Thomas Goertzen, 11.30.2025

We think if we just optimize enough, we can survive. But God has a word for us today. A word that cuts through the noise of our schedules. So, please turn with me to Jeremiah 6:16. This is what the Lord says. Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls. But you said we will not walk in it. Here is my thesis for us this morning. We find rest for our souls, not by inventing new ways to live, but by humbly returning to God's ancient paths, specifically the rhythm of Sabbath, which has been fulfilled and reentered in the risen Christ, who provides this rest to us by means of grace through his bride, the church. Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, Lord, I just asked for just grace today as we talk about this topic of rest and it's big and Lord, there's no way we can cover cover all of it today. But Lord, you have you have graciously given us rest through Jesus Christ and the finished work on the cross. Us. And Lord, I just pray that as we as we go through this and as we seek to understand maybe how we you know try to create our own ways of rest that you would just convict us and just draw us back to you recognizing that your ways are higher than our ways and that you're ultimately good. Even if we don't understand it or know it or believe it or feel it, Lord, your ways are good for us and we want to honor you. We want to we want to enter into your rest now and forever. We praise these things in Jesus name. Amen. All right, before we begin, I need to [clears throat] lay some groundwork of God's already established rhythm set

Forth in the Old Testament at creation. In the beginning, God creates the universe and everything in it, including humanity. It takes him six 24-hour days to complete his work. On the sixth day, he creates mankind in his image. And we must note the immense task God then gives to Adam and Eve immediately after their creation. Genesis 1:28 records what we call the creation or cultural mandate. It's a monumental charge to humanity. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. Big task. Okay. God assigned it to Adam and Eve to be productive to steward the earth and to build human civilization. Their calling was to work. And we are still called to obey this mandate today. It hasn't gone away. Then the Bible teaches us that God established a rhythm of rest after the work was completed, setting a divine precedent for mankind. Genesis 2:3 states, "And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from his work that he had done." So God blessed the seventh day, and he made it holy because on it, God rested from his work that he had done in creation. We then know the tragic turn of events. Adam and Eve sin. God curses man, woman, serpent, and the ground. Promises to set things right and then kicks them out of the garden. And the rest is history. Right? We see from Scripture continual struggle, rebellion, salvation covenants rebellion faithfulness of God, and the unfaithfulness of man, and cycles over and over again. And every time mankind chooses to sin, they stand at the crossroads. And we stand at a crossroads. Jeremiah 6:16. Stand at the crossroads and look and ask for the ancient path. In Jeremiah 6, the context is dire. God is speaking to the people of Judah. They are on the brink of destruction. The

Babylonians are coming. And why? Because they had rejected the word of God. They refused to repent. They thought they knew better than God and they abandoned his righteousness. Just two verses earlier in Jeremiah 6:14, God indictes the people, saying, "They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace. Peace, they say, when there is no peace." They were faking it. They were inventing a modern way to find peace through political alliances and false religion, ignoring the ancient path of God's righteousness. One commentator puts it this way. Judah was in danger of destruction because she had strayed from these ancient paths of God's righteousness. Despite God urging her to walk in the good way where she would find rest, the nation refused to listen. Because of the people's sin and departure from these ancient paths, God was about to act with anger and fury. Judah had rejected God's law, thinking she could substitute religious rituals for genuine obedience. God was displeased with their elaborate offerings and sacrifices which were divorced from a true love for him and he vowed to put obstacles in their way. Today we are not looking at all the ways in which Judah rebelled against righteousness in the law. We will be focusing on the Sabbath which is certainly one of the ways in which they disobeyed. They altogether rejected God's law and I mean we can surely relate to Israel here. We live in a modern world. There are so many distractions, so many systems that we grow up in that are rebellious just in their very nature and they are not Biblical. We know as Christians who grow up in this world and we say it to ourselves all the time. We are in the world but we're not of it. But what I am suggesting to you this

Morning is that don't be so arrogant to think that you couldn't be deceived into being part of this world like the Israelites. You know we have 125 different translations in the English the English Bible. We have access to any sermon and any interpretation of the Bible verse in the palm of your hand. We have an American constitution that guarantees rights. We have a democracy. We have an enlightened understanding of human rights. All of this and much more feed into our modern worldview of the supremacy of self and the elevation of the individual. There are a million ways in which the fog of modernity distorts and clouds our judgment from even being able to discern that there is an ancient path. We must allow God to humble ourselves on the deepest level as Americans to even begin to see that his paths, his ways are greater, higher, and better. Isaiah 55:8-9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. This is something we all know in our heads. But it is not a truth realized apart from a sincere godly humility. To illustrate this, there's this parable about fish in the water. You may have heard this. There are these two young fish are swimming along in the water and they meet an older fish meeting them on coming the opposite way who nods at them and says, "Good morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks at the other and says, "What in the world is water?" Right? The story suggests that the most obvious and important realities are often the hardest to recognize and discuss because they are pervasive

