Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This morning's passage comes from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter eleven,
verse twenty eight through thirty. Are you tired, worn out,
burned out on religion? Come to me, Get away with me,
and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to
take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms or grace.
(00:22):
I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely
and lightly. This is the word of the Lord. You
may be seated.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good morning, how's every right doing today? Good well?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Happy Mother's Day to all of our moms that are
out there. We honor you, we love you, and we
are grateful for you and for all that you continue
to give, not only to your family at home, but
also to your church family as well. So Happy Mother's
Day from Indi Metro Church. As with all holidays, we
recognize that very real and very sad fact that for
(01:00):
some Mother's Day might be a difficult time. Right, Maybe
you yourself have longed to be a mother for as
long as you can remember, and for whatever reasons, hasn't happened.
Maybe your mom or a motherlike figure in your life
has died and is no longer there and the present
making this a day of mourning instead of celebrating. And
maybe you haven't had the best relationship with your mom,
(01:21):
or maybe your mom has never been a picture of
Christ's love in your life. Please know, for whatever reason,
if this is a particularly hard day for you, we're
here for you.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
As a church.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
We support you, and we grieve with you and are
here for you in ways that we can be. So
whatever situation you're in right now, whether this is a
great day of celebration or a difficult day, I just
want us to pause together for a moment and pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
God. We thank you for your love for us.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Jesus, we thank you for Mother's Day to celebrate the
moms that are in our life. We pray for those
that might be grieving today. Lord be with them and
meet them in their grief. Jesus, we thank you, praise
you that you love us.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
God.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I pray that you open our eyes to your word
today as we look.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
In the book of Matthew. So we thank you and
praise you and him. I pray Jesus Amen.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So today, I wanted to spend some time talking about
stewarding our souls, or as some call soul care. Sometimes
when we talk about souls, it can be a little
bit confusing as to what we specifically mean when we
talk about our souls. So I want to start off
with a definition. The definition of soul that I found
is an immaterial or spiritual part of the human being,
(02:32):
distinct from the physical body. It's often associated with thoughts, feelings, emotions,
and unique personalities. But I like simplicity, So here's a
more simple definition, right. Our souls are our mind, our emotion,
and our wills. Now, many theologians have debated over the
ages whether we are two parts or three parts as
(02:53):
a human being, whether or not we have both a
soul and a spirit, or if those are interchangeable as
well as our bio. And we're not going to get
into any of that today, as I don't think it
is necessary or pertinent to what we're going to be
talking about. But some philosophies have thought throughout the Ages
have argued that the body does not affect the soul
all right, But throughout the New Testament, the apostle Paul
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pleaded with the churches that he worked with, And it's
true for us today that that very much does matter,
that our bodies do impact and affect our souls. And
as I've grown over the years and gotten older, I've
realized even much more how physical issues I face can
affect emotional and spiritual parts of my life. I mean,
every morning when I wake up, it's not if I'm
(03:35):
going to hurt, it's which party of my body's going
to hurt at this stage in my life. And so,
how do we steward our souls well or how do
we take care of our souls well? Because that's a
very important question that I think that we need to
look at today.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So before we get there.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Though, I think it helps to take it back even
a step further and ask ourselves what issues have we
dealt with in our lives that have been root issues,
it be identity issues, self worth, trauma from our past,
or maybe some present hardships that you have been facing.
Because often these issues can shape and they can form
us unknowingly. And then after years sometimes of living with
(04:14):
some of these issues and certain struggles, we find ourselves
in a place that feels like we just can't go
on anymore. Sometimes the hardships of life come at us quickly,
like out of nowhere, right, and they leave trauma and
the wake and us dealing with a lot of stuff
in our life that we didn't ever think that we'd
have to face in our lives. And there are many
steps that we can often take to care for our souls.
(04:38):
But what are some steps that you have taken in
your life to care for your soul? I believe the
first step, the most important step for caring for our souls,
we see in the passage that we look together this morning,
is coming back to the one who made us, who
loves us, who knows what is best for us. So
let's look at that passage one time together again and again.
This is from the message by I like the way
(05:01):
it's phrased here. It kind of gives a new light
to me when I read it. In the message Matthew
eleven twenty eight through thirty. Are you tired, worn out,
burned out in religion? Come to me, Get away with me,
and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to
take a real rest, walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
(05:26):
I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely
and lightly. Taking care of our souls begins with going
to Jesus. Did you catch that first phrase? If you're tired,
if you're weary, what come to me? Come to Jesus?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
It begins with going to Jesus. The reality of caring
for our souls and trusting the Lord with them comes down,
I think to one big question, Right, do I really
believe that God's way is better? Or maybe better phrased?
