Rest Not, Want Not

What follows is a transcript of Pastor Gina’s message from our Sunday morning gathering. We share these messages on our blog for those who appreciate the opportunity to read the sermon again—whether for deeper reflection, personal study, or a quieter moment of prayer and introspection. As you read, we invite you to linger with the words, notice what resonates, and remain open to how God may be speaking to you through them.

by Pastor Gina Johnson

The Buddha, when he would come to speak to his massive, and I'll use words that we're all familiar with, we'll say followers, his students. When he enters, he takes his position and allows his presence to fill and steady the room.

And if I were to come in here and just to sit on the chancel, how many of you all would go to the immediate, what's she doing this time? Oh it's going to be good, well it better be good because she's doing something weird. Or how many of you all would just be wondering, how long would it take you to quiet your minds? How long would it take you to take your mind off of what I'm doing and recognize what the Spirit is doing in the room? That just as much as we come here for a space of worship and communion and seeing those people we love, because we can admit we get to a point in our lives sometimes where we come to church really for the community. It helps to have a good message.

It helps to have a strong pianist, organist, and great songs to sing. But how many of us come here for the community to see the people we've grown up with, the people that we've navigated life with? Well guess what? When we come here, whether it's for the message, whether it's for the Spirit, whether it's for the community, whether it's to check that box that we were embedded with when we were children that you don't miss worship, we also come here to be in the stillness. We come here to rest.

And as soon as we come through these doors, we always have these things to do. Grab your coffee, hang your coat, go to Sunday school, see how so-and-so is doing. Look there's so-and-so, I haven't seen them in a while.

How is their family? How did that thing turn out? What are they doing next week? Are they coming to that thing that's scheduled a few days from now? Our minds are just going. And even when we enter in here, we're caught up in the busyness of the bulletin. Well wait a second, Sandi, that's not Jeff Reeves.

Isn't it funny how we do that? We don't find ourselves seeking rest. And my question is, how do many of you all define rest? You know, because how many times is rest that thing, well, you know, I got a lot on my plate right now, but I'm going to get through this project and, you know, by the end of the week I should be clear. I didn't say I am going to be clear, I should be clear, and then I'm going to find time to rest.

So there's that one, right? And then there's, you know, the other classic of, oh yeah, I'm taking two days off, so you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to organize my closets, I'm going to get all caught up, it's going to be a great restful weekend. And then the classic, which I'm sure many of you all are familiar with, whether it's with family, whether it's with your spouse, whether it's with a group of your girlfriends or your guy friends, it's, well, you know, it's been a really busy season, but we're taking a vacation, you know, and that's just going to be such a restful time. Can somebody clue me into when? Because I'm just curious, is it in the prep when you're running around making sure everyone knows, making sure your itinerary's square, making sure you have all the money set in place, or is it on the actual vacation, you know, when you're so worried, is everyone having a good time, have I taken them to see enough, have we done enough, oh look, it's an early evening, we've been running and running, I'll hit my hotel bed early tonight and I'll get some rest.

Or is it when you come back from the vacation, when you're like, okay, we've been gone a while, yeah. When do you rest? Or here is the favorite one, right, especially my seasoned folks who are telling me about procedures and things that take place, do you rest when it's like, oh, there goes my hip, there goes my shoulder, oh, I did too much running around with the grandchildren this weekend, so now I have to rest. I don't get to, I don't want to, but I have to rest.

So obviously, you all know today we're going to be talking about rest. The importance of rest goes beyond people saying, you know, make sure you find some time for yourself, you know, you've been going really hard, let's find a time to just take some time, even if you can just get five minutes, find that time to yourself. We live in a culture that's always wanting more and so then we're striving for more and we try to find ways to come up with more and in the process of that, we hit this recognition of, you know, in order for me to achieve this, I'm going to need more time and if I only had more energy and my goodness, I would be able to make it over this hurdle if I could just have a little more, you know, peace and quiet, if I could find that.

God, help me to find some clarity and give me some discernment while I'm moving around. God, help me find clarity and rest, help me figure out how to make it through this wall I'm running from place to place and maybe I will hear you in the middle of the noise, in the middle of the commotion, maybe I will hear you if I force myself to stop and pray right now and I'll set a timer for 10 minutes because that will create communion with God, that 10-minute interval right there. It's interesting because today as we talk about rest, before we get into that, I want to pull you guys as something that I'm sure you're all very familiar with and familiarity isn't always understanding but it's the Sabbath.

