:04.320 We will rise, we will rise. 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:07.600 Oh, peace has been my steady covering. 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:09.759 And I just love, I just I just love that line. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:12.559 Oh peace has been my steady covering. 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.159 It falls like rain down from the mountain stream. 00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:19.200 Every little hill is bringing it to me. 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:25.519 Oh, I'm not a stranger to the war, and I am not afraid to hold a peace. 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:29.519 So let's just pause together, right? 00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:36.879 Come in into an admittance that we're not a stranger to the war of weariness or burden, sin, depravity, woundedness. 00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:41.200 Yet at the same time, we don't have to be afraid to be afraid of any of those things. 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.399 Like we can move toward them because of the gift of Jesus. 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:46.159 We're so secure in him. 00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:48.559 So let's let's pray together. 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:56.480 Ah, the Father, slow us down in these moments as we just pause, as we move into 2021. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:02.720 Root us even deeper into the rest only you can give to our heart. 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:09.440 Help us not run from our fears or our coping or our sin. 00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:14.320 But to face it all as to heal. 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:18.799 To know this peace that is our covering. 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:25.200 Help us not to be afraid to face our fear, and help us to know your peace all the more. 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:46.559 Amen. 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:50.320 So for our second prayer together, this was a reading for me. 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:55.120 It was New Year's Eve, and I was reading Scotty Smith's prayer book, Everyday Prayers. 00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:00.240 And sometimes reading a prayer can be incredibly helpful because sometimes we just don't have the words, right? 00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:05.759 You just don't have the words, or maybe you don't want to pray, but being able to read a written prayer, and that can be prayer. 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:11.200 Your eyes are open and you're reading, but you can allow your heart to connect to it and to begin to pray it. 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:12.240 Here's the prayer. 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:13.039 You can follow along. 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:14.639 You can eyes can stay open, by the way. 00:13:14.720 --> 00:13:16.399 We'll still count it as prayer. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:28.080 Heavenly Father, as I sit quietly on the eve of a new year, I've got a good case of sad and glad going on inside of me. 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:32.879 Both of these themes are at work in my heart as I reflect on the past year. 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.919 It's a good tension, one for which the gospel is more than sufficient. 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:49.679 Abba Father, you have loved me all year long with an everlasting, engaged, unwavering love, irrespective of anything I did or didn't do. 00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:55.840 You loved me as much as you love your son Jesus, for you've hidden my life in his. 00:13:56.960 --> 00:14:05.759 Thank you for your steadfast love and fresh mercies that came every single day this past year when I was aware of them and when I wasn't. 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:11.759 But, Father, it's because of your love for me and Jesus that I can also own my sadness. 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:16.159 I will not always be a man of two minds and a divided heart. 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:21.840 Father, you will bring to completion the good gospel work you have begun in me. 00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:28.080 One day I will no longer even be tempted to worship anything or anyone but you. 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:31.200 Hasten that glad and glorious day. 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:45.919 But until that day, even on the eve of a new year, prepare me for twelve new months of groaning and growing in grace, bringing much glory to yourself as the gospel does its work in my life and through my life. 00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:48.799 I pray in Jesus' faithful name. 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:49.759 Amen. 00:14:50.639 --> 00:15:01.200 For our last prayer together, this was a quote that hit me as I was doing some incredibly uh healthy coping on Instagram over the weekend and just aimlessly scrolling through. 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:07.360 And I follow uh mainly um bears, people who like bears and fly fishing. 00:15:07.519 --> 00:15:09.679 And then this one was kind of wedged in between. 00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:14.399 A friend of mine had posted it, and it's a quote by Susie Larson. 00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:19.360 Thank God for the tangible ways he took care of you. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:23.840 Think about some of your favorite memories and sit with them for a while. 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:28.159 Ponder the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. 00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:34.240 Don't be too quick to exit this year without building an altar of remembrance. 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.440 Your story deserves reflection. 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:39.840 And God deserves our praise. 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:44.960 So we just want to take a moment and build an altar of remembrance. 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:53.679 Whether you're here, maybe you're online and you're at home, just to build an altar of remembrance because last year had difficulty, maybe devastation for some of you. 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:57.919 But in there, there are things to be grateful for. 00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:01.120 There was breakthrough in there somewhere. 00:16:01.759 --> 00:16:08.879 Maybe through a sin, maybe through some woundedness, maybe within a relationship, maybe something, a gift came your way, you didn't expect it. 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:13.840 But but it he's worthy of us building an altar of remembrance. 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:15.200 So let's pray together. 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:20.480 Abba Father, slow us down to build an altar of remembrance to come before you. 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:26.080 Your work and our lives and our story are deserving for pause. 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:31.679 To know your peace and remember all the ways you took care of us. 00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:39.120 And just a few moments of silence, would you help our hearts to remember the big and the small ways you took care of us? 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:51.679 Help us to remember perhaps a breakthrough we experienced here over a sin or emotional healing, a gift we didn't expect, and a few moments of silence. 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:04.480 Amen. 00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:07.839 Now, what we just did, I sort of tricked you in a little bit. 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.799 What we just did is we actually did sort of like a contemplative practice. 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:12.640 Like we did a quiet time. 00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:15.200 I grew up grew up hearing it called a quiet time. 00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:19.519 I don't know if that's what you grew up called, or a devotional time, or a contemplative practice. 