FBC Morning Worship Service

Well, good morning, good to see you on this beautiful spring day the Lord has given us. Glad you could make it to the service today and look forward to worshipping our

Lord together. It's good to be back with you after a little, what was it, ten day,

I guess it was, hiatus. We're able to go visit some beautiful places and if you get the pastor's page, emails and so forth that I send out every week, next couple of entries will have to do with that.

So maybe those will be a blessing to you, I hope they will anyway. Well anyway, today we have come together to worship the

Lord and just a few things in your bulletin to remind you of. One is this afternoon, in our afternoon service, that will be our last afternoon service for the season.

So we'll be back to the evening service schedule after today, at least until the winter months again, so plan on that.

And then in this afternoon's service, at the end of the service, we'll have a quarterly business meeting just to go over the financial reports and update you on a few things as well, so note that.

Also in your bulletin is that insert again for the plan for next

Sunday night. And the first Sunday night of the month thereafter with this new ministry for young marrieds and single adults.

Next Sunday night will be meeting at the Foreman's house, but we do need to hear from you if you're planning to attend because we want to provide a meal for you and need to know how many are coming.

So fill that out, we've had that in the bulletin for a few weeks, maybe it's the first time you've seen it, but it has information on there for that ministry, what we want to do with it, and why, and so forth.

And so obviously not everybody is young married or single adult, so for the rest of us, we want to use that same time to invite someone to our home, get together for a time of fellowship.

I plan to have a video devotional, kind of like I do on the daily things, that will be geared just for that time.

So you watch the video devotional, have some prayer time together, and then have a snack, have a time of fellowship, however you want to use the remainder of time together.

So planning on that next Sunday night, and again I encourage you to turn in that form to let us know of your plans to attend at the

Foreman's for a meal. Alright, so we've gathered together today to worship the

Lord, and we want to begin with Psalm 25, verses 4 and 5 say this, Show me your ways,

O Lord, teach me your paths, lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the

God of my salvation. On you I wait all the day. So may the

Lord bless as we worship Him together. Jim comes and leads us in our opening hymn. Jim? Thank you,

Pastor. It's page number 83 in your hymnals. 83, Guide me, O thou great

Jehovah. Let's all stand together, please. Sing all three verses together, number 83. Guide me,

O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak, but thou hold me with thy powerful hand.

Bread of heaven, bread. Feed me till I want no more.

Feed me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain, whence the healing waters flow.

Let the fire and cloudy pillar lead me all my journey through.

Come deliver, strong deliver, be thou still my strength and shield.

Be thou still my strength and shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside.

Bear me through the swelling current, land me safe on Canaan's side.

Songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to thee.

I will ever give to thee.

Please remain standing for prayer. Brother Ed, would you? Our Father, we're just so thankful for Christ and that He delivered us from sin and death.

And we just thank you for the new life that you've given us through Him. Pray that you would just be glorified through our worship this morning.

And just pray that you'd speak to our hearts through your word. We just pray you sing in Jesus' name.

Amen. You may be seated. I want to read together one of the most,

I think it's probably a favorite psalm of most people, the 23rd

Psalm. It's on the back of your bulletin. If you care to use that.

But we do want to read it in unison since it is so familiar to us, the 23rd Psalm.

And then we'll sing it, sing the psalm from the Psalter. And I've got the wrong number in the bulletin for that, but Jim will help us with that in just a moment.

Psalm 23, let's read it together, the Shepherd Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The Lord add His blessing to our reading together of His word.

Jim? And that's in your Red Books, that is your

Psalters. Page number 46. Page 46, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need.

And we'll sing all three verses together. My shepherd will supply my need.

Jehovah is His name.

In pastures fresh He makes me feed.

Beside the still blue stream. He brings my wand when

I forsake His ways.

And leads me for His mercy's sake in paths of truth and peace.

When I walk through the stage of death,

Thy presence in vain.

Supporting breath, tears are inside,

But will sing o 'er the shore,

Provision attend. After our prayer together, we will be singing from the supplement book, the

Blue Supplement Book. If you don't have a copy of that, Dan, could you have a couple of those available?

If you don't have a copy of that, while I'm sharing some prayer requests, just raise your hand and let

Dan know that you need that. As we pray together today, I want to remember the Heinecks. Mark and Lynette Heineck are missionaries to Costa Rica.

Got an update from them yesterday. They are still struggling in this transition time related to the church they've been serving in.

There's a lot of details involved in that. I just cannot go into it. But pray for God to continue to work in that situation.

There is some real need in that church. And there are some efforts to bring some resolution to some problems in that ministry.

This is a kind of a thing that I don't think we really get because we're not in their shoes.

As missionaries, they have a couple of children that are college age, the oldest two.

They're in Costa Rica. The children will be attending college in the

States. One of them coming home from college. There's this back and forth.

They're having difficulty with the travel requirements because of the COVID restrictions and so forth and the conflict between governments.