The Sabbath. Isn't that the whole reason we all go to church on Sunday? And I already told you what Sabbath looks like. It looks like getting a good parking spot, getting here on time.

Once upon a time, it was getting out of here on time to make it to a restaurant before all of them are full with everyone leaving church. You know, but what is the Sabbath really? Is it one of the 10 commandments? Is it just a word that gets thrown around in church and no one really pays attention to it? Or is it just the day that we associate with going to church? You know, because throughout our experience, I bet we've had glimpses through scripture, through laws that have been put in place, through things that are closed on Sunday to say that's what the Sabbath is about. But you know, the first time the Sabbath ever appears in scripture, it's not given as a rule.

It's not given as a law. There's no commandment around it. It's simply in Genesis chapter 2, verses 2 and 3, it says, on the sixth day, God finished the work that he had done.

And he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it because on it, God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. So this is important here, because God wasn't resting because God was tired.

Tired would insinuate some kind of lack, some kind of scarcity, something not in perfection and wholeness. So our God needed to rest. God rested because creation was complete.

God rested because in the perfection of creation, in the perfection of life, rest is not about exhaustion recovery. Rest is a part of the rhythm and the pattern. What it means to truly be in Sabbath is to recognize the wholeness that we always have available to us.

It doesn't matter what our calendar looks like. It doesn't matter how our body is feeling. That wholeness is always available to us because it resides within us.

And we just need to become still enough to receive it. When I was telling you about the Buddha, the Buddha would sit there until he was ready to speak. Because prior to him speaking, his presence was ministering to the people.

His presence was exuding that energetic balance, an example of peace and stillness. And so the Buddha waited to feel that presence being multiplied throughout the room and received throughout the room before he gave the teaching? No. He was already giving the teaching as he was demonstrating rest.

Jesus is present with us in this place, and he has demonstrated, and he continues to demonstrate rest in the times that he pulled away. Whether it was with his beloved disciple, whether it was with a group of disciples, or whether it was on his own, he pulled away to be in rest, not as a requirement, as part of the rhythm of wholeness and life that God gives us. By time Jesus was even on the scene, the Sabbath was so tightly regulated.

It was then owned by false religious teachings of saying, this is when you work, this is when you rest, this is how you should be when you are ready for rest, this is when your rest is going to end. Your movement is limited, and if you're doing anything but this, you are violating the Sabbath. A gift that was meant to protect them and continue to help their flow and the guidance of life became a restriction.

And that's why it's such an important teaching when we look at Mark chapter 2 verses 23 through 28. One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? How he entered the house of God when Abathar was high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priest to eat.

And he gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.

What Jesus is doing there is he is reclaiming the Sabbath. He's pointing to David, who when the people needed feeding, he fed them. He reframes everything because the Sabbath was not made for man, but man for the Sabbath.

This doesn't invalidate the teaching of the Sabbath. He's saying, let's repurpose it. Let's take it back to the understanding that we found in creation.

The Sabbath exists to serve life. And when one is fully resting, when one is fully in that poise and that posture with God, there is no specific day or time. There is no rules and regulations to the wholeness and the completeness that you already have.

Rest is not meant to be a temporary remedy. It's not a matter of, hey, let's go on vacation so the rest of the year we all feel fed and full. Hey, let me make sure on Sunday I close out the entire world so then I'm great for the rest of the week.

You're still making it this one thing that's going to Band-Aid and fix everything when rest should be a rhythm within your life. It should be a time where even you turn off the TV, the football game, you put away all the noise of organization, even the things that you just think, oh, this is what I do to relax. I challenge you to even set that down and just sit completely in stillness.

Hear the Sabbath calling you to make it a way of being that has nothing to do with your calendar. Remember when Jesus drew away from the crowds? Remember how he never stepped with urgency? He didn't let demands pull him in a direction. Do you remember how he spoke directly to everyone saying, I know this way.

I'm going to show you this way. And then in Matthew 11, 20, he says, come to me. All who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. He's saying, whatever you have, whatever you think, whatever you are illusionarily carrying around, fine, fine.

If you want to believe you're carrying that around, well then bring it here. Let me carry it for you and let me hand you my yoke. And that's when you'll say, what yoke? Because his yoke is easy and his burden is non-existent because he knows that it's not about how much he can carry, whether he can keep going, how many souls out there he's going to save today.

