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Steven Furtick (1:36)

Hey, this is Steven Furtick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you, hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.

Jonathan (Ballantine Campus Pastor) (1:53)

Certainly a privilege for me to be able to share God's Word with you today. My name's Jonathan. I have the privilege of serving here as our Ballantine campus pastor. And thanks for the love. And I say kind of feel the same way every time I get to stand up here. On one hand, I'm so grateful to share God's word, but I just always say for me the greatest privilege is to be able to sit under the teaching of of this house under the leadership of our pastors, Pastor Stephen and Pastor Holly. And he asked me the other day, are you going to continue in this series, the that's what I Thought series? And I said that would be dangerous for me to attempt to follow that up. Was that not a masterful series that we just went through as a church? And I'm still trying, trying to quantify and qualify what God's done in my heart through that, through that series. It was so powerful and so profound. And so I'm so grateful for a pastor who gets alone with God in the secret place to bring us fresh revelation, fresh insight week after week. Can we thank God for our pastors together? And. And before I read our scriptures for today, I want to give a special welcome to our uptown campus. My old stomping grounds over there. Josh and Vic, we love you guys. Come on, let's thank God for our brand new facility in uptown. Amazing. Okay. Feel good to stand for a few more moments while we read these scriptures. I've got a few. All right. I want to read an instruction. I want to read you a promise. And then I want to look at a story in the life of the disciples that I think is going to illustrate these principles for us today that I believe God wants to do something in our hearts through. So let's start with an instruction From Scripture. Galatians 6, 9. Galatians 6, 9. This is a familiar one for you. Let us not become weary in doing good. Who's he talking to? Not me, we're. I know what it's like to. I know what it's like to be weary when I've been trying to row through the storms of life. But weary in doing good. Not us. Tired of doing good. He says, let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Touch your neighbor. Say, don't give up. All right, that's an instruction for us now. Do not grow weary. But if you find yourself in that place today, here's the good news. I want to give you a promise from the very words of our Savior. And in Matthew, chapter 11, it's so beautiful, this one, one sentence that Jesus says. He says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. I see Jesus just come into the room bringing rest to sons and daughters who have been tired today. Touch your neighbor. Tell them rest is on the way. Rest is on the way. Rest is on the way. All right, wiggle your legs for a minute. Here's the long one. Those. That was just two verses. Mark chapter six. It's really interesting moment in the life of the disciples. The twelve apostles. Mark chapter six, verse seven. Calling the twelve to him, calling the twelve to him, calling the 12 to him. He began to send them out two by two. And he gave them authority over impure spirits. So Jesus calls them and he sends them. Calls, sends them. That's important. There's a rhythm to walking with God. He calls us. He sends us. He calls us. He sends us. He gave them authority over impure spirits, and these were his instructions. Take nothing for the journey except the staff. No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. In other words, Jesus is teaching them what our pastor told us a couple weeks ago, that obedience, details follow obedience. He's saying, don't try to get it all figured out. Right now, I'm sending you. And while you may not have all the details figured out, what did he give him? He gave them authority. As long as the hand of God is on your life, it's all that you need for whatever situation he sends you into. He says, don't worry about all that. Take nothing for the journey. He's too, teaching them to live by faith. And whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them. Verse 12. Look at this. It's so amazing what the apostles did then. They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Incredible ministry. We're going to skip ahead a little bit. After this is the beheading of John the skip ahead, the beheading of John the Baptist right here. It's important, but let's go to verse 30. So after all this ministry says in verse 30 that the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But here's the problem. But many who saw them leaving, they recognized them and they ran on foot from all the towns and they got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and he saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them. He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. He starts feeding them right there. But the apostles, they have a little bit of a different response. Jesus had compassion, but verse 35 says, by this time it was late in the day. So his disciples came to him and said, this is a remote place and it's already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered them, you give them something to eat. They said, that would take more than half a year's wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? These same apostles who just a few verses earlier were reporting all that they had done for Jesus, all they had done and taught now say, are we to go and feed them? Interesting. All right, back to our key verse. In verse 31, this key phrase, Jesus said to them, come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some