—Sunday Sermon—
Balance is important in all of life, but especially in the areas of work and rest.
Too little work and you are “Lazy”
Too much work and you are a “Workaholic”
The opposite is true as well.
Too much rest and you are “Lazy”
Too little rest and you are a “Workaholic”
Work and rest are not the four-letter words that many people think that it is.
Nor are they the heroes that many people think that they are either.
WORK & REST ARE GOD’S IDEAS
Work & Rest are actually both creations of God.
He thought them up. He created them.
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to WORK it and take care of it.” (Gen 2:15)
“For we are God’s handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good
WORKS, which God
prepared in advance
for us to do.”
(Eph 2:10)
GOD DEMONSTRATED BOTH WORK & REST
“By the seventh day God had finished the WORK he had been doing; so on the seventh day he RESTED from all his work.”
(Genesis 2:2)
GOD MADE LAWS FOR WORK & REST
“Six days you shall labor and do all your WORK, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within
your gates. 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. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
(Ex 20:9-11)
God knows that we “need” to rest physically in order to be refreshed spiritually. (Spiritual Rest)
“Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.” [By “Resting”]
(Exodus 20:8)
Quote:
“Have you ever heard the umpire
start a game by saying, ‘Work ball’? Of course not, they always say, ‘Play ball,' and that is exactly what they mean.” - Willie Stargell‘Work ball’?
What kind of a break do you need?
How can you get “Fun” back into your life?
What will bring you rest & fun?
Vacation, Reading, Music, Walking, Gardening, Television/Movies, etc, Photography, Quilting/Sewing, Pets, Woodworking, Tennis/Pickleball, Golf, Puzzles, Games, Exercise, Faith-life.
Beware of the enemy of “Perceived unfairness”.
It will always lead you towards unbalance
Matthew 20:1-19 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out EARLY in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[Typical Days wage] for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About NINE in the morning… 5 … about NOON and about THREE in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About FIVE ……8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going first.”
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to GRUMBLE against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the BURDEN of the work and the heat of the day.’13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” 17 Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18 “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and CRUCIFIED. On the third day he will be RAISED to life!”
Don’t let your distain or resentment for your boss, parent, spouse, or whoever is asking you to do something sour you and tempt you to not do the work in a quality way if you do it at all.
Your perspective on who you are doing the work for can help a great deal;
“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
- 1 Cor. 10:31
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” Colossians 3:23
Life and work can get real tiring!
Life is like the T-Shirt which said;
“Run, Rest, Repeat”
Sometimes the running part is hard.
Sometimes the resting part is hard.
And the repeating part surely can gets old quick when life gets difficult.
Questions for thought:
• What do you have to do in life that seems like “Hard Work” to you?
Why is it hard work for you?
• Are you doing anything that is making it “harder” work than it should be?
• What can you do to make it “easier” work? (Spiritually, Physically, Time-management, Relationally, Emotionally, Financially, Educationally, Attitude, etc.)
Rest to be de-stressed… and refreshed!
GOD’S GRACE
God wants us to rest from the impossible task of trying to work our way into heaven or trying to get on the “good-side” of God.
His grace says, “Don’t do it”.
It can’t be done.
His grace says, “Stop trying to do something that is impossible.” “It is about MY GRACE, not YOUR WORKS.”
What God is really saying is “Don’t give your works a rest, but rather give up the wrong reason why you may be doing the good works. In its place, rest in God’s grace.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8-9)
Remember that:
“We are God’s handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good
WORKS, which God
prepared in advance
for us to do.”
(Ephesians 2:10)
“Come to me, all you who
are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest.”
- Matthew 11:28
The key to rest is allowing God to guide you in it.
Always do work and rest in God’s way and not the Devil’s way.
Trust in God as the source of everything that you need to both “rest well” and “work well” according to his will and his ways.
Always remember that;
Sometimes God calms the storm.
Sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms His child instead.
As a Christian, you are his child and your storms are his storms as well.
He is right in the boat with you.
So to take a sports analogy,
“Take a time out.”
To borrow a race-car analogy,.
“Take a pit stop.”
To borrow a workplace analogy,
“Take a coffee break”
And to borrow a Bible invitation of Jesus,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest.”
- Matthew 11:28
Prayer:
Lord, I thank you for your model of the proper balance of work and rest.
When I work, help me to always do so, with you in mind. I want to work as if all that I do, I do for you.
And when I rest [and help me “make the time”
for rest] I want to rest as if I was resting for
you as well.
I cannot be the best that you desire for me if I am exhausted and unbalanced.
I know that I can only “BE Jesus to others” if I am allowing you to, “Be Jesus to me”. And I only do that by properly resting and trusting in you in all things.
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen!
Word of Life Church
17525 W. Bell Rd.
Surprise, AZ 85374