It's just not an easy thing. They're grappling with that. They asked us to pray for a resolution regarding the travel arrangements they need to make for their children.

Again, that's not something that we would often be thinking about or be concerned about.

So pray for the Heinecks. And then, of course, we want to be praying for those in the congregation who have struggled with and are struggling with COVID.

Continue to pray for Jodi. She was supposed to undergo a procedure any time now that would determine whether or not she can stay and continue receiving care at CGH or be moved to another hospital.

We just want to pray for God to graciously give her healing so that she can stay locally where her family is and that she would just recover from this.

It is not a given. It is not a given. Her daughter mentioned the other day that the nurse or doctor,

I can't remember which, told her that there was like a 50 -50 chance there in that situation.

So thankfully, we know the one who is in control of life and death, and we want to pray for God to be gracious.

Also pray for her family, for Bob, for Rebecca, for Hannah, that God would give them peace of mind and heart as they wait.

And that's about all they can do. So pray for God to be gracious to them. And then they themselves all have, except for Hannah, have had

COVID and are in the process of recovering and getting their strength back. And pray for God to give grace there.

So let's look to the Lord in prayer, shall we? So our Father and our

God, we are grateful today that you are the shepherd of your sheep, your people.

And we're thankful that in your house we can rest.

We can find the comfort we need. We can find the restoration to our souls that we need.

We can find that in you, our God, our shepherd. And I pray that today as we focus on that very subject, that very idea, that we as your people would come to you and find the rest that we need.

We pray for those who are burdened today and we are very concerned about for their physical needs.

And I pray that you would grant healing for Jodi and continued recovery for Bob and Rebecca, for Ben, and for the

Alts, Jim and Beruda. We pray that you'd continue to strengthen their bodies.

Think of those who've recently had surgery and are continuing in the process of recovery for Kathy, for Harold.

We pray that you would grant complete healing there and reuse of those members of the body that have been afflicted recently.

But Father, I pray in all of these situations that you as our

Father, Christ as our good shepherd, that you might give rest.

You might give peace of mind, peace of heart in these troubled days.

So Lord, work in the lives of your people today. Think of those even in the congregation here this morning who are struggling with some things in life and are feeling anxious and unrest in their souls.

I pray that you might minister to those hearts today. Father, we think of our nation, which is in a state of a lot of unrest and discord and disarray.

And Father, the disunity of our nation is most troubling for its health in the long term.

Even as we were reminded this morning in our Sunday school lesson, this is the fruit of sin.

This is the consequence of the sin of our nation. We are guilty of national sins, what we have not only allowed and given protection to, but are even promoting and encouraging through the legislatures of our land.

This is all grievous, and we are facing the consequences of it. So, our

Father, we pray that in your mercy and in your grace, you would send forth your word, your gospel, and that people in this land would quit rejecting it, would quit suppressing the truth, and that your spirit would so work that you would bring about an awakening, another awakening in our land.

May we become so filled with despair as a people that we look nowhere else, we quit looking to ourselves, we quit looking to Washington, quit looking to a president or to elected officials, but we look to you, the only real answer, the only real help, the shepherd that we so desperately need.

So, Father, we pray, do a work of grace in our land. Again, Father, we ask that you would meet with us as we continue to worship you and open your word to us and give us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to obey, and we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Take your blue book, that is your supplement song book, page number 38,

I Run to Christ, number 38. Let's all stand together, please, and we'll sing it together.

I Run to Christ. Let's stand. I run to Christ when sinned by fear

And find a refuge on earth Before even me,

His voice I hear His words and words I know

I run to Christ when torn by grief

And find abundant peace I too, at tears,

He gently speaks Thus joyed, sorrow me

I run to Christ when worn by life

And find my soul refreshed Come unto me,

He calls through strife Fatigue gives way to rest

I run to Christ when vexed by hell And find a mighty arm

The devil flees, the scriptures tell

He roars but cannot howl I run to Christ when stalked by sin

And find a sure escape Deliver me,

I cry to Him Temptation yields to grace

I run to Christ when plagued by shame And find my one defense

I abhor God's wrath He pleads my case, my advocate

Please be seated. If you would take your

Bibles and turn to Mark chapter 6 for our scripture reading. Mark chapter 6 to read verses 30 through 34.

Mark chapter 6, follow along in your copy of scripture. As I begin reading in verse 30.

It says then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.

And He said to them, come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.

For there were many coming and going and they did not even have time to eat. So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.

But the multitude saw them departing and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities.

They arrived before them and came together to Him. And Jesus, when

He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.

So He began to teach them many things. Let's have a brief word of prayer.

So our Father, I pray that you would open up this passage to us. Give us understanding.

Speak to us about our need to come apart and rest a while. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. So about a year ago, just right about the time that, well it was a little less than a year actually.

About the time that we reopened and started to have services again. One of the first ways we did it was had outdoor services.

Had some outdoor services. And you may remember that. It was really kind of nice being out here in the middle of the area.