food. I want to talk to you today about rethinking rest. Rethinking rest. Go ahead and be seated. You know, when you're. One thing Pastor Stevens taught us, he's like, when you're preaching, it's always important to think of a felt need. You know, just what are the things that people are going through in real life that we experience on a human level that God's word can connect to and speak to? And so I figure in a. In a room this size, if I had a message on hope, there'd be a number of people who needed to hear a message on hope or a message on peace, There'd be a number of people who would need to hear a message on peace. But I love that this passage of scripture talks to those of us who find ourselves tired, because I think that hits 99.9% of the room. How do I know that? Because when you ask somebody how they're doing, what do they normally say to you? They just say. They don't answer with a feeling. They say, we've just been busy, busy. Anybody busy in the room right now? And we all got different levels of busy. And yet we all give the. Say, what you been up to? How things been going? Oh, we've been busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. I've mentioned before, But I've got three kids, 10, eight, and three. And one of the things me and Anna, we like to do is just go through our photo app and. And just look at old pictures. You know, you see these things, you're like, wow, we thought they were cute then, and they kind of look a little funny at that stage of development. But we love going through all these photos and old memories. And so, like, once I start going, it's like I'm just going all the way back. But I love seeing pictures of my family. I love seeing other moments in life. I came across this photo just the other day that Kind of reminded me as I was preparing this sermon. Look at this picture of. That's me and my pastor right there. I know, it's crazy. 12 years, I haven't changed a bit. Unbelievable. And that popped up, and I go, oh, my goodness. And that was 2013. And it started bringing back all the memories of that season. I just showed up at Elevation Church. I'd finished Bible school and felt God had a calling on my life to build his church and to serve people and help them grow closer to Christ. And I could not believe that I was getting to do ministry at a church like Elevation Church. I grew up in a real small town in Canada, and I'd never seen anything like this. So the fact that they would let me on the team was, like, unbelievable to me. And so I remember us coming here with so much enthusiasm and so much excitement. You can take that down. You don't have to leave that up the whole time. I'm already feeling weird about it. Okay. And I remember that you remember that season so vividly. We get to elevation church. It's January 2013. Pastor Steven's preaching a series called the New Rules of Resolution. And January is always such a busy time in the life of the church. And y' all are getting your act together, trying to get back in the rhythm of being here. Every week, people are coming to the church. It's always crazy. And I remember in those that first month, turning to someone say, it's like, oh, I was. Like, I was. I was exhausted. We were working so hard. I know some of y' all think we only work Sundays, but there's more that goes on to making church happen. And I remember going like, oh, my goodness, this is. This is a lot. And they said, don't worry. It's just a busy season. I said, okay, cool. It's just a busy season. And then we get through that January, February season, and we're gearing up for Easter at Elevation. Now, back then, we didn't have all these permanent facilities everywhere, so we would run, like, 1,652 worship experiences just to have space for everyone to bring their friends, bring their family to come hear the gospel over Easter. We are running, like, hard. We are running crazy. And I remember getting to the end of that, turning to someone, being that was a lot. And they said, don't worry. It's just a busy season. You see where I'm going with it? Didn't take me long to realize that in ministry, it's always a busy season. Not only in ministry, in life, it's always a busy season. Whatever we're facing, whether it's getting the kids back in the rhythm of school, whatever situation we're going through, we think, when I can just get through this season, what then? It's gonna be all calm and. And collected. Then everything's gonna get settled. No, you leave one busy season just to enter into another busy season. Touch your neighbor, say, it's always a busy season. It's always a busy season. I was the idiot because I grew up in a place where seasons meant a temporary duration of time. There was four seasons, but it turns out it was just a busy season. Would go on and on and on. And 12 years in, guess what? It's been a busy season. It's always a busy season. And when we think about this idea of getting rest, spiritual rest for our souls, we fall into this trap of thinking sometimes that if I can just get through this season, or like the disciples, if we can just get to the other side, then we'll get a chance to rest. So what struck me in this passage of scripture with the 12 disciples is that Jesus, it says he calls them to himself and he sends them out two by two. They leave and they're doing incredible things for the Lord. They're healing the sick. They're preaching repentance, they're casting out demons. They're being used by God in them. I feel fulfilled. I feel like God used me. If I can just pray for someone and encourage them. These guys are casting out demons and they come back to Jesus. And you can hear the enthusiasm in their voice as they reported to him all they had done and taught Jesus. We took that sermon