Healing, freedom, peace, mercy, joy, and rest. All those and more found in the person of Jesus. Let me invite you to go and take your seats. I also want to give you the invitation to go ahead and make sure your cell phones are silenced. And to put your notes away. See, it's been a season of invitation, as we've been learning to live it a different way. It's been a season where we've been invited to do things like come and see, to follow, to become more like, to practice the way of Jesus. And today brings us another invitation: to rest. Today we're going to experience Selah. You may say, what does Selah mean? Well, Selah is a word that's found in the Psalms. It means a breath, a pause, a break. It's a musical term.

And the term talks about a pause within the music so that not everything is just the same rhythm over, over, over, over, over, because that's much of the time what our lives are like. And so, on the beginning of a Spring Break week, that kind of marks halfway through a semester, we thought it'd be a great weekend to have Selah. See, we started our year with this, and we know the Lord has invited us to have these times where we take a breath, where we just, we have a moment to pause, to be, and to reflect. So that's what today is going to be. Today's going to have a little bit more space in it. Today's going to have a little bit more breath. I'm going to lead you through a series of things and experiences through our time together. My invitation to you is to be present and to receive it by faith. To be here.

It takes faith to rest. And so everything we're going to do, I ask that you would just receive it as much as you can by faith, because just like an interlude at a theater production, an interlude between acts of a play, sometimes you have to take a pause to get ready for the next thing. Sometimes you have to take a breath to get ready for the next season of time that God has for you, and that's what Selah is. You see, Selah is mentioned in the Psalms 71 times. That's like one for every two chapters. Can you imagine what your life would be like if once every two chapters of your life, you took a breath, you took a rest, you took time just to be with Jesus? Man, how different would our lives look? So that's what we're going to experience today.

Jesus would often go with the Father to lonely places and have times of solitude, times that He would get away. He'd rest His own heart. He'd go and be with the Father, He would experience the rest that only the Father can give. That's our prayer for you today, Selah. To cease from striving, to release anxiety, Selah. To calm your mind from everything that's in front of you and everything you have to face in the near season, Selah. To experience and believe in the goodness of God, Selah. To know that the Lord is with you, He would take great delight in you, Selah.

So over the next few moments, we're going to invite you to sit and receive as we sing over you. I'd ask that you stay seated, and I'd even invite you to maybe even open the palms of your hand, kind of upwards, just a posture of receptivity as we sing over you. And I believe as you hear this song, you're going to sense that the Lord is singing over you. Zephaniah 3:17 says, for “The Lord your God is living among you, He is a mighty Savior. He will take great delight in you with gladness. With His love, He will calm your hearts. The Lord will rejoice over you with singing.” Right now, may you receive the Lord rejoicing over you with singing, Selah.

I bet for some of us, that was the most that our heart has been at ease in years, that's what Jesus offers. He offers us a rest that is not contingent on circumstances. It's based on the love of the Father. So thank you, God, for the song that you're always singing over us, what you're declaring over our life, that we receive it by faith. And now we want to spend some time declaring Scripture out. I've been learning more and more that this is not just a book, this is the voice of God. And His voice changes everything. And so when you read large chunks of Scripture, you feel the washing of the water with the Word. You feel the change in the atmosphere as Scripture is declared out loud. And so we're going to read all of Psalm 139 over you. The voice of God speaking to your heart, declaring truth over your life. The voice of God, Selah.

“Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I'm far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I'm going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and You follow me. You place Your hand of blessing on my head, such knowledge. It's too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. I can never escape from Your spirit. I can never get away from Your presence. If I stand up, if I go up to heaven, You are there.

If I go down to the grave, You are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there, Your hand will guide me and Your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night, but even in darkness, I can't hide from You. To You, the night shines as bright as day, darkness and light are the same to You. You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank You, for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion. As I was woven together in the dark of the womb, You saw me before I was even born.

Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are Your thoughts about me, oh God. They can't be numbered. I can't even count them, they outnumber the grains of sand. And when I wake up, You're still with me. So search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you. And lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

Sometimes when the Word of God is just spoken over you, it's like a power wash. And it washes your mind and your heart and it clears out those thoughts. And it reminds you that it's God who, it's God who gets to declare for who you are. It's God's Word that gets to declare the realities of your life, not the words of this world. So His voice reminds us of what He speaks over us, it washes us, it cleanses us, it renews our minds. Thank You, God, for Your Word. 

