One of the reason that so many people are so exhausted with life, is that they’re carrying the heavy burden of worry, around on their shoulders. I wonder … if you know anyone like that. You can’t enjoy life, you can’t find the rest you so desperately need, when you’re carrying around the worries of the world. You just can’t.
NO WORRIES
I’ve met people in this world and all they do, all the time, is worry. It’s part of our human nature, I guess, when confronted with something beyond us; something that appears to be overwhelming; something that could well have negative consequences in our lives and here’s what we do: we turn it over and over and over in our heads. We imagine each of those negative consequences that could arise over and over and over. And can I tell you, that sort of thinking just drives you into the ground. It’s like ‘around and around and around we go’ and from experience, I can tell you, it’s just exhausting. You probably know the feeling because no doubt, you have been there too.
Well, over the last few weeks we have been talking about entering into God’s rest – actually finding a deep rest instead of carrying the weight of the world round on our shoulders. But when we are worrying – around and around – there can be no rest because worrying robs us of God’s rest. That’s why we need to deal with that once and for all. My hunch is there are a few people today – perhaps me included – who need to hear what God has to say on worrying.
Remember last week, if you were with us on the programme, we talked about the fact that God loves us and because He loves us, He wants us to have rest. Have another listen. Psalm 127, beginning at verse 2:
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to those whom he loves.
Anxiousness is about worrying, isn‘t it? And whatever the one big thing is that each of us is worrying about in our lives, right at the moment, it’s a bit like a dark cloud that hangs over us that never goes away. Jesus knew that! That’s why He had this to say about worrying – this habit that we have fallen into; this worrying that we do that robs us of the rest and the peace that God wants us to have.
Have a listen – I love the way He calls a spade a spade and tells it the way it is. And look, if you need a wakeup call; if you need some healing from this habit of worrying, please listen closely. Perhaps it’s a familiar passage but may … maybe; just maybe, it’s something we need to hear afresh and anew because when God speaks into our lives through His Spirit and His Word, He can bring healing in an instant into something that has been troubling us for a life time. Here we go – Matthew chapter 6, beginning at verse 25:
“Therefore I tell you,” said Jesus, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothing? I mean, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither spin nor toil, yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of those. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But instead, first strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well, “So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have enough worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:25-34)
You know the bit I really like, that hits me between the eyes in this, is Matthew chapter 6, verse 27, it says, “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” I mean, it’s blindingly, glimpsingly obvious, isn’t it? Worrying about something has a zero positive effect on the outcome; worrying isn’t going to produce a good outcome. If there are retrenchments going around in the company where we work, worrying about whether we’re going to be next, simply isn’t going to change the outcome. In fact, worrying actually has a negative effect because it immobilises us – it stops us from using our imagination; our creativity, to find solutions; it stops us from doing the things that we can do to fix the problem.
Here’s a classic: ‘Oh, I’m worried about the debt I’ve racked up on my credit card – how am I … how am I going to pay it off? What am I going to do? I know I’ll go and buy something to make me feel better!’ Right? I mean, that’s what people do! Not only is worrying never, ever, ever going to have a positive impact on a problem, it more often than not, robs us of the solution.
God knows. He knows what we need. He knows we need a job and income and food and somewhere to live … He knows those things. And He also knows when our body is going to fail us. He knows the precise instant when we will leave our bodies behind and go and stand before Him. He knows that! Man, worry is useless and above all, it robs us of God’s rest.
I truly believe that God wants you and me to understand that today and I truly believe that His Word is going to have a powerful and a mighty impact on both of us today. The Lord’s advice is simple: just give it up! Stop worrying and replace that worrying with something else – focus your mind and your energies and your heart on something else.
First strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all those other things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)
And so that’s what I choose to do when the devil sows seeds of doubt and worry in my mind. My friend, the devil wants us to worry – he knows that it robs us of the rest of God, the peace of God, the joy of God, the power of God. And today is a day for us to decide to leave that behind – to focus our lives on seeking after God and His Kingdom and His goodness; on living our lives out for Him, first and foremost and then all these other things that we need will be given to us as well. That’s the promise! He loves us, He’s our Dad; He will give us what we need. He will let us travel through whatever He chooses and one day … one day, when we stand before Him, none of those things will matter anymore.
So listen, do yourself a favour, don’t worry about tomorrow; just don’t! It’s not my idea, it’s His!