Do I really trust him? Like really trust him? Do
I believe that He is good? Like we were singing
(06:09):
about this morning? Like Jake had mentioned, right, prone to
wander from remembering the goodness and the grace of God
afresh and anew each and every day. I think, if
you're like me, sometimes it's like second hat and I
can kind of get used to it, and I forget
how great.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And how good God truly is.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Now as followers of Jesus, I'm sure most of us
would answer a resounding yes to all of these questions
that I just asked. Right, But do our lives and
this way we live line up with this, yes that
we profess. I know my life doesn't always line up
that way, right, But we must continue to come to Jesus,
even if it's been a while, or maybe you're in
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a good season right now, continue with that momentum of
finding rest in Him. But if you've been struggling to
come to Jesus, the great thing about Jesus is that
he sues us. I love that about Jesus. Sometimes we
might get in the drifting stage of our life, but
God brings people into our lives. He brings circumstances into
our lives, and he gently reminds us and pulls us
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to himself, and he comes to us, and he reminds
us of our need for Him and for our rest
that is needed in him. And so I want to
look for a second at another passage about the story
of the Woman at the Well in John chapter four.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
We aren't going to get.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Into all the specifics of this, but I will say
this that it is a picture of Jesus bridging all
the gaps between he and the woman at the Well,
a woman misunderstood by most, living and going through a
life of hardship.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
She had five husbands.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
More than likely this is a series of tragedies for
this woman, and Jesus never told this woman in this
passage to repent like he had in other passages. He
bridged the gap to meet her in the midst of
her tragedies. But the verse I want to focus on
is on John chapter four, verse ten. In a couple
different translations, the NLT says, Jesus replied, if you only
(08:04):
knew the gift God has for you and who you
are speaking to, you would ask me and I would
give you living water. The ESV version says Jesus answer here,
if you knew the gift of God and who it
is saying to you give me a drink, you would
have asked him and he would have given you living water.
So to steward our souls, we must remember the gift
(08:26):
of God, to remember the wonder of who God truly is.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Now.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I know it's Mother's Day, but I'm a girl dad
and got two wonderful girls, and it's a joy parenting
them most of the time. But all stages of life
I love that we've had with other kids. But the
one stage that I really liked was three and four
because they had this wonder about life like everything was fun,
everything was new. They would open their eyes and we
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ask them go do something. They'd be like, yes, you
want to go to the park. Yeah, let's go to
the park. It's awesome, right, And they would just have
this love for life that it was just like, help
me to really reimagine life again from a different perspective,
from the lens of where kids are. So you see, kids,
they live freely, just like the passage that we're talking
about this morning. They're care free, taking the world as
(09:17):
it is, no preconceived notions. They don't have any cynicisms yet.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I'm pretty cynical at times in my life about certain
things like yeah, we'll see right, But they don't have
that yet. They love life, and I know this is
why Jesus loves children so much. Just like he talked
about in the passage, Let the children come to me,
don't hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to
such as these. This is the gift of life that
(09:46):
God's calling us to the faith of a child to
come and to experience life afresh and anew again. He
is the gift of life, and we need to come
running to him, just like my kids used to come
running to me.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Not so much an more.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Taylor will start once in a while, but when they
were little, they'd run. I get home from work and
it was like, Oh, I'm a rock star, this is awesome.
Not anymore, Eh, it's dad's home, right, But man, what
a reminder to come running to our heavenly Father because
we need him and we need his presence in our lives.
So what keeps us from coming to Jesus. Maybe it's busyness, right,
(10:24):
Maybe it's our schedules, the things that we got going on.
Sometimes we drift just because of the season of life
we're in and we don't prioritize coming to Jesus and
finding rest for our souls. And when we do this,
sometimes we can get to a place in our relationship
with the Lord where we feel distant and maybe even lost.
Have you ever felt lost in your relationship with Jesus?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Before?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I know I have life, things just don't make sense right,
just seems far and distant. I know I've been there
multiple times, and usually when I do, I get to
this place. Sometimes because it's business. Sometimes it's because it's
different things in my life. But I get on all
pilot right going through the motions of life, and busyness
creeps in. Now I know one of the most common
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answers I hear every time. Sometimes I give it myself
when somebody asks how I'm doing. I'm good, but busy, Right,
I'm good but busy. Now, my schedule is busy, for sure,
We're in that stage of life where things are busy.
But busyness is more than just a busy schedule. It's
a state of mind.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right. It uses the things we do day in and
day out.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Sometimes is a distraction from the things in our life
that sometimes we're trying to avoid, sometimes have laid dormant
and we're just kind of going through the motions. I
was reading this book a while back called Messy Spirituality,
and one of the quotes from it says, this what
keeps many of us from growing is not sin, but
speed speeding through life in dangers our relationships and our souls.
(11:48):
We are there and all the activities of life, but
not present. And when we're not present, other people notice.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
It impacts our relationships deeply, and more often the relationships
with the people that we love the most. And the
biggest impact is our souls becoming lonely. Going through life
distant from the gift that is the life that Jesus
offers us. So if you struggle with busyness, if you're
tired and weary, take courage, take hope, have heart, because
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you're not as far off as you think you are.
The reality is this can be the perfect place for
God to meet us when we are at the end
of ourselves, not measuring up and falling short, when we're
in a rough patch of our relationship with God or
just in life, are just going through the motions. When
we come to a dead end, and this is another
quote from Messi spirituality. When we come to a dead end,
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when there's no place to go, we often get in
touch with our longings for God. All our desires really
are is a longing for Jesus, our souls long for him.
Ecclesiastes chapter three says that he has made everything beautiful
in its time, that he's placed or put eternity within
man's heart. He's placed a longing for something more, a
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desire to be filled by him. And that's something is
Jesus to find that quiet place of rest and solitude
in him. But maybe for you it's not busyness. Maybe
It could be fear right, fear of acceptance, fear of change,
fear of dealing with some of the things from a
past that God continues to bring to us. And sometimes
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we can allow our fear to paralyze us. Fear of failure,
fear of loss of control, as if we're really in
control at all anyways, which we're not. Right God is,
He's the one that sits on the throne. I know
I like to take that seat in my life sometimes,
but He is the one that is in control all
the what ifs that come to our mind. Maybe even
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though you know God loves you, you struggle to practically
believe that in your day to day life. And if
we're not careful, this fear can cause us to look
for acceptance in all the wrong places. Because we are
designed by God for love, and if we don't care
for our souls, we'll be finding our true love in Him.
