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Thank you for listening to this message from LifeHouse Church.

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Good morning, LifeHouse.

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Good morning.

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Good morning.

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Welcome.

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Many of you probably have noticed already, I am not Pastor Kip.

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Never claimed to be, never will be.

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Well, my name is Andrew Manneville.

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I am the Student Ministries Pastor here along with my wife, Alicia, and our little girl,

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Lucy.

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And we have another little girl on the way coming in January.

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We're so excited about that.

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So part of the baby boom at LifeHouse here.

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Self-building ministries, I guess it is.

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But this morning, I have the privilege of getting to speak to you.

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Pastor Kip is out of town.

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He's doing, like Jenna said, Pastor is getting some training, some coaching in Virginia,

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in West Virginia this morning.

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So pray for them, safe travels as they come back here this evening slash tomorrow morning.

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But like many of us, we would have to admit that we live some crazy, busy lives.

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The life we lead is crazy busy.

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Whether we're taking kids to sports or we're running errands or you're working full-time

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or part-time or you're volunteering at church or another nonprofit or you're going to doctor's

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appointments, cooking three meals a day, taking care of pets or a relative, there is some

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days it feels like there is no rest for the weary.

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An article I found in my studies by NIH began as follows.

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It said, sometimes the pace of modern life barely gives you time to stop and rest.

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It can make getting a good night's sleep on a regular basis seem like a dream.

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But sleep is as important for good health as diet and exercise.

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Let's try that.

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Oh, that's nice and loud.

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There we go.

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All right.

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Well, like I was saying, good sleep improves your brain performance, your mood, your health,

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and not getting enough sleep, not getting enough quality sleep that is, regularly, not

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getting that quality sleep regularly, raises the risk of as many diseases and disorders.

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These range from heart disease and stroke to obesity and dementia.

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Rest and sleep are so crucial to so many functions that our bodies need, we're designed to take

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regular rest.

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Our sleep cycles and the healing that comes from those cycles are designed by God, and

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they are necessary for our survival.

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Within just three days without sleep, people can start to hallucinate and even paranoia

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and psychosis can start to set in.

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All of this begs the question.

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We know and understand the importance of sleep.

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This begs the question, why then do we lead such crazy, busy lives?

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Why do we run ourselves ragged if we know the outcome?

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If we know what's at stake, why do we live that way?

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There's got to be a way out of the rat race, right?

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There's got to be some escape where we can finally find some peace and quiet.

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Well, church, I have some great news for you this morning.

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Jesus has called us to rest.

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Let's pray.

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Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word this morning.

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God, I pray that you would bring it forth through me, God, that I would be a vessel

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of your word, God, that you would just speak to your people with what you would have them

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to hear this morning.

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God, I pray for all of those in this service, God, I pray for those online and at our East

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Shore campus as well, God, I pray you would be with everyone in the house and in the community

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as well.

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Lord, we pray these things in your name.

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Amen.

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But before I get into today's main passage of scripture, I want to go for a journey.

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We're going to go all the way back to the beginning, in the beginning.

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We're going to Genesis this morning.

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This is where we see the first instituted moment of rest, where God the Creator calls

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us to rest.

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And he sets that example for us.

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We see in Genesis 2, 2, and it reads, so the creation of the heavens and the earth and

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everything in them was completed.

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And on the seventh day, God had finished his work of creation.

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So he rested from all of his work.

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And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was the day from when he

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rested from all his work of creation.

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It's important to note here, church, that God didn't rest because he was tired.

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He didn't rest because he needed to take a nap because our God never sleeps.

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He is everywhere.

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He is all knowing.

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He is all powerful.

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He doesn't need sleep.

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The original word here, that word rest in Hebrew is the word Shabbat.

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That's where we get our word Sabbath.

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That's where that word comes from, to keep that day of rest holy.

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It means to cease from work.

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There is no context in that word that is out of laziness or out of exhaustion.

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It just means that God the creator ceased from work and he rested and he instituted

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the principle of rest.