MY LORD, MY HELPER
You know something, I think we would worry a whole bunch less if we truly came to grips with the fact that God … God isn’t just the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, He’s also our helper. Now, a close friend of mind, Graham, turned seventy just recently. He was a Colonel in the Army when I was a Captain serving under him and then we formed an I.T. consulting firm together with a third guy and we did that way back in 1988. Graham was a year younger then than I am now. And as I was writing his birthday card just recently, I stopped to think back on what incredibly hard work it had been starting off that consulting firm.
The three of us left the Army – none of us really had ever run a business or worked in the private sector before. And those first five to seven years we had to cast something new out of that coalface. We had to develop experience and develop a client base and develop a company from scratch. There were months we couldn’t pay ourselves. There were times we didn’t know whether we would survive. They were a tough few years! And then when it grew and became successful and it was even hard work maintaining that success – you’re only as good as your last job in the consulting game.
But there was one thing … one thing that made it tolerable and that one thing was Graham. See, funny thing – I was a fresh-faced young Captain, working for Graham, the Colonel in the Army, but we hit it off; just kind of clicked. So when he invited me into this new venture after we had all left the Army, I jumped at it. And ultimately, Graham and our other partner – he had been a Major, Mark – and I were three equal shareholders in this consulting firm. We owned it together but we made Graham the Managing Director; the CEO, if you will. And there was a reason for that – he was the oldest – twenty years my senior and he was the smartest. Graham had and still has a wisdom that I value very highly.
When I read the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, a lot of it is about wisdom – passages like this one; Proverbs chapter 3, verses 13 and 14:
Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver and her revenue better that gold.
When I read passages like that I think of his wisdom. He took a hold of me when I was in my late twenties – smart as a button, lots of energy, lots of enthusiasm … but frankly, a bit immature. I had a lot to learn and Graham took it upon himself to teach me. For the next seventeen years or so, he was my mentor and I in fact, was his deputy; his understudy. Now it took me a while to realise it, but without him doing what he did for me, I wouldn’t be who I am today. It’s as simple as that!
But here’s the thing, even though he was the oldest and the smartest and we made him the boss, if you like and even though he was a strong leader, he made those tough, early years tolerable by being our servant. You see, he didn’t sit up on high and push memos and edicts out the door; he put his nose to the grindstone. He pushed harder than just about anyone I have ever known. Now, why am I telling you this?
Over the last few weeks we have been looking at how tired and how exhausted we all get in life and what to do about it – how to enter into God’s rest. And we are continuing with that theme today on the programme and what we are doing, I guess, is getting down into the nitty gritty of how to enter into God’s rest. How actually, to live a life where we are not physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted because that’s what a lot of people are – exhausted.
What we need in life, so often, is help. Help, not just in doing what we have to do, as important as that may be, but also in making things better – help in dealing with things, in coping with things, help in changing things for the better, help in learning how to improve, how to behave differently, how to react differently, because all of those things make a difference … a huge difference to our lives.
When we get things right, irrespective of the pressures that life brings, we can have rest. If we don’t; if we are angry all the time, or touchy or if we take things personally all the time, then we are going to be exhausted. And when I started off working in this fledgling I.T. consulting firm, way back in 1988, the last thing I expected was to get a mentor like Graham to teach me those things in life. He imparted his wisdom into my life through the things we experienced together – the conflict situations in client organisations, the financial pressures, dealing with difficult staff, planning the future – all those experiences he used very carefully to teach me his wisdom. What an incredible blessing and one that I didn’t expect, from the Colonel, the boss.
And I guess that brings me to the point of what I am trying to say. This same mentorship and guidance and help is something that God promises us, over and over and over and over again. Some of the feminists get a bit upset when, in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, it says that Eve, the woman, that she was Adam’s helper. Because we have this wacky, hierarchical view of the world that puts the helper below the one being helped, on the old totem pole, right?
But what would you say if I told you that throughout the Old Testament, whenever that word ‘helper’ is used, by far the most common usage of it is in terms of God being our helper. Psalm 54, verse 4:
But surely, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.
Jesus was very specific about wanting to be our ‘helper’. Matthew chapter 11, beginning at verse 28:
Come to me, all who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me; because I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
Picture two oxen, yoked together, pulling the load together and what the farmers did is they would always put a young, inexperienced ox with an older, more mature one, who knew the drill and could teach the younger one how to do it. Imagine God’s own Son; the Creator of the universe; the King of Kings; the Lord of Lords, is saying to you and me, in effect, ‘So, ah, things are tough, eh? Well, come and do it My way. Come on, let Me teach you and show you. I’ll put my shoulder into it too. I’ll use all that I am and all that I have to lighten your load – it’s much easier that way and you’ll discover rest for your souls.’