We look to other sources for this, and whether it's
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approval work in our relationships, apart from Jesus love, we're
never gonna truly be satisfied. I don't have this quote
I'm gonna put up here, but it's kind of a
long one. It's by Henry Nowen, And it says, as
long as I keep on running about asking do you
love me? Do you really love me? I give all
to the power, to the voices of the world and
put myself in bondage. Because the world is filled with ifs.
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The world says yes, I love you if you're a
good looking, intelligent, and wealthy.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
If you have a good education, a good job, and
good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much,
and buy much. There are endless ifs hidden in the
world's love. These ifs enslave me since it's impossible to
respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is
and always will be conditional. As long as I keep
looking for my true self and the world of conditional love,
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I will remain hooked to the world, trying, failing, and
trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because
what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.
Let's remember the goodness of God today as we sang
this morning, which was a great time in worship, just
remembering God's goodness. Let's do that throughout the week, to
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remember that He's the one that satisfies our souls. We
can get busy, we can get caught up, but meditate
on his goodness and his faithfulness to us. Let's look
again at Matthew chapter eleven. Are you tired, worn out,
burned out in religion? Come to me, get away with me,
and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to
take a real rest. Taking care of our souls requires
(15:44):
that we get away with Jesus. We have to spend
time getting away with Jesus. Over the last couple months,
I've been dealing with a physical issue with a pinch
nerve and my cervical spine like five six and seven,
and it's been brutal. If you've ever gone through any
nerve pain before, I'm sorry, I've never gone through this before,
and it is awful.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And some of the.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Things that I've been dealing with, it was like, man,
what is going on? And again reminder that our physical
well being can affect our emotional wellbeing and our spiritual
if we allow it. And so during this time I
became an avid learner about everything that has to do
with like nerves. What can I do to fix it?
What can I do to help it? Even got my
Google MD degree, who looking up everything, talking to everybody
(16:27):
I could talk to, doing all the things.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I went to physical.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Therapy, I got massage therapy, and then finally I went
to the doctor because it still wasn't resolving itself, and
I got a cervical epidural steroid injection, which has helped tremendously.
I'm not one hundred percent, but man, I'm so grateful
that it finally helped relieve.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Now, if you know.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Anything about nerve injuries, it can take a long time
to heal, months even a year, and some people struggle
with it their whole lives, which was something I didn't
really particularly want to know. But I am grateful finally
getting relief. And so the guy who was going to
pete with I love going to gym, and he goes
to the gym too, and he's like, now, dude, when
you get this injection, don't go back and try to
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do everything that you used to do before, because you're
going to go right back to where you were before.
And he knows me well, because that's what I wanted
to do, and so I've been careful. And he also
said keep on doing the things that you were doing.
With the you know, the pt stuff, like, keep on
doing those things because if you don't, it can go
back and you can deal with us again. So it's
important to keep on being faithful and doing all the
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things that you've been doing. And so as I've been
thinking about taking care of our souls, the same thing
rings true. Right, But why don't I seek out Jesus sometimes?
Like when I have a problem with pain, like you know, physically,
I'm like, okay, I gotta fix this.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I can do a bunch of other things. I can
watch Netflix, I can escape that way. I can do
other things that can take me away, But I don't
spend time with Jesus sometimes the way that I should. Right,
we need to search out Jesus and get away with
him the same way that I pursued getting help for
my physical issues. And consistency is king right, It's paramount
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in all areas of life, and even with our time
with getting away with Jesus. It says in Matthew eleven,
walk with me and work with me. Watch how I
do it? Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I love that,
the unforced rhythms of grace. But sometimes at first it
feels kind of forced, doesn't it. But that's just like
anything in life. I mean, it feels forced when you
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first start doing, when we first start going back to
the gym, when you're first trying to get these healthy
habits and patterns in your life. But after a while,
it becomes natural. It becomes who you are because it's
a part of your life. And it's the same way
in getting away with Jesus. So let's come back to
Jesus knowing that he is good and that his way
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is better. Let's find ways that we can stay consistent
in getting away with Jesus. And I don't know about you,
but in different seasons of my life, getting away with
Jesus has looked different at some Sometimes it's good to
try new things in the way that we spend time
with Jesus because what worked before in one season might
not work as well on another, and it's okay to
change things up. The staples remain the same. Right, we
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need to spend time in God's word, we need to
talk with him, we need to spend time with other
people and talk about our faith. But sometimes it's not
just sitting down and praying. Maybe you pray as you walk,
or as you're driving in the car. Maybe you're using
a devotional in a certain season, trying journaling if you've
never done that before. I'm not much of a journaler,
but sometimes one of the things I like doing is
just writing letters, and that can help me. It doesn't
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matter how we do it, but it does matter that
we do get away with him. So let's look at
this passage again. I won't lay anything heavy or ill
fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn
to live freely and lightly. Taking care of our souls
requires that we trust Jesus knows what's best. Taking care
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of our souls requires that we trust Jesus knows what's best.
The truth is the truth is that we will never
be fully healed until we see Jesus face to face.