Unless you were bothered by some pesky little black flies or something. But anyhow, so to prepare for that outdoor service thing, we got one of these wireless mics.

And it really kind of, on one hand it's kind of cool, you know, it's kind of neat. Because then you can walk around and if I walk away from here, then you can't hear as well.

So you have this kind of thing stuck on your ear and you can hear no matter where you go. But of course, it's operated by batteries.

And by the way, I used this up until just a few weeks ago. And I never,

I just never feel comfortable with that thing. I don't know. I guess some guys, it's like second nature to them.

I never felt that way. Anyway, the point is that. One of the things we learned early on about this little device is that before each service, you have to have a fresh set of batteries.

So having learned that, we bought some rechargeable batteries. So that after each service, you know, we can fill the, we can plug those things in, put the batteries in the charger, charge them back up so they're a full charge.

And the way we learned that was, I tried to go two services on one set of charge.

And it, well it worked well for the first service. But the second service, and some of you may remember this.

The second service, you know, the sound, it kept cutting out. You know, it was like it would just stop.

And then it would come back on and then it would stop. Come back on and it would stop. So, so we learned that you just got to have a fresh set of batteries.

They got to be recharged before use. I don't know if you've thought of it this way, but God has created us to operate on batteries.

Batteries that need to be recharged. So think of it. We need to have our physical batteries recharged from time to time.

In fact, the failure of our society to recognize that has created one of our biggest physical problems, and that is sleep deprivation.

So many people in our culture today are sleep deprived. And they don't even realize that that's their problem, but it is.

It's a big problem today. We have these physical batteries. And so from time to time, we have to recharge ourselves physically.

And we know this in our heads. We know in our heads that we need adequate sleep. We need enough, we need good nutrition.

We need to get exercise and so forth. But do we actually physically recharge our batteries?

That's another question altogether. We also have mental batteries that have to be recharged.

Experts say that the average person can only really focus on a project for about 90 minutes, mentally focus on a project for about 90 minutes.

I think that that time may be shortening because of some of our distracting devices that shorten our attention span.

But nevertheless, that's what they say. And so after 90 minutes, you've got to take a break and give your mind a chance to recharge a little bit.

We have mental batteries that need recharging. We also have spiritual batteries that need to be recharged.

And I think this is what David was referring to in the 23rd Psalm we read earlier. In the third verse, when he says, the

Lord, the shepherd, restores my soul. He refreshes my spiritual batteries, if you will.

So here in our text, in Mark 6, in his disciple -making ministry, even the

Lord Jesus recognizes the need to have our batteries recharged.

He tells the disciples in verse 31, come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.

Now, what he tells the disciples is not simply limited to the need of the disciples.

This is a need of all of Jesus' disciples, all of the followers of Christ. We need to come apart and rest a while.

Now, by the way, let me point this out. These individuals were all Jewish people.

They all lived under the Mosaic law at that time, which means that they practiced every week the

Sabbath day. Every seventh day, they practiced the Sabbath.

How far they could walk and so forth was limited. What they could do was limited.

The Sabbath, and we'll see this later on, the Sabbath was built into the structure of the

Jewish society to have a weekly day of rest.

And yet, in spite of them practicing that regular routine of the Sabbath, the

Lord here calls his disciples to come apart and rest a while.

Why? Because, you know this as well, the toils of life create the need for rest.

The toils of life create the need for rest. So look at verse 30. In verse 30, the disciples were engaged in some really intense, persistent labor that wears them down, and it wears you down too.

Intense, persistent labor will wear you down. It says they came to Jesus and they told him all the things that they had done and what they had taught.

Now what they're referring to, what this is referring to, is what's recorded for us back in chapter, in verses 7 through 13.

So look back here a couple of verses. Back in chapter 7, it says

Jesus called the 12 to himself and began to send them out two by two. So he's sending out these disciples on a mission.

In verses 8 and following, he gives them some instructions, some details on what to take with them on that journey and so forth.

But then in verses 12 and 13, it tells us what they did. It says they went out and they preached that people should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

So that's what they went out and they did. And then when we come to verse 30, verse 30 tells us that they came back to Jesus and they reported all the things that they had done and what they had taught.

And then Jesus says, come apart and rest a while. This was a period, this mission that they went on was a period of intense, persistent labor.

And what they had taught, they report in verse 30, what they had taught was the preaching of repentance.

They were going about into the various villages and so forth and people they were coming across, two by two, and they were engaged in persistent preaching of repentance to the people of Israel that they ran into.

And what they had done was engaged in this personal ministry of dealing with those who were demon -possessed, dealing with those who were sick.

God gave them the power to give healing to the sick and so forth. So now watch.

What was their persistent, intense labor? It wasn't the hard labor of the farm work.

It wasn't the hard labor of a 10 or 12 -hour shift day in the factory.

It was the intense, persistent labor of spiritual ministry. I do not in any way, shape, or form want to minimize the hard manual labor.

What I want to do is help us to understand that there is a unique kind of exhaustion that comes from spiritual ministry.