Environments we are completely immersed in. And so in order to agree with God and his ways, we must recognize that we exist in a world like this and that we are not immune to osmosis. Humility is key here. Humility is what allows the fog to clear for us and to see God's ways as infinitely better than our own. Even if I don't feel like it could be. I forgot to bring it, but I bought this hat at the evangelism conference and it says faith over feelings, right? You know, we have to believe that there's with a supernatural faith that God's ways are better than ours even if we don't even if we don't feel like it. And until we humble ourselves and see that God's way is better, we will justify our actions, our lives, our individual rhythms of life, our decisions even though they go against God's word. We make excuses and because we live in that environment where everyone else does it or where we honestly believe that our opinion is worth more than the truth itself we actually become oblivious to the fact that we are not walking in the ancient paths. It can happen right now. It can happen to us right now as we're sitting here. And I know this can happen because I've done it. I've sat there while a preacher has said something and I'm like, "No, justifications are coming into my head and I block I harden my heart." And my prayer is that doesn't happen today. That we can we can be open to the idea of, hey, maybe we've been living or believing something that isn't what God's word teaches. It isn't ultimately good for us, even though we believe it is. So, now that we know how to recognize the ancient righteous path by humbling ourselves, what specifically are we talking about here? We are talking about observing God's

Sabbath rhythm of keeping the Lord's day holy or set apart and resting in his finished work at least one day in seven. Okay, we're talking about coming to church on Sunday. Talking about observing the Lord's day specifically. [snorts] Now, I recognize Jeremiah 6 is not just talking about this one day. It is actually a more complete rest that the law of God points to and that is ultimately where we are headed. I do believe that when talking about observing the Sabbath, we do get caught in this kind of false dichotomy of legalism versus license. You have to go to church on Sunday because the ten commandments say so versus I don't have to. I'm free in Christ and he is my source of rest. Right? And so we people come up with all sorts of scenarios and lists all sorts of verses and at the end of the day we just keep doing what we always were doing and we never really find resolve from the tension. I believe both of those missed the point. To find true rest we need to understand this theological paradigm shift that happened in Scripture. Now what is a paradigm shift? Okay. I love using this example. Before I explain it, just imagine you're laying out in underneath the stars. Now, and you're looking at the stars now. Me and Deanna, we did this one time in Bible school. We in Walker, we went underneath at night time. We looked up the at the stars, you know, and we were laying there and there's tons. It's in the middle of the middle of the city. There's tons of lights. You can barely see any stars. And we're like, wouldn't it be interesting if that's what Abraham saw when God gave him his promise, you know, there's like three stars there, you know, but we were like looking at it, you know, and some what I like to do is like look for

Constellations. So imagine this is this is an illustration for a paradigm shift. Imagine you're looking at the night sky and you see all the stars and you can instantly find Orion's belt and then find Orion, right? But you never you don't see any other constellations until somebody comes there with your arm and points out right around Orion. Okay, there's a constellation there and oh, there's a constellation there. You're like, oh my goodness, I see a I see the now the night sky has a whole new meaning, right? I can see the world, the sky differently now because I of those of that of that paradigm shift. I just shifted my gaze and I saw and it meant something more to me. So there's a there's a historical example of this that's really profound and it happened in the in the in the 16th century with capernicus. Okay. So before we all know that there was like this you know you guys know what geocentrism is right it's the geocentric model is when we all people believe that the sun rotated and the planets rotated around the earth that the earth was the center of the solar system. Okay. And told me, right? He had this, it's kind of interesting. He had this like super this book. It's like a book of calculations and he could calculate everything. And he could get pretty close, but he couldn't account for certain anomalies and some other you know, seasons and those those sorts of things. But you know, he had this view like, oh yeah, the earth is a center. Everything's rotating around around the earth. So that's geocentrism. Well, in the 16th century, Capernacus presented he was starting to observe the planetary movements and he noticed I don't think we are at the center. I think the sun is at the center and everything revolves around the sun and he proposed this right and then Galileo with his telescope was able

