REAL REST BEGINS WITH...

The Soul Takes a Beating

I love that we are starting this new series. This is one of those messages from a pastoral heart. I'm going to teach today around an area that we all need. Some messages you wonder, is this for everybody? Today I know it's for myself and for all of us.

We're going to frame the whole month around the soul, because it's an important part of who God made us to be. And honestly, our soul takes a beating.

Body, Spirit, and Soul

We're made up of three parts. Write this down:

1. You are a body. This is our physical, earthly vessel — the "earth suit," as one of my best friends, Pastor Mayo, once called it. I walked around a corner one day and heard him yelling at his own body: "Earth suit, get in line! Earth suit, be healed in Jesus' name!" Our body contains our appetites and cravings. It gets tired, it grows old. It came from the dust and won't last forever.

2. You are a spirit. This is the part of us united with God through salvation. Our spirit has fellowship with him and is designed to lead the body and the soul. It's so important — especially during 21 days of prayer and fasting — to make sure our spirit is always leading our body and our soul.

3. You have a soul. This is where we'll lean in this month. It consists of our mind, will, and emotions. Your soul is the part of you that thinks, chooses, feels, and remembers.

So our body is physical, our spirit is God-conscious, and our soul is psychological. This month we're focusing on the soul because our souls truly take a beating. All the noise in the world, the pace of life, the pain we walk through, disappointment — if you watch the news, your soul is in a boxing ring, constantly getting hit with thoughts and fears and uncertainty and the grind we're on.

But good news — you're at church today for good news. God wants to minister in a very real and powerful way to your soul.

A God Who Refreshes

Here's our key verse:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. — Psalm 23:1–3

We have a good shepherd who walks through all of life with us, and he refreshes us. I love that word — especially in the summer in Alabama. There's nothing better on a hot day than a drink of cold, refreshing water.

Back in my teenage years playing football, the hottest I've ever been was two-a-days in the dog days of August. And back in the '90s, there were no laws or regulations — it was just a green garden hose hooked up to two sawhorses with holes drilled in the pipe. It probably had mold and mildew, but hey, we made it. Built my immune system.

That image is intentional. For your mind, will, and emotions, God wants to give you that same feeling of cold water on a hot day. He wants to lift your soul. And there's a deeper meaning to that word: we can recover — recover all that was lost.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed... our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. — Psalm 126

Anybody want some laughter and joy in your life? This month, we're going to lean into how God does that.

We Are Tired

Let me build some tension. First: we are tired. As humanity, as a nation, we are tired. I have more conversations now with people. How are you? "Tired. Exhausted. Trying to keep up."

So much so, the emoji of the year in 2025 was "face with bags under eyes." Some of you are thinking, Pastor, that's me right now. It was voted on because 2025 was a year full of so much stress and exhaustion.

Here's what's dangerous: it's almost like we've accepted tired as normal. How unusual would it be to ask someone, "How are you doing?" and hear, "Rested. I feel so light and free. There's no stress in my life." That would actually feel weird — and that's the problem.

We Are Busy

We're tired because we're so busy. All our calendars are full. Life is moving fast, and much of it comes as an attack on us through our relationship with work.

Work is very good — it's a gift from God, and it's redemptive. God wants to use you in your work to make a huge difference. But work can be abused, and we have to be careful that we don't find our identity in our work. Statistically, we now spend over 50 hours a week working, and a third of our paid time off goes unused.

But we're not just busy at work. We're busy with family, with sports. We did a travel team for the first time this past fall — and did you know travel teams have a vision for your life? So much vision that this one sport with this one kid becomes that important.

The devil can't make us bad — he'll make us busy. — Corrie ten Boom

Busy has become part of our identity, and we're addicted to it.

We Don't Know How to Rest

Here's the real issue. It's not the presence of busy — it's the absence of rest. We don't know how to rest. So we try everything.

We Try More Sleep

Sleep is vital and good. We're supposed to get seven to nine hours a night; anything under six is dangerous. But I was thinking about what happened to our sleep. Twenty years ago, you'd lay down and count sheep. Now we need magnesium, melatonin, an Oura ring, a weighted blanket, and to be "grounded" — I don't even know what that means.

Here's the truth: even if you perfect your sleep, sleep and rest are not automatically the same thing — especially for the soul. You can rest physically and your soul can still need rest.

We Try Better Vacations

Vacations are great. Our family just got back from a six-day camping trip out west on Lake Powell — a houseboat, which is basically an RV on water. And if you've ever RV'd, everything breaks. One night the generator broke, and two pastors have no business trying to fix a generator. We called the mechanics the next day, and it turned out we'd sucked a fish up into the generator. That was our vacation.

But we have to be careful — vacations are not the savior of rest. We'll work ourselves to death because a vacation is on the horizon, and then it turns into a "trip," not a vacation, and we come back more tired than we left.

Pastor Craig Groeschel has been mentoring me. We were talking about my schedule, and he looked right into my soul and said: "Mark, be careful. You're putting too much weight on your vacations. You need more rest than that." Our soul needs more consistent rest than just a vacation.

We Try the Perfect Sabbath

The Sabbath is part of the Old Testament law. God rested on the seventh day — what a gift that God demonstrates rest. It means to stop, to cease, to take a breath. We're no longer under the law, but Sabbath is still a great principle and an important part of your life.

I do my best to practice Sabbath every week. I could never find a single 24-hour weekday that worked, so I Sabbath from lunch on Friday until lunch on Saturday, after finishing my message Friday morning.

