Rest is experiencing God’s presence, goodness, and trusting in our Creator-King. We do this by setting time apart with a new rhythm of stopping and delighting.This can happen throughout the day, this can begin to form in you a rhythm of taking a day, a Sabbath. Where do you need to start shifting from restlessness to God rest?Hebrews 4:9-11- 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people o...

  Finally, we see within this seventh day of rest a mimicking within creation, we see a rhythm. Rhythm is our third element of rest according to the biblical worldview. Every seventh day to stop, delight, set-apart from the other days. God built rhythm into creation, including the last day of rest.I appreciate this longer quote from Wayne Muller in his book Sabbath. "In the relentless busyness of ...

  Next biblical worldview of rest is the statement, 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy… Where else do we see God bless creation? Day five and six, with animals and humanity. He created the animals and said to humanity, “God blessed and said, ‘be fruitful and multiple.”The intention here is to be life giving. Which means, in God blessing the seventh day, his intention is for it to ...

  Based upon Genesis 2, I want to give you a Biblical worldview of rest. Hear me, there is so much on this topic. In my preparing I came across one podcast series by Bible Project that was fourteen episodes, which is over 15 hours of insight about rest within scripture. I listened to a podcast from John Mark Comer and Practicing the Way where he did a four-week series just on rest. I don’t have th...

  I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person that likes to push the limit with my gas gauge. My Father-in-law on the other hand, if it is below a ½ of tank, he’s filling up. Whereas I love the fact that it gives you the number of miles, it thinks you have until you run out of gas.I wonder though, how that also parallels to life? How many of us are running on fumes? Or we push the limit in ...

  Our daily “faith challenge” is an opportunity to go deeper into Sunday’s message. A time to meet with God. Begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you from His Word, by His Spirit.“Speak Lord your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” Romans 3:25Jesus, innocent of all sin died in our place, ...

  Our daily “faith challenge” is an opportunity to go deeper into Sunday’s message. A time to meet with God. Begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you from His Word, by His Spirit.“Speak Lord your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9We have a dilemma and there are two facets to our dilemmaWe have something we don’t want- a sin problem. Because of our sin we experience guilt, shame, pain, and separa...

  Our daily “faith challenge” is an opportunity to go deeper into Sunday’s message. A time to meet with God. Begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you from His Word, by His Spirit.“Speak Lord your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins... 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when w...

  Our daily “faith challenge” is an opportunity to go deeper into Sunday’s message. A time to meet with God. Begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you from His Word, by His Spirit.“Speak Lord your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into...

  Our daily “faith challenge” is an opportunity to go deeper into Sunday’s message. A time to meet with God. Begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you from His Word, by His Spirit.“Speak Lord your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9This week we’re going to soak in some Either Or statements from God’s Word. These Either or contrasts are relevant to each of us.“…they have not believed the testimony ...

  Today's passages i want you to see how Paul is getting our attention with representing the image of God.Galatians 5:22-25- 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we liv...

   Yesterday’s question landed us here, If God created us, in his image, as an idol to represent him to the world, through his creative order and generosity, how are you living out that image? I get it though, Genesis 3 happened, sin came in, not only separated us from God and from one another, but it distorted what that image and intention was to be. That’s another reason why God had to send a ne...

  If you want a brief overview of the Image of God discussion, take a look at this video by Bible Project. Image of God by Bible Project: Okay, we need to look at what we are supposed to be doing with the image of God that was given to us within creation. Again what do we see in the creation story? 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over ......

  Ok, we need to get to the main course…. What do you think of when you think of the image of God? When you think image or even the Greek word, eikon (icon), the icon or image of God, what do you think of? Like the golden arches, when you see the golden arches do you think McDonald’s, big mac, filet fish, quarter pounder, French fries? Or when you see the swoosh, you think of Nike and basketball s...

  Let’s jump into it, Genesis 1:26-2:1, this is the rest of Day six in creation. Remember, we are looking at the Spirit-inspired ancient text, where the authors are sharing with us the creation story, depicting God’s (Yahweh’s) creative work. Where Yahweh, creates order out of disorder, forms and fills, Creator-King who creates a good kingdom. Now humanity arrives on the scene. Genesis 1:26-2:1- 2...

  Last observation, day one God separated light and darkness and day four he filled the heavens with light to govern. Where do we see Jesus separate light and darkness? Where do we see him separate rule?With a word, he took care of darkness forever and stepped into ultimate rule. “It is finished.” And he breathed his last breath.If you want to jot down a few passages where we see God’s victory ove...

  Remember, this week we are looking at God’s forming and filling of creation and then how do we see that through the lens of Jesus?Day two was separating the waters, water and sky and day five was filling with sea creatures and birds.Mark 4:35-41- 35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as ...

  I want to go back the question I raised last week. Do we see Jesus do something similar in his life, that we see at creation?Obviously, if I’m asking the question, it is a yes. I want to show you three stories where we see Jesus, with a word speak into the chaos of the wilderness, water, and darkness and bring order.I’m going to go backwards in the days of creation and Jesus’ life. Day three and...

  Read Genesis 1:20-23- 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and ...

  If you have not had a chance to listen to the message on April 19th or 26th, I encourage you to go back and take a listen. This all builds on each other.My intention last week, wasn’t to land on one specific way creation took place, but to throw out the challenge to all opinions of creation because I believe the declaration of the creation story, of Genesis 1 and 2 isn’t about the HOW of creatio...