To find and give more evidence towards this theory and eventually it became just accepted that the sun is at the center of the universe and it was a huge paradigm shift okay that shifted people's understanding they could see the sun rising and setting we still use that language right? Rising and setting. They could see the stars in the sky moving a certain way and the and the moon and everything. But the reality of what was actually happening was completely different and it changed the way that we understand science. And so and understand cosmology and the way that the world was created. [snorts] And so you know this is this is kind of what we need to do sometimes with the Bible. You know we have our certain views and we have this it's this or that and Jesus and sometimes having a paradigm shift shifting towards Jesus harmonizes these views you know for centuries right people believed in this geocentric model that everything revolved around the earth the Pharisees they had a geocentric Sabbath they made the day revolve around man's observance it was about rules steps and what you couldn't do. It was a heavy burden. They thought if they spun the plates of the law fast enough, God would be pleased. But then came the heliocentric model. Everything revolves around the sun. In the new covenant, Jesus declared himself the Lord of the Sabbath. And then something cosmic happened. The old rhythm Saturday. Okay? Right? God creation resting on the seventh day. That old rhythm looked forward to the Messiah. That's what it was for. It was looking forward to the Messiah in his finished in his finished work. It was a shadow. Everything the Levites did, everything the law required pointed to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as being the one and only substitute for sin, the one who will bring into existence the true and eternal rest for the Israel of God.

Colossians 2:16-17 says, "Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow of what is to come. But the substance belongs to Christ." The Levites work tirelessly day after day making sacrifices even on Saturday. But when Christ cried, "It is finished," on the cross, he ended the spiritual work of the law, he paid the debt, and then he rose on the first day of the week, ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the father, thus completing his work of salvation. This is the shift. The sun moved to the center. We don't worship the day. We worship the sun. And because the sun rose on Sunday, the gravitational pull of the Sabbath shifted, the early church in Acts didn't just arbitrarily pick Sunday because they liked the brunch options. They met on the first day of the week because that was the day the new creation began. This is why Christians for the last 2,000 years gather on the first day of the week. And so also we worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, and call it the Lord's day, because it is the day he completed his work of salvation and began the work of new creation. And that rhythm will continue until he comes again. Now, let's harmonize this with the two mountains that we talked about earlier. Remember the pressure, the creation mandate work, and the great commission ministry. The first day rhythm is the answer. In the old covenant, you worked six days to earn your rest on seven. It was a cycle of working towards rest. In the new covenant, because of the resurrection, the flow is reversed. We rest on the first day in the finished work of Christ so that we are fueled to go out and work on Monday. So, what does this rest look like on Sunday?

Well, it's important to remember that this paradigm shift to the first day of the week actually means something. Okay? God is not arbitrary. If you could say in the Old Testament they were not to work but had to rest physically yet the Levites were still making sacrifices on the Sabbath, then Jesus's sacrifice that completes that work is a higher, better, and more perfect Sabbath rest. One could say that it aligns with Christ's teaching on the sermon on the mount. That if Christ's work on the cross and defeat of death on the Lord's day is a more perfect covenant reality, then how much more should we honor and enter into his rest on the Lord's day? This honoring is an observant that works to give us rest. Remembering it's coming, remember it's coming out of a Gospel centered reality. God tells us what this rest is to look like in the New Testament through the teaching of Paul and the example of believers. We can't go into all of them, but here is a short list. We gather on the Lord's day. We sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We devote ourselves to one another of the teaching of the word. Sorry, we devote ourselves to the teaching of the word. We break bread with one another. We give offerings. We bear with one another in love. We forgive one another. We submit to one another. We submit to our elders. We greet each other with a holy kiss. Okay, we've we've made that. We do handshakes now and hugs. Okay, that's good. That's okay. Okay. We extend the right hand of fellowship. We confess our sins one to another. We are to be hospitable to one another. And then in all of it, we are to rejoice and be glad in it. Just think about the implications of this. How many of you bear spiritual burdens?

How heavy is it? Can binge watching Netflix lift it? Can going fishing lift it? Not picking on fisherman. Can going golfing fix it? I know that hole in one Jeff felt pretty good. Okay. No, it can't ultimately lift those spiritual burdens. Burdens. Who here is blessed by hearing the singing of this congregation and hearing the hearing this the voices lifted up? Sure, you can listen online, but your soul is not lifted up in the same way as it is when you hear the saints beside you singing. Who here has had a problem with the direction of the church? Just this one, guys. Just okay. But was exhorted to submit themselves to the elders rather than trying to make their own way happen. Have you done that and found peace in that? That's God's way. [snorts] Who here has brought their offerings, their tithe from work of fulfilling the creation mandate and saw it as worship on Sunday and received spiritual rest and peace in that? Who here has heard a testimony, witnessed a baptism of someone who was lost but now found here on the Lord's day and was moved to with joy and gratitude for the love of their Savior. Did you come to church? There's a lot of people missing today. Did you come to church today and notice the absence of a brother and a sister whose handshake or embrace you truly miss? Who here has heard the word preached and left change though it hurt or was just reminded of a gorgeous truth that you once forgot? Have you ever experienced the freedom of being forgiven from someone? What if that was the regular practice here at FBC Camden? Here at church in the presence of one another, in the presence of your deacons and your elders. There's great blessing and grace in that. We could go on and on. And what you are hearing here are the realities of God's