Jesus is about showing that in the stillness of the father, in the place of alignment and remembrance, that the yoke is easy, that the burden is light, that there is nothing to be fixed, nothing to be healed, nothing to be moved around or organized, that within that stillness you can recognize there's no calendar, there's no relationship, there's no point of exhaustion. You're simply coming into the place of being still, recognizing that the law has been fulfilled. So I want to show you all what this means for us today.

So if you look at yourself as a triangle, this is your spirit of being, this is your body, this is your mind, and when those three are functioning in alignment, then you have rest at the center. If you do not tend to one aspect, if you allow the body to become restless and reactive, if you allow the mind to become anxious, if you allow the spirit to be disconnected, and one of those is not taken care of, then the structure of the triangle is going to fall. It's not going to be able to hold you and do what you need to do.

You see, rest is not optional. It's like a three-legged stool. You get rid of one of those legs and the stool is going to fall, or you're going to have to do some really unique balancing act there.

Rest in our lives today is the structure that keeps us aligned, and if we can truly find that stillness, and I mean that wholeheartedly because I have a challenge with resting. What a great opportunity we had last week where the cold invited us all to take a rest. How many people in that last weekend where we didn't have a lot of movement to do actually took time to rest? Okay, okay, so about five or six hands, and did you really rest? Did you really lay there with nowhere to be, nothing to even think about, not feeling like I have X amount of time and then I get up? Did you really allow yourself to just, like, whatever comes in on the pond, move off the pond.

Whatever clouds are floating by, just let the clouds roll by and just simply be there. So I'll ask again, how many people took time to rest last weekend? Okay, all right, well, hey, I am proud of all of you and your Savior is even more proud than I am, so that's beautiful. I'm telling you that shouldn't have needed to happen just because we had a weekend where we didn't get to go out because the weather kept us in.

You know, why do we avoid rest? Because I think rest requires trust. It's trusting. This is probably one of the, my little vulnerable moments, is trusting that the world's not going to fall apart if I take a rest.

You know, can you believe my ego's gotten that big where it's like, how is everything and everyone going to survive without me if I take a rest? Is there any chance that God's going to stop being God if I take a rest? Because I need to stand in and fill in in those times. You know, it's interesting what we do. The world doesn't collapse.

God doesn't stop being God, and we don't have to earn our value, so let's value ourselves enough to rest. I was talking with this very intelligently beautiful creative soul. I like to call her Isabella, and you know, I was talking to her just about, you know, doing things and trying to be organized and trying to balance the opportunity to practice better skin care, get a little more time in the gym, which I've been neglecting, and just simply finding time where I can be and do whatever I want.

And I told Isabella, you know, I'm really good at encouraging that to your father. I'm really good at encouraging that to Roary. I'm really good at encouraging that to your siblings.

I'm good at encouraging it to my flock. So there's my, that's my tribe. And I said, but you know what? I just don't do it for myself.

I just don't do it for myself like I should. And she said what she has learned to do is to ask herself this question. Don't I deserve it? Don't you deserve peace of mind? Don't you deserve that rest? You don't have to earn it.

You already deserve it simply for being who you are. How can you claim to be an extension of somebody so reverent, so awe, so mighty as Christ Jesus, as God, as a Holy Spirit, and you think you don't deserve to be in the stillness? Well, you're never going to be in complete alignment with the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit if you don't know how to find the stillness. I'll tell you, stewardship is something we all like to be in good practice of.

And a lot of times when we hear stewardship, we hear tithe. We hear giving. We hear, are we generous? Are we good stewards with our money? Are we good stewards with our labor? But I'm telling you now, are you good stewards with your rest? Rest has been given to us as a gift.

You are not strong because you can keep going and keep going until exhaustion. You're not strong because you can carry a full plate with extra plates all around the side and not drop one until they drop you. You're not strong because you can avoid rest.

You're actually neglectful of one of the greatest things that you should be stewarding, and that is that stillness. When we rest more, we react less. We are far more present, and we remember who we are, and we truly get to possess that internal I am of knowing the stillness of God calls us to rest.

Please pray with me. Our most gracious and loving God, we are so quick to move, to try to move ahead of you, to try to move behind, beyond you, and yet we know that the place to be closest to you is in the stillness of who you are and of who we are within you. God, help us to silence the noise.

Help us to still our temples. Help us to clear our minds that they may be a blank canvas for your hand to paint a vision of peace, a vision of clarity, the path of alignment. God, we are so grateful for all that you give us.

May we be at rest in you. It's in the beautiful name of Christ Jesus we pray. Amen.