We're gonna have stuff that we're gonna deal with our
whole life. Grieving and working through the hurts and wounds
of our past isn't a one and done. It's a
hard road, but it's a necessary one, and sometimes God says,
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come a little closer, right, so we can work on
those areas of our souls that need more attention or
continued healing and work. But I don't know about you,
but why do I Why do we sometimes resist change
so much?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
It can be a difficult to change, and I'm finding
that that the older I get, I like my schedules
the same way right, and change is hard. We get
used to the patterns and habits that we know, we believe.
Sometimes some of the lies inside our mind that keep
us in bondage and their strongholds there there, and if
we're not replacing them with truth, they're gonna keep us stuck.
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Sometimes we avoid difficult things even though we know it's
gonna help us in our relationship with Jesus and others.
Have you ever been there when you go like we
were talking about earlier, just on autopilot. When I do this,
I know it leads to feeling lost in my walk
with Jesus. Sometimes it's because maybe we don't feel healed
or continue struggling with our perception of what a true
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what a good Christian is. Maybe it's an addiction to
escape from reality. It may not be a life dominating addiction,
but it's an escape instead of facing the problem from
the past, or maybe during a hardship that you're in
or you've gone through, you didn't turn to the Lord,
and you just tried to power your way through it,
and it left your faith disoriented, and it's been hard
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to get back to the spiritual rhythms to care for
your soul like you used to and that we all
so desperately need. Maybe, instead of escaping through busyness or
whatever your escape might be, it's time to look to
the one who longs for us to be with him
and take a step in that direction. Maybe instead of busyness,
it's time to quiet our souls, to be still and
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to know that he is God. To stop fighting, right,
I love that song. Be still and know that he
is God. Stop fighting, Just let him be in control.
Surrender to his way, surrender to his wills, because if
we continue to try to do it in our own
understanding and strength, we can end up disillusioned or burned out.
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He's not gonna lay anything on us ill fitting, but
sometimes it can feel ill fitting. Right as we're going
through the seasons of life, new seasons in life can
be hard and not what we expected.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Right. I started a.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Job recently back in December, a new one after I've
been somewhere for eleven years. It was a change The
first month was like the honeymoon season, like this is amazing,
and then it got hard for a couple months, and
now I'm kind of finding my new rhythm and paths.
But man, those times can be difficult right in our lives.
But we need to continue to cultivate that rest for
our souls that we find in Jesus. He loves us
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and he wants us to get away with him to
remember his goodness. Right, and the reason that we spend
time is or the reason we do these things isn't
to check a box. It's because we get to know
how good and how faithful and true he is. We
see life the way that it should be when we
have that awareness of God's presence in our life. If not,
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I'm gonna walk around pretty bummed out, pretty negative, because
that's my negative go to right is I get negative.
But when I remember God's goodness, God's faithfulness, he reminds
us to look in.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
A new and a fresh way at life.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Because when we go to Him and get away with
him consistently, he knows we will begin to live freely
and lightly. He'll make the situation that we're going through
easier to handle. It's not always gonna be easy, but
it'll be easier when we are clinging to him, when
we're resting in him, and he'll bring that wonder back
to us again. Don't you want to live with that
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wonder again? Like the faith of a child, right, the
wonder of a little child looking at things?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Man, this is awesome. I know, I do. I know.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
My heart longs from my father and to run into
his own arms afresh and anew each and every day.
But in order to do that, we have to be disciplined.
We have to be faithful.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Eugene Peterson wrote a book a while back, long Obedience
in the same direction, right, which is a phrase that
Frederick nietzschee way back in the day.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
He took it from him. But that's what soul care
really is.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Long obedience in the same direction, like Jake was talking
about this morning.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Sometimes we don't feel it.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
We're not going to feel it every time when we
spend time in God's presence, but we still need to
continue to be faithful, just like we show up for
our families each and every day, doing the same things
over and over. It's not sometimes everything that we want
it to be. Right, My daughter tailor's doing Olympic weightlifting
and sometimes she hates squatting. I'm like, she's like, I
love to do the snatch and I love to do
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clean and jerk. I'm like, if you want to get better,
then you need to do squats. And it takes that
discipline in doing those things. Sometimes we don't want to
do to get where we need to get in our lives.
That's what long obedience looks to like. And when the
things sometimes don't feel good, but in the end, we're
grateful that we did them because we know that it
got us to a better place in our lives with
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our relationship with God. So let's come to Jesus a
fresh and anew because we trust him and believe that
he is good. Let's read this passage one time together
and just end our time here and just meditate on
this throughout the week as we go throughout the rest
of our week. Matthew eleven twenty eight through thirty. Are
you tired, worn out, burned out in religion? Come to me,
(25:34):
get away with me, and you'll recover your life. I'll
show you how to take a real rest, walk with
me and work with me.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Watch how I do it.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything
heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me,
and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. Let's pray,
Heavenly Father, thank you for the rest that we find
in you. Thank you, Jesus that we can come to
you in all seasons of our life. Help us to
do that better, to care for our soul's God, so
(26:07):
that we might be whom you created us to be.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
God. We love you, we praise you, we thank you
and your name. I pray Jesus Amen.
This morning's passage comes from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter eleven,
verse twenty eight through thirty. Are you tired, worn out,
burned out on religion? Come to me, Get away with me,
and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to
take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms or grace.
