Rest for the Weary

How was your Christmas?
Restful?
Refreshing? Haha yea right!

From the shopping melee that started on Thanksgiving this year, to the cooking and entertaining, to the attending of parties; Christmas has become a very hectic time of year.  Once you reach a certain age, I am pretty sure that everyone prefers Thanksgiving (otherwise known as Black Friday Eve) over Christmas, because with Thanksgiving you just eat and hang out with family.  Not nearly all the drama and craziness, not to mention expense, that goes along with Christmas.

Busyness and anxiety seem to rule our society and not just around Christmas time.  I read recently that the average high school student today has the same anxiety level as the average mental patient did in the 1950s.  That's crazy to think about! pun intended.

But seriously we are a culture on the go!  Between work, children's activities, church and other commitments people are run ragged.  Think about the last time you actually sat quietly for an hour.  When was it?

I bet it was either in class, church or when you were sleeping.  And even then we try to multitask (i.e. sleeping in church).

Even vacations, which are suppose to be restful, can be busy and stressful.  I just got back from spending 11 days in California.  And even in the 80 degree winter weather out there, there was no time for rest, relaxation or reflection.

In fact, the most restful time of the whole 10 days was surfing.  An activity that includes having cold waves pound my head, huffing and puffing because I am so out of shape, and trying not to get caught on the inside or in the rip current.  Though you may have never surfed in your life, I am willing to bet you would rather try to brave the Pacific Ocean on a surfboard than Walmart on Christmas Eve.  Which I also did, and that is a story for another time, but lets just say that it looked like Baghdad after Shock and Awe.

But rest is so important... even the world knows it...  After combing through tons of articles online about rest and dealing with anxiety, I found some common themes that emerged.  The first being the obvious: a good way to deal with anxiety is to rest.  duh!

But how does one rest? The world seems to think in order to rest we either need to remove "unnecessary" things from our hectic schedules or add things to them.

The idea of adding things to my schedule increases my anxiety immediately, especially if that thing is Yoga (an all to often addition suggested by many articles).  The idea of putting on Yoga pants is anything but restful.

And though removing "unnecessary" things seems like a great idea, in reality, things are on our schedule because we have deemed them necessary.  Thus, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to remove anything from our schedules.

Though we may see resting as a pipe dream we are only able to achieve every once in a while, it is a command of Scripture and vital to our overall spiritual health, not to mention our physical health.

In the book of Matthew, Chapter 11, After rebuking the Pharisees, Jesus prays, thanking the Father for revealing himself to the "little children", and then further reveals the heart of the Father, starting in verse 28.

He says, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, 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."

To rest, throughout Scripture is a command and a promise.  It is a promise because the Lord promises rest to those He loves, but it is also a command that the Lord takes seriously.  Going all the way back to Genesis chapter 2, on the Seventh Day, the LORD rested and so he blessed that day and set it apart as holy.  Israel refused to heed God's command to rest and went into exile in Babylon for 70 years.

How do we, in this culture of do more, try harder, go, go, go; find rest?

This is what I love about Scripture.  It isn't some rule book that we try to interpret and live by.  No, we let the Bible interpret us, read us, and help us do what it says.  For in these little verses we find how we can rest, when the whole world is laying burden's on us that neither they, nor their fore-father's could bear.

Christ, in this passage tells us how to find rest.  First he says, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden"

This cry of our Lord is repeated constantly in Scripture.  The Spirit says through the prophet Isaiah "Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters!  Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat!  Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." (Isaiah 55:1)

God wants those who can't help themselves to come to him...

My brothers and sisters, are you weary and heavy laden?

Come to Christ.  Come to him with open hands and an open heart.  Many people come to Christ for salvation and then venture off as if they can do everything else themselves.  No!  Come to Christ and stay there and let his joy and love warm your soul.

The Psalmist in Psalm 127 insists that without the Lord, everything we do is in vain.  He says
"Unless the LORD builds the house,
    they labor in vain who build it.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
    the watchman guards it in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
    to stay up late,
    eating the bread of toil;"

 He further says that a mark of one who comes to the Lord is rest, because "[the LORD] gives sleep to his loved ones"

But how do we come to Christ?

We do it by faith.

And what is faith?

John Calvin says faith is "A firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence towards us,
found upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds
and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit."

you got that?
me either.