you gave up on that mount about how blessed are the poor in spirit. We, blessed are the pure in heart. And we were teaching it to people, and they were repenting, coming into the kingdom of God, Jesus. We were anointing sick people and seeing them healed, they come back to Jesus. And the reporting, jesus, look what we've done for you. Jesus, look at all the things that we did in your name. And yet, as exciting as it was, I've got to imagine that it must have also been exhausting. Do not grow weary in doing good. I didn't know you could grow weary in doing good. But I found out that some. Some of the things that God has for us in our life, even though they're good things, can also leave us in a place of exhaustion when you're pouring out, pouring out, pouring out. And some of us are tired of the very things that we prayed and asked God for things that once came into our life as a blessing now feel like a burden. Why? Because we go from busy season to busy season to busy season and wonder why we're tired. So the disciples, they're telling Jesus what they've done, and it must have sounded like music to their ears when he says, all right, great work. Great work, Matthew. Great work, Peter. Now come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Oh, great. We're going to go to the other side. Is it going to be an Airbnb? Is it going to be a Hilton? Maybe it's the Four Seasons. I don't know how. How Jesus is rolling, but they're excited to get some. Some rest with Jesus. And yet when they get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, what's waiting for them? More ministry? More hungry people. Crowds of people who need something from them after they just spent how long pouring out. Not only that, I mentioned that in that time, John the Baptist is beheaded. So not only could they possibly be weary of doing good, but they're also carrying the hard thing of having someone that they knew get beheaded. And they're wondering, is this gonna happen to us? And so we go through life not only carrying the good things that are happening, but the hard things that are happening. And so often we find ourselves just out of breath. Come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. And they get to the other side and there are crowds of people waiting to see Jesus. Jesus had compassion on them, but the apostles had a different response. And I wondered how they could go so quickly from Jesus. Look at all we've done and taught in your name to send the people away. How did they go from, look what we've done for you, God, to get these people out of here. We're tired and we're hungry. Now, I know that's unique to the apostles. You've never been in that place, but I was imagining for a moment, imagining for a moment, imagine you moved your family all the way to Charlotte, North Carolina, to be a part of a church where you could see what God could do through you. And then it's like, am I really gonna go spend three hours on a Sunday serving? How do we quickly shift from one place to the next? How did that guy in that photo so quickly go from I can't believe I get to be here to a decade later, I found myself in a place going, God, can I even do this anymore? It's possible today that some of us who Feel like we are. That we are weak in our faith. May not be weak. We might just be weary. We might just be weary. And look at, look what happens with the apostles. Well, these crowds of people show up. It says that Jesus has compassion. But the disciples, they're trying to send the people away. And I want to give you. I wrote these down. Five signs that you might be spiritually spent. Five signs that your soul might be exhausted today. Evasion, isolation, projection, exaggeration and preservation. Let me break it down. They're all on the text right here. Real quick. Evasion. It's when they said it's already very late. Evasion is when you start looking for excuses to get out of responsibilities before anything's even asked of you. When you are at a place where your soul is tired. I'm not talking about feeling physically tired cause you didn't get a good sleep last night. I'm talking about being spiritually weary on the inside. You start avoiding the very God given responsibilities that he's brought into your life because he wants to use you, because he wants to do something through you. And start saying it's already very late. Isolation is when they say send the people away. When you are spiritually tired, you become quickly disinterested in the concerns of others because it's very difficult to feed hungry people when you yourself are hungry. Yeah, projection. It's when they said send them away so that they can get something to eat. Projection is when you start forecasting your own deficiencies on other people as an excuse. The Bible never actually says that the people were hungry. It says earlier that the disciples didn't get something to eat. So who's hungry? The apostles. Send them away so they can get something to eat. That's when you start saying things like I don't want to reach out to them. I'd hate to be an inconvenienced. No, you don't want to be inconvenienced. Projection. Exaggeration. It's when they said it would take more than half a year's wages. How are they so good at math? They just added it up like that. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Exaggeration. When you start exaggerating what it's going to take to do the things that God is asking you to do. And with that, the last one is preservation. When they said are we to go and spend. When you are spiritually tired, when you are exhausted, when you are missing rest, the rest that comes from Jesus in your life, you start holding on to the things that God has given you in order to be a blessing to others. Are we to go and spend. Whether it's your time, your energy or your talents, the opportunities that God brings into your life, you begin to see them as an expense rather than an opportunity to do something for his kingdom. Exaggeration, evasion, isolation, projection, and preservation. When I read this passage of scripture, it hit me so deeply. I'm trying to. I want to tell you the Lord gave me this message two years ago at a time when I needed it so desperately. And in fact, I would not be here ministering this word to you today if the Lord didn't give me this word for me. Because all those things that I just read to you in the response of the disciples. After about a decade of ministry for me, I found myself in that same place. I vividly remember one meeting I was in with one of our other campus pastors who was helping to lead our. Our campuses with me at the time. And we were just brainstorming how we could do more ministry, impact more people. And with every single idea he threw out, I had a reason for why we shouldn't do it or why it wouldn't work. He's all enthusiastic, we could do this, we could do that. And with everything he said, I kept shooting down every idea because all I could think about is what it was gonna cost me. I was empty. We were coming off like it was that coming out of COVID All the residual frustration of that, let alone all the things I was carrying myself. And I remember in that meeting, he looked at me, he's like, are you okay, bro? I said, I think I just need a vacation. Because we get, like the disciples do, where we think that rest is somewhere out there. When I can just get to the other side, when I can just get to that long weekend, when I can just get to that vacation, then I can just get. I'll get a chance to rest. We go from season to season. When I can get the kids out of diapers, when I can get the kids out of elementary school, when I can get them graduated, when I can get this promotion, when I can sell the business, when I can. We keep projecting. If I can just get to the other side, and then I'll get a chance to rest. And so I'm in that mia. I go, I think I just need a vacation. But it pointed out something that I was carrying in my own heart, that I had spent 10 years I was working, working for God, but was not working with God. And in all my doing for him, remember? Because he calls you and he sends you. He calls you and he sends you. And it was illuminating to me because I realized in my busyness for God, I was rejecting that first calling, which was to be with him and to receive rest for my soul. I needed this word. And I want to show you what the Lord taught me through this passage of scripture. Because it's so beautiful what Jesus says to them in that one phrase. It gives us a formula for rest. Now, I know faith isn't a formula, but let me give you a formula for rest. Jesus says in verse 31, he says, come away with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest. Now look at this for a minute. Come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. By yourselves is solitude to a quiet place. Silence. Silence plus solitude equal rest. Silence and solitude equal rest. Silence and solitude are two spiritual disciplines. Have you heard of the spiritual disciplines before? Spiritual disciplines are means by which we connect with God. And so coming to church, corporate worship. This is a spiritual discipline. You coming here on a Sunday morning, worshiping with brothers and sisters in the faith. This is a spiritual discipline. Give yourself a round of applause. You've done one already today. Studying the Word of God is a spiritual discipline. Opening up His Word so He can speak to us. You're two for two. Give yourself a round of applause. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in an amazing church where we learned about worship. We learned about prayer. We learned about reading scripture. I don't ever remember being taught about the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude. But silence and solitude are the way that we experience the holy rest of God. Not physical rest. You can take a nap for that. But spiritual rest, or what Jesus calls rest for our. Now, there is a difference between isolation and solitude. Isolation is when I'm alone. Solitude is when I'm alone with God. It's what our pastor taught us a couple weeks ago. He said that Jesus would get alone with God so that he could align with God. Solitude is when I get alone with him so I can align with Him. Isolation leads to loneliness. Solitude leads to intimacy. Silence and solitude. In his book on spiritual disciplines, Richard Foster, he said, in silence, we create an open, empty space where we are free to receive what God wants to give. In solitude, we come to know the gentleness of God's presence and the strength of his love. Can I read it one more time for you? Is that good or what? In silence, we create an open, empty space where we are free to receive what God wants to give in Solitude. We come to know the gentleness of his presence and the strength of his love. Silence and solitude is the place that we receive from God. See, this life with God we live, it should be as natural as breathing. You breathe in, you breathe out. He calls you, he sends you. He calls you, he sends you. Because everything you do for God was never meant to come from your own strength. But it's an exhale of the strength that he's given you. We inhale. We exhale. But I wonder if some of us are tired today, if some of us are weary, if some of us feel like we have nothing left to give because we're. We're breathing out, we're breathing out. We're showing up for every other person. And yet when Jesus gives us that call to come and be with him, we neglect it. Why? Because