And I point that out because we understand, we get the exhaustion of hard physical labor.

We can get that. You work 10, 12 -hour shift day and you come home and you're exhausted.

You get that. But we don't often realize that there is a unique kind of exhaustion that comes from engaging in this kind of persistent, intense spiritual labor.

So that intense labor can wear us down. But look at the end of verse 31.

There's another thing that can wear us down. And that is when we have pressed upon us some constant pressure, constant demands that are put upon us.

The end of verse 31 says, For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.

There's so much activity going on by people coming at the disciples and coming at Jesus and pulling them in this direction and pulling them in that direction and asking them for this and asking them for that.

So they didn't even have time to stop and have a sandwich. Couldn't even have something to eat. That kind of constant pressure, that constant demand that is placed upon them wore them down.

And it will wear you down too. I think, for example, of those who are in professions where they are on call and they may work their regular five days and then every other weekend, for example, they're on call and they never know when the phone rings.

Am I going to have to go into work? Am I going to have to deal with this? What's going to come?

And sometimes you get done with one call, you get back home, you no sooner get seated down to have a bite to eat and the phone goes off again and you've got to come back to this and you've got to deal with that.

Those on -call professions can leave you exhausted and wear you down.

But, you know, it doesn't have to be a profession, a job that's out there.

Right, young moms? Right? Do you ever feel that sense of constant, pressing demand when you're just about to fall asleep and that little one cries out, you know, and there goes another hour of sleep, you know, and it doesn't do any good for some old fogey like me to say, this will pass.

Cherish it while you can because it's going to pass someday. You say, yeah, right, okay, sure.

That constant pressure upon you can wear you down.

I think of those in management and supervisory positions where they are often pressed upon because of the different responsibilities and the pull this way and the pull that way from different employees and so forth.

Or I think of employees that have an overbearing boss. They just never know where they stand, they never know whether or not their boss is pleased, and before you know it, they've got another project to do.

The point is this. What the disciples experienced and you experience as well in your world, being in constant demand is exhausting.

It's exhausting. Now, I'd like you to turn with me to 1 Kings 19, and I want to use by way of illustration the experience of Elijah the prophet.

Intense, persistent labor can wear you down. The constant pressing demands can wear you down, and it can call for rest, the need for rest.

I just want to remind you what the Lord provided for Elijah here in 1

Kings 19. Look at verses 5 and 6. It says, then as Elijah lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel, he slept under a broom tree.

An angel touched him and said, arise and eat. And he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water.

So he ate and drank and lay down again. He rested. He needed that rest.

He needed that rest. Why did he need that rest? Because there are a lot of reasons why when these demands are pressing upon us and we're worn out or we're engaged in intense, persistent labor and we're worn out, there are a lot of reasons why we need rest, and they're illustrated here in Elijah's life.

One of them is that when we lack rest, we lose perspective.

We lose perspective. In other words, we can't see the big picture.

Can't see the big picture. Look at verse 4. Now you remember the background to this situation.

This is right after Mount Carmel when Elijah was engaged in intense, intense spiritual ministry on that mountain.

He said there's a little competition between himself and the prophets of Baal, between God and Baal, and God won.

And you remember that story. And then Elijah had all the prophets of Baal executed, and they were all executed.

But then word came from Jezebel that Elijah was a marked man, and that he, too, was going to die.

There was a hit put out on Elijah, if you will. So Elijah took off, and he fled into the wilderness, and that brings him to verse 4, brings him to the broom tree, and he ran to this wilderness and needed rest.

Why? Because without that rest, he had lost perspective. He lost the idea, the answers to the questions of what am

I doing here? Why am I here? Why am I here? And why am

I doing this? Elijah lost his sense of perspective on what his role as a prophet was.

He kind of thought that his role as a prophet was to bring about revival, that if I just do my thing, then everybody's going to fall into place and revival's going to come.

A lot of preachers in the 21st century can fail in this same regard as well.

They can think that their job is to make the church big and to make the ministry grow and to make it all happen, and they lose sight of the fact that no, that's not what they're called to do.

They're called to preach the Word, to minister the Word, minister it faithfully, and let God use that as God will use that.

If we lose sight of that perspective, we can lose sight of that perspective when we lack rest.

What's my purpose? Why am I here? You remember the prophet

Jonah, he had that same problem, didn't he? God sent him to Nineveh and told him to preach against the city of Nineveh, and when he did, the whole city turned and repented from the top down.

Then Jonah was depressed, and he went out and sat under the gourd vine.

He first sat out on a hill watching to see if the thing would be destroyed.

The city would be destroyed. It wasn't. Then he said, let me just die. He lost perspective.

What did he need to do? Sleep. What did the Lord do for him? Caused a vine to grow so it would shade him from the heat.

He slept, he rested, and then the Lord could deal with him, rattle him, shake him.

Without rest, we can easily lose perspective. Without rest, we see this also in Elijah's life, we can also lose our passion, or our enthusiasm, or our energy.