Let me put it another way:  Faith is trusting God.  Do you trust God with your anxieties and fears.  With your busy schedule?  Do you?

Do you expect as the Scriptures say, "the goodness of God' (Psalm 27:13)?

The Psalmist in Psalm 55:22 says, "Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken."
Do you believe that the Lord can sustain you?

Peter summarizes the words of that Psalm when he says, "Cast your cares on him, because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7)

Do you believe it?  Are you willing to trust God with those things that make you toss and turn at night?

Having faith and trusting God can be tough a times.  How do we increase our faith and trust?  It's through experiencing the faithfulness of God.  Let me give you an illustration:

A guy from California was going to La Pointe, WI on vacation in the dead of winter.  He had taken the bus from the airport to Bayfield, but was told he couldn't get to La Pointe till the morning.  So he wanders into a little place there in Bayfield and gets a drink.  While chatting with a local, he finds out that his hotel in La Pointe is just under two miles away.  In fact, he can see it from the bar!

So after a couple drinks, the guy ventures off towards the light that the local pointed out.  After about a mile,

he realizes that he is walking on a frozen portion of Lake Superior and becomes worried that he might break through the ice.  Every steps he hears crack, crack...  He remembers watching a nature show that said to spread your weight out over the ice, so he lays on his stomach spread out over the ice and begins to inch along.  As he nears the end of his journey he hears a loud horn and turns around to see a semi truck driving over the same ice he has been crawling on!

You see the man and the truck were both supported by the ice.  The smallness of the man's faith had no bearing on the support that the ice was giving.  But the experience taught the man that he could trust the ice and not be fearful.

So we come to Christ in faith, and trust that he is faithful and will do what he has promised.

The second way we can learn to rest in Christ is found in verse 29 of Chapter 11.  It says, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me... For my yoke is easy and my burden is light"

The Lord, the Sovereign of the Universe tells us that the way we rest is by participating with Him in His work.  We do this by obeying him and following his lead.  1 John 5 says "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not burdensome."

You see, we participate in the Love of God by obeying him and his commands aren't burdens.  They are freeing.  The Psalmist in Psalm 119 says that he walks about in freedom because he obeys the precepts of the Lord.  I recently read a book called the Tyranny of Choice.  It puts forth the idea (from a secular view point), that all the options that we now have through technology are oppressive, rather than freeing.  This is what the Bible means when it says "You are a slave to the one you obey" (Romans 6:16).  When we obey ourselves, we end up in sin and oppressed by our own desires.  When we obey God, we are freed.

When we turn from trusting God and resting in Him, we even hear the scriptures differently.  In Isaiah chapter 28, God had been speaking to his people through the prophet, yet the refuse to hear.  They were prideful and relied on themselves.    God's Word said, "This is the resting place. [I][g]ive rest to weary, here is refreshment"(v. 12), but they wouldn't listen.  So instead of hearing God's Words as rest and refreshing, they heard, "Do this and do that. Do that and do this.Obey this rule and obey that rule.  Obey that rule and obey this rule.  Learn a little here and learn a little there." (v. 13)

God meant His Word to be refreshing and not burdensome, but when we don't listen to God and rest in Him, we begin to hear His Word as rules and gibberish.  When we trust God, it is a resting place for our souls.

And what is it that God commands?

"believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another..." (1 John 3:23).  When we operate out of Love, we are participating with God in His work in this world.

Stop striving to live up to others standard, stop trying to out do your neighbor.  As the psalmist says, "Stop striving and Know that the Lord is God.  He is exalted" so we don't have to be.  Trust that the Lord will provide, the Lord will satisfy.  Come to Christ, lay your burdens down, throw off that yoke of slavery that the world gives to you and put the yoke on that Christ gives us.  You are not working alone, you are working along side Jesus Christ in this world.  His yoke is easy and his commands are not burdensome.

Puritan Prayer of Continual Repentance

O God of grace,

Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute, and hast imputed his righteousness to my soul, 

clothing me with a bridegroom’s robe, decking me with jewels of holiness.

But in my Christian walk I am still in rags; 

my best prayers are stained with sin; 

my penitential tears are so much impurity; 

my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin; 

my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness. 

