See, I believe even as we were singing that, some of us were singing that because we've experienced and we know the hope that we have in Jesus. Then, some of us are singing that out of desperation, and saying, "I'm trusting in God, my Savior." Either way, it's worship unto God. That's why we've come today. I trust in God because He is good. I trust in Him. I sought the Lord because He is faithful every single time. Every Sunday, we get a chance to come together and remind ourselves of God's goodness and of His faithfulness and of His love. 

We're going to continue to do that right here in this moment. Can you just have a seat, just for a moment? I want to see, even as we just continue to worship, we're going to worship in this way. We're going to read the Scripture together, just as a reminder of God's faithfulness to us and this challenge that He wants to give us. Can you say it with me? Say it. "Rejoice always," come on louder. "Pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will in Christ Jesus." Yeah. Here's the thing. I love this Scripture because it's a challenge to all of us. It's a challenge to rejoice not just when things are going great, but rejoice always. It's a challenge for us because it's talking to God not just when it's convenient, but continually. 

It's a challenge because it says give thanks, not when your circumstances are perfect, but in all circumstances, give thanks to the Lord. I love that challenge because it tells me, don't think of what the world has to say. Don't remind yourself of how bad things are. Remind yourself of how good God is. I love that challenge. We want to take a moment to do that this morning. We want to take a moment to remind ourselves of the goodness of God. We can give thanks in all things. You want to know God's will for your life? God's will is for you to give thanks. God's will is for you to have gratitude. We're going to take a moment to do that today. If you would grab your journal. Grab your journal and a pen. If you don't have that, you can grab your phone and take some notes. We're going to take the next few minutes, and we're just going to give thanks to God. 

I want you to list out and write out the things that you are thankful for. You may not think that you have one thing to be thankful for. I'm challenging you, and the Scripture challenges you to say there's something to be grateful for. Take a moment, write what you're thankful for down, and in a moment, we'll come back up and we're just going to give those to the Lord. Just take a moment, write those down, and come back in just a moment. 

Let that be the prayer of our heart that all that we're after is you. That we would seek to dwell in your presence for all of eternity. 

See, as we begin to prepare for a week of rest, I think it's important that we know where rest comes from. I think we would tend to say that rest comes from an absence of activity or busyness, maybe even work. While that's part of it, see, the reality is, rest has very little to do with our external realities and it has everything to do with the internal reality of our heart. See, rest is ultimately found in knowing who it is that's in us and who we are in Him. In other words, rest is found in the presence of Jesus. See, one of the ways that we've been learning to practice the presence of Jesus is through Scripture. Scripture is powerful, it's alive, it's active. What we want to do in this moment is we just want to take some time and meditate on the word of God. To meditate – it just means to consider over and over, to think about or to contemplate. 

If you're sitting there thinking, man I don't know how to meditate, let me just say, that's okay. See, we like to say, if you know how to worry, you know how to meditate because really they come from the same place. It's exercising the same muscle. What we're going to do is I'm going to read us a verse that's going to be up on the screen behind us. We have two total, and then we're just going to take about 30 seconds or so with each one and meditate on the word of God. See, to ourselves, in a quiet whisper, we're just going to read it over and over again. We're going to think about it, and we're going to ask the Holy Spirit, what does He want to show us. Let's take a look at our first verse. It says, “My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him.” Let's begin to meditate on the word of God. 

Let's go ahead and take a look at our next verse. It says, "There is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God's rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world." Let's continue to meditate on that verse. 

Thank You, God, that Your word is powerful. Thank You, God, that in Your word, we experience rest. 

That's what we're doing. We're exalting the name of the Lord today, celebrating what He's doing in our life and His goodness. 

I'm going to invite you to go and take your seats with me. We're going to take a moment and take communion together at all of our campuses, so our teams can begin to distribute communion. Communion is celebration and communion is rest. Communion is a celebration of who Jesus is and the work that He has finished on our behalf. Communion is rest for our souls. See, it's a celebration because in 1 Corinthians 11 it says every time we take communion, we proclaim Jesus until the day He comes back. Jesus looks at His disciples one day He says, “Hey, you're going to find rest for your souls. Come to me all you are weary or burdened. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from Me for I'm gentle, I'm humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls.” 

The word rest in that passage is where we get our word “pause” from. It's how we get to the word pause. It's when we cease motion. Communion is the reminder that in Jesus we can cease motion, both in here and out here. We can live at a peaceful pace, a place of rest. We can celebrate God's goodness in our life. There's always time to celebrate. There's always a reason to celebrate Jesus, who He is, and what He has done. That's really what communion is. It's rest for our souls. It's celebration for our life. It's a reminder of God's goodness pouring all over us. I felt really strong that I wanted to tell you, as we're in kind of the rhythms of summer, as it's maybe busy for you, maybe it's slowed down for you, whatever kind of pace summer is giving you, Jesus wants to meet you there and He wants to go with you there. 

Jesus wants to be in you and He wants to be with you. Whatever you're facing, even right now in the season, whatever your summer looks like, may you find rest for your soul and may you celebrate God's goodness in your life. May, even as you take communion today, you experience both of those things inside of you. You see, communion is for everybody who's put their faith in Jesus, if that's you, man, we're so glad that you're going to take that with us today. Each time that we take it, we remember who Jesus is. It's His body, broken for us. It's His blood, shed for us. It's His rest, and a reason to celebrate. 

See, in the night He was betrayed, Jesus took bread with His disciples, and He looked at that, and He said, "This is going to be like My body. My body is going to be broken for you, broken that you could be made whole." Every part of His experience is going to be the opposite of restful – harsh, brutal, unkind, unfair, all of that so that we could experience true rest. All of His sorrow, so that we could live a life of celebration. Let's go ahead and take the bread together. The same way He took the cup, He said, "This is going to be a cup of a brand new agreement between God and man. No longer are you going to have to strive and work and try for the forgiveness of your sins. Now I, because of what I've done, you will live in that full forgiveness." 

Let's go ahead and take the cup together. Jesus, You are the one that gives us true rest for our souls, a ceasing of motion inside of us, and You are the reason we celebrate today. You are the reason we have hope in our hearts. You are the one that's worthy of our praise. You are the one that deserves all the glory and honor and power. In Your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen!