Rest is Trust | Collective Night | Young Adult

we want you. We want to encounter you. We want to be with you. We want you to speak to us. We want you to change us so God, we're open and we're receptive tonight. Any way that you want to move, God, we're here for that. If only we would be able to hear your voice tonight. Thank you for meeting with us. We thank you and pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Alright, so my original idea was to ask you to sit for a few minutes. Is that even possible? We're going to sit for a few minutes. We're going to at least try. We're going to at least try. We're only going to be here for a few minutes. It's going to be okay. It's going to be alright. Wow. Okay. Alright, listen, listen, last month, last month, we began a new collection of messages and we're taking the fall season to talk about work and purpose, work and purpose. And so last month, we took a little bit of time to talk about how we are made by God for a purpose to do good work. And tonight, we're going to spend just like ten minutes talking about rest. Now you might be wondering, okay, we're doing like four nights about work and purpose and we haven't even talked about work yet. So why are we talking about rest before we've talked about work? And the reason we're doing that is very intentional.

We believe that it's by God's original design that he has ordered that rest precedes work. So we're going to spend a few moments together talking about that because if we get the order wrong, we're not just going to view ourselves incorrectly, but we're actually going to view the work that God has assigned us to do incorrectly and we don't want that to be the case. So we're going to take it all the way back to Genesis chapter 1, the first chapter in the Bible, we're going to pick it up in verse 26. We are on day 6 of creation. God's created the heavens, the earth, the oceans, the plants, the animals, the sun, moon, the stars, all that good stuff. And then this is what the Bible says. And then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth and the small animals that scurry along the ground. So God created human beings in his own image. And in the image of God, he created them male and female, he created them. And then God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply. Both the earth and govern it, reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky and all the animals that scurry along the ground. So what I need you to notice in these few verses is that God gives humanity two really important things. The first thing is that he gives humanity identity, which means that you and I have value. You and I are made in God's image and before Adam and Eve ever did a single thing for God. God assigned value to them. You and I are valuable and we matter. We have dignity and we have intrinsic worth because you and I as human beings, we carry the fingerprint of God and second, he doesn't just give us identity in these verses, God actually assigns to humanity responsibility. He assigns us work to do. He says things like fill the earth, multiply it, rule and reign in it, build, create, like take responsibility and we see in the first chapter of the Bible that humanity has created

in God's image and we are made to do the exact same things that God has created. they had accomplished anything, before they had any achievements, any accolades, before they had crossed a single thing off of their to-do list, God assigned value to them. And that is because to God, work is responsibility. Work was never meant to be your entire identity. That was never the purpose of work. The problem is that most of us just get the order wrong. We get the order wrong. And instead of believing that value comes before work, I'm often tempted to believe that I'm only valuable when I work. We can make this real personal for a second. I lead this thing that we're at together right now. I have the honor to lead it. And if I'm really honest with you, it's very easy for me to build and assess and examine my entire value based on how I believe this thing is going. How many people showed up tonight? Was that more than last month? Was that less than last month? Do people like it? They think the message was good. Do they like me? I want them to like me. I'm not telling you to cheer for me. I'm just saying that's the thought that goes in my head. Stop. Are they going to come back? Did they have a good time? Are we growing? Am I a good leader? And without even realizing that I'm doing it, I can take the thing that God has so graciously assigned responsibility to me to lead and I can quickly turn it into a thing where I just analyze my entire value and worth based on how I perceive this thing going. And the trap that I get caught in is that I can feel what I think you also feel as well, which is the pressure of my value being attached to my achievement at my job. The pressure and the weight that I carry of my worth as a human being attached to what I produce and the types of grades that I get in school. I can get really caught up in my value as a human, my usefulness to society can become inseparable from my output and my ability to get things done. I don't know if you feel that. I feel that all the time. I feel it all the time. I am quite literally living in the middle of that right now. Over the past few weeks, God has been revealing, and I would say exposing a lie that I have believed for a while, and that lie is if work is where I get my worth, well, that means I can never stop working. If work is where I get my worth, then I can never stop. I want you to see what the Bible says in Genesis chapter 2, just a few verses later from what we already read. Verse 2 says this, "On the seventh day, God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all of his work. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was the day when

