23 – Rest Rest Rest

Sep 1, 2014Uncaged Podcast

I am back from Sabbatical, and I’ll start this new season with a message I gave our life group at Lake Pointe Church about rest. I pray it blesses you way down deep.

The Gist:

There is a strange and beautiful connection between worship and rest. Learn the secret of a rest-filled life!

Quotes about rest and worship:

“A bird flying, never nesting, is soon plummeting.” Mark Buchanan

 “The opposite of a slave is not a free man. It’s a worshipper. The one who is most free is the one who turns the work of his hands into sacrament, into offering.” Mark Buchanan

Scriptures from this episode:

Psalm 95

Come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come to him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
For the Lord is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
He holds in his hands the depths of the earth
and the mightiest mountains.
The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too.

Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
    for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the flock under his care.

If only you would listen to his voice today!
The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah,
as they did at Massah in the wilderness.
For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience,
even though they saw everything I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with them, and I said,
‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me.
They refuse to do what I tell them.’
11 So in my anger I took an oath:
‘They will never enter my place of rest.’”

Hebrews 4: 1-11

God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God.For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath:‘They will never enter my place of rest,’” even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.”But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.”

So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”

Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special reststill waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.

I’m really excited about this episode because it gives you a glimpse into the journey I took this summer as a rest-er. I did not rest perfectly (just ask my kids), but I did take a break from social media and writing. Prayers appreciated as I launch back into the writing and speaking life tomorrow.

If this podcast resonated with you, would you consider tweeting the love?

All your rushing leads to less productivity & more stress. Time to rest. The Uncaged Podcast: https://www.marydemuth.com/23/ (Click to tweet).

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