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God declares this day of rest as a holy one.

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But rest is not just for us.

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It's not just for God, I'm sorry.

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It is for us.

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He invites us to rest in him, to rest with him.

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I want you to grab your neighbor if you're friendly with them and tell them, you gotta

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rest.

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Say, you gotta rest.

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You gotta rest.

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Yes.

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You gotta rest.

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You gotta rest.

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If you're online this morning, put that in the chat.

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Type that in the chat.

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Type, you gotta rest.

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Or if you're up at East Shore, God bless you.

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Say, you gotta rest to your neighbor up there.

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Or if you're checking out our podcast during the week, tell it to yourself in the car.

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It don't matter.

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Say, you gotta rest.

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But our main passage this morning, if you have your Bibles and you would turn to Matthew,

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we're going to be in Matthew chapter 11, starting at verse 28.

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If you have your Bibles with you, that's fantastic.

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That's a great study tool to get into the word of God.

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If you got your iPads or your phones with you, somewhere you can highlight and mark

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and take notes, that's always good.

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But if not, we will have the words on the screen for you as well.

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But a little context, a little background on this passage of scripture.

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Before this passage of scripture, we had just seen Jesus, He sent out the 12 disciples.

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He sent them out to preach and to teach and to perform miracles in His name.

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Earlier in the chapter, we also see that a couple of John the Baptist disciples come

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to Jesus and they say, are you the Messiah, are you the Christ?

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Because John the Baptist was imprisoned at the time and he was a forerunner, a prophet,

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a teacher before Jesus preparing the way for Jesus.

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And he wanted to know if Jesus was the Messiah.

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This passage that we find here, we're going to be in this morning, Matthew 11, 28, is

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kind of right smack dab in the middle of Jesus' ministry, His three-year ministry on earth.

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Let's dive into the word together, shall we?

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It says Matthew 11, 28, it says, then Jesus said, come to me, all of you who are weary

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and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you.

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Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light.

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We don't have to be on this earth very long to know that there is a never ending barrage

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of things that we can do, things that can make us grow weary, struggles in life, and

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even well-meaning activities that after enough of them will wear us down.

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The world calls us to that.

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The world calls us to be busy, to be keeping up with the Joneses, if you will.

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But Jesus invites us and Jesus calls us to rest.

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See, we don't have to carry those burdens and those struggles of life on our own.

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In this passage of scripture, the original word there for rest is in Greek, it's anapao.

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Even though it's in Greek in the verse we looked at earlier in Genesis, that was Hebrew,

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anapao and Shabbat, they are synonyms.

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They mean the same thing.

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They mean to cease from work.

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It's the same rest that God the Creator took after creation that Jesus is calling us and

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inviting us into.

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He's saying, come to me and I will give you rest.

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Jesus has called us to rest.

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There's two things in this scripture that really jumped out to me when I was studying

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this.

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And there Jesus says, come and he says, I.

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Come and I will give you rest.

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Come to me.

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This is a call to action.

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This is a verb.

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This is Jesus saying, draw near to me and I'll draw near to you like we read in James

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4.

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We can't sit in our worries and our burdens and our busyness and expect Jesus to come

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to us.

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Jesus is saying, you have to come to me.

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This is a call to motion.

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This is required obedience.

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Jason, would you come here for a second, please?

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That's perfect.

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Great.

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Thank you.

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That's all I needed.

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That was a call and he answered.

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He answered my call with obedience and he came.

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That's the same call.

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That's that same command and obedience that we see here Jesus used.

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We also see that when Jesus called his disciples in Matthew 4, 19, the disciples were called

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to action.

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They were called to leave their earthly burdens behind.

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Matthew 4, 18 says, and Jesus was walking by the sea of Galilee.

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He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting nets into the

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sea for they were fishermen.

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Then he said to them, follow me or come to me and I will make you fishers of men.

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And they immediately left their nets and followed him.

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Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee and John, his brother.

