Appreciating Abundance

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. What we're talking about is not just getting enough sleep, we're talking about actually enjoying the presence of God or Sabbath. Every week, regularly, at some point, just doing basically nothing, or enjoying, or appreciating, or whatever. Now sometimes you think these sermon series, or these series themselves, how do you come up with them? This was one I actually preached, sort of, it wasn't that good after I read them again, five, ten years ago up in Gainesville, Florida, and I thought, you know, summer's a great time to talk about this, but I didn't realize how much I actually needed this series, and I am preaching to the preacher today, if I haven't been doing that the whole time. Okay, so let's begin with prayer, and then we'll get into Jesus' words that he gives to us today in learning from them. Lord God, we praise you and bless you that we've got this time to just gather together today to receive your goodness, grace, your presence. Not only that you are present with us, but can we be present to you, our hearts open to you this day. We praise you Lord that we are not the only church in this area, but you have one Christian church in many, many different locations across this county, and this region, and we thank you Lord for that one Christian church that celebrates your grace, your goodness, your truth, and we pray that you would have us grow and expand accordingly, both here in the community and on the campus of FGCU. We thank you Lord for that. We pray Lord that you would work in our lives today, that we understand what it means to rest in you, and how good you are, how present you are, how amazing you are, and how we can rely and depend on you. All this we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. So we're looking at the text today. The main text that we're going to be reading is from Matthew 6 where Jesus teaches his disciples. It's called the Sermon on the Mount, and you might be familiar with some of these words. This section I think is just fascinating, and we're gonna learn numerous things about it, okay? Jesus says, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil, nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So today we're actually tackling one of the great reasons why people do not regularly Sabbath, or take a break. Why they do not just rest, and stop, and spend time in communing with God, and fellowshipping with others, and connecting. And that is anxiety and worry, right? I mean, how can I? There's no way I can stop. There's just too much to do, too much going on. I just don't have it. Once I get everything done, then, right? Once I get it all done, then I'll be able to, and it's never done. And once I have enough, once I have enough in the savings, once I have enough in this account, when I get ahead of all the bills, when I get this, when I get that, when I get this, when I get that, then finally I can rest. It's interesting. Brene Brown, in her book, Daring Greatly, said, we live in a culture of never enough. And I think that's partly the anxiety behind it. And so we continue to see there's just never enough, never enough, never enough, never enough, and so we can't rest. But what I'm telling you today is the reason anxiety and worry keeps you from resting, actually anxiety and worry should push you and encourage you to rest. Because there's never going to be enough money in your bank account. There is never going to be enough time in your day. There's never going to be enough food. There's never going to be enough security. There's never going to be enough stuff that you have done for you to work against that anxiety and worry in your life. You finally have the antidote for worry and anxiety. The fix for that fear is trusting in God, relying on him, understanding who he is. You're never going to be able to quell it any other way. It just doesn't stop. So why do w...