As Elijah said, it's enough. It's enough. I'm done. I'm done.

Life just becomes monotonous. Boring.

Same stuff. Day after day after day. The routines of life.

Without adequate rest, times to get apart for a while, the routines become monotonous, we lose our passion for the value of those routines.

Simple things. Simple things. Can become great hardships. The preparing of a meal, or this relatively simple thing of mowing a lawn, or whatever.

These simple little things that make up life, responsibilities, duties, jobs of life.

It just becomes such an overwhelming hardship. It's enough, we say. Little things, little things, seem to be insurmountable.

Decisions are laborious. Here is this decision that you have to make, and you just can't decide.

You just can't make the decision. Your outlook becomes very pessimistic.

Emotionally, you languish. I just read an article about that this week.

Languishing. When you're languishing. It's kind of like a middle ground between enthusiasm and depression.

You're not really wallowing in depression, but you're not enthusiastic, you don't have any energy, you don't have any drive for anything either.

You're just kind of languishing. What's often needed is rest.

Come apart and rest a while. That article, I found it interesting. That article was written because the number of people who are in this state of languishing in our society has increased dramatically because of the pandemic and the lockdowns, having to work from home.

At first, we think, oh, this is a great thing. I don't have to get up and go to the office. I can just do my work from home.

But here's the other side of that. It's always there. You never leave.

You never walk away. It's just always there. And you're aware of it.

You're aware that at any time, day or night, you can do your work. And then you find yourself doing your work.

And before you know it, you're languishing. Because you lack rest. You lack getting away from it all.

And you lose your passion. Without adequate rest, we can easily lose our purpose, our sense of purpose.

Again, I notice this in verses 9 and 10. Elijah went into a cave, and he spent the night in that place.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? Maybe we could change the emphasis of that a little bit.

What are you doing here, Elijah? So he said,

I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with a sword.

I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it. What are you doing here,

Elijah? What is your purpose? What is your purpose for being here?

And Elijah had come to the place where he lost a sense of his purpose in life.

And you can do that too. Where you discern no goals.

You have no goal out there. Again, as I mentioned earlier about the passion, you're just kind of existing day to day.

And you don't have any sense of direction, of where to go, of where you're headed.

And other than your own burden about yourself, you carry no other burden.

And we're made to be burden bearers. Isn't that what Paul tells us in Galatians chapter 6?

He tells in the church, he says, bear one another's burdens. But when you are lacking rest, and you lose your sense of purpose, you don't care about anybody else's burdens.

You don't want to bear anybody else's burdens. Yours are enough. It's all you want to do. And consequently, because you've lost your sense of purpose, you see little accomplishment, and you feel like a failure.

You feel like a failure. Without rest, we can easily lose our perspective, we can lose our passion, we can lose our purpose, and we can lose our push, or our motivation, where we're just ready to quit.

Throw in the towel. Give up. The toils of life can bring us to this place, if we don't get rest.

Now here's the thing we've got to catch. The Lord is the ultimate provider of rest.

The Lord is. And I want us to think about this, and realize that back in our text, in Mark chapter 6, that it was the

Lord who initiated it. It was the Lord who said to the disciples, they didn't catch it, they didn't seem to perceive it, they didn't seem to know it, that they needed rest.

But it was the Lord who said to them, come apart by yourselves to a deserted place, and rest a while.

The Lord initiated that. And that is consistent with the Lord, because He is the ultimate provider of rest.

Think with me about it. I mentioned earlier that the disciples, and Jesus, as Jewish men, would have practiced, religiously, the weekly

Sabbath rest. Where did that come from? Was that the invention of men?

No. The Lord made the Sabbath for man. The Lord set aside that one day in seven, so that men might rest.

Turn with me back to Leviticus chapter 23. We're going to park here for just a few minutes. Leviticus chapter 23.

And there is, in this chapter, several different times and places where the

Lord set aside times for rest. So verse 3, regarding the weekly

Sabbath, the Lord says, six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a

Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is the

Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. This isn't just your weekly day off.

Most of you probably work a five -day work week, and you have Saturday and Sunday off, just in the general thing.

I realize there's all kinds of variations of that theme. But typically, you have your day off.

This isn't just a day off from your regular Monday through Friday job. Because what do you do on your day off from your

Monday through Friday job? You might mow the lawn. You might take care of a project around the house. You might do work on this, work on that.

And you're doing some other kind of labor. So what the Lord is doing here with the

Sabbath is He's saying, you take six days, and you do all your labor in that. All the labor out in the field that you have to do, all the labor tinkering on your car that you have to do, all the mowing of the lawn that you have to do, all the projects around the house that you have to do, your laundry, all that kind of stuff, you do that on those six days.

But one day out of seven, do none of that. Rest. This was the

Lord's idea. Isn't that a refreshing thought? That the

Lord set aside one day out of seven just so you can rest? I wonder how many of us take advantage of that, though.

But the Lord also provided in this same chapter and in the Mosaic Law, He provided a systematic opportunity for rest.

