Jesus Saves: Seek

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This is the fifth and final week of our message series we call Jesus Saves. For five weeks we have been taking each letter of Jesus’ name and applying it to our message for each Sunday..

The first week we looked at Jesus as Son of God, and having a personal relationship with Jesus the Son of God. We gave you a great prayer to pray to help you with that. The second week we discussed Jesus as our Eucharist, asked you to read your bible, John Chapter 6, and reflect on God’s presence in you when you receive Holy Communion. In the third week we looked at Jesus as our Savior, what that means for us, and why you want to try and understand Jesus as your Savior. Last week we took the U in Jesus’ name and discovered that Jesus unites us, especially through the sacrament of baptism. We have covered a lot over the last four weeks. If you missed those messages, you can find all of them on our website, saintmary.life as a blog or podcast. So you can read or listen. You can also find our podcast by searching your favorite podcast app for “Sunday Homily.”

Today we are looking at the last “S” in Jesus’ name and equating that letter “S” with the word Seek.

Seek rest in Jesus.

Our culture teaches us to chronically overwork. Yes? We know that’s bad for us. Regardless, we feel compelled to keep up the frenetic pace. Work is how we put food on the table. Unfortunately, for many of us, work provides us with a source of identity. Think about it. When you meet somebody one of the first things you are going to ask them, or they ask you, is “what do you do?, as if that is who we are. And since work becomes our source of identity, we are constantly striving to prove ourselves. We try to prove our worth to ourselves and others by our work, and the relentless striving never ends.
Seek rest in Jesus. Jesus calls to us, come to me and rest.

The bible is filled with God's promises to provide rest when we seek him. God’s Son, Jesus, promises us the same. We heard it today: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Do you realize that God wants us to enjoy our lives? He does not want us to be weary, worn out, and sad. But it seems so many people who say they believe in God are not really enjoying their lives. We do not have to wait and die and go to heaven to enjoy life. I The bible even tells us that God loves us so much , he sent his son out of love, and out of love Jesus gave his life for us so we may have life and have it abundantly. Jesus himself says that he tells us the things he tells us, and does the things he does, so that his joy will be in us, and that our joy will be complete. That sounds like God, and God’s Son, want us to be joy-filled people.

I don’t know about you, but I find that I am most weary, worn out, and sad when I think everything depends upon me. When I think I have to save the world, save my company, save my parish, save my family. After a while, I feel exhausted and depressed. Has this ever happened to you?