Episode Transcript
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Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.
You are listening to a message from St.
John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.
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Just last September.
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There was an article in the wall street journal that said these words, business consultants are calling it the 85 percent rule.
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Are you giving it your all? Well, maybe that's too much.
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So many of us were raised in the gospel of hard work and maximum effort, taught that what we put in was what we get out.
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Now some coaches and corporate leaders have a new message to be at your best, they say, dial it back just a bit.
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Aiming for perfection often makes us feel awful, burns us out, and backfires.
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Instead, count the fact that you hit 8 out of 10 of your targets this quarter as a win.
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We don't need to see our work, our health, or our hobbies as either being perfect or a total failure.
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The trick is to try for 85%.
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That was in an article by Rachel Feinzig entitled Try Hard But Not That Hard, 85 percent is the magic number for productivity.
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Well what do you think of that? It's actually some really good advice, isn't it? Why is that such good advice? Well, because many, many years ago.
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So God said this, observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you.
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Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God.
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On it you shall do, you shall not do any work.
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Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
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Amen.
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Therefore, the Lord, your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
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I got a question for the mathematicians here.
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If you work six out of seven days, what percentage of the days are you working 85.
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7 percent of the time.
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So that was really good advice, wasn't it? I love it.
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When something that people come up with today and it's all brand new and fancy and all, we've done all this study shows that many, many years ago, God already knew it and was trying to give us rest and actually better productivity in the rest of the time that we work.
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What good advice, huh? Looking back at that passage from Deuteronomy chapter 5, he tells us why we are to take some time off to rest.
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Because he says, remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
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In other words, when you were in Egypt as slaves, you didn't get a day off.
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You worked from sunup to sundown and you Every day, seven days a week, but you know what? You're not slaves anymore.
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I brought you out of that.
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And so therefore you don't have to work seven days a week.
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You can only work six days a week.
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You see, it's not a have to it's a you get to.
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In Exodus chapter 20, the other place where we have the Ten Commandments, including this commandment, it says this, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
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Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God.
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On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.
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For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day.
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Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.
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So, what's the reasoning here in Exodus 20? That we are to take a day off? Because the God who made us and everything that there is, He rested on the seventh day.
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And guess what? You and I are made in the image of God.
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So if we are made in the image of God and God did six days on and one day off, you and I can keep the same rhythm in our lives as well.
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In fact, that will be best for us if we do so.
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This whole idea that the Sabbath Was good for us and that God gave it to us Not as I have to but as a get to the religious leaders during Jesus time They didn't understand this and so it says in Mark 2 in our gospel account for today one Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields and as his disciples walked along they began to pick some heads of grain The Pharisees said to him look, why are you why are they doing? What is unlawful? On the Sabbath.
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See, they were looking at it as a have to.
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This is something we have to do.
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And so they were looking at picking heads of grain as somehow being work that God was discouraged that they were doing.
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But how did Jesus respond? He said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
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So the Son of Man is Lord even.
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Sabbath.
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In other words, God gave us this command, not as a have to, but as a get to.
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You don't have to do work seven days a week.
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You can take a break.
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In fact, God is telling you, you can take a break.
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There is a story I read this week about these two men.
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One man challenged another to an all day wood chopping contest.
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The challenger worked really hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break.
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The other man, he had a leisurely lunch, he took several breaks during the day.
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And at the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had.
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I don't get it, he said.
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Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did.
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But you didn't notice, said the winning woodsman, that I was sharpening my axe every time I sat down to rest.
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Like Ryan said, it's not just about resting.
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It's about taking that time to sharpen our axe.
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So to speak.
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What does that mean? Spiritually.
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Well it says in Isaiah chapter 26 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
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What does God want to do through this Sabbath day? The day that we take time off from work? He wants us to refocus on Jesus.
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To reorient ourselves to him.
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Why? Because when we do so, we will have what every single person on this planet is looking for.
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Perfect peace.
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You know, life gets crazy, doesn't it? Work and family and, you know, your, your neighborhood and your responsibilities at home and your responsibilities.
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Throughout the day, all of that comes crashing down on you, and then you have the unforeseen things that are happening in your life.