So just skim through this chapter with me and look at the different annual feasts that the

Lord established, and with each one of them is associated a time of rest.

Now look, this is in addition to the regular weekly

Sabbath. So in verse seven, He says, on the first day, this is the first day of Passover, the

Feast of Unleavened Bread, He says, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work in it.

Verse eight, you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation.

You shall do no customary work. Verse 21, you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you.

You shall do no customary work on it. It'll be a statue forever.

In verses 24 and 25, speak to the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a

Sabbath rest. Doesn't matter what day of the week that fell on. That first day of the seventh month, it's a

Sabbath rest. Verse 25, you shall do no customary work on it. You shall make an offering made by fire to the

Lord. Verse 28, you shall do no work on that same day. It is the Day of Atonement.

The Day of Atonement, no customary work. Verses 30 and 31, any person who does any work on that day, that person will

I destroy from among his people. You think the Lord took that seriously? He definitely did. Verse 31, you shall do no manner of work.

It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations and all your dwellings. Verses 34 and five, he says, the 15th day of the seventh month shall be the

Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. First day will be a holy convocation.

You shall do no customary work on it. Verse 39, on the 15th day of the seventh month, when you've gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the

Feast of the Lord for seven days. On the first day shall be a Sabbath rest, and on the eighth day shall be a

Sabbath rest. You get the point that the Lord, who established the one day and seven for a time of rest, he also established, this is the

Lord, the initiator. See, the ultimate provider of rest. He provided for his people these set, systematic times throughout the year where they would rest in addition to what they do every week.

And then, look at chapter 25 here in Leviticus. Not only that, and this, you know, we live in an agricultural community.

Agricultural city, they call it. It's a city that's surrounded by farms, right? And this blows our minds when we read in verse 3 and 4 of Leviticus 25.

Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruit.

But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the

Lord. Now look, you, you workers, you farmers, you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

Now, it's amazing enough that the Lord set aside this one year out of seven for the fields to lie dormant.

But don't miss this. If the fields are to lie dormant, the tenants of those fields, the farmers of those fields are also basically dormant.

They're not out there working their fields like they would normally do every year. So one in seven years the

Lord instituted this Sabbath of rest for the land, which involved a

Sabbath of rest for the workers of that land. But notice what else.

Notice how the Lord, in verses 6 and 7, incorporated economic sufficiency into this provision for rest.

Verse 6, he says, The Sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you, your male servants, female servants, your hired man, the stranger who dwells within you, your livestock beasts that are in your land, all its produce shall be for food.

And in verses 20 through 22, If you say, what are we going to eat in the seventh year since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?

Here's my point where I was getting at, where the Lord provided an economic sufficiency.

He incorporated that into the system. In verse 21, he says,

I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years.

You shall sow in the eighth year and eat old produce until the ninth year. Until its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest.

Now, this again, this is Old Testament Israel, and this isn't the system of our day. But what

I want us to understand is that the Lord saw fit that man needed rest.

He needed to come apart and rest from his everyday routine, his everyday labors, and he built that into the system of the nation of Israel.

And in providing for those times of rest, he also incorporated the economic sufficiency that the people could actually take that rest.

And what is our problem today? Why is it that we don't come apart and rest, take time off from our work and all the rest of that kind of stuff?

Maybe because some of us, some of you in your jobs, your employer doesn't give you paid vacation, doesn't give you paid time off.

And we've come to think of that as a benefit, an extra benefit.

But if you think about how God designed in this Old Testament economy, if an employer had a sense of responsibility to God and to his people, he would value his people to the point that he builds into his business the economic viability for his employees to have time off from their work and to cover that.

So the Lord provided these systematic opportunities, not only in the Sabbaths, but we can turn elsewhere.

In Exodus chapter 23, we read about these three annual pilgrimage feasts or festivals where the men were to leave their homes for a week at a time, three times a year, to go for a festival or a feast in Jerusalem.

That's like three weeks of vacation, if you will. So the Lord provided systematic opportunity for rest.

He provided a weekly routine that included rest. He provides, the Lord does, as the ultimate provider of rest.

He provides soul rest. I'm talking here about Jesus' offer in Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30.

Remember that passage? Jesus says, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.

And what? I will give you rest. But he goes on to say,

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest unto your souls.

So what the Lord is talking about here is the provision of rest from the incessant anxious toil of trying to gain

God's favor and trying to earn his salvation. You can't do it. You can't do it.

Some of you are trying to do that right now. Stop. Come to Jesus. Find rest for your soul.

He provides that rest. This is what the writer of Hebrews is talking about in chapter 4, verses 9 to 11.

When he writes this, he says, There remains, therefore, a rest for the people of God.

For he who has entered his rest has ceased from his works as God did from his.

Let us, therefore, be diligent to enter into that rest, that rest where we cease from this endless toil of trying to gain

God's favor and to save ourselves. We can't do it. The Lord provides soul rest.

And then, of course, as the ultimate provider of rest, the Lord provides eternal rest.