And now we want to take a few moments and invite you to experience a few moments of rest. And so would you close your eyes with me? And just for the next few minutes, we're going to just sit in the presence of God. For some of you, as you're just in this space, you may even find yourself honestly falling asleep and man, that's okay. That's the kind of peacefulness, the kind of rest that God wants to offer. Even to just sit and be and to let Him clear the anxiousness out of your heart, to clear your mind of your calendar, and to remind you that His presence is life itself. So may you enjoy the presence of God for a few moments as you rest in Him, Selah. 

So it's a gift to get some time in the presence of God, with the people of God, and to just rest. Thank You, Jesus, that rest is not based on vacations or breaks or circumstances. It's based on, Your presence is our rest. And now we want to keep experiencing Selah by taking communion together. So I want all of our teams to come forward, all of our campuses. A communion is a, man, it's a perfect way to experience Selah today, because communion is for everybody who's placed their faith in Jesus, who's made him Lord, and it's an opportunity to remember Jesus. Remember who He is and what He's done. If you ever read the communion story, the story of the Last Supper in the Gospels, there's a fascinating phrase in it.

It says that Jesus was reclining at the table with His disciples. Reclining at the table with His disciples. The reason I find that so fascinating is that He very much knew what He had to face the next day. He wasn't confused about what the cross would mean and what He was about to have to suffer and what was about to – He was about to have to endure. And yet, that evening, in that moment, His posture was a posture of rest. He reclined and enjoyed and He was with His disciples. Jesus always reminds us that we're not human doings, we're human beings.

And that we can be and live from a posture of rest. And in that moment, I'm inspired to think about him at the Last Supper, at the table, with everything going on in here, in His mind. I'm inspired by the idea that He could be at such rest, but that's always the way He was. He lived his entire life, Selah. He lived his entire life, Selah, it's everything that He did, it's who He was. And He showed us what it was to live all of our life from a place of rest. And so communion is a reminder that rest is not something we're striving for, we're trying to get to. It's not just that next vacation, it's my all-the-time reality in Jesus' name. Communion is a reminder that because of what Jesus has done, His death, burial, and resurrection, His finished work, that my entire life can be lived from a place of rest.

I'm not trying to catch up to it. I'm not trying to get there someday when things settle down, it's right now, in Jesus' name. It's because of what He's done and who He is that my entire life is Selah. My entire life is a breath, my entire life is a, is a pause, is at rest. See, Jesus knew what we sometimes forget. When God finished creation, He declared that it was good. It was the end of the day, and that day never ended. That is, the day of rest, the Sabbath, the finished day, the last day, is a day that goes on and on and on.

So now God does everything that He does from a place of rest. Jesus did everything that He did and does from a place of rest. That's the invitation, to come, all you who are weary and burdened, and Jesus will give you rest. So communion, as the reminder of what He's given us and what He's done for us. That day of the Last Supper, as Jesus was with His disciples, He took the bread and He told them, “This bread is the bread of My broken body. I'm going to be broken so that you can be made whole. I'm going to face distress so that you can live in rest.”

So He took the bread, and He broke it. And then He said, “This is My body, broken for you. Every time you eat it, may you remember My rest.” Let's take it together. In the same way, Jesus took the cup, and He said, “This is like a cup that's going to guarantee the forgiveness of sins. It's a new kind of promise between Me to you, that you're going to be made right with God because of what I've done. And because of My bloodshed on the cross, and My resurrected life, you can experience the forgiveness of sins.” May we take the cup together. 

So thank You, Jesus, for Your rest that never ends. It goes on and on and on. Today we choose to live in that rest, we choose to live from that place of rest. May we truly lean into what it is to live with Selah, not sometimes, all the time, taking a moment with You, one time for every two chapters of our life. May we remember truly who You are and what You've done and live from a place of rest. In Jesus' name, Selah.

Jesus, thank You for what You've done, for who You are. Lord, thank You that in You we can find real rest. Rest for our souls. And so today, by faith, Lord, we humbly receive it. And we say thank You. And it's in Your name that we pray, Amen, Amen, Amen. It was a great day worshiping with all of you. I'm so grateful that we got to experience a Selah encounter together. And if you'd like to give, you can do so at the boxes on your way out. But man, our hope for you and our prayer for you this week is that each and every single day you can live your life from a place of rest, in and through Jesus. We love you, have a great week, Selah.