I need to repent of my repentance; 

I need my tears to be washed; 

I have no robe to bring to cover my sins, no loom to weave my own righteousness; 

I am always standing clothed in filthy garments, and by grace am always receiving change of raiment, for thou dost always justify the ungodly; 

I am always going into the far country, and always returning home as a prodigal, always saying, 

"Father, forgive me," 

and thou art always bringing forth the best robe. 

Every morning let me wear it, every evening return in it, go out to the day’s work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, stand before the great white throne in it, enter heaven in it, shining as the sun. 

Grant me never to lose sight of: 

the exceeding sinfulness of sin, 

the exceeding righteousness of salvation, 

the exceeding glory of Christ, 

the exceeding beauty of holiness, 

the exceeding wonder of grace.

A New Heaven and A New Earth (audio)

Here is my sermon on The New Heaven and New Earth From Revelation 21:1-7.  This sermon goes a long with my three part blog post "God's Eternal Purpose and Our Eternal Hope"
Click here to download or press play to stream

The Need for Care in Healthcare

Today I worked as an actor.  My stage was a hospital bed, my audience: nurses, x-ray techs and repository therapists in training.  I played a thirty year old construction worker (hey don't laugh, I once helped frame a house), who had fallen off a roof and is now paralyzed from the waist down.  I had been in the hospital for 4 weeks, had a catheter, feeding tube, breathing tube, and was becoming anxious.

I was given two tasks: have a respiratory issue, which would require breathing tube adjustment, some

therapy and a chest x-ray; the second issue was less physical, and more "spiritual".  The person in charge of the simulation asked me to ask about my condition, and how my life was going to change.  Some of the questions were about if my condition was permanent, another one was about how long I had to be in the hospital, if I could use the bathroom on my own, if I could have sex, and other questions like that to make the nursing staff uncomfortable.

How they were trained to answer left me saddened.  Not that they did anything wrong.  Nurses, x-ray techs, and repository therapists are trained to deal with our physical aliments, and the questions, they would defer to other people.  When I asked about my condition, they would check to make sure my brain was operating correctly.  They would ask if the doctor had already explained these things to me.

Often the nurses would reassure me that a social worker, psychiatrist, or chaplain would help me with my issues, as they walked out and closed the door behind them.  I am sure that these professionals can and do help tremendously in these situations, but as I laid there, I thought, if this was real what would I really need?

I needed someone to cry with me, to be with me, to love me as I am and not as I should be.  In short, someone who could demonstrate the love of Christ and step into my situation.  Someone to be weak with me, there were enough people around me "being strong".  Some one who could care about me, not for me.

As the simulation ended, before getting up, I prayed for those who will not get up from that bed.  I was reminded that "Christ sometimes cures, but He always heals".  And as Christians we are called to "weep with those who weep" and to demonstrate what it truly means to be human: To be like a Christ and step into other's pain and suffering, for no other reason that just to be with them and love them.

God's Eternal Purpose and Our Eternal Hope (Part 3 of 3)

In the past two blogs, I have spoken about how God's eternal purpose of bring glory to himself, gives us eternal hope.  We looked at this eternal hope by looking at Revelation 21:1-7.  So far, going through this

passage, we have seen two parts of God's three-fold purpose:

1) to create a companion for His Son (We are that companion that God is making suitable for His Son)

2) to create a place for Him to dwell and rest (That place is our eternal abode with Him)

Now we we see his third purpose, to share His trinitarian life with you and I.  You could call this purpose, God's desire to have a people (or family).

He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes.

God, is comforting his people in this passage. We have many tears because of the effects of sin and how our sins have damaged our relationships: with one another and with God. God will make these relationships right, but in doing so, there will be many tears shed... They must be shed. So here God comforts us, as a mother comforts her weeping child.

Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”

A complete restoration and reversal of the curse from Gen 3. No more will our relationships with one another be cut off due to death, no more pain in our hearts from the loss of a relationship, either through death or through our own stubbornness. This old order of things has passed away. Our relationships with one another will grow for all eternity as we share the in the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

This is a work he has already started in you and me. Paul writes, “if anyone be in Christ he is a new creation, the old things have passed away and behold all things are becoming new”. This is the concept that theologians call “here, but not yet”. "He who has begun a good work in you, will take it to completion." Here is the completeness of the work of God. We are new, our relationships are new, and one day this whole universe will be made new.

He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”

God’s words are faithful and true, stay near them, listen to them, heed them, wrap them around your heart and mind, encourage one another with these words.