silence and solitude is incredibly uncomfortable. I'm the type of person that if I'm driving three minutes to the grocery store, I'm making a phone call just so I don't have to sit, sit alone with my own thoughts for those three minutes. Silence and solitude is the key to rest. And I remember I was telling you about that season. I remember after that, this realization, God speak to me. I gotta get alone with God. And I remember taking a half day to just go and read my word and pray. And I know this sounds so incredibly simple, but it's so incredibly powerful when we can just get alone with God for a little bit. The things God can do in a moment, unbelievable. He started. He started convicting me because there are things I was blaming other people for, for why I felt the way I did, but it was things that I was carrying on the inside. He started comforting me. He started speaking to me. And I just remember in the stillness of that moment, be still and know that I am God. In the stillness of that moment, God speaking to me after I was just listing out all my components. We started the worship experience today saying, thank you, thank you, thank you. Sometimes my prayer life looks like complaint, complaints, complaint, complaint. And I list. But God can handle those things. And I remember listing all my frustrations and just unloading my burdens on him and him just saying, and I love you, and I love you. Henriett Nouwen. He calls silence and solitude the furnace of transformation. Because he says, in that place, we can't hold onto the scaffolding. The things we put, the things we. We guard our lives with to make us feel like something. But in silence and solitude, you're not a mom. You're not A dad. You're not a boss. You're not an employee. You are simply a son or a daughter. And it's in that place of being alone with God that you can receive what matters most. When he calls you his son, when he calls you his daughter and pours out his strength and love into your life. Silence and solitude. And I think for some of us, even as Christians, we're doing all the right activities and wondering why something is still missing. It's because he sends us. But he also calls us. He sends us and he calls us. In fact, it's actually the other way around. He calls us and then sends us. In Genesis 1:4, when God is creating the earth, it says, this is so interesting to me. It says that he created evening and morning, and he called it day, evening and morning, and he called it day. We would think morning and evening. That's how we think of a day. But for God, the day begins with rest. Before you get up to do anything, the day starts with rest. So my work is an overflow of the rest that I have in him. And at the beginning of this passage, Jesus models it for us. It says that he calls them to himself and he sends them, calls them, sends him. Now, I know what you're thinking, Pastor J.J. it would be so nice if I could just take half a day to go pray and read the Bible and spend time with Jesus. But you don't know the life. We're not pastors like you. We got real life to do. I've got three kids I'm trying to take care of. I got a demanding job right now. This is what I wanted to show you from the Scriptures. Because if you find yourself in a place where you're like, well, what does it really look like for me to find these moments with God in the middle of our crowded lives? Remember, crowds of people are waiting for the apostle in the middle of our crowded calendars and crowded lives and crowded minds. How do I find time to be alone with Jesus? And this is what I wanted to show you because, look at this. When Jesus says to them, come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. And they get in the boat to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The question is, I know that the disciples, they didn't know what was waiting for them on the other side. They didn't know. Just like you don't know what's waiting for you on the other side of this season. Just like you're thinking, man, if I can just get but you don't know what diagnosis your mom might get on the other side of it. You don't know what's waiting for you on this side. The disciples didn't know. But the question is, did Jesus know what was waiting for them on the other side? And of course the answer is yes. Jesus knows. Jesus knows. So was he tricking them when he said to them, come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest? If Jesus knew what was waiting for them on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, was he tricking them when he gave them this invitation to come away and be with him for a moment? And this is what the Lord showed me from this passage. After Jesus gives them that invitation, it says in verse 32. So they went away by themselves in a boat. I thought rest was a place. I found out that rest is in a person. I thought rest was a destination, if I can just get over there. But I found out rest is on the way. Rest is what Jesus wants to give you as you are heading from one place to the next, from one season of life to the next. It says that they got in a boat together. So the moment for the disciples to get rest wasn't when they would get to the other side, wasn't when they would get a sabbatical, wasn't when they'd finally get a vacation. The rest that Jesus wanted to give them was when he invited them into the boat so that they could rest on the way. Because Jesus knew what was waiting for them on the other side. Jesus knew that there would be hungry people that he needed the apostles to feed. So he invites them into the boat so that they could receive from him all that they need so that they could breathe in before they needed to breathe out. Rest happens on the way. How do I know this? Because