(00:22):
I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely
and lightly. This is the word of the Lord. You
may be seated.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good morning, how's every right doing today? Good well?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Happy Mother's Day to all of our moms that are
out there. We honor you, we love you, and we
are grateful for you and for all that you continue
to give, not only to your family at home, but
also to your church family as well. So Happy Mother's
Day from Indi Metro Church. As with all holidays, we
recognize that very real and very sad fact that for
(01:00):
some Mother's Day might be a difficult time. Right, Maybe
you yourself have longed to be a mother for as
long as you can remember, and for whatever reasons, hasn't happened.
Maybe your mom or a motherlike figure in your life
has died and is no longer there and the present
making this a day of mourning instead of celebrating. And
maybe you haven't had the best relationship with your mom,
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or maybe your mom has never been a picture of
Christ's love in your life. Please know, for whatever reason,
if this is a particularly hard day for you, we're
here for you.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
As a church.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
We support you, and we grieve with you and are
here for you in ways that we can be. So
whatever situation you're in right now, whether this is a
great day of celebration or a difficult day, I just
want us to pause together for a moment and pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
God. We thank you for your love for us.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Jesus, we thank you for Mother's Day to celebrate the
moms that are in our life. We pray for those
that might be grieving today. Lord be with them and
meet them in their grief. Jesus, we thank you, praise
you that you love us.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
God.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I pray that you open our eyes to your word
today as we look.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
In the book of Matthew. So we thank you and
praise you and him. I pray Jesus Amen.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So today, I wanted to spend some time talking about
stewarding our souls, or as some call soul care. Sometimes
when we talk about souls, it can be a little
bit confusing as to what we specifically mean when we
talk about our souls. So I want to start off
with a definition. The definition of soul that I found
is an immaterial or spiritual part of the human being,
(02:32):
distinct from the physical body. It's often associated with thoughts, feelings, emotions,
and unique personalities. But I like simplicity, So here's a
more simple definition, right. Our souls are our mind, our emotion,
and our wills. Now, many theologians have debated over the
ages whether we are two parts or three parts as
(02:53):
a human being, whether or not we have both a
soul and a spirit, or if those are interchangeable as
well as our bio. And we're not going to get
into any of that today, as I don't think it
is necessary or pertinent to what we're going to be
talking about. But some philosophies have thought throughout the Ages
have argued that the body does not affect the soul
all right, But throughout the New Testament, the apostle Paul
(03:14):
pleaded with the churches that he worked with, And it's
true for us today that that very much does matter,
that our bodies do impact and affect our souls. And
as I've grown over the years and gotten older, I've
realized even much more how physical issues I face can
affect emotional and spiritual parts of my life. I mean,
every morning when I wake up, it's not if I'm
(03:35):
going to hurt, it's which party of my body's going
to hurt at this stage in my life. And so,
how do we steward our souls well or how do
we take care of our souls well? Because that's a
very important question that I think that we need to
look at today.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So before we get there.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Though, I think it helps to take it back even
a step further and ask ourselves what issues have we
dealt with in our lives that have been root issues,
it be identity issues, self worth, trauma from our past,
or maybe some present hardships that you have been facing.
Because often these issues can shape and they can form
us unknowingly. And then after years sometimes of living with
(04:14):
some of these issues and certain struggles, we find ourselves
in a place that feels like we just can't go
on anymore. Sometimes the hardships of life come at us quickly,
like out of nowhere, right, and they leave trauma and
the wake and us dealing with a lot of stuff
in our life that we didn't ever think that we'd
have to face in our lives. And there are many
steps that we can often take to care for our souls.
(04:38):
But what are some steps that you have taken in
your life to care for your soul? I believe the
first step, the most important step for caring for our souls,
we see in the passage that we look together this morning,
is coming back to the one who made us, who
loves us, who knows what is best for us. So
let's look at that passage one time together again and again.
This is from the message by I like the way
(05:01):
it's phrased here. It kind of gives a new light
to me when I read it. In the message Matthew
eleven twenty eight through thirty. Are you tired, worn out,
burned out in religion? Come to me, Get away with me,
and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to
take a real rest, walk with me and work with me.
Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
(05:26):
I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely
and lightly. Taking care of our souls begins with going
to Jesus. Did you catch that first phrase? If you're tired,
if you're weary, what come to me? Come to Jesus?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
It begins with going to Jesus. The reality of caring
for our souls and trusting the Lord with them comes down,
I think to one big question, Right, do I really
believe that God's way is better? Or maybe better phrased?