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In the boat was Zebedee, their father mending their nets.

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He called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

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Jesus calls his disciples to action.

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He called them to follow.

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It's the same language that he's using for us.

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He's saying, come and rest.

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It's that invitation, that call to action.

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Jesus is saying, come to me and rest.

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We can't hold on to those burdens though.

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We can't hold on to those struggles of this world and receive the rest that Jesus has

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for us.

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Jason, I'm going to ask you to come here one more time, but this time I want you to hold

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that wall up like it's going to fall on you.

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I want you to hold up that wall.

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Now Jason, come to me and hold up that wall.

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You can't do it.

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You can't do it.

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I appreciate that buddy.

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Yes, you can't do it.

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We can't hold on to the burdens that we have in this life.

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The worries, the struggles, our fears, and also enter into the rest that Jesus has for

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us.

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We have to drop everything like the disciples did.

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James and John, the disciple left their dad in the boat.

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They just went for it, man.

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They followed Jesus.

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We need to give Jesus our worries and our anxieties and our burdens and our fears and

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even our work.

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Because if we don't rest in Jesus, the consequences can be dire.

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They can be severe.

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Because if we don't rest in Jesus, the busyness of life can take us out, make us ineffective

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as Christians and make us miserable people.

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Because there's never a shortage of things to do and tasks to get done.

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We have to be intentional about our time that we spend in rest with Jesus.

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We do this by getting near to Jesus.

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We draw near to Jesus.

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This is why we go to church on Sunday so that we can enter into Jesus' presence.

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We can enter into God's holy presence and rest.

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We spend time in the word and in prayer.

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We also do that through faith like Pastor Kipp mentioned last week.

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That's how we draw near to God is by putting that faith on display.

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Worship is a great way how we draw near to Jesus.

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And in prayer and time in the word, we have to build that intentionality to draw near

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to Jesus.

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And we can rest in Jesus because he helps us carry the load.

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Matthew 11, 29, Jesus says, take my yoke upon you.

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Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart.

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And you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light.

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A yoke like Jesus was talking about we don't see very often in modern day.

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The closest example we can see is in a horse and buggy.

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The Amish have.

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You see two horses yoke together.

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This yoke is a physical piece of wood or metal and it connected two working animals, two

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oxen, two mules, two horses together.

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When they were connected together, they were going the same direction.

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They had the same vision.

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They had the same goal, the same passion that drive to continue on forward.

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They're going the same way.

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See Jesus invites us to take his yoke because it's lighter.

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And his yoke is lighter because he's doing most of the work.

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Chris and Jenna, if you guys would come up here for one final illustration this morning.

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I got all kinds of illustrations for you this morning.

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If you would just face the congregation, please.

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I was looking for a size comparison here, right?

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Picture a yoke, right?

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These two were yoke together, right?

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Picture they were yoke together.

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That's the example, Chris.

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Thank you.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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If they were yoke together and they were going to go pick up a refrigerator, who do

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you think would be doing most of the work?

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Right.

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All right.

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You guys can have a seat.

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You guys can have a seat.

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That's what Jesus invites us to, right?

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He invites us into his yoke to take on his burden because it's light, because he's doing

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most of the work, because he's doing the heavy lifting for us, right?

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The load that Jesus gives us is nothing compared to the yoke and burden that we put on ourselves,

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that we try to carry on our own each and every day.

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The burden that Jesus shares with us is grace and not the law.

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It is hope and not anxiety.

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It is faith and not fear.

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It is trust and truth instead of lies.

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It's an easy trade off.

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It's a no-brainer, right?

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The rest that we have in Jesus is only possible if we take his yoke upon us.

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Without taking the yoke of Jesus upon us, we cannot enter into his rest.

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And we take his yoke upon us by listening to his commandments.

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John 14, 15 says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments or obey my commandments.

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We do this through aligning ourselves with Christ.

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Whatever Jesus' goal was, that's our goal.

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And his goal is to win lost souls for the kingdom.