Revelation 14, verse 13 says, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.

All right, so watch. You get this. The toils of life create the need for rest.

But have you thought about the fact that the Lord is the ultimate provider of rest?

Where does that leave you and me? That leaves you and me in the position of being intentional about taking that which the

Lord provides, receiving that which the Lord provides. In other words, intentionality, your intentionality, my intentionality, determines the practice of rest.

Having the need for rest doesn't mean you're going to get it. That the Lord provides rest doesn't mean you're going to take it.

You have to be intentional. Intentionality determines the practice of rest.

And so that takes us back to Mark chapter 6. In Mark chapter 6, and just a few principles that come out of this passage to help us.

If you're going to rest, you need a change of pace. Jesus says to them, come aside.

Come aside. And you might have that bulletin out where on the back of the bulletin is

Psalm 23. And you can refer to Psalm 23 because I've been going back and forth here in this section.

What's verse 2 say? Lie down. Lie down.

What is the typical thing a sheep is doing? A sheep is grazing. He's going about the fields looking for something to eat.

Following along the shepherd, to be sure, as the shepherd takes him to a pasture somewhere. But here, the sheep needs to rest.

So the Lord makes him lie down. In Mark 6, the Lord tells his disciples, come aside for a while.

You need a change of pace. The point is this. That change of pace gives the

Lord time to work. Come apart for a while.

Come aside for a while, he says. You know, this little device, this microphone, there aren't any batteries in it because I'm not using it today.

But in the course of 50 minutes of use,

I have to plug it back in, take the batteries out, plug them back into the charger back there. And it takes, if they're fully drained, it takes about an hour and a half.

You get this? It takes about an hour and a half for those batteries to be fully recharged.

For there to be a practice of rest, you need to change your pace so that the batteries can fully recharge, giving time for the

Lord to work and give that restoration. So to rest, you need a change of pace.

To rest, you also need a sanctuary. A sanctuary. Now, that's nothing holy, particularly, depending on what you do in it,

I suppose. But a sanctuary is simply a place of refuge. It's a place apart.

That's why Jesus says in verse 31, Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place.

A deserted place. Come aside. Come aside.

Come aside from where all the pressure is. Here where they are, there's this constant pressure upon them, constant demands upon them.

Come aside. Get into a sanctuary. In the 23rd

Psalm, what is the sanctuary? He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside those still waters. I would suggest to you and recommend to you that you find yourself a place that is a daily sanctuary.

Oh, I know, you say, Pastor, you don't know what my schedule's like. You don't know the demands upon me and all the rest of that kind of thing.

I don't. I don't. I don't. Each one of us is different. We have different demands, different responsibilities, and all the rest of that.

But what I do know and what I do understand is the need for restoration.

The need for rest. The need to have our batteries recharged. And if that's going to happen, we need a sanctuary.

We need a place that is set aside from everywhere else. We used to talk about the prayer closet.

And there, I can't remember where it is now. I'm never going to try to tell you. But people would have a place where they could go and close the door, and then it would just be their prayer closet.

Maybe you don't have a place like that. Is there a place in your home that you can set aside, maybe in an early morning, early hour in the morning, or later hour in the evening, whatever can work for you and your schedule, but where you just come apart, and you don't have the

TV, you don't have the computer, you don't have your phone, you don't have any of that stuff that is calling upon you, making demands of you, where you can just come apart a while and get recharged.

To rest, you need a sanctuary. To rest, you need a change of pace. To rest, you need isolation.

Come apart, he says, by yourselves. By yourselves. You can count them if you want to, but in Psalm 23, there are 17 different occurrences of the words, my, or me, or I.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul, and so on, through the rest of the psalm. The point is that it's all very personal.

It's all very intimate. It's all a very one -on -one experience. The psalmist is saying that this is who the shepherd is to me.

This is what the shepherd is doing for me, personally, as he restores my soul.

You need to be isolated. You need some isolation. You need, again, freedom from those distractions.

Isn't that little device that you have in your pocket or your purse, isn't that the worst invention of recent decades?

I know, on one hand, it's very convenient. It's very helpful, and I find it helpful in so many ways.

But on the other hand, if you're not intentional about it, it is almost impossible to get away from distractions, to isolate.

If you're not intentional, you can be reading your Bible, having your devotions, and all of a sudden, ding!

Or a vibration on your phone, or whatever your thing is, your ringtone.

And what happens? You're broken. Your concentration's broken. You're having a time of prayer.

Or maybe you're just trying to relax. Read a good book. Just get some refreshment.

And there goes that thing again. Isolation. Isolation. Get away from the distractions.

Get away from the pressures. Get away from the routines. Get away from it all. And get isolated.

To rest, you also need to be submitted and open. The Lord told them to come aside to a deserted place and rest a while.

What do you read in verse 32? It says, so they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.

They did what the Lord told them to do. They submitted to the Lord's direction. What about Psalm 23?

What about Psalm 23? The Lord makes me to do something. But I need to lie down.