he rested from the work of creation. God stops, and God does not stop because he is tired, or because he is worn out, or because his energy is depleted, or because creation just really took it out of him, and he wasn't expecting that. God intentionally chooses to stop, and in the stopping, he creates a holy day, a unique and set-apart day of rest, and he actually - Bakes, this thing. There's a time to work and there's a time to rest. There's a time to work and there's a time to rest. And as you follow the sequence of the story, Adam and Eve are created on day six, which then means that their first full day of existence was God's day of rest. And before they ever did anything for God, they just get to exist with God. They just get to enjoy His presence. They just get to be in relationship with Him. They just get to rest with Him. And that's because from the very beginning, God's design was never for you and I to work hard enough that we could earn the right to rest. From the very beginning, God's design was we rest. We receive, we're in relationship with God. And then our work overflows and is informed, excuse me, by a rest. Rest creates the space for you and for I to have our identity and our view of work just realigned by God. This is where things get a little bit deeper spiritually because rest, it requires trust. When I choose to rest, what I'm actually acknowledging is that there is a God

and it's not me. Rest is not avoiding my responsibilities. No, rest is when I stop pretending like everything is my responsibility. Rest is when I actually choose to resist the culture that tells me that my value and my worth are directly connected to what I produce. And when you and I choose to stop, we make an intentional choice to resist that cultural lie and the ways in which we have personalized it and internalized it. Sometimes without us even knowing that we've done it. So I wanna invite you to stand as I read our final scripture for tonight. We're gonna read just a few verses. This is an excerpt from a song from King David. Come on, y'all, they're groaning. Y'all aren't that old. My knee hurts, my back hurts. You're 24, man. Come on. Psalm 62, verse five. This is from King David, one of the kings of Israel in the Old Testament. He says, "My soul finds rest in God. "My hope comes from Him. "Truly He is my rock and my salvation. "He's my fortress. "I will not be shaken. "My salvation and my honor.

"They depend on God. "He's my mighty rock. "He's my refuge. "I trust in Him at all times, you people. "Pore out your hearts to Him. "For God is our refuge." As you follow the life of David, over time, you see that David learned the hard way, that when he's restless, he knows where to direct his soul. David learned, over time, that God simply wants to be with him, and that God simply enjoys him. And tonight at Collective Night, we just wanted to create for you an opportunity for you to enjoy God's presence, for you to enjoy God's presence, for you to stop and rest and receive the gift of his presence. I believe that God wants to speak to you as an individual tonight through the stopping. If only we would be able to hear his voice tonight. Some of us are going to hear the voice of God tonight through a song, through a lyric, through something that we read or sing or hear, and it's gonna pierce our heart, and we're gonna be moved by it. Some of us, we're gonna be moved, maybe already have been moved, by the presentation of God's word.

You feel as if God himself was speaking directly to you through his written word. and receive from Him just because like things are gonna be quiet and we have space and we're not like checking work emails and worried about exam and like any of that stuff. And some of us are going to receive from God tonight through prayer, through prayer. Prayer is a big part of collective night. We have an amazing prayer team that is here right now spread out all across this room. You can find out who's on the prayer team if you look around and you see people that have white glow sticks. That's the prayer team. They're not weirdos who just brought white glow sticks. It's the prayer team. And my challenge for many of you tonight is to receive prayer from them. The prayer team exists here to help you listen to God on your behalf. They're here to bless you. They're here to serve you. And I need to break down the lie that some of you believe that your life has to be in crisis for you to go to the, see the prayer team. That's not true. You can walk up to the prayer team and say, "I don't even know why I'm here." I just figured you were here

and I don't know what God's trying to say to me and maybe you could help. And they would love to bless you in that way. And so for the next half of our night, we are creating space for God to speak to you and for you to receive and enjoy His presence. We're just gonna worship, we're gonna flow, we're gonna pray for one another, and we're gonna let God move in the space. I just believe God wants to give you something. So God, in this moment, we're ready to receive. We thank you for the gift of rest. We thank you that before we've achieved anything, you had the pride of a father for us. God, we thank you that when we leave things unfinished, when we don't have the output that we want, when we feel as if we don't measure up, you see us as valuable. You see us as worthy. You see us as sons and daughters. God, maybe rest in that tonight. Show us who you are. And maybe we enjoy your presence. Amen. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]