look what it says in the scripture. It says that the people who were standing there, they watched them and they followed them on foot. Foot. That means that Jesus and the disciples could have walked to where they were going. Jesus and the disciples could have ran along with all the other crowds of people. And yet Jesus says, come with me in this boat for just a little while. This says that they actually got to the other side faster than Jesus and the apostles. They were waiting for them. So Jesus says, let's take the slow way over there just so you can take them. Get a moment to really catch your breath, because he wants to give you rest. Pay attention to the transitions in your life, the transition moments, because they are windows to connect with Jesus. Jesus will show up in your life with little boats. Richard Foster he calls them little solitudes, little boats, little moments where God wants to breathe into you and give you rest, touch your neighbor, say, don't miss the boat, don't miss the boat. I think we so often miss what the disciples miss because we think rest is somewhere out there. But when we come to the realization that Jesus wants to give us rest on the way, we start looking for the little boats, the little boats, the little moments throughout our day where we can connect with him, those moments of transition. That's why David said, in the morning and the evening, those are transition times. The morning, it's not quite night, it's the not quite day, the transition times for us to connect with God. And I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters, that in your rhythm with God, don't grow weary in doing good, but look for the little moments throughout your day. To simply breathe in his holy rest, to breathe in his faithfulness, to breathe in his goodness. This can look like. For me, it looked like pulling in the driveway and, and taking three minutes before I walked in the house just to unload the burdens of my day so that I could move from one moment of ministry to the ministry that happens in my home and feel like I actually had something to give. Little moments, little moments. And for those of us who feel like, ah, I'm just so busy. I'm just so busy. How is it that Jesus, who was perfect and only had three years to do ministry, knew how to prioritize things, time with God? In fact, right after he feeds the 5,000, you know what he does? He goes up onto a mountainside to pray. Because Jesus knew the importance of getting alone with God so that he could align with God and receive from God. And what makes us so arrogant to think that if Jesus needed to get alone with God, that we can somehow make it through this life, that we can somehow fulfill the purposes that he has for us, that we can somehow do all the things that he has in his heart without us taking time to really receive from Him. So the way I pictured it, the way I pictured it is like we're sometimes going through life on one foot just saying, if I can just get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, then I'll get a chance to rest. And we're doing everything that we can for God like this. And we're wondering sometimes why we're so tired. We're wondering sometimes why we're shaky. We wonder sometimes why it feels like we're out of breath. And I think it's because we haven't learned how to rest on the way. Rest on the way. Rest on the way. So I pictured you getting your stability back and your strength back, because Jesus, it says that he called them and he sent them. He calls, he sends. Galatians 5:25 says, since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. There's a cadence to walking with God. And it looks like breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out. It looks like not hopping on one foot from one place to the next, from one season to the next, from good news to bad news, from response, one season to the next. It looks like finding the rhythm of God's grace. And he calls you and he sends you. He calls you, and he sends you. So I'm gonna heal the sick, Lord, but sometimes I need to come to you, because there's places in my life where I need healing. And I'm gonna feed the hungry God. But I need you to be my bread of life. So I need you to speak to me. I need your word in my life. I need your strength. And I'm gonna comfort others, God, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna show up for them. I'm gonna sit with them in the hard place of their life. But Holy Spirit, would you comfort me in my life too? And suddenly it doesn't feel like we're straining. Suddenly, it doesn't feel like we're limping around as believers, but it feels like we're going from sweet strength to strength. Glory to glory. Because when God sends a little boat into your life, don't miss the opportunity to get alone with him. He knows what you need, disciples. And he knows that if you're hungry because you haven't a chance to eat, he can make food out of nothing. He can feed you. It's the place to receive silence and solitude. And as uncomfortable as it can be because. Because often it's in that place where God strips away the layers of our life that we use to keep some. Some. Some. Some fabricated version of ourselves. It's actually the furnace of transformation because it's the place where we receive our strength as we are reminded of who we really are in Christ. We gotta learn how to rest along the way. If you've been coming to this church for a while, I love the message that you'll hear over and over again. Actually, our mission statement, see what God can do through you. It's this underlying belief that we carry that no matter what you've been through, no matter what your past is, that God wants to use you. God wants to use you. And I believe that with my