Religion Complicates What God Made Simple

From Pete Wilson:

I continue to be amazed at how it always seems that religion complicates what God has made simple. I was reading in Matthew and was reminded at how often Jesus tried to expose the complexities of religion.

Matthew 23:1-4 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

I grew up in a system of religion that was very similar to this. The “demands” often left me feeling  crushed and wondering if God could ever accept and love me.  I discovered over time that religion and the rules that accompanied it really only produced two things: defeat, if you were honest, and hypocrisy, if you were not.

I spent years in hypocrisy which was fueled by my fear that I wasn’t “good enough.” I’ll be forever grateful that I eventually exchanged that system of religion in for a story of redemption. I’ll be forever grateful for discovering the meaning behind these beautiful words of Jesus…

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

I love those words “and you will find rest for your souls.” The kind of rest that many of us need cannot be found by taking a nap for we are exhausted at the soul level. We need the kind of rest that only Jesus can bring.

Tired of trying? Need some rest?

It’s A Gift, Not Punishment

By Pete Wilson

I think one of the first steps in embracing the Sabbath is you’ve got to get it out of the category of I “have” to do this and starting thinking about it as I “get” to do this.

It’s funny, but growing up I always thought the “Sabbath” was some legalistic rule that only Jews still followed. In fact, the neighborhood that I grew up in as a kid had a pretty high population of Orthodox Jews living there. I can remember on Saturday morning watching families walking to church and feeling sorry for them because they couldn’t drive their car. I had heard that they couldn’t even watch TV on the Sabbath. Sounded like a perpetual weekly grounding to me!

In my mind Sabbath was some sort of punishment.

In reality, the fourth commandment, to take a Sabbath, a day each week and not do any work was a gift from God to His people. In Egypt, the Israelites were forced to work every day without a break being treated as objects to be exploited, not people. Many people think part of the reason the Sabbath was commanded was to remind them that they aren’t in Egypt anymore, that their value doesn’t come from how much work they can produce.

Their significance comes from the God who rescued them, the God who loves them.

I think once again we need to be reminded of this truth. So many of us are virtual slaves to our culture mistakenly thinking our value is in what we can produce. So we work harder and harder. Sleep less and less. And we, in fact, produce a crazy amount of stuff, but the irony is this “full” lifestyle leaves us feeling quite empty.

Why?

Because God cares more about who you’re becoming than what you’re accomplishing.

Anyone Tired?

“To whom does the invitation of this cross come?  It comes to the failures, the people who know they have gone wrong, the people who are filled with a sense of shame, the people who are weary and tired and forlorn in the struggle. . . .

Do you despise yourself, kick yourself metaphorically, and feel you are no good?  Weary, forlorn, tired, and on top of it all, sad and miserable?  Nothing can comfort you.  The pleasures of the world mock you.  They do not give you anything.  Life has disappointed you, and you are sad, miserable and unhappy, and on top if it all, you have a sense of guilt within you.  Your conscience nags at you, condemns, raises up your past and puts it before you, and you know that you are unworthy, you know that you are a failure, you know that there is no excuse, you are guilty. . . .

And then on top of all this, you are filled with a sense of fear.  You are afraid of life, you are afraid of yourself and your own weakness, you are afraid of tomorrow.  You are afraid of death, you know it is coming and you can do nothing about it, but you are afraid of it. . . .

This is the amazing thing about the cross.  It comes to such a person, and it is to such a person above all others that it brings its gracious and its glorious invitation.   What does it say to you? . . . You are not far off, and the cross speaks to you with sympathy.  That man dying on that cross was known as the friend of sinners.  He was reviled by the good and the religious because he sat down and ate and drank with sinners.  He had sympathy. . . .

Not only that, he will tell you that he is ready to accept you.  The world picks up its skirt and passes by.  It leaves you alone, it does not want to associate with you, you have gone down, you belong to the gutters, and the world is too respectable to have any interest in you.  Here is one who is ready to receive you and to accept you. . . . Sit down, he says.  Wait, stop, give up your activities.  Just as you are, I am ready to receive you.  In your rags, in your filth, in your vileness.  Rest.

What else?  Pardon.  The cross speaks of benediction, of pardon, joy and peace with God.  It tells you that God is ready to forgive you.  It says, listen to me, your sin has been punished.  I am here because this is the punishment of sin.  Listen to me, says the blood of sprinkling.  I have been shed that you might be forgiven, pardoned, at peace with God.  Oh, thank God, there is also cleansing here.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross (Wheaton, 1986), pages 168-170.

Rest

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 

and I will give you rest.  Matthew 11:28

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”  – Augustine

Sabbathless Christianity

Come to me, all you 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.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.  Matthew 11:28-30

This is often our invitation: "Come to Jesus and get to work."

This is Jesus' invitation: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Now, Jesus did call us to be fishers of men. And fishing can be hard work. There's a lot of preparation involved, a lot of considering of the conditions, constant positioning, setting the right lures or casting the net just right. But a lot of fishing is also just sitting there. Sometimes fishing just looks like doing nothin'.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for Jesus is nothing -- because he doesn't need anything -- and most times the best thing you can be for him is still.

Be still, and know that I am God . . .
-- Psalm 46:10a

From Jared Wilson

A Prayer About God’s Longing to Be Gracious

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.” Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!    Isaiah 30:15-18     

Heavenly Father, your Word arrives at the portal of my heart perfectly chosen and timed. What more could I possibly need, in any season of life, than to remember you are the Sovereign LORD… and to realize you long to be gracious to me? How could I possibly resist such an offer? I praise you… I bless you… I worship you for being much more engaged and caring than I can even imagine.

     

Today, the call to repentance and rest, and quietness and trust is very convicting and liberating. Convicting, because riding off somewhere on “swift horses” seems like a very attractive option to me. Liberating, because I’m tired of the noise, busy, and clamor of the past several weeks. O, for the centering power of a quiet spirit before you. O, for the great strength of a heart at rest in you.

     

I’m not being pursued by enemies from without. The Assyrian and Babylonian armies aren’t on the horizon, coming at me at breakneck speed. I’m simply in need, once again, of learning my limits… of saying “Yes” to the right things and “No” to the unnecessary things… of living the rhythms of a gospel-driven life.

     

I repent of letting the tail wag the dog. I repent of letting needs dictate my pace. I repent of grabbing four more plates to spin than you intend. I repent of not honoring Sabbath rest. I repent of trying to be my own savior, again. I repent of thinking too much and praying too little. I repent of listening to the squawking voices of human parakeets more than the comforting voice of the Paraklete—God the Holy Spirit. I repent doing more things for you than spending unrushed time with you.

     

Father, right now, I choose to wait for you. I make no bones about it, I want the blessing that comes to those who wait for you. Enough of this frantic pace… on with fresh grace. As you rise to be compassionate to me in Jesus, I will sit down, shut up, be still and let you. Gladly will I comply with your longing to be gracious. So very Amen, I pray, in Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.

A Prayer About God’s Longing to Be Gracious is by Scotty Smith

Sabbath Rest

"Our activity can promise us everything and make us forget God. Therefore God commands us to rest from our work. It is not work that supports us but God alone; we live not from work, but from God alone.... The Sabbath rest is the visible sign that human beings live by the grace of God and not by works.       --Dietrich Bonhoeffer