Means of grace to his church. Yes, you can wake up late, read your Bible, pray, and then go on your merry way. Yes, you could bounce around from church to church. Yes, you could listen to a sermon while you're on the road to a sports game, etc. But would you be entering into the fullness of rest that God has provided through his church? Now, perhaps you're thinking, "That sounds good and all, but I don't really like my community group. Okay, I have friends and I don't want anymore. I don't like singing. I'm too shy." Right? Just the right. The justifications, the excuses keep coming. That's okay. The aim of this sermon is not to offer an exhaustive counsel for all of your justifications. Rather, it is simply to reorient reorient you to the truth that Jesus is the essence of rest and that he has provided the means for you to enter into his rest as part of be as being part of his body as being a member of a church. You know, you being called into his body actually means something. And this is where the tension is. We hear the language of Scripture. We are one in body and spirit. But then I'm also like an individual and I like the way that I think. Those two things, there's an impass there. [snorts] They that you can't have both. You can't be truly part of the body and do things the way that you want to do things. Christ is the head. Now, you must observe the Lord's day because you need it. Okay? It's not you have to commandment or else. Okay? It's not even so much like wow, what a privilege I get to go to church, right? That you've probably heard someone say that to you before and you're like, it doesn't work on me, right? No, you need it. You need the church and you need this rest because God knows your hearts. He knows we trend towards ditches and the worship

Of Jesus, the observance of the ordinances, the fellowshipping of the saints, the singing, the preaching, the serving, all of it is necessary for finding rest for our souls in this crazy world. This is what the Lord says. Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, "We will not walk in it." At the end, the Israelites, they discerned the ways. They saw what they were to do, and yet they said, "We will not walk in it." Why would they do that? Well, back in Jeremiah 2:13 says, "For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to he for themselves sistns, broken sistns that can hold no water. Now, I know what you're thinking. How can missing church or not engaging in the one anothers really be the same as forsaking me? Like, don't be so dramatic. I love being dramatic. Ask my wife. It's fun. No, I'm not here to tell you that if you miss church, you're forsaking Christ. However, the attitude that says, "I know what God's word says about entering rest and I don't want to do it is not on the right path. Instead, you must search." Instead, they search for rest their own ways like the Israelites did by hewing for themselves their own sistns, broken ones that can hold no water. When we are exhausted, we crave water. But instead of going to the spring, we dig our own holes. We say, "I'm so tired. I just need sleep." So, we skip the assembly. But you wake up at noon and your body is rested, but your soul is still parched. You treat the symptom, but ignore the source. We say, "I need to escape." So, we turn to digital dominion. For men, we turn to video games to feel a sense of

Frictionless dominion, building worlds without thorns. Ladies, we turn to social media to curate a perfect life without the mess. We numb our brains and that is not rest. That is amusement. The word amuse literally means without thought. It is anesthesia. It wears off and the pain comes back. These are broken sistns. They hold no water. Do not trade the fountain for mud. So if the broken sistns leave us dry, where is the living water found? Well, it's found, as we said, in the worship of our risen Savior along with the assembly of the saints. In Acts, the church gathered, they sang songs. They preached the word. They broke bread. You know, I think of I think about missionaries when I was thinking about this you know, the thought of missionaries going out into unknown territory by themselves, you know, and they hold so tightly to the word of God, to their relationship with each other, but there's always this just desire, this need to have fellowship. And when they finally do get a new partner that comes in, how much more are they lifted up in their work? How much more are they lifted up in their souls when they finally plant the church and the people that they've been building relationships finally accept Christ and they get to enter into that fellowship with them. How much more is their souls lifted up? You know, it's the same thing here. We have that here. And sometimes we take this dichotomy. We split it. We say, "I have to or no, I don't want to." We come up with all sorts of excuses and then we neglect the assembly and we forget the blessing and the reason and the purpose for meeting. Now [clears throat] when talking about the one anothers this is the last thing there's I want to talk about this thing called what I call the high back fence. Now there's reasons why in