See, that’s what Jesus is saying. We never, ever expect God to be our helper. He is always way up there and we’re way down here, in the pecking order … But the reason I told you about Graham and how he impacted my life is that I think it’s the best way of explaining what Jesus is talking about here. Except that, instead of having a fallible man doing our mentoring and helping and serving, Jesus is talking about God Himself doing that for us.
So, every trial, every tribulation, every tough spot and tight corner and pot-hole in the road; every situation that exhausts us is our opportunity to say, ‘Hang on, there’s a different way of handling this. I don’t have to be scared or upset or angry. All those things are exhausting – there is a bold, practical promise from the Son of God that if I get myself yoked up alongside Him, that it will be much easier; that even though I am pulling this heavy load, that God will be my helper, guiding me as to which direction I should head in, how fast I should walk. And then putting His shoulder to the wheel and pushing in the same direction as me. Now that … that is rest!
GOOD GOD, GOOD PLANS
As we come to the end of this series on entering into God’s rest, there’s just one more issue I think we need to deal with and that is the perception that it can’t possibly be for me or for you because we are just not worthy. How can I possibly enter into the rest of God when I know there are things in my past that I’ve done wrong; things that have offended God? We know the theory many of us; that we are forgiven through our faith in Jesus but we struggle to believe it in our hearts.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve spent most of my early years running away from God because deep down I knew … I mean, I just knew that He was going to punish me so, better to avoid Him for a long as possible. But have a listen to this – if you have got a Bible, open it at Psalm 103, beginning at verse 8:
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor does he repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his kids,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:8-14)
So, yes, He is both merciful and gracious on the one hand but God does have anger. The thing that puts us either on one end of that or the other, well, He tells us in this passage; verse 13, “He has compassion for His children; those who fear Him.” Who are His children? Anyone who puts their trust in Jesus Christ, His Son!
Because God loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him wouldn’t perish but instead, have eternal life. (John 3:16)
And the moment we do that; the moment we trust that Jesus really did take our sin on His shoulders on that cross so that we could be forgiven, then we are forgiven and then this Psalm applies to us:
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
That is so beautiful! If you struggle with getting your heart and your mind around the forgiveness of God, can I implore you to grab a Bible and this week, spend some time in this short Psalm; Psalm 103, verses 8 to 14. It is such powerful language and they are not my words, they’re God’s Words. This is the Word of God! The Spirit of God wants to take this and place it in our hearts so that we can wrap our hearts around God’s forgiveness. He loves us more than we can ever imagine and He separates us from our sin as far as the east is from the west. And I love the bit at the end too, where it says in verse 14, that “He knows who we are; He remembers that we’re dust.”
In other words, He understands; He cuts us some slack to make mistakes and learn and grow, just as we do with our own kids because we love them more that they can ever, ever imagine.
God … God is a good God and He as good plans, for thee and for me. Have a listen to this: Jeremiah 29, beginning at verse 11 – God says to His people who were struggling, who were in captivity, who thought they had lost everything, He says:
“For surely I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and you come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me,” says the Lord, “and I will restore your to you your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and the places where I have driven you,” says the Lord,” and I will bring you back … back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)
Sometimes we feel like we’re in exile; sometimes we feel like everything has gone wrong, and God has failed us, or maybe God’s not strong enough or maybe God’s not there, or maybe God has just lost interest in our plight. Sometimes we feel like that and we just need to know that God does want us to enter into His rest. Of course we’ll walk through wildernesses from time to time, trials, suffering – of course we will. And there will be times in our lives like Israel, when we are left wondering about what sort of God, God actually is.
That’s why it’s important for us today to get God’s Word into our hearts. God “is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” … a love that’s higher than we can imagine, “As high as the heavens are above the earth,” with a forgiveness that’s more complete than we can ever imagine. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
And He has good plans for us – that’s why we can enter His rest. And every time I think to myself, you know, ‘I just don’t deserve that. I turn my back on God and I sinned and I rebelled and I rejected Him,’ I remember that Jesus looked at that and He didn’t let my failings – my sin, stop Him from going to the cross for me. In fact, it was because of my sin; it was because of your sin, that Jesus went to the cross.
That’s the whole point – because we needed saving. And that’s why we can enter His rest. Not when we die – right now – we can enter His rest. When we abide in Him – I love that word ‘abide’ – we finally, finally enter into His rest and experience the peace and the joy that Jesus came to bring us.
My friend, God does not want you or me to live the rest of our lives absolutely exhausted. Sure, He wants us to do some things. Sure, that means hard work sometimes. But, you know what, right in the middle of that hard work, He wants to be yoked up next to us and pushing in the same direction as us, so that you and I can enter the rest of God.