But I want to be clear: a day does not have a superpower. You can practice the perfect Sabbath and still have soul exhaustion. If you're not careful, you can work so hard at resting that you're striving to rest — and never find what your soul really needs.

The Only Way to Real Rest

There's only one way the Word of God teaches us to find rest for our souls.

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. — Matthew 11:28–29

Tim Keller calls this passage "the rest under the rest" — like REM sleep. Sleep is great, vacation is great, Sabbath is great, but we've got to have a rest that's under all of that.

1. Make Jesus Your Source of Rest

Jesus says, "Come to me... and I will give you rest." It may sound obvious — of course Jesus is the answer. But there's tension here. Jesus was intentional with his words because he knew we would look everywhere but him for rest.

My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. — Jeremiah 2:13

We try to find rest in our own strength, in our own methods — but there's a hole in the bottom, and it leaks right out. All the while, Jesus is saying, If you'll just come to me.

In the original language, "come" doesn't mean casually — as in, "I've tried Netflix, I've tried this substance, I've tried the vacation, and now finally I'll go look to Jesus." It means, "Would you run as fast as you can to me right now?" Like a child who scrapes their knee at the zoo — whatever they were doing, they stop, they look for their parent, and they run.

This came alive for me back in 2016. Jill and I were youth pastors, working hard leading up to spring break, and I was putting all my pressure on that break being great. Pastor Blake, who has a big personality, invited us on a five-day Carnival cruise out of New Orleans for $300.

Then the Thursday before, one of our kids went down with a stomach virus. Then another. We drove halfway to New Orleans and a third got sick in the car. We turned around, went home, and after 24 hours with no sickness, we finally got on the boat. Within five hours, our fourth son got sick — and then I did too. For the next five days I was quarantined by the CDC in a room with just a porthole, being told I could only have crackers.

In that miserable moment, spending time with the Holy Spirit, I heard him say to me — and I wrote it in my journal: "If you wanted rest, you would have come to me."

There's nothing that can give us what Jesus can. His rest is a gift. Rest isn't earned. Rest isn't achieved. Rest is received.

Abide in me, and I in you. — John 15:4

Connect to Jesus and you get his peace, his love, his grace, his wisdom, his rest.

Practically: one of the greatest practices I've ever put into my life is micro-prayers. Before you walk into that meeting, ten seconds of prayer. Before you say a word in that situation with your kid, just step away for a moment of prayer. All day long, reminding myself that even in turmoil I can experience rest — because he is present and he wants to give it.

2. Obey the Word of God

Let me hit you straight. If we want rest, we're going to have to obey his Word.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. — Matthew 11:29

Our lack of rest most often comes from a disordered life. Jesus uses the image of a yoke — a wooden beam holding two oxen to pull a plow. In Jewish culture, one ox would be strong and experienced, and they'd pair a younger, less experienced ox with it. Jesus is saying: Come do life with me, and I will teach you the rhythm of a life of rest.

Read one chapter over — there was no chapter break in the original letter — and in Matthew 12 Jesus is immediately in a field on the Sabbath, picking grain to feed his disciples, violating the law. Then he walks into a synagogue and heals someone on the Sabbath. And he says:

The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. — Matthew 12:8

Sleep is not the lord of rest. Vacations are not the lord of rest. Sabbath is not the lord of rest. Jesus is the Lord of rest. When we're in obedience to him, no matter what we face, we can experience rest.

• We can rest in salvation — the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
• We can rest in our relationships, even when the marriage doesn't look great right now, because we're in obedience to his Word.
• We can rest in provision — "I don't see the answer, but I'm walking out your Word that you are a provider."
• We can rest in work.
• We can rest in pain. I've seen it this week in families grieving, resting in the truth that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

We've got to find any area where we feel weary and burdened, put a verse on it, and begin to walk it out. Not just know it — obey it. Radical, counter-cultural obedience. Everything else — sleep and all the rest — flows downstream from a life of obedience. That's another great reason to get in a small group this summer: to be around people who will walk out their faith alongside you.

3. Trust the Heart of Jesus

Finally, trust his heart for you.

For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. — Matthew 11:29

This is the only time in the entire Bible where Jesus describes his own heart — and it's attached to the area of rest. It's as if he knows we'll struggle to come to him here, so he makes sure we understand his nature.

He is gentle. God is not mad at you. He's not frustrated with you. I don't care what your resume looks like — the wrath of God was satisfied on the cross. He is keeping no scorecard. You don't have to perform. Your identity is not in your achievement. There is nothing to earn.

He is also humble and lowly. And in this moment, what is Jesus doing? He's waiting for you — weary and burdened, broken and bloodied and scarred and struggling and confused and maybe even a little angry. He's waiting for you to come.

This breaks off a religious spirit. I grew up thinking of Jesus like he had a bank account — that coming to him for small things was a "withdrawal," so I shouldn't bother him. But when you come to Jesus, it doesn't diminish him. It increases his joy. "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross." What he wants most is for you, weary and burdened, to come and receive the gift he's already paid for.

What a tragedy it would be — one of the things he won for us on Calvary is soul rest — to leave that gift under the tree and never open it.

Come to Him

So how do we rest, church? All that other stuff is good, but how do we rest? We come to him. You don't have to wait to rest. You can rest in this moment, in him. His presence is here.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. — Psalm 23

God, we come to you today in worship. We come into your presence seeking you. We're weary and we're burdened, but we're running to you. And God, we ask you to minister to us today — with our hearts open, with our hands raised, in Jesus' name.