Do I really trust him? Like really trust him? Do
I believe that He is good? Like we were singing
(06:09):
about this morning? Like Jake had mentioned, right, prone to
wander from remembering the goodness and the grace of God
afresh and anew each and every day. I think, if
you're like me, sometimes it's like second hat and I
can kind of get used to it, and I forget
how great.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And how good God truly is.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Now as followers of Jesus, I'm sure most of us
would answer a resounding yes to all of these questions
that I just asked. Right, But do our lives and
this way we live line up with this, yes that
we profess. I know my life doesn't always line up
that way, right, But we must continue to come to Jesus,
even if it's been a while, or maybe you're in
(06:50):
a good season right now, continue with that momentum of
finding rest in Him. But if you've been struggling to
come to Jesus, the great thing about Jesus is that
he sues us. I love that about Jesus. Sometimes we
might get in the drifting stage of our life, but
God brings people into our lives. He brings circumstances into
our lives, and he gently reminds us and pulls us
(07:12):
to himself, and he comes to us, and he reminds
us of our need for Him and for our rest
that is needed in him. And so I want to
look for a second at another passage about the story
of the Woman at the Well in John chapter four.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
We aren't going to get.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Into all the specifics of this, but I will say
this that it is a picture of Jesus bridging all
the gaps between he and the woman at the Well,
a woman misunderstood by most, living and going through a
life of hardship.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
She had five husbands.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
More than likely this is a series of tragedies for
this woman, and Jesus never told this woman in this
passage to repent like he had in other passages. He
bridged the gap to meet her in the midst of
her tragedies. But the verse I want to focus on
is on John chapter four, verse ten. In a couple
different translations, the NLT says, Jesus replied, if you only
(08:04):
knew the gift God has for you and who you
are speaking to, you would ask me and I would
give you living water. The ESV version says Jesus answer here,
if you knew the gift of God and who it
is saying to you give me a drink, you would
have asked him and he would have given you living water.
So to steward our souls, we must remember the gift
(08:26):
of God, to remember the wonder of who God truly is.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Now.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I know it's Mother's Day, but I'm a girl dad
and got two wonderful girls, and it's a joy parenting
them most of the time. But all stages of life
I love that we've had with other kids. But the
one stage that I really liked was three and four
because they had this wonder about life like everything was fun,
everything was new. They would open their eyes and we
(08:54):
ask them go do something. They'd be like, yes, you
want to go to the park. Yeah, let's go to
the park. It's awesome, right, And they would just have
this love for life that it was just like, help
me to really reimagine life again from a different perspective,
from the lens of where kids are. So you see, kids,
they live freely, just like the passage that we're talking
about this morning. They're care free, taking the world as
(09:17):
it is, no preconceived notions. They don't have any cynicisms yet.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I'm pretty cynical at times in my life about certain
things like yeah, we'll see right, But they don't have
that yet. They love life, and I know this is
why Jesus loves children so much. Just like he talked
about in the passage, Let the children come to me,
don't hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to
such as these. This is the gift of life that
(09:46):
God's calling us to the faith of a child to
come and to experience life afresh and anew again. He
is the gift of life, and we need to come
running to him, just like my kids used to come
running to me.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Not so much an more.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Taylor will start once in a while, but when they
were little, they'd run. I get home from work and
it was like, Oh, I'm a rock star, this is awesome.
Not anymore, Eh, it's dad's home, right, But man, what
a reminder to come running to our heavenly Father because
we need him and we need his presence in our lives.
So what keeps us from coming to Jesus. Maybe it's busyness, right,
(10:24):
Maybe it's our schedules, the things that we got going on.
Sometimes we drift just because of the season of life
we're in and we don't prioritize coming to Jesus and
finding rest for our souls. And when we do this,
sometimes we can get to a place in our relationship
with the Lord where we feel distant and maybe even lost.
Have you ever felt lost in your relationship with Jesus?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Before?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I know I have life, things just don't make sense right,
just seems far and distant. I know I've been there
multiple times, and usually when I do, I get to
this place. Sometimes because it's business. Sometimes it's because it's
different things in my life. But I get on all
pilot right going through the motions of life, and busyness
creeps in. Now I know one of the most common
(11:06):
answers I hear every time. Sometimes I give it myself
when somebody asks how I'm doing. I'm good, but busy, Right,
I'm good but busy. Now, my schedule is busy, for sure,
We're in that stage of life where things are busy.
But busyness is more than just a busy schedule. It's
a state of mind.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right. It uses the things we do day in and
day out.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Sometimes is a distraction from the things in our life
that sometimes we're trying to avoid, sometimes have laid dormant
and we're just kind of going through the motions. I
was reading this book a while back called Messy Spirituality,
and one of the quotes from it says, this what
keeps many of us from growing is not sin, but
speed speeding through life in dangers our relationships and our souls.
(11:48):
We are there and all the activities of life, but
not present. And when we're not present, other people notice.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
It impacts our relationships deeply, and more often the relationships
with the people that we love the most. And the
biggest impact is our souls becoming lonely. Going through life
distant from the gift that is the life that Jesus
offers us. So if you struggle with busyness, if you're
tired and weary, take courage, take hope, have heart, because
(12:20):
you're not as far off as you think you are.
The reality is this can be the perfect place for
God to meet us when we are at the end
of ourselves, not measuring up and falling short, when we're
in a rough patch of our relationship with God or
just in life, are just going through the motions. When
we come to a dead end, and this is another
quote from Messi spirituality. When we come to a dead end,
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when there's no place to go, we often get in
touch with our longings for God. All our desires really
are is a longing for Jesus, our souls long for him.
Ecclesiastes chapter three says that he has made everything beautiful
in its time, that he's placed or put eternity within
man's heart. He's placed a longing for something more, a
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desire to be filled by him. And that's something is
Jesus to find that quiet place of rest and solitude
in him. But maybe for you it's not busyness. Maybe
It could be fear right, fear of acceptance, fear of change,
fear of dealing with some of the things from a
past that God continues to bring to us. And sometimes
(13:25):
we can allow our fear to paralyze us. Fear of failure,
fear of loss of control, as if we're really in
control at all anyways, which we're not. Right God is,
He's the one that sits on the throne. I know
I like to take that seat in my life sometimes,
but He is the one that is in control all
the what ifs that come to our mind. Maybe even
(13:46):
though you know God loves you, you struggle to practically
believe that in your day to day life. And if
we're not careful, this fear can cause us to look
for acceptance in all the wrong places. Because we are
designed by God for love, and if we don't care
for our souls, we'll be finding our true love in Him.