He brings me to the green pastures. He says, lie down there in the green pastures. Am I going to lie down or not?

If I'm not submitted, not open to the rest and the refreshment, the restoration that he wants to bring to my soul,

I'll buck against that. I'll chafe under that. I won't lie down. He leads me somewhere, but I need to follow.

He leads me beside the still waters. He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.

But I need to sit down and eat. I need to receive what he's prepared for me to have.

So to rest, I need to be submitted and open. And then to rest, I need to feed.

I need to feed. Again, 23 Psalm. Pastures.

Still waters. Table. All that has to do with feeding.

And what do you find in our text in Matthew 6? Isn't this interesting? They get to the other side and then what happens?

The crowd, they found out where they were going. They saw where they were headed and the crowd went ahead of them and met.

But look at the focus of the wording here in verse 33.

The multitude saw them departing. Many knew Him, Jesus, and they ran there on foot from all the cities.

They arrived before them and they came together to Him. So their focus was on Jesus.

They wanted to come to Jesus. They wanted to get to Jesus. And then what did Jesus do? Turn His disciples loose on Him?

No, no. Look at what He did. Verse 34. Jesus, when He came out, He saw this great multitude.

He was moved with compassion for them. And because they were like sheep, having not a shepherd, so what did Jesus do?

What Jesus did was He began to teach them many things. And who is the them?

The multitude for sure. But who else is there? The disciples.

These disciples who needed rest. Who needed to come apart and rest a while. They needed to be fed too.

And so Jesus feeds them. And He feeds them. Now watch this. Remember Psalm 23.

Green pastures, still waters, a table in the presence of my enemies. Here in Mark 6, in verse 39,

Jesus leads His disciples to green pastures. He commanded the multitude there, the 5 ,000 plus women and children.

He commanded His disciples to make all these people sit down in groups on the green grass.

Here it is in the green pasture. He makes people sit down in the green pasture.

And what does He do? He feeds them. He feeds the multitude, but He's also feeding the disciples.

Not literal food, although I'm sure they ate. But He's feeding them in another way.

So verse 42 says, they all ate and were filled. He led them to green pastures.

He led them to still waters. In verse 51, in verse 45 and following, after He dismisses the crowd,

Jesus sends His disciples into a boat and tells them to go across the sea again. And then a storm came up.

Right? A storm came up. The disciples are out in the middle of the sea, and they're rowing. They're trying to get to the other side, and they can't get anywhere.

Jesus sees what's going on, and He walks out there on the water to them in the sea.

And He gets into the boat. He says, be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid. And when He got into the boat, verse 51 says, the wind ceased.

And what happened? They were fed. They were all greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure and marveled, for they had not understood about the loaves.

They didn't get that. But boy, they saw this. They saw this. Jesus led them to still waters.

And then you go on to chapter 7, and the Pharisees and the scribes come together to Jesus, and they say, how come your disciples don't eat?

How come they don't wash their hands before they eat? They don't go through the ritual washings. How come they don't do this? Here are the enemies who come to Jesus.

So what does Jesus do? He feeds His disciples. Feeds them how? By preparing a table for them in enemy territory, dealing with these enemies that come before them.

So Jesus provides rest. He offers it.

He provides it. We need it. But what would be intentional about taking it?

So as I mentioned earlier, if I try using that microphone, if I had used it this morning and then just kept it up here and so forth and then tried to use it again this afternoon, about 1 .30

the thing would be kicking out. It would be falling out. It wouldn't work very well. And eventually, if I don't recharge those batteries, it won't do anything.

I could speak into that little thing, and you wouldn't hear me any better than if I didn't have it at all.

You know what? The same is true with our lives physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

We must take time to recharge our batteries, and we need to do that regularly.

We need to do it regularly. We need to come apart and rest a while.

You say, well, Pastor, that's easy for you to say. You just went on vacation. Yeah, you know why? This is why.

And I want to encourage you, God's people, to take advantage of those times, those opportunities that God gives to you on a daily, weekly, and even annual basis to come apart and rest a while.

So our Father and our God, I pray that you would encourage us from this passage about this wonderful gift and provision that you've given to us.

May we receive that which you've given. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Would you take your hymnal and turn to number 429? 429, we close with the exhortation, take time to be holy.

Let's stand together as we sing, shall we? 429. Take time to be holy.

Speak oft with the Lord. Abide in him always, and feed on his word.

Friends of God's children, help those who are weak.

Forgetting in nothing is a blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy. Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone.

By looking to Jesus, like him thou shalt be.

Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.

Take time to be holy. Let him be thy guide.

Run not before him. Whatever betide, in joy or in sorrow, still follow thy

Lord. And looking to Jesus, still trust in his word.

I encourage you to be back at 1 o 'clock time. Stay for lunch if you brought a lunch.

I always encourage you to come back at 1 o 'clock for afternoon service and then that brief business meeting at the end of that.

Let's pray. And now may the grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all who are his people.