Our culture we don't we don't engage in the way that the Bible tells us to engage now among many reasons. This is just one of the reasons. In some cultures let's say like where I'm from it's very different than here. We have what we call high front fences. Okay. It's hard to get to know me initially or hard to get to know the our people initially because they're like stubborn menites, you know, going on their way. But once you are in once you're in and you get to know them, there's no back fence. Okay? You are family. You are in the mess. You're part of the community. You're accepted fully. Okay? You get you know all of me and I know all of you. But here in the south, we have the opposite. We have low front fences. We are warm. We have greeters. We say, "How are you? Okay, I'll pray for you." We say things like, "Oh, sweetie and oh, hun." And all these things that are so endearing, right? That make me think, "Oh, wow. You're so sweet. You must really love me.", but we have high back fences. We don't invite people into the mess. We don't let people see the laundry or the marriage struggle or the doubts. We keep our burdens hidden behind the privacy fences of our hearts. Church, hear me. You cannot find complete rest for your soul if you keep the high back fence up. [snorts] So much of the rest that we need is found in the one anothers. Bear one another's burdens. Galatians 6:2. You cannot bear a burden if you don't know it exists. Confess your sins one to another. James 5:16. You cannot find healing if you're busy polishing your image. Encourage one another. 1 Thessalonians 5:11. You cannot be encouraged if you are isolated. We need to be a distinct culture, a culture where the fences come down, where we are vulnerable, where we take

Responsibility for one another's souls. That is where so much of our rest is found. Not in isolation, but in being fully known and fully loved in the presence of God's people. Now, there's a reason why that's there's more there. Like, I've done that before. So, and so's hurt me. I've I've put myself out there and they extorted me. And that and that happens in the church amongst believers and that does terrible damage to the church. I can't tell you how many people I've met and says, "Wow, we're we got church hurt, right? We you've all heard this. I'm not telling you anything new. But the answer to that is still forgiveness. Like did that can all be fixed. That can all be restored because why we come here? Because Christ already took all that. He already forgave us. How much more should we forgive others? Don't let that be a reason why you don't want to engage with someone over there because I know that guy's MMO. Now, I'm not saying you got to jump full in. I'm not saying that. I'm saying contemplate these things, pray about it, seek godly counsel, work towards it. That's the path, right? Work towards it, resting in Christ. [snorts] So, I'm not saying come to church because it's a rule. I'm saying you need it. You need the means of grace, the shared preaching, singing, communion, and vulnerability to anchor your life. Without them, you will inevitably drift. Your efforts in the creation mandate will lead to burnout, and your work in the great commission will run dry. Stand at the crossroads. [clears throat] Oh, today you stand at the crossroads. You look at the world's broken sistns, the emptiness of isolation, the distraction of constant amusement, and the fatigue of exhaustion. Now look to the ancient path for Jesus

Is the ancient path. He always was. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Let us remove our barriers, make the assembly a priority, and walk in this good way. There and only there together will we find rest for our souls. For Jesus says, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls." Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, Lord, we are so grateful that you have come and you have [snorts] finally fixed the curse of our hearts. The soul quenching thirst that we have always felt is now found in you because you have completed your work on the cross. And Lord, I just pray for us, all of us, that as we as we go through this life, as we continue fulfilling the creation mandate, doing ministry, doing the things that you've called us to do, that we would not fall into the ditches of the world, that we would that we would stay on the good path, keeping our eyes fixed on you. Lord, I pray for all of us who are who are struggling with all the justifications and excuses that are that are real. They're they're real excuses. They're not they're not things that we that are just trit to us. Like there's reasons why we do the things that we do. And Lord, I just pray that you would give them faith. Give us faith. Give me faith to see that your ways that there's hope in your Gospel that can remedy and reconcile all things to you and that there is a better way forward that we can't see and Lord I just pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Jesus [singing] said that if I thirst [music] I should come to him. >> No [singing] one else can sisy. I should come [singing and music] to him. >> Jesus said if I [music] am weak, I

[singing] should come to him. >> No one [singing] else can [music] be my strength. I should come to [music] him. For the [singing] Lord is good and faithful. [music] He will keep us day and night. [singing] We [music] can always run to Jesus. Jesus [music and singing] strong and kind. Jesus said that [singing] if I [music] fear I should come to him. >> No one [music and singing] else can be my shield. I should [singing] come to him. >> [music] >> Jesus [singing] said, "If I am lost, he will come to [singing and music] me." And he showed me on [singing] that cross. He will come [music] to me. For the Lord [singing] is good and faithful. He will keep us [music] day and night. We can [singing] always run to Jesus. Jesus [music and singing] strong and kind. For the Lord is [music] good and faithful. He will [singing] keep us day and night. We can [singing and music] always run to Jesus. Jesus [singing] strong and kind. >> Jesus [music] strong and kind. Thank you. You may go in peace.