When he says rest, it doesn't mean the absence of work. It means, and he clarifies it. He says, rest for your soul. So what that means is that, you know what, I can go about my life, whether I'm at rest or whether I'm at work, I can go about with a rested soul and that only happens for those that take up the yoke of Jesus.
I thrive when godly rhythms and responses define my life. Think about that for a second. I thrive. We want every single one of you to not just survive but to thrive, and one of the ways that we do that in our own personal lives is when our rhythms are healthy and godly and they define our lives.
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Summertime can actually be a great time, but it can also be a danger zone if we aren't wise in how we live. Our repeated life patterns can kind of devolve a little bit into that which is of the least resistance or that which is like immediate gratification.
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Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want now. And I just want to posit today this, is that I just believe that what you want most in your life is not a headache the next morning, is not destroyed relationships, is not temporary satisfaction. But what you want most in life is to be growing and heading somewhere where God wants you to go. Something that is truly satisfying.
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Summer isn't a time to take a break spiritually, but it's a fresh opportunity to set your rhythms. And that goes for all of us in the house.
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What does your life sound like? So if like you had to put a song or a beat or a rhythm to your own life, would it be like calm and just like, oh, it's just a sweet rhythm and oh, man, I'm just, oh, things are good... Or is your life, does it sound like chaos? Right. We're just things are crazy and it's kind of out of rhythm and you don't know how to make sense of it.
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Rhythms, to put it in this context, are daily habits. Everybody say habit. Come on, say habit. Our daily habits that keep your life in step with Jesus.
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Choose pace over pressure. Say that with me. Choose pace over pressure. See, culture around us is continually pressing in on us, is continually trying to move us in a direction that looks like everybody else in the world.
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Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. Man, that is what culture is trying to do. It's trying to squeeze us into its own mold.
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But in stark contrast to that, from this, you know, malcontent, dissatisfied world in which we live, we have Jesus.
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Come to me. All who are weary and burdened. And I will give you rest. 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. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
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If I'm yoked with Jesus, I'll find rest for my soul because Jesus does the heavy lifting.
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You try to go out and you try to please culture, you will never, ever, ever please culture. Think about those that have actually arrived. Those that become famous or they're influencers. And then one little thing happens and like, oh, now they're canceled. I'm just telling you, I want to yoke with Jesus. I don't want to try to please man that is fickle.
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Jesus is not just our model for living. When, when you're yoked up with Jesus, you're not just living the patterns of your life like he did. Although that's important. You are actually, you are actually being taken somewhere that you could never get to on your own.
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Salvation can never be earned. You will never be good enough. Listen, you can come to church every single day. You could come to church more than Pastor Al, right? And he's got a bathroom in his office. Like he could live here if he wanted to. You could come here more than all these people. But you know what? You will never earn salvation because it's just too good. It is too good for us. But God does it on our behalf through Jesus.
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When we are yoked with him, we spiritually break from the culture around us. And we're headed in a heavenly direction.
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Jesus intentionally set a rhythm of time alone with God. And in the middle of doing his father's business, he intentionally created space for God in his life, for his father.
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His rhythms are grace-filled. They're not performance-based. His rhythms are spirit-empowered, not self-powered. His rhythms are eternally satisfying, not immediately gratifying.
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Choose devotion over drift every day. Choose devotion over drift every day.
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We don't want to see you 10 weeks later, 70 days from now, ended up in a place where you never wanted to be. But to do that, we've got to be devoted.
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The early church attached themselves. It's like, that sounds a lot like yoke to me, is what that sounds like. They took on the yoke of Jesus, and they were devoted to these rhythms.
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What you do every day is turning you into the person you will become and leading you into the life you will live. What you do occasionally does not make a difference, but what you do consistently makes all the difference. It's those small steps in the right direction consistently over time that bring huge results in our lives.
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Are you more in sync with the rhythms of Jesus or more on beat with the rhythms of the world or the culture around us? What healthy habits do you need to start today to set up your summer? Or what destructive habits or distracting or drifting habits do you need to stop today to avoid regret 10 weeks from now?
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Well, Jesus said those three words, right? He said, come to me.
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