We look to other sources for this, and whether it's
(14:09):
approval work in our relationships, apart from Jesus love, we're
never gonna truly be satisfied. I don't have this quote
I'm gonna put up here, but it's kind of a
long one. It's by Henry Nowen, And it says, as
long as I keep on running about asking do you
love me? Do you really love me? I give all
to the power, to the voices of the world and
put myself in bondage. Because the world is filled with ifs.
(14:31):
The world says yes, I love you if you're a
good looking, intelligent, and wealthy.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
If you have a good education, a good job, and
good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much,
and buy much. There are endless ifs hidden in the
world's love. These ifs enslave me since it's impossible to
respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is
and always will be conditional. As long as I keep
looking for my true self and the world of conditional love,
(14:59):
I will remain hooked to the world, trying, failing, and
trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because
what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.
Let's remember the goodness of God today as we sang
this morning, which was a great time in worship, just
remembering God's goodness. Let's do that throughout the week, to
(15:21):
remember that He's the one that satisfies our souls. We
can get busy, we can get caught up, but meditate
on his goodness and his faithfulness to us. Let's look
again at Matthew chapter eleven. Are you tired, worn out,
burned out in religion? Come to me, get away with me,
and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to
take a real rest. Taking care of our souls requires
(15:44):
that we get away with Jesus. We have to spend
time getting away with Jesus. Over the last couple months,
I've been dealing with a physical issue with a pinch
nerve and my cervical spine like five six and seven,
and it's been brutal. If you've ever gone through any
nerve pain before, I'm sorry, I've never gone through this before,
and it is awful.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And some of the.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Things that I've been dealing with, it was like, man,
what is going on? And again reminder that our physical
well being can affect our emotional wellbeing and our spiritual
if we allow it. And so during this time I
became an avid learner about everything that has to do
with like nerves. What can I do to fix it?
What can I do to help it? Even got my
Google MD degree, who looking up everything, talking to everybody
(16:27):
I could talk to, doing all the things.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I went to physical.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Therapy, I got massage therapy, and then finally I went
to the doctor because it still wasn't resolving itself, and
I got a cervical epidural steroid injection, which has helped tremendously.
I'm not one hundred percent, but man, I'm so grateful
that it finally helped relieve.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Now, if you know.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Anything about nerve injuries, it can take a long time
to heal, months even a year, and some people struggle
with it their whole lives, which was something I didn't
really particularly want to know. But I am grateful finally
getting relief. And so the guy who was going to
pete with I love going to gym, and he goes
to the gym too, and he's like, now, dude, when
you get this injection, don't go back and try to
(17:09):
do everything that you used to do before, because you're
going to go right back to where you were before.
And he knows me well, because that's what I wanted
to do, and so I've been careful. And he also
said keep on doing the things that you were doing.
With the you know, the pt stuff, like, keep on
doing those things because if you don't, it can go
back and you can deal with us again. So it's
important to keep on being faithful and doing all the
(17:30):
things that you've been doing. And so as I've been
thinking about taking care of our souls, the same thing
rings true. Right, But why don't I seek out Jesus sometimes?
Like when I have a problem with pain, like you know, physically,
I'm like, okay, I gotta fix this.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I can do a bunch of other things. I can
watch Netflix, I can escape that way. I can do
other things that can take me away, But I don't
spend time with Jesus sometimes the way that I should. Right,
we need to search out Jesus and get away with
him the same way that I pursued getting help for
my physical issues. And consistency is king right, It's paramount
(18:06):
in all areas of life, and even with our time
with getting away with Jesus. It says in Matthew eleven,
walk with me and work with me. Watch how I
do it? Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I love that,
the unforced rhythms of grace. But sometimes at first it
feels kind of forced, doesn't it. But that's just like
anything in life. I mean, it feels forced when you
(18:28):
first start doing, when we first start going back to
the gym, when you're first trying to get these healthy
habits and patterns in your life. But after a while,
it becomes natural. It becomes who you are because it's
a part of your life. And it's the same way
in getting away with Jesus. So let's come back to
Jesus knowing that he is good and that his way
(18:48):
is better. Let's find ways that we can stay consistent
in getting away with Jesus. And I don't know about you,
but in different seasons of my life, getting away with
Jesus has looked different at some Sometimes it's good to
try new things in the way that we spend time
with Jesus because what worked before in one season might
not work as well on another, and it's okay to
change things up. The staples remain the same. Right, we
(19:11):
need to spend time in God's word, we need to
talk with him, we need to spend time with other
people and talk about our faith. But sometimes it's not
just sitting down and praying. Maybe you pray as you walk,
or as you're driving in the car. Maybe you're using
a devotional in a certain season, trying journaling if you've
never done that before. I'm not much of a journaler,
but sometimes one of the things I like doing is
just writing letters, and that can help me. It doesn't
(19:34):
matter how we do it, but it does matter that
we do get away with him. So let's look at
this passage again. I won't lay anything heavy or ill
fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn
to live freely and lightly. Taking care of our souls
requires that we trust Jesus knows what's best. Taking care
(19:56):
of our souls requires that we trust Jesus knows what's best.