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His goal is to see the kingdom of God brought to this earth.

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That should be our goal when we're yoked with Jesus.

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Jesus calls us to rest and he says, help me carry this instead of what you were trying

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to carry on your own.

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Do this instead.

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And all we have to do is answer his call.

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All we have to do is join up with him, get headed in the same direction and follow his

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leading.

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Jesus calls us to rest.

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He calls us to rest.

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He helps us carry the load.

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But maybe more importantly, and I think this one stood out the most, is Jesus will teach

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us how to rest.

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I almost missed it the first time I was reading through this passage and studying.

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And Pastor Kipp and I were talking about this and he said, check this out.

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And we looked at it and it's a really, really cool.

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But Jesus, there's a really, just has a really small phrase in Matthew 11, 29.

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He says, let me teach you.

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Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart.

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Jesus doesn't just offer us rest.

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He shows us how to do it.

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He offers to teach us.

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He teaches us that it's a necessity and not a luxury.

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It's an act of worship and not a sign of laziness.

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Jesus is saying, come to me.

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Carry this with me.

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Get yoked with me and I will give you rest.

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Let me teach you and I will give you rest.

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I don't often use it.

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I don't often quote it, but I had to for this instance.

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The message paraphrase here really, really paints a beautiful word picture for this.

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And it says, come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life.

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I will show you how to take a real rest.

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Walk with me and work with me.

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Watch how I do it.

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Learn the unforced rhythms of grace and I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on

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you.

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Keep company with me and you'll learn how to live freely and lightly.

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Jesus says, I'll show you how to take a real rest.

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Watch how I do it.

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Follow my example.

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Follow the example of the Father in creation and enter into rest.

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Without Jesus showing us how to rest, we can't receive it.

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That's a contingency here.

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Jesus says, come to me, take my yoke, let me teach you.

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We have to be teachable here.

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We have to be able to learn from Jesus what it means to truly rest.

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We have no excuse not to rest.

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He's offering to teach us.

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He calls us, he gives us a better way and he offers to teach us.

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Who better to learn about rest, about Shabbat from God the Creator himself?

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In his earthly life and his time on earth, Jesus displayed many facets of rest.

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He modeled spiritual rest and physical rest and mental rest.

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We find these all throughout scripture.

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Jesus got away from the stressors of life.

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He got away from busyness and from people to spend time intentional in his rest.

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We see in Mark 1.35, it says, before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out

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to an isolated place to pray.

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Jesus took intentional time to spend with the Father alone in rest.

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That's that spiritual rest.

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He got away personally.

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Jesus left everyone and spent time with God.

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We see in Mark 6.31, then Jesus said, let's go off by ourselves.

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He's speaking to his disciples here.

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Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.

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He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles

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didn't even have time to eat.

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We see Jesus demonstrating rest for his disciples here.

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This was after they had come back from their ministry journey.

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They were exhausted.

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They were mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted.

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They needed to get away.

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They needed to rest.

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One last example of Jesus' rest.

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Josiah, if you'd come and close out for us here this morning.

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We find it in Mark 4.38.

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Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion.

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His disciples woke him up and said, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?

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When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, silence, be still.

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Suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm.

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Jesus was intentional about taking time to rest even in crazy circumstances.

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He was unapologetic about taking rest.

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Even when the disciples said, don't you care that we're going to drown?

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Jesus said, I'm taking a nap.

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I'm resting.

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He knew that his body needed physical rest and he took it.

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We can follow Jesus' example of rest by intentionally taking time to do so.

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Because the rest that Jesus has to offer us is so crucial when we live in a world that

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is never ending.

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There is always something else to do.

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There's always another activity to get involved in.

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There's always an event to go to.

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There's always people to please.

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But Jesus is saying, come.

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Take my yoke upon you.

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Let me teach you how to rest.

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Come to Jesus.

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Abide in him.

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Learn from him how to rest.

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You bow your heads for me, church.

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Amen.

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Amen.