He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. He who overcomes is the one who believes in Jesus Christ. For How can we enter this everlasting life given to us by the trinity, if we don’t even believe that such a life exists? It is only in Christ that we see such a life. 

The Scriptures tell us that a Father’s crown of glory is his children. Our heavenly Father’s glory is you and me. This relationship, which we get a preview of when we see the relationship between a parent and a child, will come to it’s fullness when God expels sin, presents us as a companion for His son, dwells with us, and we inherit what he has promised for his children. That is it... Forever we will live with God, sharing in his divine love, drinking from the water of life. The symbolic metaphor for the trinitarian life. That everlasting life available through Christ. The catch is... you must be thirsty. Are you thirsty for life as it should be, relationships as they should be? Come and drink. It starts now... “here, but not in it’s fullness”... Eternity begins today, relationships are restored today, marriages become fulfilling today... but they will be brought to their fullness on that day... when the dead are raised and heaven and earth merge.

God's Eternal Purpose and Our Eternal Hope (Part 2 of 3)

In the last post, I talked about God re-creating everything, just as we are a New Creation in Christ, so Heaven and Earth will become new a the completion of all things.  Why does God make everything new?  Let's continue reading Revelation 21:1-7:

I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 

I elaborated on this in my last post, but in summation, this New Jerusalem is the dwelling place of the saints, who are according to First Peter, the building blocks of the city.  And John sees Her coming down prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

Throughout Scripture, this metaphor, of a husband and wife, is used as the relationship of God and his people. In Hosea God’s people are seen to be an adulterous wife... Paul tells the Corinthians that he is going to present them to Christ as a spotless bride. This bride is the culmination of the work of God. The virtuous wife of David’s Son spoke of in Proverbs 31. A helper suitable for God the Son. As in Genesis, when God made a companion suitable for his son Adam from Adam’s side. So the Father makes a helper suitable for the Second Adam, from Christ's side.

After Christ had died on the cross, his side was pierced, and out flowed the water to baptize and cleanse his bride and the blood by which he bought her. And it is from his side that God fashioned his Bride... the Church... You and me. Cleansed by the water, bought by the blood and confirmed by the Spirit. As John says there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood and these are in agreement. Do we accept this testimony? And this is the testimony God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. How wonderful it is to be included in God’s eternal purpose as the companion of His Son.

You see God’s eternal purpose is to bring glory to himself. His purpose is triune as He himself is triune in nature. God is a relationship between Father, Son and Spirit that has existed for all of eternity. And He seeks to share that relationship with that which he has made and purchased. That brings him ultimate glory! Here John sees this in his fullness and uses three examples to demonstrate this. We have seen the first one: Husband and Bride... A companion for His Son, one with which he will be equally yoked. We see how that relationship is “here, but not yet...” in the relationship between husband and wife. Husbands are to love their their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Right now that relationship is damaged by sin, but here John of Patmos sees it in all it’s glory! How glorious it is.  

I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

As human’s isn’t there something special about where we dwell? We say that we want a liveable space, but what we really mean is something more relational than that. A place where we can live with the ones we love,

and converse, and eat meals together. A place of relationship is where we dwell. This is also what God desires as well. This dwelling is the restoration of what was lost in the Garden. The very dwelling of God with man, where Man and God could walk with one an other in the cool of the day.

The Holy Spirit, the Third person of the trinity Lived in the tabernacle in the wilderness, and lived among the people. And the Holy Spirit Tabernacles with in you and I, and with among us as the Church. For the Holy Spirit is the working of God among men.

Yet with this dwelling the Lord says by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, where is the house you will build for me? And where shall my resting place be?”

It is no coincident that John uses the same word here for dwell, which is literally tabernacle, as he does in his Gospel where he says that the Word dwelt among us. Yet even in flesh, the Word, very God from very God, Light from Light, could not find a place to rest. For He says, “Birds have nests and foxes have holes, but the Son of man has not a place to lay his head”.

The second person of the trinity tabernacled with us and identified with our weakness. But here the fullness of the Godhead is dwelling among men, and instead of identifying with our weakness, we are identifying with God’s glory and righteousness. In the dwelling of God, we shall rest, as we do now, but he shall also rest and commune with us. We will walk with him in the cool of the day, as Adam did with him in the Garden.