The truth is the truth is that we will never
be fully healed until we see Jesus face to face.
We're gonna have stuff that we're gonna deal with our
whole life. Grieving and working through the hurts and wounds
of our past isn't a one and done. It's a
hard road, but it's a necessary one, and sometimes God says,
(20:16):
come a little closer, right, so we can work on
those areas of our souls that need more attention or
continued healing and work. But I don't know about you,
but why do I Why do we sometimes resist change
so much?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
It can be a difficult to change, and I'm finding
that that the older I get, I like my schedules
the same way right, and change is hard. We get
used to the patterns and habits that we know, we believe.
Sometimes some of the lies inside our mind that keep
us in bondage and their strongholds there there, and if
we're not replacing them with truth, they're gonna keep us stuck.
(20:50):
Sometimes we avoid difficult things even though we know it's
gonna help us in our relationship with Jesus and others.
Have you ever been there when you go like we
were talking about earlier, just on autopilot. When I do this,
I know it leads to feeling lost in my walk
with Jesus. Sometimes it's because maybe we don't feel healed
or continue struggling with our perception of what a true
(21:11):
what a good Christian is. Maybe it's an addiction to
escape from reality. It may not be a life dominating addiction,
but it's an escape instead of facing the problem from
the past, or maybe during a hardship that you're in
or you've gone through, you didn't turn to the Lord,
and you just tried to power your way through it,
and it left your faith disoriented, and it's been hard
(21:33):
to get back to the spiritual rhythms to care for
your soul like you used to and that we all
so desperately need. Maybe, instead of escaping through busyness or
whatever your escape might be, it's time to look to
the one who longs for us to be with him
and take a step in that direction. Maybe instead of busyness,
it's time to quiet our souls, to be still and
(21:57):
to know that he is God. To stop fighting, right,
I love that song. Be still and know that he
is God. Stop fighting, Just let him be in control.
Surrender to his way, surrender to his wills, because if
we continue to try to do it in our own
understanding and strength, we can end up disillusioned or burned out.
(22:17):
He's not gonna lay anything on us ill fitting, but
sometimes it can feel ill fitting. Right as we're going
through the seasons of life, new seasons in life can
be hard and not what we expected.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Right. I started a.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Job recently back in December, a new one after I've
been somewhere for eleven years. It was a change The
first month was like the honeymoon season, like this is amazing,
and then it got hard for a couple months, and
now I'm kind of finding my new rhythm and paths.
But man, those times can be difficult right in our lives.
But we need to continue to cultivate that rest for
our souls that we find in Jesus. He loves us
(22:53):
and he wants us to get away with him to
remember his goodness. Right, and the reason that we spend
time is or the reason we do these things isn't
to check a box. It's because we get to know
how good and how faithful and true he is. We
see life the way that it should be when we
have that awareness of God's presence in our life. If not,
(23:14):
I'm gonna walk around pretty bummed out, pretty negative, because
that's my negative go to right is I get negative.
But when I remember God's goodness, God's faithfulness, he reminds
us to look in.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
A new and a fresh way at life.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Because when we go to Him and get away with
him consistently, he knows we will begin to live freely
and lightly. He'll make the situation that we're going through
easier to handle. It's not always gonna be easy, but
it'll be easier when we are clinging to him, when
we're resting in him, and he'll bring that wonder back
to us again. Don't you want to live with that
(23:49):
wonder again? Like the faith of a child, right, the
wonder of a little child looking at things?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Man, this is awesome. I know, I do. I know.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
My heart longs from my father and to run into
his own arms afresh and anew each and every day.
But in order to do that, we have to be disciplined.
We have to be faithful.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Eugene Peterson wrote a book a while back, long Obedience
in the same direction, right, which is a phrase that
Frederick nietzschee way back in the day.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
He took it from him. But that's what soul care
really is.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Long obedience in the same direction, like Jake was talking
about this morning.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Sometimes we don't feel it.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
We're not going to feel it every time when we
spend time in God's presence, but we still need to
continue to be faithful, just like we show up for
our families each and every day, doing the same things
over and over. It's not sometimes everything that we want
it to be. Right, My daughter tailor's doing Olympic weightlifting
and sometimes she hates squatting. I'm like, she's like, I
love to do the snatch and I love to do
(24:47):
clean and jerk. I'm like, if you want to get better,
then you need to do squats. And it takes that
discipline in doing those things. Sometimes we don't want to
do to get where we need to get in our lives.
That's what long obedience looks to like. And when the
things sometimes don't feel good, but in the end, we're
grateful that we did them because we know that it
got us to a better place in our lives with
(25:08):
our relationship with God. So let's come to Jesus a
fresh and anew because we trust him and believe that
he is good. Let's read this passage one time together
and just end our time here and just meditate on
this throughout the week as we go throughout the rest
of our week. Matthew eleven twenty eight through thirty. Are
you tired, worn out, burned out in religion? Come to me,
(25:34):
get away with me, and you'll recover your life. I'll
show you how to take a real rest, walk with
me and work with me.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Watch how I do it.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything
heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me,
and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. Let's pray,
Heavenly Father, thank you for the rest that we find
in you. Thank you, Jesus that we can come to
you in all seasons of our life. Help us to
do that better, to care for our soul's God, so
(26:07):
that we might be whom you created us to be.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
God. We love you, we praise you, we thank you
and your name. I pray Jesus Amen.
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