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:21.119 I just call it like slowing myself down. 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:26.240 Just I need to go be with the Lord and I need to slow my busy heart down. 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:27.519 And that's what we just did, right? 00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:28.799 We read Matthew 11. 00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:30.400 We we learned a little bit from it. 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:32.720 We allowed some devotional thoughts to come in. 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:37.680 We paused, we prayed, we just had a we had a quiet time together, is what we did. 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:39.599 And this is what you can do anytime. 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:41.759 You can do this on your own, anywhere. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:47.920 For me, I come into greater peace when I do this, when I have this practice in my life. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:49.359 I don't have to do it, right? 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.240 It comes out of because I'm already loved by God. 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:54.000 I get to do this. 00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:56.480 And that's what this passage is teaching us. 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:06.960 One of the implications of Matthew 11 is our spiritual work is not pulling some religious load like an ox, like, oh, you know, this is what I gotta do. 00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:09.680 Like that's not that's not what this is. 00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:20.079 It's that we get to stop pulling all the loads of performance, our cover-up and coping that we've been pulling. 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:25.359 We get to stop and pause and grow still and let go of those and release them to the Lord. 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:27.359 That's our spiritual work. 00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:30.720 To know Jesus greater in those ways. 00:18:31.119 --> 00:18:34.640 Right before Christmas, I was writing this sermon. 00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:38.720 I was writing the sermon for December 20th, and I was writing the Christmas Eve sermon. 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:40.480 So it was a heavy, heavy week. 00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:45.279 It was a heavy study week and prep week, just like y'all have heavy weeks for your work and your job. 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:47.359 It's just one of those weeks for me. 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:54.400 Combined with like from a staff point of view, like we were just paranoid, one of us was gonna get COVID headed into Christmas Eve. 00:18:54.559 --> 00:19:01.279 So we had like backup plans and backup, backup plans, and backup, backup plans, and you know, who fills in who, where, and all those things. 00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:13.519 And then we're having the inside of our house was being painted, so we had strange men in our home, like up in our space during that same week, and I'm walking around with a lifestyle can right behind them, and you know, that's what was going on in our house. 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:28.079 And so doing some healthy coping on Instagram during that period of time, and this image comes up as I'm scrolling through, and this image comes up, and I see it, and I stop because I'm like, oh, I think I want to be there rather than what I'm doing this week. 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:33.920 And the caption said this, Could you use a drive like this right now? 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:37.200 And I was just oh, my heart just my heart just leapt. 00:19:37.279 --> 00:19:39.279 It's like, yes, yes. 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:46.000 If I was on that road, right, particularly in a matte black Mercedes-Benz camper van. 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:51.119 My children are watching a movie in the back, so it's perfectly quiet. 00:19:51.680 --> 00:20:00.640 I'm just sharing things with Christy, and she's half asleep, so she's just affirming me, you know, just affirming all of it because she's half asleep. 00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:04.240 And we're on that road, like if I was on that road. 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:16.000 And it's really, I saw that image, and then immediately I went to this line that Pete Holmes, the comedian, he says, and he says, if you aren't happy on the plane, you won't be happy in Hawaii. 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:16.960 Right? 00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:26.000 And the point is, is like, it's so easy to think like, oh, if I saw if I was on that road, like if I was on that road, then I would be at peace, then I'd be rested. 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:32.319 And the point, the point is this 2021 can't save us. 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.319 We were weary and burdened before COVID. 00:20:36.559 --> 00:20:41.440 I mean, I I know it's hard to remember like last February or two years ago. 00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:42.960 You were weary and burdened. 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:49.200 I was weary and burdened then also, and then this past year just sort of exposed it and multiplied it. 00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:51.039 But we were weary and burdened before. 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:53.759 We will be weary and burdened afterward. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:56.240 2021 can't save us. 00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:58.640 Now we're hoping for a better world. 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:02.400 We're praying for that, we're working toward that, certainly. 00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:07.519 But while we hope for a better world, it can't save us. 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:09.920 And we trust in the Lord. 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:12.079 Jesus' call. 00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:18.160 Jesus' call is not come to me when your world gets better. 00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:20.000 Come to me when you get better. 00:21:20.319 --> 00:21:22.480 Come to me once you're doing a lot of good work. 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:24.640 Come to me when you feel good. 00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:26.960 Come to me when COVID's over. 00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:28.480 Come to me once you're attending church. 00:21:28.559 --> 00:21:29.119 No, no, no, no. 00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:32.240 It's come to me all you are weary and burdened. 00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:33.119 That's such good news. 00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:35.599 It's us, it's us, it's always us. 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:37.440 And he's always welcoming us. 00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:38.480 Let's pray together. 00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:53.839 Jesus, thank you for your call to us that tells us both who we are and who you are, that we are the weary and the burdened, exhausted by the law, and that we cannot fulfill and live up to. 00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:55.680 We are not holy. 00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:58.559 We are in need of your grace and your mercy. 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:01.519 Thank you that you are sufficient for us. 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:07.359 Help us in 2021 to find our identity deeper and deeper in you. 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:10.960 What is already true about us because we are in you. 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:31.039 And may we ask you and your Holy Spirit to have your way with us, to show us even more, to grant us greater self awareness, that we might confess more and be curious more about the ways our hearts are working, that we might know more freedom, and we might live through your honor in greater ways. 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:32.000 In Jesus' name. 00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:32.880 Amen.