This Heavenly city... the place of God's people, of restored relationships is certainly the place the Psalmist speaks of when he says "For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling... this is my resting place for ever and ever, here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it"

God's Eternal Purpose and Our Eternal Hope (Part 1 of 3)

As Christians we have an eternal hope, the hope of heaven and being with our Lord forever. But, what does this look like? What is summation of all things? Is it like being in a giant choir forever and ever? Do we become angels and sit on clouds and strum harps all day long?  That sounds less like heaven and more like...

well, anyway.

Is it relative? That is to say, does each person get their own personal heaven? this is an extremely popular view. Many religions of the world have this type of theory... Heaven or the afterlife becomes very personnel, just like a personal blissful, peaceful experience... something that is almost achievable if you got your hands on the right kinds of plants, if you know what I mean.

This "own personal afterlife" is so popular that even some humanists/atheists have theorized this type of after-life. The humanist and philosopher David Staume says that the odds of an afterlife are fairly reasonable, the odds of meeting God there is nil. His idea of a secular after life has been furthered by Bryon Ehlmann, a computer scientist and philosopher who calls the theory the "Neverending Dream".

To put it simply, both these men argue that when religions of the world speak of heaven, what they are referring to is a dream from which we do not wake up. Their argument is that if you never wake up, you will never know that you are dreaming.

Is this the hope we have as Christians? To peacefully and blissfully dream for eternity? Could this be the purpose for which we were made? God's grand finale?

Hardly.

Christians believe in resurrection and re-creation. We believe that God's purpose is bigger than just making things blissful for us. We believe heaven is here, but not yet... it is awaiting it completeness, when the kingdom of the world becomes the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. When our relationship with him and with one another becomes healed, by the only one who can possibly heal, the one who is both God and man, Jesus Christ.

You see, heaven is not personal, it’s relational. We will be in the presence of God and one another, absent from the corruption of sin, forever. We won't be stagnet, because our relationship with God and one another will continue to grow and deepen over time.

This is when God's eternal purpose comes to fruition within our reality!

Revelation 21-22 is the final restoration of what was lost in Gen 3, when man fell into sin. It speaks to God's eternal purpose, to share the trinitarian life with those who are created in His image, bringing ultimate glory to himself. John describes his vision of the culmination of everything. His description is heavily rooted in the words of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Let's look at the first seven verses of Revelation 21, as a starting place to begin to see God's eternal purpose and what our hope for eternity looks like.

First he says I saw a new heaven and a new earth:

John sees a complete fulfillment of the promises made in Isaiah 65:17-25; 66:22. This was the hope of Israel

and of the apostles: The New Creation. But, this New Creation is not only future. Sure will into it's fullness and be completed at the end of time, but Paul says in 2 Cor 5:17 “If any man be in Christ, he is a New Creation,” and just like John who says for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, so Paul continues “the old is gone and the new has come”. We begin to experience the new creation here, in this life, here in our relationship with our family, our relationship with God. Remember the old has passed away, you are not enslaved as you once were, anxiety and anger, insecurity of what the future holds does not have to keep you up at night. He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion. In this vision John sees the work of God in us, be brought to completion. It is Gen 1 all over again.

and the sea is no more.

As a surfer this part has always kind of grieved me. But, John is saying so much more then “put away your surfer boards”. The sea in scriptures is often spoken of as a place of confusion and judgment. The promise here is that “God is not a God of confusion”, he is making things right. I’ll have to stick to surfing on the sea of glass.

I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

Remember when Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, “You must be born again”, in Greek “born again” is gennao anothen which means “born from above”. This New Jerusalem is from where one must be born (or be a citizen). And in Hebrews when the writer says that the OT saints were looking for a heavenly country, one built by God... This is that heavenly land. the Psalmist tells us in Psalm 87, “The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God:” Selah. Isn’t Jerusalem a dwelling of Jacob? Then why does God love the Gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. The Zion the Lord is speaking of is one that He himself builds, where He Himself dwells with His people. It truly is the city of God. “I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me- Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush _ and will say “This one was born in Zion”... The Lord will write in the register of the peoples: “This one was born in Zion”

All these places mentioned are enemies of the city of Jerusalem according to the flesh, but the Lord will record those who are born of the Heavenly Zion in His register... the Book of Life. Is your name written in the book of Life?

The next part, we will see what is God's purpose in making everything new.