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And by the end of the week, I would say that a lot of us, if we were to analyze ourselves, are not at perfect peace.
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Where does perfect peace come from? It comes from getting our minds refocused and stayed on Him.
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So that we're, once again, trusting in Him.
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When do we do that? God has ordained it to be during a time of Sabbath.
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We need to refocus our eyes on Him.
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Here's our very important point of the day.
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It's this.
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We need to refocus regularly on the Word of God because God wants us to understand that the circumstances that happen to us and around us Don't determine, ultimately, what transpires in your and my life.
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He does.
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He does.
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Sometimes when all of these things are happening to us and all around us, it's easy for us to forget that and think that they have the final say in our life.
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But they don't.
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He does.
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The only way that I can remember that is if I take time out from the craziness of life to refocus on that fact.
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Here's just a few very quick pieces of advice on refocusing on the truth.
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I feel like with this first one I'm speaking to the choir here.
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But make church a regular weekly appointment.
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on your calendar.
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Some of you may be here today and maybe it's your time.
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You know, once every couple of months that you're here.
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That's great.
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That's better than nothing.
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But I'll just speak for myself.
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I need this every single week.
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Make it a regular weekly appointment.
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Secondly, make Bible reading a regular part of your day.
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For me, that time of day is first thing in the morning.
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I count backwards.
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I say, I'm going to need this much time to get ready to get to work.
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And now I'm going to take this much time ahead of that to get up and spend time with the Lord.
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I need that to refocus.
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Otherwise, it does, it takes me about three seconds to go back to the craziness of this life.
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And finally, number three, Memorize Bible passages that relate to the situations affecting your life at whatever time in your life, and repeat them out loud to yourself multiple times a day.
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We live in a time period where people are no longer memorizing.
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In days gone by, people would memorize huge passages of scripture.
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Entire books of the Bible.
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The Pharisees during Jesus time had whole books memorized.
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And we've lost that in our day today.
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But as you're reading along in the Bible or maybe at church you hear something, write that down, read it, Over and over and over again, put it to memory and then recite it over and over again.
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Why? Because it says in Romans 10, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
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Even if that hearing is out of your own mouth, faith comes by hearing it.
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Faith is once again, not a have to, it's a get to.
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It's a refocusing on the truths and the promises of God that you're not on your own in this life.
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God is there to love you, to help you, to protect you, to heal you.
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And so when you come upon a passage, recite it, memorize it over and over again.
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You see, Satan is a defeated foe.
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But until that day that Jesus Christ comes again, he's still fighting against you and me.
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And the way that he fights against us is he lies to us.
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Some of those lives are like this one up here.
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God is mad at me.
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No matter how hard you try to be perfect, you're never gonna be perfect.
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And there are times that you're gonna fail, you're gonna mess up, and after you mess up, Satan is going to try to take full advantage of that mess up to yell into your ear, God's mad at you, you can't expect anything from him now, he's not gonna answer your prayers, why would he? When that comes, you need to refocus on what the Bible says, things like this from, Romans 8.
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Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.
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Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of Life set me free from the law of sin and death.
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If you believe in Jesus Christ and have been baptized, you are in Christ Jesus.
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And therefore, there is no condemnation for you.
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Why? Because 2, 000 years ago on a cross Jesus took your condemnation for you, and now there's nothing left for you.
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If you don't ever take time out of the busyness of life to refocus on that, you're going to get weighed way down with always feeling like God is mad at you.
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And if you think He's mad at you, you're not going to pray because you're going to say, What's the use? He's not going to help me anyway.
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But the truth is this, you are not condemned.
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Jesus took your condemnation for you.
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We need to refocus on that.
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Here's another lie.
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I'm on my own in this world.
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I'm on my own with the problems that I'm facing.
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Well, then you stop and refocus.
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And what do you find? You find passages like Hebrews 13 that say, Never will I leave you, God says.
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Never will I forsake you.
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I know this about our God.
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He is not a liar.
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If He says never, never means never.
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He will never leave you.
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He will never let you go on your own and forsake you in the problems that you're dealing with.
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He doesn't condemn you because Jesus took your condemnation and now he wants to help you.