whole heart. And yet what I've found I've needed in my life the most is that reminder of not only does God want to use me, but to know that God also wants to be with me. Did you know that child of God, that He wants to be with you? Some of us think that he just wants that. He just wants to use us for his glory. But God wants to be with you. And in that place, he wants to give you everything that you need to walk out, the purposes that he's called for you because he loves you. The first ministry is to the Lord. And I don't want to go through life saying, I did all these things in your name. And he said, but I never knew you because you never got in the boat and sat still long enough for me to get to know you. Be still and know that I am God. I want to. Just as we close this service today, take a moment to just pray for those of you who maybe find yourself in a place where you're facing burnout, you're facing spiritual exhaustion, where you almost feel like you wonder if you're losing your faith. You're not losing your faith. You're not losing your faith. You're not walking away from him. You've just grown tired. And if you find yourself in that place today where you're like, I don't know if I have bread to feed anybody. I need bread myself. I need rest. I need rest for my soul. I remind you of the words of Jesus who says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Rest is not found in a place. Rest is found in a person. Would you take a moment? And I love it. When I look around this room, I see so many people that I know God is using in an amazing way. And you're carrying so much. It's amazing. And I think it's because you've learned how to catch your breath along the way. To breathe in, to breathe out. You learned how to rest. For some of us today, maybe we're in a place where we've been neglecting the secret place where God wants to fill us. And this simple message, I know it's simple, but it was powerful for me at a time where I needed it, because I don't know where I would be right now if God didn't speak this to me and remind me that the first calling is that calling to himself. I've learned to embrace what it means to take time, even if it's just for a few moments at a time, to connect with him, to be alone with him, so I can align with him. And for someone who feels like they're holding so much right now, and you feel shaky and you feel weak and you don't know if you can go another. I want to pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen you right now. But more than that, I want to pray that God would stir up a hunger in your heart for his presence, that God would stir up a desire in his heart to come back to your first love, to be with him in that place, so that he can fill you, so that he can strengthen you, so that he can feed you. If that's you today. And I really want to know who I'm specifically praying for. And I know we've got people joining us at other campuses and people joining us online, but even in the room where you are in the chat, let us know if that's you. Today, you find yourself where you're like, I don't know if I'm giving up. I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but I feel myself growing weary. No one walks away. No one gives up. Just in a moment like that, you grow weary. You grow weary because you're doing, you're doing, you're doing, you're doing, but you're neglecting that. The little boats that he's sending you so that you can be with Him. Be with Him. If you find yourself in that place. I want to pray specifically for you right now. Just raise your hand up in the air. And I want to pray that God would stir up a hunger for his presence. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Yeah. Someone over here. You're on the verge of giving up. Come on, put your hand in the air. I want to pray for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I declare the promise of Matthew 11 over you. The words of Jesus, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Jesus, your yoke is easy. Your yoke is easy. I pray for my brother. I pray for my sister. I pray for everyone who's in that place right now where they've been going through it, going through it. They've been carrying all the things that you've called them to carry, Lord. But it feels sometimes like they can't take another step, that they can't take another breath, like they're completely underwater. I want to pray for them right now, God. And I ask Holy Spirit, that you would fill their breath, that you would fill their lungs with the strength of your wind. Holy Spirit, right now, come quickly, Holy Spirit, and strengthen them. Strengthen them in their feeble needs, God, that they would not give up or grow weary. God and Lord, I pray that you would open up their ears. Open up their ears to hear your voice calling them into the secret place. I hear God saying over you, come away with me. Come get in the boat with me. Let's take a little while. I want to feed you, I want to speak to you. I want to comfort you, I want to strengthen you. There's things that I have in my heart for for you that I still want to show you and there's things you're going into that I want to equip you for. So God open up their ears to hear your voice. And God, as you say, calm, Lord, our response is, Lord, we want to step into that boat with you and be with you. God be with you. I speak against every scheme of the enemy that would come to discourage them. God, I declare over them that they're not wicked, they're just weary. God. But I thank you that the strength of all Almighty God is coming into their life right now. God. So brother, so sister, do not grow weary. Don't give up. I pray that God would give you rest for your soul. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.