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May 30, 2021

You Need More Than A Vacation

You Need More Than A Vacation

Passage: Matthew 11:28-30

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: General Topic

Keywords: rest, labor, weary, yoke

The summer upon us, the season we’ve been through--they both stir a deep desire to find that elusive thing called rest. If we’re fortunate to get away, or just escape the routine for a bit, we may very well get what we’re looking for. But when Jesus speaks of an offer of rest, what does He mean by it? Why is that rest of a kind something both different and deeper than what a trip affords? Most of all, how do we find it?

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 95:1-7
LEADER: 1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! 3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

ALL: 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

CORPORATE PRAYER: Refuge

ALL: O Lord, Let me dwell in Thy most secret place under Your shadow; where is safe impenetrable protection.

LEADER: I am entirely dependent upon You for support, counsel, consolation, and rest. Uphold me by Your Spirit.

ALL: Strengthen me inward for every purpose in life. Anew each day in the finished work of Christ.

LEADER: Take my body, soul, talents, character, success, family, friends, work, and
future. My very end.

ALL: Take them. They are Yours. I am Yours. Now and forever.

CENTRAL TEXT: Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

BENEDICTION: 2 Thessalonians 3:16
LEADER: 16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

 Related Scripture

  • Deuteronomy 28
  • Psalm 95
  • Isaiah 40:31
  • Jeremiah 6:16
  • Matthew 23:1-4
  • Matthew 28:16-20
  • Luke 14:25-32
  • John 7:37
  • John 10:15/17:2
  • 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
  • James 1:22-25
  • 1 John 5:3

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Best vacation you’ve ever had? Why that one? For the thrills or the relaxation (or both)? Describe for you what it means, and what it takes, for you to be “at rest” (define that how you wish).
  2. How has this long season stolen, or at least siphoned away, some of that “rest”?
  3. Some thought of Jesus as primarily a teacher. What from the passage suggests He is more? (maybe consult the verse immediately preceding, too). Others thought of Jesus as a deluded megalomaniac. What from His life suggests otherwise? 
  4. First--what’s a paradox? Second--what’s the paradox we find in Jesus’s words here? Third--why does the paradox “work”--that is, why does what Jesus prescribes allow you to find the rest that he promises?
  5. What are several ways people look for rest that prove to be ineffective or superficial? Why, if Jesus’s way is true, would it offer that rest those other ways/attempts do not?
  6. Let’s get granular and personal now. What’s one way in following Jesus’s way that would, if you really believed it, offer rest--whether it be rest from a fear, an anger, a compulsion, or a guilt?

Quotes

  • Now there’s this fame business. I know it’s going to go away. It has to. This so-called mass fame comes from people who get caught up in a thing for a while and buy the records. Then they stop. And when they stop, I won’t be famous anymore.  Bob Dylan, age 23
  • We are apt to think that he, being so holy, is therefore of a severe and sour disposition against sinners, and not able to bear them. “No,” says he; “I am meek; gentleness is my nature and temper. Thomas Goodwin cited in Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly 
  • We do believe in all sorts of things, far too many things in fact. We believe in power, we believe in ourselves and in other people, we believe in humankind. We believe in our own people and in our religious community, we believe in new ideas—but in the midst of all these things, we do not believe in the One—in God. And believing in God would take away our faith in all the other powers, make it impossible to believe in them. If you believe in God, you don’t believe in anything else in this world, because you know it will all break down and pass away. From a sermon preached by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in London, 1934
  • I grew up believing what all modern people are taught: that freedom meant lack of constraint. Orthodoxy taught me that this freedom was no freedom at all, but enslavement to the passions: a neat description of the first thirty years of my life. True freedom, it turns out, is to give up your will and follow God’s. To deny yourself. To let it come. I am terrible at this, but at least now I understand the path. . . . The gate is strait and the way is narrow and maybe we will always fail to walk it. But is there any other road that leads home? Paul Kingsnorth
  • Sanctification is thus simply the art of getting used to justification. Gerhard Forde
  • Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. St. Augustine

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