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You can call out to him in Whatever situation you find yourself in Never will he leave you nor forsake you Here's another lie this disease This diagnosis that I've been given has the final say in my life Maybe some of you have gone through that.
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Maybe you're going through that right now.
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Maybe you went to the doctor and you were shocked at what you were diagnosed with.
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And maybe now you think that that diagnosis has power over your life.
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Well then, you take time out of the craziness on the outside and the craziness going on on the inside and the craziness going on on the inside.
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And you look to God's Word and what do you find? You find things like this from Psalm 103.
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Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases.
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What is he saying? Lord, I want to bless you.
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Why? Because here's the benefits of being your kid.
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Two things.
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You forgive me? And you heal me.
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That's who God is.
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And when you look through that set of lenses at scripture, it's over and over and over again.
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When Jesus came, what did he do? He came to forgive and heal.
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And we find this all throughout the Bible.
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In fact, he says in Exodus 15, I am the Lord who heals you.
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So this disease, this diagnosis, it doesn't have the final say in your life.
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He has the final say in your life.
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And He loves you, forgives you, and He is our healer.
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We had a healing service last night, and there were loads of people that came forward with diagnoses, with things that they're dealing with in their bodies or in their minds.
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And we were able to pray over them and send them home with the hope that they have a God who loves them, forgives them, and who heals them.
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This is a promise that I know I have to remind myself of every day, and so it's right outside of our shower.
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So every time I get into the shower, I read that Bible passage.
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And every time I get out of the shower, I read it again.
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So at least twice every day, I'm reading this promise.
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Jesus said, Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you've received it, and it will be yours.
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You say, Well, I'm having a hard time believing that promise, Pastor.
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Well, that isn't my promise.
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That's Jesus's promise.
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He says, whatever you ask for, whatever you need in your life, ask God for it, believe that you've received it, and it will be yours.
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That's His promise.
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I don't understand it either.
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But the more you read it, the more you begin to believe it.
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That's Jesus's promise.
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The more you're around the Word of God, the more your faith is going to grow.
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The more your faith grows, the more you will see miracles happening in your life.
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This is why we need to stop and refocus on the things of God.
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If we never stop, if we never take Sabbath time in our lives, to reorient ourself to the promises of God.
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Then we're, our faith is always going to be way down here.
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But the more we're around the Word of God, the more we take time to let that sink in, the more our faith's gonna grow.
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The more our faith grows, the more we're going to believe.
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The more we believe, the more miracles we'll see in our lives.
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Do you see why Satan wants so much to keep you away from church? I cannot tell you how many times in the last 22 years of being a pastor People have said to me when i've called them when they haven't been at church for quite a while Let's say pastor.
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I don't understand it Six days out of the week everything's going well And then it always seems like on sunday morning.
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I don't sleep Well during the night on saturday night or or something happens on sunday morning that keeps me from going to church Well, what do you think that is? We have an enemy.
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He doesn't want you to take time out of your busy lives to refocus, to reorient on Christ.
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So he's going to do everything he can to keep you from here.
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I've also heard this.
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Pastor, I really want to get up in the morning and spend time, but it always seems whenever I do, I wake up in the middle of the night, then I can't go back to sleep and or maybe my alarm doesn't go off.
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Why do you think that is? Because we have an enemy that doesn't want you to reorient to Christ.
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Because when you do, your faith's gonna grow.
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When your faith grows, you're gonna see miracles in your life, and nobody's going to be able to convince you that Jesus Christ is not who he says he is.
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See? Jesus said this in Matthew 11, come to me, all you when you're weary and you're burdened.
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And what does he say? I'm going to give you rest.
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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.
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This is what this whole message is about.
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Rest.
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Not just physical rest, but reorienting yourself to the one who wants you to live in rest.
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Not just for a day, but to be restful all week long.
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And so God gives you permission to rest.
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And take that time to refocus on Jesus.
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May God grant it to each and every one of us for his sake.
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Amen.
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You've been listening to a sermon from St.
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John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.
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If you would like more information about St.
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John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.
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stjohnsbuffalo.
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org.
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Thank you and God bless you.